The Hundred Flowers movement marked a turning point in the history of the People’s Republic of China. How did it begin? While Mao has been credited with sole authorship of the Hundred Flowers, this chapter exposes the plural and deep roots of the blooming of 1957. It traces the gradual coalescing of the political and literary fields, as “let a hundred flowers bloom” spread from a nineteenth-century novel to a twentieth-century campaign slogan. From 1949 to 1956, before they were Mao’s, the Hundred Flowers were captured and appropriated by a growing field of writers, philosophers, scientists, poets, and politicians. In the process, a literary trope became a central term in political discourse and political discourse became a field of creative play. This chapter argues that practices of literary circulation shaped and powered the birth and transformation of the Hundred Flowers.

The introduction explains why China and North Korea would not have survived as communist states without Sino-North Korean friendship. It discusses the relevance of different theories of emotion to this issue. It shows how Sino-North Korean friendship was critical to the emotional regimes created in both states.

Cultural exchange was another critically important mechanism for influencing popular emotions. This chapter looks at Sino-North Korean exchanges in theater, film, and the arts. It argues that these exchanges reached large audiences in both countries while inculcating official emotions.

How were writers not labeled in the first waves of the Anti-Rightist campaign affected? Did they change their writing practices in response to the public excoriation of what were now “poisonous weeds”? How did they balance demands to continue to publish with the now clear danger of circulating texts that could be interpreted as anti-Party, anti-socialist, or simply circumspect in their ambiguity? We inherit a historiography that delineates between those who were labeled and those who acquiesced, but this bifurcation masks complexity and diversity among both groups. This chapter, through the diary and letters of Wu Mi, explores the ambiguous and precarious position of those writers not labeled in the summer of 1957. It also follows those writers who were labeled in 1957, their experiences through and after the removal of their “Rightist” label, and reflects on what it means for literature to “interfere with life.”

What held the textual community of the People’s Republic together? This chapter explores how literary acts by individuals across a spectrum of influence, from Mao Zedong to Xu Chengmiao, created meaning and connection out of the imagery of the Hundred Flowers. Despite his leadership of the Leninist state mechanism, in early 1957 Mao joined in what had been dismissed as “language games” with his own extended allegory and metaphor that borrowed more from writers like Ai Qing than from Party formulism. This chapter argues that Mao’s creative appropriation of the imagery of the Hundred Flowers enabled him to speak to a broad audience that included the Soviet leadership, Party conservatives, and literati across the political spectrum. The creative circulation of the Hundred Flowers enacted a resurrection of literary communities with roots in dynastic China. Finally, we turn to the writers Guo Xiaochuan, Xiao Jun, and Xu Chengmiao to observe how personal literary practice connected writers to the growing national movement and how the movement of a literary trope created a national community.

How did people respond to the political campaigns of the Mao era? This chapter looks beyond the dominant images of the Hundred Flowers to explore reactions to the now national campaign among writers and cultural workers. Drawing on contemporary diaries and letters, this chapter uncovers diverse intellectual and emotional responses to the movement, in tension with the jubilant bloom visible across China’s media-sphere. It shows how individual responses to the Hundred Flowers were intwined with perceptions of Mao as a leader and with a perceived disconnect between signals from the Party center and local conditions. We find those in support of Mao and against local authorities; we find those, like Xu Chengmiao, who see the Hundred Flowers as a source of great hope; and we find those who doubt both central and regional leadership. Belying depictions of the Hundred Flowers as an outpouring of dissent against the Party, we find a tangled undergrowth of diverse and nuanced responses to the movement.

This chapter focuses on the Chinese volunteers who fought in Korea during the Korean War. It looks at the interactions between the Chinese volunteers and North Korean civilians. It shows how the CCP strove to shape the emotions of the volunteers and inspire feelings of empathy toward North Korean civilians. Through using new North Korean source materials, it shows how the North Korean government sought to shape popular perceptions of the volunteers.

This chapter explores the parallel efforts of the CCP and the KWP to train loyal party cadres. This was a critical taks for both parties. It shows how Sino-North Korean friendship was a powerful tool for training the emotions of the party bureaucracy.