The Hungarian revolution and the origins of China's Great Leap policies, 1956-57

The 1956 crisis in Hungary had a profound impact on China's domestic politics. It played a formative role in the evolution of Chinese policy as top officials critically reviewed the Stalinist experience of governance. Intellectuals and students began to doubt the efficiency of the party's rule, while Mao Zedong rejected meaningful reforms of institutional socialism in favour of 'soft' means of conscripting the intellectuals and 'remoulding' popular thought. Having opened up the party to criticism from outside, Mao cited the risk of domestic opponents fomenting a Hungarian-style crisis in China in terminating the Hundred Flowers campaign and moving to a programme of ideological purges in the summer of 1957, which paved the way for a massive economic campaign in 1958.(1)