The Chairman believed that the population adulated him and would rally to his side. Instead, the Hundred Flowers resulted in an outpouring of popular anger against the Communist Party, forcing Mao to reverse course and order a clampdown in May 1957. Deng Xiaoping, who like most of his colleagues had bristled at the prospect of allowing ordinary people to speak their minds, demanded sweeping measures, and was placed in charge of a campaign that targeted hundreds of thousands of individuals. Deng acquitted himself admirably, sending countless victims to labour camps in the Great Northern
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