IB History Mao: How Was Authoritarian Rule Challenged? Key Definitions

A mass political campaign launched by Mao Zedong in response to criticism expressed during the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–1957). When intellectuals, academics, and party members used the invitation to "let a hundred flowers bloom" to criticise the CCP's policies, Mao abruptly reversed course. An estimated 550,000 people were labelled "rightists", losing their jobs, being sent to labour camps, or suffering public denunciation. The campaign effectively silenced intellectual dissent in China for decades.

A system of government where power is concentrated in a single leader or small group, with limited political freedoms, restricted media, and little accountability to the population. In Egypt, authoritarian rule persisted from the 1952 Free Officers' coup through Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak, and was restored under el-Sisi after 2013.

A Chinese policy that sent millions of urban youth, especially during the Cultural Revolution, to live and work in rural areas, officially to learn from the peasantry.

The Gang of Four were four senior Communist Party officials (Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan) who were arrested in October 1976, one month after Mao Zedong's death. They were held responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, was the most prominent. They were convicted at a televised trial in 1980-81. Their arrest ended the Cultural Revolution period and opened the way for Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Mao's 1956-1957 invitation for intellectuals to openly criticize the Communist Party. When criticism proved sharper than expected, Mao reversed course with the Anti-Rightist Campaign, persecuting over 500,000 people.

Ping-pong diplomacy refers to the use of table tennis exchanges to facilitate the rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1971. A US table tennis team competing in Japan was invited to China, becoming the first Americans officially hosted in the PRC since 1949. The exchanges led to Henry Kissinger's secret visit to Beijing in July 1971 and President Nixon's historic visit to China in February 1972.

The breakdown of relations between China and the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and 1960s, caused by ideological disagreements, border disputes, and competition for leadership of the communist world.

A large public demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in April 1976 mourning the death of Premier Zhou Enlai, dispersed by force and used as a pretext to purge Deng Xiaoping.