Meaning:
Encourage many ideas from many sources.
Background:
Let a thousand flowers bloom is a common misquotation of Chairman Mao
Zedong's "Let a hundred flowers blossom". This slogan was used during the
period of approximately six weeks in the summer of 1957 when the Chinese
intelligentsia were invited to criticize the political system then obtaining
in Communist China.
The full quotation, taken from a speech of Mao's in Peking in February 1957,
is:
"Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend
is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a
flourishing socialist culture in our land."
It is sometimes suggested that the initiative was a deliberate attempt to
flush out dissidents by encouraging them to show themselves as critical of
the regime. Whether or not it was a deliberate trap isn't clear but it is the
case that many of those who put forward views that were unwelcome to Mao were
executed.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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I'm often amazed at how much the West knows about China. But it's jaw-dropping
to learn that the legendary about-face is canonized as an English idiom.
