RED CHINA: Spreading the Word

Mao Tse-tung had called for honest criticism of his government and, lo, from Canton to Chungking there was criticism. The walls of Peking University blazed with multicolored placards pointedly demanding "What is more precious than individual liberty?", angrily proclaiming that "Graduate students know very little because they are allowed to study only Russian methods in physics lab." Engineer Li Pei Ying of Tientsin declared: "Intellectuals live a life that is less peaceful than it was under Japanese or Kuomintang rule."

Inevitably, some of the critics went beyond the bounds outlined by Chairman...

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