The 16 May Notification () or Circular of 16 May, originally titled simply Notification (), was the initial political declaration of the Cultural Revolution. Initially a secret inner-party document, it was issued at a May 1966 expanded session of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. The notification ended a political dispute within the CCP stemming from the Beijing Opera play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office by dissolving the top level of the party's cultural apparatus and encouraging mass political movement to oppose rightists within the party. The result was a political victory for Mao Zedong. The Notification is often viewed as the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and would be declassified and published in People's Daily on 17 May 1967.
Background
Beginning in 1965 and into spring 1966, a political dispute arose within the People's Republic of China regarding the Beijing Opera play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. The play depicts an honest official of the Ming Dynasty named Hai Rui, who reverses unjust land verdicts on behalf of peasants who are portrayed passively and celebrate Hai Rui as their savior.Critics began to interpret the play as referencing Marshal Peng Dehuai's criticism of Mao Zedong and the peasant politics and policies of the Great Leap Forward at the Lushan Conference, which resulted in the political purging of Peng Dehuai. Politically aware Chinese understood Hai Rui to present Peng Dehuai, the Ming Dynasty Emperor to represent Mao, and the unjust land verdicts to represent the Great Leap Forward policies.
Political figure and literary critic Yao Wenyuan began a scholarly and political debate about Hai Rui Dismissed from Office when he wrote an article critical of it at the request of close Mao allies Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao. In particular, Yao's article argued that play's author Wu Han had distorted the historical record and that the aspect of reversing unjust land verdicts provided a focal point for "bourgeois opposition" who wanted "to demolish the people's communes and to restore the criminal rule of the landlords and rich peasants".
Beijing Mayor and high-ranking Politburo member Peng Zhen attempted to protect the author of the play, his subordinate and Beijing Vice Mayor Wu Han, by preventing republication of Yao's critical article. When the intervention of Zhou Enlai meant it was no longer politically feasible to prevent its publication, Peng Zhen used his leading role in the party's cultural apparatus via the Group of Five to restrict the terms of the debate over the play to censor any argument of contemporary political implications. At his direction, the Group of Five drafted a formal disciplinary code, the "Outline Report on the Current Academic Discussion", also known as the "February Outline"—intended to restrict the terms of the argument and thereby stop further articles comparing the play to contemporary political issues. The February Outline openly threatened the "obstinate Left" with discipline, urging that it bear in mind its "long-term behavior".
Mao opposed the February Outline, describing those who "prevent the publication of left-wing essays" as "great scholar-tyrants": a series of top-level party meetings from mid-March to mid-May addressed the controversy following the Outline and Mao response . In late April, the Central Committee decided to revoke the February Outline, disband the Group of Five, disband the Beijing Party Committee which Peng Zhen led, and disavow his handling of the Hai Rui Dismissed from Office controversy.
The document
The notification formalized the decisions that had been reached in late April. It was the first major political declaration of the Cultural Revolution and summarized Mao's justifications for the Cultural Revolution.