Beginning in 1957, the Anti-Rightist Campaign was launched, resulting in the purge of numerous members of democratic parties and intra-party dissidents.
As General Secretary of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping was the frontline commander of the Anti-Rightist Campaign. He drafted documents and issued rigid quotas for the arrest of "rightists," leading to 550,000 intellectuals being labeled as such.