How far do you agree that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was a trick designed by Mao to trap his opponents?

  After Mao encouraged intellectuals to voice their concerns and criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party in the spring of 1957, he was hit with waves of outcries from millions around the country complaining about the dire states of living and directly denouncing the Chairman himself. This has led to speculation as to what Mao’s intentions were; and whether he had attempted to trap his remaining opponents or had simply made a mistake.
  A key reason as to why it could be argued that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was a trick designed to trap Mao’s opponents would be the way in which he promoted the movement. In April 1956, Mao called for open debate and discussion among the people, “let a hundred flowers bloom…’, inviting intellectuals to display their grievances so that they could be rectified. However, Mao had always mistrusted intellectuals, and this notion did not suddenly reverse when he invited them to voice their concerns once again in an important speech in February 1957, giving some plausibility to the idea that he wished to wipe China of its intellectual demographic. Also, he had never claimed that the Party would not retaliate against harsh criticism directed towards himself or the Communist State. This is accentuated by the fact that at a Party conference in March of that year, he referred to intellectuals as the enemy instead of a political group to reconcile. As such, this suggests that Mao’s true intention was to remove China of all the intellectuals who maintained ideology in conflict with his principles.