The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement,often known simply as the Down to the Countryside Movement,was a policy instituted in the People's Republic of China between mid-1950s and 1978. As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution,ChairmanMao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In total,approximately 17 million youth were sent to rural areas as a result of the movement.[1] Usually only the oldest child had to go,but younger siblings could volunteer to go instead.
Chairman Mao's policy differed from Chinese PresidentLiu Shaoqi's early 1960s sending-down policy in its political context. President Liu Shaoqi instituted the first sending-down policy to redistribute excess urban population following the Great Chinese Famine and the Great Leap Forward. Mao's stated aim for the policy was to ensure that urban students could "develop their talents to the full" through education amongst the rural population.[2]
Many fresh high school graduates,who became known as the so-called sent-down youth (also known in China as "educated youth" and abroad as "rusticated youth"),were forced out of the cities and effectively exiled to remote areas of China. Some commentators consider these people,many of whom lost the opportunity to attend university,"China's Lost Generation". Famous authors who have written about their experiences during the movement include Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo,Jiang Rong,Ma Bo and Zhang Chengzhi,all of whom went to Inner Mongolia. Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress has received great praise for its take on life for the young people sent to rural villages of China during the movement (see scar literature). Communist Party General SecretaryXi Jinping was also among the youth sent to rural areas.
Resettlement in the countryside (chāduìluòhù) was a more permanent form.[3][4]
Background
Certificate in honor of Down to the Countryside Movement
The Great Leap Forward campaign's aim was to increase agriculture,industrial productions,social change and ideological change. The Great Leap's goal of developing China's material productive forces was inextricably intertwined[5] with the pursuit of communist social goals and the development of a popular communist consciousness. This failed and could have ended Mao Zedong's influence. Instead of moving forward into a more modern country,Mao and the CCP took a step back to the past. Harsh weather and gross economic mismanagement resulted in the worst famine in history. Mao's position with the party was weakened,so he worked on a plan that would be his defining moment and would give the Chinese a national identity. From here,he plotted his return to the pinnacle of power,which resulted in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.[6]
The Cultural Revolution did bring important changes in the social character and political climate of life in China but not so much in its formal institutions.[7] Mao's power base was paramount. The revolution aimed to bring new social change in the 1960s and early years of the decade. The changes were important,nevertheless,vitally affecting the lives of the vast majority of the Chinese people.[7] The revolution was an urban movement. It fought what was seen as excess successes of a growing population of urban workers,students,and intellectuals,who were seen as the prosperous bourgeoise.[further explanation needed] Mao wanted those classes to be more well-rounded in their approach to seeking societal success. This would occur even at the cost of economic growth.
The Cultural Revolution consisted of many different smaller sub-campaigns that affected all of China,some of which came about quite quickly. One of these campaigns was the Monsters and Demons campaign that ran from 1966 to 1967.[8] The campaign's name refers to metaphors such as "cow demons and snake spirits" that were used to demonize one's political opponent during the Cultural Revolution.[9] Once someone was labeled as a "cow demon",they were to become imprisoned in a cowshed,storehouse or dark room.[10][pagesneeded] The country ended up in complete chaos once the Red Guards entered the picture. Therefore,the images displayed on posters showed a clear idea of what behavior and slogans were acceptable during this movement. From 1966 to 1968,all schools in China were closed,and the college entrance exams cancelled. Secondary and primary school students had the option to still go if they wished,which many did because they were curious as to what was going on. Schools were used as a rallying ground to interrogate those who were considered to be class enemies,such as teachers. In the beginning,the Cultural Revolution empowered the Red Guards into helping interrogate the class enemies and finding out whose houses to search and possibly destroy.
The Cultural Revolution started with Mao reaching out to high school students for ideological and material support. They were asked to target teachers viewed as possessing or propagating capitalist views and rebelling against them,which many were open to due to high academic pressure. During that time,the Red Guards participated in parades,mass meetings,and propagation and distribution of the Little Red Book. At this point,the politics initiated by Mao's government,along with the diminishing crops,had left the country in dire financial straits. Mao saw this as a prime opportunity to sow chaos and push the country towards the downfall of the old system,leaving a blank slate from which a reconstruction based on complete Communism would emerge. Thus,the central government did little to nothing to stop or discourage the Red Guards' acts,no matter how abusive.
Eventually,though,once Mao's cabinet tried to rein them in to start their program,most Red Guard squads refused to stop their activities,believing their fight not to be complete yet (or being unwilling to lose the privileges they held in the name of class struggle). Mao drastically changed his views about them and set up to break their power base by splitting them up.
From December 1968 onward,millions of educated urban youth,consisting of secondary school graduates and students,were mobilized and sent "up to the mountains and down to the villages" i.e. to rural villages and to frontier settlements. In these areas,they had to build up and take root,to receive reeducation from the poor and lower-middle peasants".[11] Ten percent of the 1970 urban population was relocated. The population grew from 500 million to 700 million people in China. One way for Mao to handle the population growth was to send people to the countryside. Mao was from the countryside and wanted all educated youth to have experience there. This was a way for high school students to better integrate themselves into the working class. "In the beginning,the Cultural Revolution exhilarated me because suddenly I felt that I was allowed to think with my own head and say what was on my mind".[10][pageneeded] While many believed that this was a great opportunity to transform themselves into a strong socialist youth,many students could not deal with the harsh life and died in the process of reeducation.[citation needed]
McLaren, Anne (July 1979). "The Educated Youth Return: The Poster Campaign in Shanghai from November 1978 to March 1979". The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs. 2 (2): 1–20. doi:10.2307/2158728. ISSN0156-7365. JSTOR2158728. S2CID131104421.
Mao Zedong was a Chinese politician, Marxist theorist, military strategist, poet, and revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He led the country from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976, while also serving as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party during that time. His theories, military strategies and policies are known as Maoism.
The Cultural Revolution (CR), formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. Though it failed to achieve its main objectives, the CR marked the effective return of Mao to the center of power. This came after a period of relative absence for Mao, who had been sidelined by the more moderate Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the following Great Chinese Famine, which occurred while he was still chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. The philosophical difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.
The time period in China from the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 until Mao's death in 1976 is commonly known as Maoist China and Red China. The history of the People's Republic of China is often divided distinctly by historians into the Mao era and the post-Mao era. The country's Mao era lasted from the founding of the People's republic on 1 October 1949 to Deng Xiaoping's consolidation of power and policy reversal at the Third Plenum of the 11th Party Congress on 22 December 1978. The Mao era focuses on Mao Zedong's social movements from the early 1950s on, including land reform, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Great Chinese Famine, one of the worst famines in human history, occurred during this era.
The Socialist Education Movement, also known as the Four Cleanups Movement was a 1963–1965 movement launched by Mao Zedong in the People's Republic of China. Mao sought to remove reactionary elements within the bureaucracy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying that "governance is also a process of socialist education."
From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up "big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China; the wall became known as the Democracy Wall. Under acquiescence of the Chinese government, other kinds of protest activities, such as unofficial journals, petitions, and demonstrations, were also soon spreading out in major cities of China. This movement can be seen as the beginning of the Chinese Democracy Movement. It is also known as the "Democracy Wall Movement". This short period of political liberation was known as the "Beijing Spring".
The Four Olds or the Four Old Things was a term used during the Cultural Revolution by the Red Guards in the People's Republic of China in reference to the pre-communist elements of Chinese culture they attempted to destroy. The Four Olds were: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits. The campaign to destroy the Four Olds began in Beijing on August 19, 1966, shortly after the launch of the Cultural Revolution.
The Red Guards were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolishment in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.
Big-character posters are handwritten posters displaying large Chinese characters, usually mounted on walls in public spaces such as universities, factories, government departments, and sometimes directly on the streets. They were used as a means of protest, propaganda, and popular communication. A form of popular political writing, big-character posters did not have a fixed format or style, and could appear in the form of letter, slogan, poem, commentary, etc.
A timeline of China's media-related history since World War II, including computer hardware, software development, the history of the Internet, etc.
The Lushan Conference was a meeting of the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held between July and August 1959. The CCP Politburo met in an "expanded session" between July 2 and August 1, followed by the 8th Plenum of the CCP Eighth Central Committee from August 2–16. The major topic of discussion was the Great Leap Forward.
The Wuhan incident was an armed conflict in the People's Republic of China between two hostile groups who were fighting for control over the city of Wuhan in July 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. The two opposing forces were the "Million Heroes" and the "Wuhan Workers' General Headquarters". The former, numbering about 500,000 people, comprised mainly skilled workers, state and local party employees, and were supported by the local PLA, led by the commander of Wuhan Military Region, General Chen Zaidao. The "Wuhan Workers' General Headquarters", also numbering close to 500,000 people, comprised mostly workers and students from Red Guard organizations.
The sent-down, rusticated, or "educated" youth, also known as the zhiqing, were the young people who—beginning in the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution, willingly or under coercion—left the urban districts of the People's Republic of China to live and work in rural areas as part of the "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement".
Revolutionary committees were tripartite bodies established during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in the People's Republic of China to facilitate government by the three mass organizations in China — the people, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They were originally established in the power-seizure movement as a replacement system of government to the old Party apparatus. Some have argued that it quickly became subordinate to it, whereas others have argued that it effectively supplanted the old apparatus, replacing it with an accountable system elected annually by the people through mass organizations, for the duration of the Cultural Revolution.
The Land Reform Movement, also known by the Chinese abbreviation Tǔgǎi (土改), was a mass movement led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong during the late phase of the Chinese Civil War after the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in 1945 and in the early People's Republic of China, which achieved land redistribution to the peasantry. Landlords – whose status was theoretically defined through the percentage of income derived from exploitation as opposed to labor – had their land confiscated and they were subjected to mass killing by the CCP and former tenants, with the estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions. The campaign resulted in hundreds of millions of peasants receiving a plot of land for the first time.
Gao Mobo is a Chinese-Australian professor of Chinese studies.
Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan or Inquiry into the Peasant Movement of Hunan of March 1927, often called the Hunan Report, is one of Mao Zedong's most famous and influential essays. The Report is based on a several month visit to his home countryside around Changsha, capital of Hunan in early 1927. The Report endorses the violence that had broken out spontaneously in the wake of the Northern Expedition, makes a class analysis of the struggle, and enthusiastically reports the "Fourteen Great Achievements" of the peasant associations (农民协会).
Iron Girls is a term that was popularized in China during the 1950s through the 1970s. It was used to define a new idealized emerging group of working women who were strong and capable of performing highly demanding labor tasks, usually assigned to men. These tasks included repairing high-voltage electric wires, working at farmland, or heavy physical work. Beginning during the Great Leap Forward, Iron Girls were a symbol of shifting gender norms during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and in the years following the cultural revolution they faced harsh criticism. Iron Girls relied on the idea that men and women were inherently equal, but this idea was criticized by some feminists for its emphasis on the division of labor. Accounts of Iron Girls are limited aside from state propaganda which was circulated during the Cultural Revolution. Propaganda images emphasized women with strong physical attributes as well as their ability to perform in jobs which had been dominated by men in the earlier years prior to the Cultural Revolution. Firsthand narratives in the form of memoirs which focus on other social issues at the time are some of the only pieces of evidence of the era available to historians, making it difficult to understand the reality of life as an Iron Girl.
The Shengwulian or Sheng-wu-lien, derived from the Chinese acronym for the full name of Hunan Provincial Proletarian Revolutionary Great Alliance Committee, was a radical ultra-left group formed in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution. The rebel group became known for its opposition to local authorities installed by Beijing and for creatively re-interpreting the Cultural Revolution's official doctrine, becoming active during a period when the political trends of the Cultural Revolution were moving away from mass political mobilization.
Poor and lower-middle peasants include "Poor peasants" and "Lower-middle peasants". This term was first used by Mao Zedong in 1955.
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