Half a century ago, Mao Zedong launched the “Go to the mountains and go to the countryside” movement, in which 17 million intellectual youths went to the countryside in ten years, changing the fate of many young people. Recently, a national research unit in China published an article rehashing the history of the movement, describing it as a “great feat”. The article triggered a strong public backlash. According to analysts, the renewed attention given to the “going to the mountains and going to the countryside” reflects the anxiety of the current regime.
More than 50 years ago, two years into the Cultural Revolution, after the seizure of power, criticism and armed struggle, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong issued a call for “intellectual youth to go to the countryside and receive re-education from the poor peasants, which is very necessary”.
Within a decade, 17 million Chinese youth lost the opportunity to continue their education, lost the right to stay with their families, and went from the cities to the remote areas of China, thus rewriting their destiny.
Wu Zorai, an independent scholar, says that the glorified move to the countryside was, in fact, a decision of necessity.
Wu Zorai: After the three-year famine in the 1960s, the population began to grow naturally, but the cities were not fortified, factories and enterprises did not increase, there were no jobs, and food was scarce. The government sent a large number of intellectual youths to the countryside as a last resort, not to promote the intellectualization of the countryside.
On Tuesday (22), the Chinese Academy of History, which was founded less than two years ago, posted an article on its official microblog, describing the youths’ move to the countryside as “a great feat to promote social progress”.
The article declared that it is “wrong” to deny the idea of “going to the countryside” and the movement for some time, and it is also “wrong to say” that the youths were persecuted for going to the countryside, and it is “nonsense” to describe them as a “ruined generation.
Scholars: The current social situation is similar to that of the 60s
The movement to the mountains and the countryside back then brought misfortune to many intellectuals. Some people even consider it as a disguised labor reform. According to scholar Wu Zorai, the current situation in China is similar to that of more than 50 years ago, especially the urbanization over the years has not allowed most young people to settle down in the cities.
Wu Zorai: Hukou cannot move freely. A rural hukou is a rural hukou. The urban hukou is still an urban hukou. Now the universities have recruited so many students that they have to send young people back to the countryside because they can’t solve the problem of children’s hukou when they settle down in the city, so now the Chinese Communist Party is using political slogans to fool young people into going to the countryside so that they can solve such a serious problem as the difference between urban and rural hukou.
Wu Jo Lai said that China’s economy is facing a huge crisis, shaking the CCP regime, and I believe the Institute issued the article to echo the spirit of the central government.
Wu Zorai: The economic crisis that the Chinese Communist Party is now facing is very serious. The problem of electricity shortage, which has not appeared for decades, has now appeared. This will trigger a chain reaction. They then want to abate the young force in urban areas and developed areas, because this force is prone to school waves and movements, and send these people to remote areas to ease the pressure on the CCP.
Presumably due to the strong public backlash, the article has been removed from the Institute’s Weibo account.
The Chinese Academy of History is under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and is considered a national research unit. Wu Qiang, a former lecturer at Tsinghua University’s political science department, said there are indications that serving China’s official nationalist ideology is the institute’s mission.
Wu Qiang: It is the institution that constructs nationalism through interpretation. It sees this as preparation for the 100th year of the Communist Party next year, treating history itself as an object of worship.
Wu Qiang said the article reflects the anxiety of the current regime.
Wu Qiang: Unconsciously, the article reflects that the failure of Xi Jinping‘s leap forward over the past eight years is at some kind of turning point, and with the failure of urbanization, the economic crisis, and the possibility of potential mass unemployment caused by the new crown epidemic, perhaps they are reconsidering the anti-urbanization movement.
The number of college graduates in China has reached record highs in recent years, and next year is expected to break the 9 million mark for the first time. China’s Ministry of Education issued a notice earlier this month asking colleges and universities to push graduates to work in tough, remote areas and key fields in the west.
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