Half a century ago, Mao Zedong launched the movement to the countryside, which brought 17 million intellectual youths to the countryside in a decade and changed the fate of many of them. 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 movement 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 youths to go to the countryside and receive re-education from the poor peasants, which is necessary”.
In ten years, 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 fate.
Wu Zorai, an independent scholar, said that the glorified “going to the mountains and going to the countryside” was, in fact, a decision of necessity.
Wu: “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 put a large number of intellectual youths into the countryside as a last resort, not to promote the intellectualization of the countryside.”
In an official Weibo post on Tuesday (22), the less-than-two-year-old Chinese Academy of Historical Research described the sending of young people to the countryside as “a great feat to promote social progress.”
The article declared that it was “wrong” to deny the idea of going to the countryside and the movement, and it was also “wrong to say” that the youths were persecuted for going to the countryside, and it was “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 brought misfortune to many intellectuals. Some people even think it was 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 that universities have recruited so many students, they have to send young people back to the countryside because they can’t solve the problem of children’s hukou by settling 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 that shakes the CCP regime, and it is believed that the institute issued the article to echo the spirit of the central government.
Wu Zorai: “The economic crisis that the CCP is now facing is very serious. Electricity shortages, which have not been seen for decades, are now appearing. 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 schooling 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 page.
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 Department of Political Science, said there is every indication that serving the official nationalist ideology of the CCP is the mission of the institute.
Wu Qiang: “It is an institution that constructs nationalism through interpretation. It sees it as a preparation for the 100th year of the CCP’s founding next year, treating history itself as an object to be worshipped.”
Wu Qiang said the article reflects the anxiety of the current regime.
Wu Qiang: “Unconsciously, it transmits that the failure of Xi Jinping‘s leap forward over the past eight years is at some kind of turning point, the failure of urbanization, the economic crisis, and the possibility of potential mass unemployment caused by the new crown (CCP virus) epidemic, and perhaps they are reconsidering the anti-urbanization movement.”
The number of Chinese college graduates has reached record highs in recent years, and next year is predicted to exceed 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 and remote areas and key fields in the west.
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