Down to the Countryside Movement
As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there.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).[citation needed] In 1978, the government ended the movement, but the sent-down youth were not allowed to return to their homes in urban areas, with exception of those who enrolled the university through Gaokao and some whose parents or relatives were high-level officials.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.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.[citation needed] 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).[10][page needed] 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.
sent-down youthShenyangTraditional ChineseSimplified ChineseStandard MandarinHanyu PinyinWade–GilesYue: CantoneseJyutpingPeople's Republic of ChinabourgeoisCultural RevolutionChairmanMao ZedongprivilegedChinese PresidentLiu ShaoqiGreat Chinese FamineGreat Leap ForwardexiledLiu XiaoboJiang RongZhang ChengzhiInner MongoliaDai SijieBalzac and the Little Chinese Seamstressscar literatureGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi JinpingTsinghua UniversityGaokaoXishuangbannaState Councilcow demons and snake spiritsRed Guardscollege entrance examsLittle Red Bookmillions of educated urban youthReform through laborPolitical prisoners in ChinaBack to the Village National CampaignFinancial TimesYang, RaeAnti-Rightist CampaignLushan ConferenceSeven Thousand Cadres ConferenceSocialist Education MovementTaoyuan ExperienceCleansing the Class Ranks12-3 incidentJanuary StormFebruary CountercurrentWuhan incidentSmashing gong-jian-fa9th Party CongressOne Strike-Three Anti CampaignProject 571Lin Biao incident10th Party CongressBlack Painting incidentCriticize Lin, Criticize ConfuciusSnail IncidentHangzhou incident1975 Banqiao Dam failureCounterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend1976 Nanjing incident1976 Tiananmen IncidentRed AugustDaxing MassacreGuangxi MassacreInner Mongolia incidentGuangdong MassacreDaoxian massacreShaoyang County MassacreZhao Jianmin spy caseShadian incidentRuijin MassacreQinghai 223 IncidentZhou EnlaiLin BiaoDeng XiaopingGang of FourJiang QingZhang ChunqiaoYao WenyuanWang HongwenPeng DehuaiWu HanPeng ZhenTao ZhuChen BodaWang DongxingXie FuzhiJi DengkuiWang LiQi BenyuWu FaxianQiu HuizuoYang ChengwuChen ZaidaoKang ShengMao YuanxinHua GuofengYe JianyingA List of Cadres to Be ProtectedBombard the HeadquartersQuotations from Chairman MaoHai Rui Dismissed from OfficeMay 16 NotificationSix Articles of Public SecuritySweep Away All Cow Demons and Snake SpiritsOn Class OriginsWith you in charge, I'm at easeFour OldsNewborn socialist thingsStruggle sessionFeudal fascismBig-character posterBloodline theoryContinuous Revolution TheorySeizure of powerViolent StruggleOne Divides into TwoDemocracy WallEight model playsLoyalty dance