Extract from minutes from a meeting held with the Cultural Revolution Group and Red Flag fighters on 17 November 1966. Catalogue ref: FO 1110/2317
Transcript
Chairman Mao points out: “If the intellectuals don’t unite with the worker and peasant masses, then they will be incomplete.” Young students should gradually complete the process of uniting with the masses, and all University and Middle School students should modestly learn from workers and peasants and should serve the workers and peasants heart and soul. Students who go on the great liaison to the factories should in an integrated fashion, as far as possible, take part in productive labour and strictly observe labour discipline. Ch’en Po-ta gives a final instruction: “After you have discussed and approved this document and added the Sixteen Points and Emergency Directives of the Military Affairs Commission, and when the C.C. have passed (pi shih) it, it will then become the guiding document for the C. R. in the factories, mines and enterprises.
Look at sources 2a-c, which all relate to the movement of young people in China from towns and cities into the countryside to do manual labour. This is known as the ‘Down to the Countryside Movement’.
- Look at Source 2a. What percentage of China’s provinces had youths move from towns to the countryside?
- How far did young people generally have to go when moving from one province to another? (You see the distances using online map distance calculators.)
- How would you feel if you had to move that far?
- Look at Source 2b. Why did Mao believe that young people had to go into the countryside?
- Look at Source 2c. What did people living in the countryside think about Mao’s policies? Name at least three complaints that they had.
- What consequences do you think the Down to the Countryside Movement would have had?