“An Appeal to all Revolutionary Commune Members and Poor, Middle and Lower Peasants” poster, 14 January 1967. Catalogue ref: FO 1110/2317
Transcript
“An Appeal to all Revolutionary Commune Members and Poor, Middle and Lower Peasants”
A poster in Shanghai dated 14 January and signed by Nan Hui Hsien (south of Shanghai) ‘make Revolution’ groups and the representatives of the same group who had gone to Peking to complain.
A preamble criticised Liu and Teng and their Shanghai executives, Ts’ao and Ch’en of the Municipal Party Committee, for failing to implement the policy of eradicating the “Three Differences” between town and country.
A list of 35 grievances followed:
(a) Politically. We are Second-Class Citizens.
(i) Why is the countryside used as the general rubbish-bin of the towns? No matter what the crime, anyone in need of remoulding is sent out to the country, some for reform through labour.
(ii) There are no proper teachers in the countryside. They are all in the towns. Thus, education in the countryside is not on the same level as in the towns. And even if some do come to the country, they just sit in the office all day.
…
(v) Why are all the big hospitals and medical services concentrated in the town? We countryfolk, who have only the mobile medical services, also have to pay for all medical attention. Some people say this is because we country people are never ill. This is untrue.
(vi) Why are all the administrative offices centred in the town? All the officials are very comfortable there, and are reluctant to come out into the country. They are unwilling to come out and investigate the real situation, or to get down to grass-roots. They are out of touch with us.
(vii) The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] is composed of the sons and daughters of the whole people. We all say we uphold the glorious PLA, but why is it that the task of supporting the Army and giving preferential treatment to the families of soldiers falls only on our shoulders? Nor do we get credit for it, and have never had one single (plaque of honour?) for our services. A small group of people in the towns get them all. We demand that (plaques of honour?) should immediately be distributed to us!
(viii) Workers have their unions, soldiers have theirs, and Party workers have a body to represent their interests. Why don’t we have unions?
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?