The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China’s Educated Youth (1968–1980)

5. The Mass Movement (1968–1976)

CHAPTER 5 The Mass Movement (1968–1976) A Vigorous Start (1968–1969) In 1968, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were eliminated. Zhou Enlai survived politically but only by firmly aligning himself behind Mao, who had the unconditional support of the army led by Lin Biao. Mao had become a kind of deity who governed the country through directives. Transforming the Red Guards into Educated Youths Although rustication was suspended because of the political struggle and the destruction of the bureaucratic apparatus, propaganda continued to present a positive image of xiaxiang, especially from early 1967, when the authorities decided to send the zhiqing who had returned to the cities back to the countryside . The relaunch of rustication corresponded exactly to the dissolution and later the end of the Red Guard movement. For the more idealistic young people, the relaunch of rustication was a kind of necessary extension of the Red Guard movement, and a new way to prove their devotion to Maoist ideals. In the summer of 1967, one year after the start of the Cultural Revolution, many young people were disappointed by the dead end in which the Red Guards found themselves and discouraged by the bloody and meaningless THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 65 THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 65 19/6/13 3:14 PM 19/6/13 3:14 PM 66 | THE LOST GENERATION clashes that opposed the various factions—all of which claimed to follow Chairman Mao’s thoughts—and began to cast about for another way to carry out the revolution. One Red Guard from Beijing, a “rebel” chief, suggested setting up a Red Guard university and received support from three hundred young people. When debating how to go about it, they decided that because they were petit-bourgeois intellectuals, they would be unable to achieve a proletarian reform of education. They first needed to revolutionize themselves by uniting with the masses. Influenced by all the propaganda about the xiaxiang heroes of the 1960s, they decided to follow the path of the model zhiqing. Only ten of them actually achieved this, and the instigator adopted the name Qu Zhe, meaning “tortuous,” rather like the future that awaited him. The group of young people asked the Beijing Revolutionary Committee for permission to go to a poor region of Inner Mongolia and integrate with a group of herdsmen. Their request was granted and the authorities even used this group as a new model for other city youths. The central leaders praised the young people and the Revolutionary Committee organized a special meeting on the eve of their departure, due on October 9. The next day their story was written up in several papers and they even made headline news in some,1 including the October 11 edition of the People’s Daily. A month later a second group of 1,200 young idealists from Beijing left for Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.2 On February 8, 1968, another group, this time of fifty-five young people from the capital, set off for Xishuangbanna, a different border region at the other end of the country in southern Yunnan province. They had been captivated by this tropical region in 1966 when as Red Guards they had taken part in the “revolutionary networking” movement (da chuanlian 大串聯).3 They decided to work with the masses in that “backward” region to develop rubber plantations. They wrote to Zhou Enlai on November 27, 1967, requesting that 1 See Liu Xiaomeng, Zhongguo zhiqing shi, pp. 110–13, and the account by Qu Zhe in Caoyuan qishilu (What We Learned in the Steppe) (Beijing: Gongren chubanshe, 1991), pp. 1–6. 2 Liu Xiaomeng, Zhongguo zhiqing shi, p 114. The departure, as described by one of our interviewees, can be found on p. 231. 3 In June 1966, to encourage the propagation of the Cultural Revolution, Mao requested that all travel by Red Guards be covered by the state. Young people took full advantage of this un-hoped for opportunity to carry out revolutionary tourism and the government subsequently found it very difficult to put an end to this very expensive measure. THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 66 THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 66 19/6/13 3:14 PM 19/6/13 3:14 PM CHAPTER 5 THE MASS MOVEMENT (1968–1976) | 67 he “issue an order” to allow them to “leave for the battlefield.” Zhou replied favorably the very same day. Once in Xishuangbanna they sent back...