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

4. The Managers and the Ideologue: The Prelude and Interlude of the Cultural Revolution (1955–1966)

CHAPTER 4 The Managers and the Ideologue: The Prelude and Interlude of the Cultural Revolution (1955–1966) This book is not concerned primarily with the xiaxiang movement prior to the Cultural Revolution. However, it is important to know the main features of the earlier movement in order to understand the one launched in 1968. Indeed, most of the later xiaxiang themes were established during this prelude, along with certain organizations that were to serve later. In China the rustication of urban youth began in 1955, but there were at least three forerunners to this movement. The Russian populists launched the “going to the people” movement in 1874, resulting in the departure to the countryside of several thousand young students, where they lived in the villages and preached revolt while living from their labor. The main similarity , as we have seen, lies in the direct and prolonged contact between young people and peasants, but it is difficult to compare the two movements since the Russian populists never envisaged a long-term stay,1 and their action was totally spontaneous. Despite the enthusiasm and religious fervor that accompanied this movement (the summer of 1874 was called the “mad summer” in 1 Even the members of the Land and Liberty group, a minority who refused to be “flying propagandists” and wanted to carry out in-depth work in the countryside, only remained there for a few years; see Wortman, The Crisis of Russian Populism. THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 49 THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 49 19/6/13 3:14 PM 19/6/13 3:14 PM 50 | THE LOST GENERATION Russia), it soon ended in total failure.2 In fact the populist movement did better in China where, however, it was obliged to merge with a rival movement, Marxism. In 1919, Li Dazhao, one of the future founders of the CCP, called on Chinese youth to imitate the Russian populists and go off to the countryside, not only because China was a largely rural country but because the countryside was a “bright” place in contrast to the “dark” cities in which it was easy to lose one’s way.3 His call was heard and, in the 1920s, many young Marxists went off to spread the word in the villages, where they succeeded in setting up a peasant movement. Among these young people was Peng Pai, followed by Mao Zedong who, as we know, was to take this movement a very long way.4 Even though after 1949 this rural episode of the revolutionary Chinese was presented as a model for young Chinese city dwellers being sent to the countryside, the reality was quite different. Nevertheless, the movement that was already called xiaxiang, launched in Yan’an in 1941 and 1942, bore far greater resemblance to the one we are dealing with here. This was also a Communist Party-led mobilization aiming to transform the countryside as well as the young cadres, intellectuals, and artists being sent there.5 At the time there was no question of a lengthy stay because the war prevented any long-term planning. Nor were the numbers involved anything like those for the xiaxiang in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s. But the experience gained by the CCP in the Yan’an laboratory certainly served as a reference to the leaders when they launched xiaxiang after the successful outcome of the revolution. 2 Ibid., and François Venturi, Les intellectuels, le peuple et la révolution: histoire du populisme russe au XIXe siècle, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), pp. 832–41. 3 Li Dazhao, “Qingnian yu nongcun” (Youth and the Countryside), in Li Dazhao wenji (Works of Li Dazhao), vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 648– 52; Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 75–89. 4 Lucien Bianco and Yves Chevrier (eds.), Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier international: la Chine (Paris: Les Éditions ouvrières et Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1985), pp. 503–11. Regarding Li Dazhao’s influence on Mao, see Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, and Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (London: Penguin, 1967), pp. 27–32. 5 Selden, The Yenan Way. THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 50 THE LOST GENERATION_FA02_17June2013.indd 50 19/6/13 3:14 PM 19/6/13 3:14 PM CHAPTER 4 THE MANAGERS AND...