Wake up（255）

 

255

 

"Now there are rumors in the mainland that students will be mobilized to go to the countryside again. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Sun Yulan asked sociology professor Hong Wenxuan her question.

Li Aiwen and Qian Xiaojuan, who had breakfast together, all stared at Professor Hong Wenxuan.

Wanru smiled and said, "Professor Hong, just tell us."

So Hong Wenxuan, a professor of sociology who has studied social issues for a long time, talked about what happened in 1962. He said that by the end of that year, a total of 20 million urban youths across the country would be sent to the countryside. In 1963, the national economy improved, and young people living in rural areas hoped to return to the city, but the policy changed again. Some farmers have also been persuaded to return to their hometowns. The managers hope to reduce the employment pressure in cities through the birth control policy. Even if the birth control policy is implemented now and will take effect immediately, the people born in that year will have to reach the employment age 16 years later to reduce the annual employment pressure. newly employed population. During this 16-year waiting period, 3 million young people will be waiting for employment each year. Therefore, in these 16 years, 35 million young people need to be sent to the countryside, and 2 million are sent every year. It was different from going to the countryside in 1955. At this time, the state-owned farms were in a state of serious losses and could not provide "staffing" to the youth. Most of the young people were sent directly to the villages and no longer occupied the "staffing" of the state.

Professor Hong Wenxuan continued:

From its inception in 1955 to 1962, "Going to the Countryside" was basically a temporary activity. In the past, young people had the "staff" of "units" in the city. This "unit" is also commonly referred to as "organizational". the whole life.

At that time, those who were lucky enough to be taken over by the "unit" had no right to choose their life path, but they still had a certain sense of happiness on the whole, especially during the three-year difficult period when food production was greatly reduced. , but it will not be without food.

Hai Dafeng Farm is located in the central area of Dafeng District, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province. Shanghai has three farms here to house educated youths and detain labor camps. At its peak, it had 80,000 educated youths. It supplies Shanghai with grain, oil and other products every year. It is one of the three farms in Shanghai. One of the "enclaves".

If young people sent to the countryside are arranged on state-run farms, their "staffing" is no different from that in cities, and their treatment is similar to that in cities. So far, there are still Shanghai state-run farms in Yancheng, Jiangsu. People there may not even speak Shanghainese, but they have Shanghai Hukou, which is a living fossil of this system.

After 1962, the situation changed. The state-run farms can no longer accommodate young people, and the vast majority of young people are sent directly to the villages. Moreover, due to the implementation of the latest policy, "going to the countryside" has become an institutionalized and long-term movement.

Professor Shen Zhirui said:

In fact, "going to the countryside" itself is not a negative term. Just as people who advocate "going to the countryside to promote social progress" say on the Internet, urban youths go to the countryside to understand the country's conditions and learn about agricultural production. What's wrong.

However, once going to the countryside is taken as a system and combined with the population management system of the society as a whole, under the constraints of these systems, those who go to the countryside will be miserable.

Since the state-run farms were unable to accommodate young people, a large number of young people were directly "assigned" to villages. As a result, they lost their urban hukou and directly became rural hukou personnel. The household registration system is not an invention of modern countries. Since ancient times, the people and the land have been deeply bound in the form of registered households and the people are not allowed to move freely.

After the establishment of the modern household registration system, supplemented by the powerful control power of the modern state beyond all ancient periods, it has the ability to brand people with household registration according to the type of household registration, and accompany them. Once you have a rural household registration, you can no longer return to the city, and even if you return to the city, you will not be able to settle down, get a job, go to school, or see a doctor.

In 1964, the country’s most authoritative media published a series of articles, one of which stated: “There are millions of urban primary and secondary school graduates every year. Except for a small number of students who can continue to study or stay in cities for employment, most of them are You have to go to the mountains and the countryside to participate in labor."

Many people say that the national education system, especially the nine-year compulsory education system, is inherently compulsory, so compulsory study in rural areas can also be regarded as part of the education system, which may be reasonable. However, in that era, the coercion on people was not only at the level of education, but all-round, coercion on the entire life. People are born, grow up, go to school, and get a job without any autonomy at all. Everything is arranged by force.

Shen Zhirui is a professor of psychology. He said: From a psychological point of view, when people's psychology is distorted, people's souls will be surprised. When people cannot make choices about their own growth, schooling, and employment, they have no autonomy at all, and everything is arranged forcibly. Even, what is a life like this that has been classified as the lowest class of society from birth?

Professor Hong Wenxuan sighed:

History has already entered the 21st century, and it is unimaginable that a large number of people still recall their souls from the tortuous history that happened in the last century.

The trend of human historical development is urbanization, and the proper meaning of urbanization is that everyone can get rid of the shackles of the land. In a public space like a city, they can freely choose their own life path and fully develop. This is also in line with the The ideal society model discussed by Marx in "Das Kapital".

The main driving force behind historical tragedies like the Going-to-the-Rural Movement is the urban-rural dual system that separates the city from the countryside, and the household registration system that precisely controls everyone.

Today, the level of economic development in cities has reached a certain level, and the rural areas, which have been in the position of blood transfusion for a long time, should be fully developed. This is the meaning of social fairness and justice. However, developing the countryside does not mean simply letting people from the cities go to the countryside. For the vast majority of intellectual labor, it must be concentrated in cities to generate the greatest externality, and they should not be forced to be sent to the countryside.

To support the development of the rural economy, the main focus is to allow the free circulation of rural labor and land resources, so that migrant workers can become urban residents, and urban residents can also invest in rural areas.

For the inherent poverty caused by land resource endowment or their own health conditions, it is necessary to establish a sound and perfect social relief mechanism so that the whole society can help them together. It's not that the countryside doesn't need talents, but it needs talents who can make farmers "live".

Professors Shen Zhirui and Hong Wenxuan's interpretation of "Going to the Countryside" made four young people, Sun Yulan, Li Aiwen, Qian Xiaojuan and Wanru, fall into deep contemplation.