Wake up（256）

 

256

 

Psychology professor Shen Zhirui and sociology professor Hong Wenxuan gathered in Lianxiang Tea Room with their students Sun Yulan, Li Aiwen, Qian Xiaojuan and Wanru.

Sun Yulan raised the question in her heart: "Back then, why did the mainland launch a movement to the countryside?"

Psychology professor Shen Zhirui and sociology professor Hong Wenxuan answered questions raised by young students.

Hong Wenxuan, a professor of sociology who has studied social issues for a long time, talked about the annual growth rate of China's population over the years. He once studied the annual population growth rate of China from 1949 to 2019.

Professor Hong Wenxuan said:

Before 1966, the movement of young people to go to the countryside on a large scale was more or less pragmatic, and it was still part of the national economic policy, and its main purpose was to solve the employment problem. But after 1966, this policy almost broke away from the elements of economic policy and became completely a political act. The continuous large-scale struggle has almost paralyzed the bureaucracy, and the economic policy aimed at solving employment is actually no way to implement it.

In 1967, some local governments even forcibly deported young people who had "smashed everything" in the city to the countryside, but instead caused large-scale violence. At the same time, many young people do not want to stay in the city after a year or two of struggle. Against this background, another upsurge of youth going to the countryside was set off. In order to retaliate against political opponents, some people also took advantage of this trend to send other people's children to the countryside as a means of political struggle. Many children of senior cadres were also sent to the countryside because their parents were affected by the movement. to education or employment opportunities.

Time came to the 1970s. Although there was no change in the policy, the society's resistance to disorder had already caused strong resistance from the upper echelons to the continuation of the movement.

Professor Hong Wenxuan said: In 1970, the social economy began to recover, and many enterprises recruited more workers in the early 1970s. This phenomenon gave urban youth a place to go. In 1971, the total number of employees in state-owned enterprises exceeded 50 million, and a large number of young people who might have been sent to the countryside were absorbed into enterprises and became urban workers.

In the countryside, some young people finally waited for the opportunity to be recalled to the cities. Which young people can be transferred back to the city generally depends on their background, that is, the "composition" mentioned at the time, and the specific family situation. If all the brothers and sisters in the family have gone to the countryside, then they can be transferred back to the city. Two to the parents of the city. There are also some with relatively good composition, or outstanding performance, who are recommended to study in universities.

In the second half of the 1970s, there was almost a consensus that the whole society resisted political movements, and grassroots cadres at all levels were unwilling to do things against their will to bring them a bad reputation. Including such things as sending young people to the countryside, grassroots cadres are not very motivated to implement them, and muddle along. Youth and their families have used various methods to avoid going to the countryside, causing the number of people sent to the countryside to plummet.

Later, although it was repeated between 1973 and 1977, the overall rural movement was gradually fading.

Li Aiwen loves to ask, she asked: "How should we make a correct evaluation of Shangshan Township today?"

Professor Hong Wenxuan replied: It should be said that in the process of education, it is necessary for young people to understand some basic conditions in the countryside and learn some knowledge about agricultural production. However, although the Go-to-the-Rural Movement in the last century was nominally about "re-educating the poor and lower-middle peasants," it actually had nothing to do with "education." It originated from the surplus of labor force caused by the urban economic downturn. In order to solve the problem of labor surplus, the method adopted is not to create new jobs, but to pull the newly added suitable population out of the city and put them in the countryside, so that the countryside can dilute them. However, it is such local policies and stupid methods that have allowed some people to taste the sweetness. The urban population is limited, and various social problems can be covered up. In particular, the distribution of food and various resources in the city becomes very simple, and even if there are difficulties in the vast rural areas, a large number of urban cadres and workers' children are injected into the rural areas. can help maintain stability.

Psychology professor Shen Zhirui said: Youth going to the countryside has also exacerbated rural poverty. Because the young people sent to the countryside, although they are laborers, are also the mouths to eat. When the majority of farmers themselves have no way to ensure enough food and clothing, they still have to allocate a considerable amount of rations to the young people who have been sent to the countryside. Although young people are strong and healthy, most of them have never been in contact with agricultural production and were basically unable to participate in labor at first. Even after repeated training, they only want to go back to the city, and their enthusiasm for labor is not high. They must not be with real farmers. youth compared. Among the bureaucrats who specifically implement the deportation of young people, the new policy has given them new powers. They can decide the life and death of every young person and seize power. Therefore, they have engaged in power rent-seeking, resulting in countless corruptions.

Professor Hong Wenxuan said:

Going to the mountains and going to the countryside did not start from the Cultural Revolution. In order to alleviate the employment pressure in the cities, intellectual youths going to the countryside was advocated in the 1950s and widely spread in the 1960s. high school graduates. In December 1968, Mao's "re-education" instruction was issued and enforced in the form of a movement, which led to a climax of going to the mountains and going to the countryside, which lasted for ten years. In fact, even without the Cultural Revolution, my country's planned economic model cannot solve the crisis of young people's education and employment caused by the population expansion after criticizing Ma Yinchu. If the economy is not vigorously developed and the population is not controlled, the movement of going to the mountains and going to the countryside will be unavoidable. If there is no reform Opening up and sending educated youth to the countryside has become the norm, and the consequences are unimaginable.

Going to the mountains and going to the countryside is not unique to China. For example, in the early 1950s, the Soviet Union used the method of immigration to carry out a large-scale land reclamation campaign, mobilizing 270,000 urban educated youths to go to the countryside in two years. Another example is that in the 1960s, France also went to the mountains and went to the countryside. Some urban youths were dissatisfied with the status quo of life, and went to the Larzac Plateau in the south of the French Central Mountains to herd sheep, imagining an idyllic life combined with farmers. However, as Mr. Pan Mingxiao, a French educated youth research scholar, said, at that time they "were all voluntary, and they had always had the right to choose their life path freely. combined” goals because they felt that the original ideal could not be achieved.

Psychology professor Shen Zhirui said: If we study group psychology, we will understand that every civilized society should provide everyone with free and sufficient space for development, so that everyone has equal rights to survival, migration and the pursuit of happiness. . The main culprit of the Going to the Countryside Movement is to deprive the majority of educated youth groups of their natural human rights to make a living, choose a job, and move freely. The most fundamental order to bring order to the movement of going to the mountains and going to the countryside is to return the freedom of earning a living, choosing a job, and moving to the educated youth group.

It is true that a few of us went to the countryside voluntarily, but the vast majority were either brainwashed or coerced into that movement due to strong political pressure. Although the pressure of urban employment was eased at that time, and the purpose of ending the Red Guard movement was achieved by this, but in order to realize utopian fantasy, Lao Mao did not follow economic laws to govern the country. Steelmaking is forced like that, while the youth of tens of millions of young people is wasted, and countless families are torn apart. They will go against the wishes of the people and sacrifice the well-being of the people and the future of the country.

Shen Zhirui said: I have also been to the countryside, and it was only after I went to the countryside that I realized that the educated youth group is not the only one deprived of freedom. Working in extreme poverty and lacking food and clothing, not only cannot make a living freely, choose a job freely, and move freely, but even going out to flee famine is illegal and will be arrested as a "fugitive". Chinese peasants are a group of untouchables who have long been deprived of personal freedom. It is no wonder that the "bad elements" found out in previous political campaigns were either imprisoned or demoted to rural areas as farmers as punishment.

Hong Wenxuan said, just as Mr. Yi Zhongtian said, "His biggest mistake was not carrying out the Cultural Revolution in his later years. The obvious harm of the Cultural Revolution concealed another unprecedented catastrophe. Deprived all the people of the right to live freely; and then used the "urban and rural household registration system" to deprive the whole people of the right to move freely." The Cultural Revolution intensified the "shackle system for the whole people", but some educated youths did not realize that the anti-humanity and anti-civilization movement was autocratic The evil of the system; not realizing that it is the authoritarian system that has caused a series of political and economic "mistakes", and these "mistakes" have led to the movement of going to the mountains and going to the countryside at the expense of a generation of educated youth.

At this time, Professor Hong Wenxuan's cell phone rang. After answering a voice chat call, he said to Professor Shen Zhirui, "It's Qin Xiling's call. He wants to invite you and me to dinner tonight."

Professor Shen Zhirui smiled and said to the young female students: "Qin Xiling is Professor Hong Wenxuan's most proud student. Doctor of Medicine from the School of Humanities. It should be said that they are also Wanru's university alumni."

Wanru said happily: "Ah, they are also in Hong Kong? When we were in college, we were good friends. There is also an alumni named Nanyang Sheng. I wonder how he is doing?"