This particular set of Xinhua photographs on educational reform and what is called "rustication" in the academic literature is a walk-through through various aspects of the later stages of Mao's reeducation program. This program ordained for example that "After graduation from senior middle school, one should first perform some practical work...After performing a few years of work in this way, two more years of study will be sufficient." (Mao Zedong, Dec. 1965*). Exactly three years later, Mao issued a directive arguing that "It is necessary for educated youth to go to the countryside to be reeducated by the poor and lower-middle peasants." (Mao Zedong, Dec. 22, 1968**)
This gallery vividly demonstrates not only middle school children visiting factories, but also how minorities (the Wa & Tibetans) and the underprivileged (children of fishermen's families) were part and parcel of a movement which Suzanne Pepper equates with "the culmination of class struggle".
Note the official photographs of Huang Shuai 黄帅 and Zhang Tiesheng 张铁生 being part of this series.
* Pepper, Suzanne (1996): Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th Century China; Cambridge UP, p.384.
** Pan Yihong (2002): Tempered in the Revolutionary Furnace - China's Youth in the Rustication Movement; Lexington, p.48.
Scanned on the Epson 4990, individually processed in Photoshop.
Thomas H. Hahn
© Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images