Thank you for your patience while we retrieve your images.

Created 1-Jun-08
Modified 24-Jul-08
23 photos
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
Ithaca, NY
Leaders at Beijing University engaged in the anti-Lin anti-Kong debateTibetan minority students at Fudan University engaged in the same debateRevolutionary teachers and students 革命师生 producing anti-Lin anti-Kong posters in Zhujiang, GuangdongInstruction of  future cadres 干训班 at the Central Minority Institute 中央民族学院 in BeijingMarxist education for workers, peasants, soldiers and faculty at Jilin University's Physics dept.Workers, peasants and soldiers being instructed by faculty in the electrical eng. dept. of Tongji U.A faculty member of Huazhong Agricultural College instructing  lower peasants (Hubei, Xinzhou)Zhang Tiesheng 张铁生 in his classroom at the Veterinary Dept. of the Liaoning Agricultural CollegeWorkers, peasants and soldiers from 12 minorities studying together at Xinjiang University 新疆大学Students of the Wa minority 佤族 at the Minority Studies College in Kunming, YunnanCalculus class for students and teachers at the 4th Middle School, Mianzhu city (Liaoning province)Students of the 41st Middle School in Harbin visiting a factory as part of their curriculumLower and middle peasants being instructed in administration (Wei county, Hebei province)Urban university students and rural middle school teachers together tackling educational reformFemale Red Guard campaigning against Kongzi and Mengzi's theory of the "born genius" 天才论 (Hangzhou)Young Red Soldier Huang Shuai 红小兵黄帅 at the 1st elementary school in Beijing's Zhongguancun districtTraining of "barefoot doctors" 赤脚医生 at Jiangxi's Jiujiang Public Hygiene College 九江卫生学校Conducting class on boats for the sons and daughters of fishermen's families on Hainan IslandInstructing pastoral farmers on issues of sheep  raising in Gansu ProvinceSecond-year high school students reading their essays to members of a  commune in Dayi, Sichuan