Origins
After the People's Republic of China was established, in order to resolve employment problems in the cities, starting in the 1950s youth from urban areas were organized to move to the rural countryside, especially in remote towns to establish farms. As early as 1953, the People's Daily published the editorial "Organize school graduates to participate in agricultural production labor". In 1955, Mao Zedong asserted that "the countryside is a vast expanse of heaven and earth where we can flourish", which would become the slogan for the Down to the Countryside Movement. Beginning in this year, the Communist Youth League organized farming, and encouraged the youth to cultivate the land. From 1962, it was suggested that the Down to the Countryside Movement be nationally organized, and in 1964 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China established an oversight group.
In 1966, under the influence of the Cultural Revolution, university entrance examinations were suspended and until 1968, many students were unable to receive admittance into university or become employed. Additionally, the chaos surrounding the Revolution from 1966 to 1968 caused the Communist Party to realize that a way was needed to assign the youth to working positions, to avoid losing control of the situation. On December 22, 1968, Chairman Mao directed the People's Daily to publish a piece entitled "We too have two hands, let us not laze about in the city", which quoted Mao as saying "The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty." In 1969 many youth were rusticated. Middle school students were organized and assigned on a national level to the countryside. In 1971, numerous problems with the movement began to come to light, at the same time as the Communist Party allocated jobs to the youth who were returning from the country. However, the majority of these re-urbanized youth had taken advantage of personal relations to leave the countryside. Those directed to deal with the "Project 571" coup denounced the entire movement as being disguised labor reform. In 1976, even Mao realized the severity of the rustication movement and decided to reexamine the issue. But in the meantime, over a million youth continued to be rusticated every year.
Read more about this topic: Sent-down Youth
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