Lower-middle Peasants Research Articles

Rely on the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants to Carry Through Teaching Reform

How can rural middle schools really serve the Three Great Revolutionary Movements? Over the past few years, the Party branch of Chi-pan Middle School aroused the entire teacher and student body to seriously study Chairman Mao's thought on education and to understand that in the countryside it is the broad masses of poor and lower-middle peasants who are the mainstay of the Three Great Revolutionary Movements and that if the classes are divorced from their wishes and needs, the policy that "education must serve proletarian politics and must be coordinated with labor production" cannot be carried out thoroughly and well. From this understanding, they regularly took the initiative in plunging into the communes and production brigades to listen to the opinions of the poor and lower-middle peasants, to unceasingly reform the old educational system, and to reform the old teaching policies and methods. The more work they did, the better it was.

Persist in Running Correspondence Education Well

Running correspondence education well for the educated young people who go down to the countryside is another new development that has emerged on the education battlefront in the Movement to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius. Several months of practice proves that running correspondence education well has far-reaching significance with respect to consolidating and developing the great results of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, being concerned about the maturing of educated young people, and diminishing the three great separations. Thus, ever since correspondence education was started, it has been deeply welcomed by the broad masses of educated young people and poor and lower-middle peasants, which fully demonstrates the powerful vitality of this new development.

This Commune has Carried Out the Popularization of Education

Chu-hsing Commune in Chin-shan hsien is located in a distant suburb of Shanghai. Before liberation, this was an out-of-the-way locality where culture and education were unusually backward. After liberation, although several primary schools were set up, there were still over 1,700 children of poor and lower-middle peasants in the whole commune to whom schooling was not made available because of the influence of the revisionist line in education. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution caused profound changes in the appearance of this commune. Under the guidance of chairman Mao's proletarian education line, the 18 production brigades in the whole commune all have schools, and every team is setting up primary school auxiliary junior middle school classes. All children of school age and young adults have entered school, popularizing the eight-year system of education.

A New Starting Point in the Continuation of Revolution

I am the child of a worker, and in the old society my ancestors were illiterate generation after generation. My father was a miner, and under the exploitation and oppression of the foreman, who was a Chinese traitor, the whole family led a life no better than that of draft animals. Following liberation, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party saved our working class and poor and lower-middle peasants from the sea of bitterness, and I and my six sisters went to school with our satchels. The poor and lower-middle peasants are now sending me to college. This is something I never dreamed of in the past.

Speech at Rally Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People"s Republic of China (October 1, 1969)

Abstract Comrades and Friends, Today is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the great People's Republic of China. At this time when the people throughout the country are joyously celebrating this glorious festive occasion, on behalf of our great leader Chairman Mao, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the Government of the People's Republic of China, I extend salute to the working class, the poor and lower-middle peasants, the Red Guards, the revolutionary cadres, and the revolutionary intellectuals of all nationalities of our country! Salute to the heroic Chinese People's Liberation Army! Salute to all those people and overseas Chinese who love our socialist motherland! Warm welcome and greetings to our comrades and friends coming from various countries of the world!

Attend College Well for the Revolution

I am a commune member of the Ch'iliying Commune. According to the needs of the revolution, the poor and lower-middle peasants recommended that I be sent to college. My mind was like a pot on the boil, and I couldn't calm down no matter how I tried. As the son of a poor peasant, I owe it entirely to Chairman Mao that today I have an opportunity to go to college!

China's Agriculture Once Again Achieves Overall Bumper Harvests On the Foundation Of Eight Successive Years Of Bumper Harvests

Abstract (NCNA December 30) Under Chairman Mao's great call to "unite to win still greater victories," the broad ranks of poor and lower-middle peasants, commune members, and revolutionary cadres of China study and apply Mao Tse-tung thought in a living way, conscientiously implement the various combat assignments put forward by the Ninth Party Congress, penetratingly unfold the mass movement of learning from Tachai in agriculture, and achieve overall bumper harvests in agricultural production once again this year after bumper harvests in the past eight years. Output of food grains per unit area and total output broke the historical record.

Rely on The Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants To Manage Rural Commerce Well

On January 18, 1969, this paper published an investigation report on the management of rural commerce by the poor and lower-middle peasants of An-chia-pao Commune. Recently, the Hopei Provincial Revolutionary Committee and the Chang-chia-k'ou District Revolutionary Committee organized an investigation group to go to An-chia-pao to summarize their experience. Now we present this summary for purposes of comparison, hoping that all localities will seriously summarize experience and advance the transformation of rural commerce.

The "Millstone" Shoes

Hsiao Ping-ch'uan is the deputy director of the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants Cooperative in Hsiang-yuan hsien, a member of the Party branch committee in the Chi-chia-ling Production Brigade, and the deputy director of the production brigade in charge of animal husbandry. Now forty-one years old, he is a veteran shepherd. He usually likes to wear a pair of patched nailed shoes. He still treasures two pairs of millstone shoes. Three soles are nailed to the bottom and the sides are braced with five patches. They are five times heavier than ordinary shoes, and they are all the heavier when wet with rain, and mud sticks to their soles. His two pairs of millstone have a twenty-year history. Though they are ungainly, they are called the shoes of glory by members of the production brigade. Now, let us tell the story of the shoes of glory.

Forward

Abstract In the course of the great socialist education campaign, our Southeast Chin District consciously mobilized youth to inquire into the family histories of the poor and lower-middle peasants and organized the masses to discuss and write family histories so as to raise the class consciousness of youth, enable them to remember bitterness and think of sweetness, and further the goal of their revolutionization. T'ai-hang jen-chia is an anthology of family histories of the poor and lower-middle peasants which have been selected from more than 70,000 family histories. It is an indictment against the old society and also a eulogy to the new society. It is vital material for class education of the young and a legacy for the education of our offspring.

A Network for Popularizing Socialist Education

In Nanan hsien, schools are run in front of the doors of the poor and lower-middle peasants, in the remote mountain areas, and on the off-shore islands, as demanded by the poor and lower-middle peasants. This has changed the former irrational distribution of schools. Besides, sparetime schools and political evening schools of various types have been set up throughout this hsien by such means as are appropriate to the local conditions. In this way, popular education for school-age children and teenagers is basically achieved and 80 percent of the adult commune members can also take part in the study. Experience of this hsien shows that it is entirely possible to popularize socialist education so long as we conscientiously carry out Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive" and fully arouse the masses.

Persist in Running Schools with Diligence and Frugality to Serve Proletarian Politics

This article introduces a rural primary school which advances in the orientation pointed out in the "May 7 Directive." This school adheres to the policy of self-reliance and hard struggle and runs itself with diligence and frugality. It persists in taking study as its main task and learning other things at the same time and has the poor and lower-middle peasants take part in its management. Citing living facts, the article shows educational revolution definitely can succeed if Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive" is put into practice.

Raise Cotton Production to a Higher Level Through Self-Reliance and Hard Struggle

Abstract (NCNA, March 6). Under the guidance of Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line, China's cotton output is excellent. Especially since the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, cotton output has increased markedly and broken the records year after year. The National Conference on Cotton Production recently convened in Peking by the State Council summed up and exchanged the advanced experiences gained during the sharp increases in cotton output and the high yields of both cotton and food grains in cotton-producing areas. The conference called on the poor and lower-middle peasants, other commune members, and revolutionary cadres in the cotton-producing areas to model themselves after the nationally known Tachai Production Brigade by self-reliance and hard work. Everyone was urged to seriously and thoroughly implement Chairman Mao's principle of"taking food grains as the key link to ensure all-round development," to go all out and advance

Wholeheartedly Complete "Reeducation" Work

How is it that the brilliant directive of our great leader, Chairman Mao, that "intellectual youths be sent down to the countryside to receive reeducation from the poor and lower-middle peasants" has been realized completely throughout an entire hsien? The experience of Ch'ang-ling hsien in Kirin Province was that the leadership personally took a hand in relying on the poor and lower-middle peasants, in wholeheartedly doing the work, and in applying Mao Tsetung thought to the elevation of the level of reeducation.

The Farther One Goes on the Great Road of the "May 7 Directive," The Vaster it Becomes

Our great leader, Chairman Mao, has pointed out: "Education must serve proletarian politics and must be united with productive labor." The revolutionary committee of the First Middle School, with the assistance of a school-based workers' propaganda team, correctly and thoroughly carried out Chairman Mao's policy for proletarian educational revolution. By initiating revolutionary criticism in depth, by unswervingly taking the road of the "May 7 Directive," and by self-reliance and hard struggle, they have a base within the school for the study of industry and agriculture. At the same time, they have linked factory and school, and brigade and school, and have initiated organized, planned activities for studying industry and agriculture, thus achieving the three-in-one combination of teaching, productive labor, and scientific research, and completely changing the "three separations" situation of former schools. Having been reeducated by the workers and the poor and lower-middle peasants, and having been steeled to hardship in the Three Great Revolutionary Movements, the spiritual countenance of most of the teachers and students has profoundly changed, and their world view has been rapidly transformed. The whole school presents an appearance as lively and as fresh as early morning air.

Carry Out Class Struggle in the Rural Economy

Abstract The present situation in the countryside is excellent. Guided by Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, a new high tide in socialist revolution and socialist construction is now rising in the wake of the penetrating development of struggle-criticism-transformation. However, it should also be noted that in a few communes, brigades, and market towns and in some economic sectors the struggle between the two roads is still very acute, and the attacks launched by the capitalist forces against socialism are still very savage. The broad masses of the poor and lower-middle peasants and the revolutionary cadres are most indignant over the attacks launched by the class enemies. The New Year's Day editorial of the two newspapers [Jen-min jih-pao, Kuang-ming jih-pao?] and one magazine [Hung Ch'i?] points out that it is necessary "to consolidate and develop the economic foundation of socialism in the economic sphere and to hit methodically at bourgeois corruption and sabotage." Some places have mobilized or are in the course of actively mobilizing the masses to rally their forces and to selectively expose and wage struggle in a well-led manner. They have achieved excellent results and won the support of the broad masses. However, there are also a few comrades who do not pay sufficient attention to class struggle in the rural economy. They entertain certain muddled ideas, and they even turn a blind eye to things and are in a state of lethargy.

Four New Kinds of Schools

Following Chairman Mao's great strategic policy and great directive for the educational revolution to "prepare for war, prepare for natural calamities, and serve the people," all the hsien (shih) of Kwangtung Province, during the high tide of socialist revolution and socialist construction, exhibited a revolutionary spirit of self-reliance; they established 298 short-term industrial, agricultural, health, and normal schools, which break down into 59 industrial schools, 60 agricultural schools, 72 health schools, and 107 normal schools. More than 26,000 students were selected from among workers with practical experience, poor and lower-middle peasants, and teachers in active service.

The Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants Have Acquired Socialist Culture

The poor and lower-middle peasants of this production brigade, under the leadership of the Party branch, have gradually become able to grasp socialist culture by employing many different forms of school operation. Under the guidance of Chairman Mao's thought on educational revolution, they have established through their own efforts brigade primary schools, village schools, and people's schools, so that those youths who have practical hardships are still guaranteed an education. In this way the great majority of the poor and lower-middle peasants and their sons and daughters are able to study culture, thus promoting, through active learning and usage, the extensive development of the mass movement that Chairman Mao has prescribed. This is a most welcome new situation that has emerged from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

A Primary School Run by the People Under the Control of the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants

A Primary School Run by the People Under the Control of the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants

The Revolution in Rural Education Must be Dependent Upon the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants

The Revolution in Rural Education Must be Dependent Upon the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants