Silent community

Author: Deng Peng, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Because of my research on the history of the "Up to the Countryside Movement," I have made many friends among the "sent-down youth" over the years. Lu Xiaorong and Deng Peng, the two members of the editorial board of The Silent Community, though we met relatively late, were like old friends at first sight. This is more than just fate; it is rather a convergence of ideas. From 1962, when the state formally included the movement of urban intellectuals to the countryside in the national plan, to 1979, when the movement was nearing its end, a total of 17.76 million intellectuals participated in the movement over 17 years, nearly 1.3 million of whom went to the countryside before the "Cultural Revolution." These 1.3 million are the true "old sent-down youth." In 1964-1965, over 20,000 Chongqing intellectuals settled in the Daba Mountains in northeastern Sichuan, and Deng Peng and Lu Xiaorong were among them. In the blink of an eye, four decades have passed, and the Daba Mountain intellectuals are no longer young, but their strong sense of historical responsibility remains as it was back then. After long preparation and repeated revisions, they have finally completed a 500,000-word collective memoir titled The Silent Community. Reading this hefty manuscript kept me up at night; the protagonists' moved me to tears. Since the 1980s, there have been over a hundred publications on the theme of sent-down youth, many of which were written by Sichuan sent-down youth. The Sent-down Youth Archives, The Years of Sent-down Youth, Red Earth, Hot Blood, Stagnation and Ascent—The Life Paths of Fifty-five Sent-down Youth, Anzhi's The Turmoil of Sent-down Youth, Deng Xian's The Chinese Sent-down Youth Dream, Huo Mu and Dreams—A 25-Year History of Chinese Sent-down Youth, and Fei Sheng's Hot Blood, Cold Tears—The Sent-down Youth Movement in the 20th Century are all well-known works. It should also be mentioned that Dai Sijie's novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress has brought the topic of sent-down youth to a broader audience with its French literary award. However, none of the authors mentioned above were sent to the countryside before the "Cultural Revolution," and collective memoirs rarely include works by old sent-down youth, which is undoubtedly a major shortcoming in the study of sent-down youth. The Silent Community collects nearly 100 articles by Chongqing sent-down youth from the Daba Mountains, making it the largest-scale collective memoir of old sent-down youth. Its content is rich, emotions sincere, details vivid, perspective broad, and style straightforward, standing out as a unique work in the literature on the movement of sent-down youth. For this reason, its significance in the study of the history of Chinese sent-down youth is self-evident. Regarding issues such as the political education in schools at the time, the implementation of the "class line," the policies and methods of organizing the movement, the resettlement of sent-down youth, and the return of sent-down youth to the cities in the early years of the "Cultural Revolution," as well as the motivations and processes of rebellion, the relevant publications to date have either only touched upon them superficially or provided inadequate accounts. The facts recorded in The Silent Community have made significant contributions to reconstructing the history of the movement before the "Cultural Revolution" and have provided valuable primary materials for future academic research. Works of different forms serve different social functions and meet the increasingly diverse needs of readers. But personally, I still value works that are close to history. Dai Sijie's novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which follows the emotional entanglement between two sent-down youth and a rural tailor, showcases the conflict between urban and rural cultures, as well as between Western and Eastern civilizations, and holds its own value. However, literature can "create," and when the author invents a "bright" ending where the tailor escapes the countryside under the influence of Balzac's novels to seek a new life in the city, it becomes somewhat far-fetched. In the broader context of the time, not to mention hundreds of millions of farmers being firmly bound to the land of the people's communes through tangible and intangible shackles, even tens of millions of sent-down youth had no freedom to choose their own fate. That was an era of fervent under the slogans of "class struggle" and "dictatorship of the proletariat," and anyone who confronted that history found it hard to escape its heavy shadow. In the early 1960s, when the movement of sent-down youth first gained momentum, it coincided with the raising of the banner of "class struggle." After the Eighth Plenum of the 10th Central Committee in 1962 proposed that class, class contradictions, and class struggle still existed in the socialist stage, and that there was a danger of capitalist restoration, the situation of students from "bad" backgrounds deteriorated significantly. Decadent bloodline theory, once fused with the theory of class struggle, inevitably created different hierarchies among the youth. Thus, students from "bad" backgrounds, no matter how excellent their academic performance or how virtuous their conduct, had only one option: failing the college entrance exams. As the paths for these young people's education and employment narrowed, another "bright road" was said to be available to them—a revolutionizing path, that is, the nationwide movement of sent-down youth. It was precisely against this backdrop that these young people formed the main force of the movement before the "Cultural Revolution." Among the 100,000 Shanghai sent-down youth who went to Xinjiang to support the frontier, as many as 70% were children of families labeled as "capitalist" or "rightists." In Changsha, Hunan, a similarly high proportion of "bad" backgrounders were among the sent-down youth. In large cities like Beijing and Chongqing, the situation was largely the same. The intellectual who was crushed, Yu Luoke, had excellent results in several college entrance exams but was rejected solely because of his background. He later worked on a suburban Beijing farm and served as a temporary teacher, but no matter how hard he tried, the discrimination rooted in his background followed him like a shadow. For this reason, he wrote the stirring On Birth to openly challenge the invincible bloodline theory and sacrificed his young life to awaken the "revolutionary masses" who had lost their way. Most of the authors of The Silent Community were victims of the oppressive power of bloodline theory at the time. Due to their "bad" family backgrounds, they were labeled as outcasts in politics as early as their student days and bore the suffering of their parents and children on their frail shoulders. Many of them were excellent students, yet their rights to higher education, employment, and even relocation were prematurely stripped away. In many articles in this book, the authors recall the helplessness of choosing the path of sent-down youth and the hardships they faced in the countryside, revealing the damage the theory of class struggle had inflicted on the Chinese nation through their and their families' unfortunate experiences. When writing The History of Chinese Sent-down Youth—The Great Tide, I focused on exploring the phenomenon of bloodline theory. Among the many innocent victims who suffered from bloodline theory, sent-down youth were only a small part. In rural areas alone, there were as many as tens of millions of children from the "black five categories," and their tragic fate was even worse than that of the sent-down youth. Yet to this day, people's understanding of this painful history remains very limited, and few historians are concerned with the fate of these vulnerable individuals. But a single leaf can reveal the autumn, and a spot can reveal the whole leopard. I am grateful to the authors of The Silent Community for their heavy memories, which have left new testimonies for history. As Deng Peng, the editor-in-chief, states in the Preface: "The articles in The Silent Community are faithful reflections of the life experiences of old sent-down youth. They are not strictly a social history, nor are they purely literary works, but we can predict: these testimonial writings will become invaluable treasures for social history and literary creation." A few years ago, an archaeologist once told me, "You see, you sent-down youth never forget the past and have written so much about the movement to the countryside in recent years. Look at us: we were persecuted in university, sent to the countryside for 'reform,' then to the 'May Seventh Workshops,' and wore the hat of the 'stinking ninth category' for years. But when we look back, we haven’t left much memory for history." He sighed and said, "What a shame." Indeed, among the various groups who lived through that era, only the sent-down youth have not abandoned their historical responsibility. The books about sent-down youth have been long-lasting, ranging from memoirs to oral histories, from novels to histories, in diverse forms that complement each other. In China, this is almost a miracle. The miracle lies not only in its quantity but also in its process—that is, the gradual overthrow of all authoritative pronouncements on the movement to the countryside through grassroots efforts, and the correction, supplementation, and perfection of this important chapter in the history of the People's Republic of China. The participation of many sent-down youth in the historical memory is a very meaningful endeavor. It has brought literature and history, which were once controlled by a few, out of the ivory tower to get closer to the people, grasp the pulse of the times, and revitalize themselves. The publication of The Silent Community is a clear example. This book includes chapters such as The Years of Pursuing Dreams, Doubts and Reflections, The Path of Cultivation, Winding Mountain Roads, Ties to the Daba Mountains, Songs of the Forest Farm, and The Turbulent Years.