Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 18:14:21 -0700
From: Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Subject:  Blood guilt - China


Perhaps someone would please explain what is possibly
're-educational' about 'being sent to the countryside to work
alongside peasants'?  Also, what is 'rectification'?

I'm already aware of the extremely destructive and oppressive effects
of that 'work' in the countryside, and I regard 're-education' as a
euphemism, at best.  What I'd like to know is more about this
'ambiguity', i.e. what's the other side.  

What could be 're-educational' about being split from your family,
losing all jobs for which one had been previously trained and
experienced, and forcibly relocated with public humiliation and
repudiation?  [Not to mention 'due process'...]

Just wondering,
Lisa

>>> Chris, London <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>  2/17/96, 03:19am >>>
[snip] ...Mao was consistently against solving political 
contradictions with loss of life if possible. Rectification and 
re-education campaigns were preferred to purges, and instead of the
Gulag, being sent to the countryside to work alongside peasants.  
The ambiguous nature of whether this was really re-education or
punishment, concealed how very oppressive and destructive this was in
practice, with accounts of suicides and tragedies that continue to be
narrated.
***



     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------