Strive to Run "July 21" Workers' Universities Well : Chinese Communist Party Committee,Shanghai Municipal No. 1 Machine and Electrical Industry Bureau

More than six years have passed since the publication of Chairman Mao's brilliant "July 21" Directive. Chairman Mao stated: "It is still necessary to have universities; here I refer mainly to colleges of science and engineering. However, it is essential to shorten the length of schooling, revolutionize education, put proletarian politics in command, and take the road of the Shanghai Machine-Tool Plant in training technicians from among the workers. Students should be selected from among workers and peasants who have practical experience, and they should return to production after a few years of study." Chairman Mao's important directive addresses itself not only to the field of education but also to our socialist industrial enterprises and the working class. Guided by Chairman Mao's directive, school education has undergone a profound change during these six years, and factory-run education has developed greatly. The more we travel along the "July 21" road, the more it broadens.     

Our Creed (December 1926)

Chairman Mao's great directive on following the road of the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant in training technological personnel from among the workers has pointed out the major direction for educational revolution in the universities. As to how science and engineering colleges and liberal arts colleges should be run, there are many specific problems that must be solved. Herewith are printed the articles written by the Workers' and Liberation Army's Mao Tse-tung Thought Propaganda Teams of several universities. It is hoped that the broad worker, peasant, and soldier masses, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres will fully express their views and hold extensive discussions.     

Editorial Afterword

This number is a special issue on the proletarian educational revolution. July 21, 1970 was the second anniversary of the issuance of our great leader, Chairman Mao's, brilliant directive "Take the road of the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant in selecting technicians from among the workers." Over the past two years, guided by Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, the proletarian educational revolution has made great progress, and during the struggle-criticism-transformation revolutionary mass movement many progressive signs have appeared. We have compiled this special issue, which sums up experience and introduces data on models, as a commemorative.     

State Council Resolutions on Further Strengthening Rural Education

Seven years ago, our great leader Chairman Mao personally approved of the investigation report entitled "The Road of Training Technicians as Seen from the Shanghai Machine-Tool Plant" and issued the brilliant "July 21 Directive." Chairman Mao pointed out: "It is still necessary to have universities; here I refer mainly to colleges of science and engineering. However, it is essential to shorten the length of schooling, revolutionize education, put proletarian politics in command, and take the road of the Shanghai Machine-Tool Plant in training technicians from among the workers. Students should be selected from among the workers and peasants having practical experience, and they should return to production after a few years of study."     

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

It is worthwhile that we pay a great deal of attention to the experience the Shuiyuan Commune in Yingkow County had in carrying out the revolution in education. Chairman Mao points out: "In the countryside, poor and lower-middle peasants should manage our schools, because they are the most reliable ally of the working class." In action, the comrades at the Shuiyuan Commune in Yingkow County have already implemented this great instruction of Chairman Mao, by having poor and lower-middle peasants, as leaders, work with the revolutionary teachers and students to run the schools and to reform the educational system. There are some people who look at the revolution in education as something quite difficult to accomplish. The truth is, all we need do is follow Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line — firmly and unwaveringly, seriously but not perfunctorily — as well as to be good in summarizing experiences and lessons. Before too long, there will be noticeable results. Hasn't the outlook of the Shuiyuan Commune, which irrevocably carried out Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary thinking on education, changed completely in just a little over six months' time?     

The Way to Train Engineering and Technical Personnel as Viewed From the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant

We recommend the following investigation report to all proletarian revolutionary comrades, broad masses of workers, poor and lower-middle peasants, student youths, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres in the nation. This report vividly describes how the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has produced a great change in the ranks of engineering and technical personnel and has demonstrated the great vitality of new socialist ideas. It is entitled "The Way to Train Engineering and Technical Personnel as Viewed from the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant," but it also points out the revolutionary direction of school education.     

Quotations from Chairman Mao

"It is still necessary to have universities; here I refer mainly to colleges of science and engineering. However, it is essential to shorten the length of schooling, to revolutionize education, to put proletarian politics in command, and to take the road of the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant in training technicians from among the workers. Students should be selected from among workers and peasants with practical experience, and they should return to production after a few years' study."     

Guest Editors' Introduction : Context and History of the Rise of Environmental Education in China and the "Green Schools"

At present, people throughout our country are conscientiously studying and implementing a series of important directives from Chairman Mao regarding the problem of theory and other issues. The study serves as a further impetus to all our undertakings. As with everything else in the country, an excellent situation has developed on the education front. From the "July 21" Workers' University in Shanghai to Ch'ao-yang Agricultural Institute in Liaoning Province, from the Communist Labor University in Kiangsi to schools in Tachai, both north and south of the Yangtze River, and both within and beyond the Great Wall, newborn things of the revolution in education are emerging everywhere like fresh flowers blooming one after another. Through various experimentation and tests, a brand-new system of proletarian education is on the way to being fully established and solidified. It was on July 27, 1968, that workers' and soldiers' Mao Tse-tung Thought propaganda teams began to move into educational institutes. Since then, Peking and Tsinghua universities, guided by Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, have vigorously forged ahead with the revolution in education. On their campuses, the broad masses of workerpeasant-soldier students are rapidly growing up and the ranks of intellectuals are undergoing a profound change.     

Current Trends in the Reform of Higher Education in Communist China

After the Chinese Communists launched their "Cultural Revolution," most of the "academic authorities," specialists, and professors in institutions of higher learning were criticized and severely condemned in struggle campaigns; the equipment, instruments, and facilities of these schools were sacrificed in armed struggles, the old educational system was destroyed, and the old teaching materials were denounced. For the last three years, therefore, higher education in Communist China has remained in a vacuum. It was not until the second half of 1968, when the Chinese Communist Party announced the policy that "the reform of science and engineering education must follow the road of the Shanghai Machine Tool Plant" and three other pilot programs, that a general outlook for the reform of higher education emerged.     

Exercise Effective Leadership in the Study of Theory: The Main Branch CCP Committee of the Nan-k'ai District "May 7" Cadre School,Tientsin Municipality

In line with Chairman Mao's directive to "Study conscientiously; become expert in Marxism," "May 7" cadre schools should emphasize and strengthen the study of theory. The fundamental substance of cadre schools lies in having students combine rectification work to criticize revisionism with a study of the works of Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao.     

Run Spare-Time Education Well According to Chairman Mao's Directive

The following article presents a typical experience in upholding and developing rural spare-time education in accordance with Chairman Mao's proletarian educational line over the past decade and more. Persisting in the correct direction of making politics lead culture, they used a variety of forms of running schools that are suited to the peasants, compiling teaching materials fitting in with local affairs, training teachers, and solving many important problems besetting the development of the rural spare-time education. Five texts of teaching material on local affairs are selected and appended to this article for reference purposes.     

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.     

Editor's Introduction

In the clamor surrounding the "return to class and make revolution" movement that has begun in Peking universities and in primary middle schools, the revolutionary students and teachers of Stone-view Mountain Middle School have, with the aid and support of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Military Advisory Group, raised high the great red flag of the thought of Mao Tse-tung, conscientiously studied Chairman Mao's writings, resolutely and thoroughly carried out the latest instructions of Chairman Mao relative to the education revolution, and, in the midst of the education revolution, have taken a joyous step forward.     

Roundup of the Debates over Beijing University's Reform of Its Personnel System

An upsurge of private education has appeared in all parts of China in recent years. It has penetrated every realm and level of education. Private education has now spread from preschool to higher education, regular to vocational/technical education, full-time to spare-time education, and degree to non-degree education. At the end of 1990, there were over 1,000 full-time private schools of different levels registered at educational administrations of relevant levels. In the past two years or more, in particular, the number of these schools has tended to grow rapidly. In the Wenzhou region, where privately run education has had relatively fast development, private senior high schools enroll 10 percent of all senior high school students. Private education at the preschool level has developed even faster. Eighty-four percent of kindergarten children are in private kindergartens. It has been but a short time since the reappearance of private schools in China after a lapse of several decades. There are still many questions that we need to explore and understand.     

On the Inevitability of the Two-Track Educational System (1979)

… Soon after the founding of the People's Republic, we carried out a step-by-step and judicious reform of the old schools, with emphasis on education serving production and construction, as well as on opening the doors of education to workers and peasants. After 1952, colleges and departments at the tertiary level were reorganized and teaching reformed at all school levels in line with the needs of national construction. After 1957, while summing up the experience and lessons of the First Five-Year Plan and working out a path for China's economic construction, the party's Central Committee and Comrade Mao Zedong, in their concern for the problems of education, proposed a plan for education during the socialist era and conducted a number of reforms of the educational system and structure, as well as experiments to explore new paths for developing education. In September 1958, the party Central Committee and the State Council pointed out in their "Directive Concerning Education Work" that, under the unified objective of cultivating educated working people with socialist awareness, three major categories of schools would exist throughout the country, i.e., full-time schools, part-work/part-study schools, and various types of spare-time schools. The directive emphasized that "rapid universalization of education requires the development of large numbers of spare-time and part-work/part-study schools, since such schools are able to provide all or most of their funding, require little or no assistance from the government, and can obtain teaching staff according to the principle of ‘let those who can, teach.’" In line with this directive, many agricultural secondary schools and part-work/part-study schools were set up throughout the country after 1958. Thus, two educational systems actually emerged in China: the full-time schools, and the part-work/part-study or part-agriculture/part-study schools. The implementation of these two educational systems resulted in greater variety in the types of schools, rapid development of schools at all levels and of all categories, and a new situation in education as a whole.     

Bear in Mind the Party's Basic Line

The No. 2 Middle School of Shanghai Municipality was called Wu-pen Girl's Middle School before liberation. It is an old school with a history of more than seventy years. For seventeen years after liberation, it was under the rule of the revisionist line in education. Though it was run under the signboard of socialism, it pursued the same old road of "placing intellectual cultivation ahead of everything else" and "putting marks in command of study." The torrent of the Cultural Revolution purged the school of its filth and garbage and rekindled this old institution with revolutionary vitality. Inspired by Chairman Mao's great call that "there must be a revolution in education," the whole school has organized in recent years some 200 groups to study the works of Marxism-Leninism and Chairman Mao. Over 1,600 persons have taken part, accounting for more than 70 percent of the total number in the school. Teachers, students, and staff members have extensively participated in the class struggle in real life. During the Campaign to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius and the movement to study the theory of proletarian dictatorship, they went to factories and the countryside to learn from the worker-peasant masses. Altogether they visited more than 180 industrial and agricultural units. In the sphere of teaching, they are traveling along an everwidening road of running the school with open doors. With continuously growing enthusiasm, the students study science and culture for the cause of revolution, and their ability to analyze and solve problems has been constantly enhanced. Mass sports activities have been vigorously unfolded in the school. Nineteen of our students were admitted to the Fifth Shanghai Municipal Games and two went on to enter the national games.     

Persist in the Correct Line of Integrating Youth with Workers and Peasants: A Study of "The Orientation of the Youth Movement"

In his brilliant article "The Orientation of the Youth Movement," our great leader Chairman Mao analyzed the task, object, and impetus of the revolution in China. Based on the historical experience of China's revolution, he brought out in a penetrating way the significance of having revolutionary youth integrate themselves with the worker-peasant masses and formulated a Marxist-Leninist line for youth work. Guided by this line, the broad masses of young people in our country over the past decades have persisted in proceeding along the road of integrating themselves with workers and peasants and have made positive contributions to the revolution. We must continuously adhere to this correct line set forth by Chairman Mao.     

Completely Carry Out Our Great Leader Chairman Mao's Latest Instruction,and Firmly Execute the Battle Order Issued by the Proletarian Headquarters

Under the guidance of the extremely important recent instructions of our great leader Chairman Mao, a large number of workers' Mao Tsetung's thought propaganda teams are rapidly entering colleges and universities and other units which have failed to conduct a successful struggle-criticism-transformation campaign. Thus, a high tide in the struggle-criticism-transformation campaign, under the leadership of the working class and participated in by millions of revolutionary people, is being fiercely launched with a force strong enough to overthrow mountains and upset seas. After they have studied Chairman Mao's latest instructions and Comrade Yao Wen-yuan's important article, "The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything," the broad masses of workers across the nation courageously and without restraint say: "Whenever Chairman Mao waves his hand, we march forward! Under the leadership of the proletarian headquarters, with Chairman Mao as its commander and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao as its deputy commander, we must study better and make living use of Mao Tsetung's thought. The working class should always raise its political consciousness in the course of struggle, unite with the broad masses of revolutionary people of all levels to march forward along Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary path, persist in carrying out the great historical mission of a struggle-criticism-transformation campaign, and win a complete victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!"     

Editor's Introduction

Resolutely carrying out Chairman Mao's instructions on the proletarian revolution in education, the poor and lower-middle peasants of the Layaotzu, Sungshukou, and Waisantaokou production brigades of the Aihui people's commune in Aihui County (Heilungkiang Province) entered the schools in November last year, seizing back the power in education in rural areas and smashing complete domination of the schools by bourgeois intellectuals. The poor and lower-middle peasants are masters of culture; they have become the main force in the proletarian revolution in education in the rural areas. They have carried out the recent instruction issued by our great leader Chairman Mao: "In the countryside, schools and colleges should be managed by the poor and lower-middle peasants - the most reliable ally of the working class."     

Enlivening Studies and Accentuating Student Initiative

Since the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, profound changes have taken place in Tsinghua University under the guidance of Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line. The Communist Party has led in reforming the old educational system, teaching principles and methods. A new scholastic pattern synthesizing teaching, research, and productive labor has emerged. Besides running various kinds of factories of its own, the university has lined up a number outside, making it possible for schooling to be closely integrated with productive labor and social practice and for intellectuals to integrate themselves with the worker and peasant masses, thereby changing the situation in the old schools in which education was divorced from proletarian politics, the masses and productive labor. These reforms have effectively guaranteed the implementation of the educational policy laid down by Chairman Mao that "education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labor."