Some Inspiration from Running of a Factory by a School

At the end of 1967 some revolutionary teachers and students of the chemistry department of Chengchow University earnestly studied Chairman Mao's directive: "This is also true with students, who must make study their principal pursuit and study other things concurrently. That is, they should study not only liberal arts but also learn from workers, peasants, and soldiers and criticize the bourgeoisie." They severely criticized Liu Shao-ch'i's counterrevolutionary revisionist educational line. With the assistance of workers and masters, and through arduous endeavor, they succeeded in constructing the "May 7" Chemical Laboratory. Workers, teachers, and students collaborated in studying and researching side by side, thus successfully manufacturing an important new product, which was dedicated to the Ninth Congress.     

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.     

Strengthen the Leadership of the Party,Seriously Work for the Successful Enrollment of Students in Universities

In accordance with Chairman Mao's teaching, "It is imperative to select students from among workers and peasants with practical experience," in work to enroll students for universities in the autumn of 1971, our hsien relied on the broad masses of workers and peasants and firmly adhered to the principle of "registration on a voluntary basis, recommendation by the masses, approval by the leadership, and review by the school," thus satisfactorily accomplishing the task and basically giving satisfaction to the applicants, the masses, the leadership, and the schools. All were unanimously of the opinion that this student recruitment campaign had propagated and carried out to the letter Chairman Mao's revolutionary line in education, firmly adhered to the mass line, and embodied the class line of the Party.     

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.     

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!"     

Bring the Agricultural University Down to The Countryside

In accordance with Chairman Mao's teaching that "there must be a revolution in education" and under the impetus of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, at the end of 1971, our institute ran the south Shensi teaching base in an old temple in Lung-kang-ssu, Nan-cheng hsien, setting up the field of specialization in agricultural crops. In the spring of 1972, we started taking in worker-peasant-soldier students from the various hsien of south Shensi. For the last two years, with the Party's basic line as a platform, the base's Party organization has plunged into launching the rectification movement to criticize Lin Piao, angrily criticizing the revisionist line in education being pushed by Liu Shao-ch'i and Lin Piao. Recently, it has also angrily criticized their advocacy of the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius and their criminal acts of promoting restoration and turning back the wheel of history. Thus, it has pushed the revolution in education to unceasing and intensive development. Under the enlightenment of Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive," the base's revolutionary teachers and students have struggled to make education serve proletarian politics. In coordination with production labor and the Three Great Revolutionary Movements, they have taken a joyful first step on the road to bringing the agricultural university down to the villages.     

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?     

Train Workers to Have Socialist Consciousness and Culture

This investigation report introduces a comprehensive middle-level technical school that, in compliance with Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive," has firmly grasped the central link between political thought and education, unified education and productive labor, unified teachers and students with workers and peasants, and unified theory and practice. It has attained preliminary revolutionary experience in dealing with student enrollment, teaching materials, teaching staff, and teaching methods.     

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."     

University Combines Education with Labor

The Communist Labor University in south China's Kiangsi Province, a university of a new type, offers a part-work, part-study course that carries out Chairman Mao's principle, "Education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labor." It has nearly 50,000 students in its main school outside the city of Nanchang and its 130 branch schools located throughout the province, including in some old revolutionary base areas like the Chingkang Mountains, Tamao Mountains, and Wuyi Mountains.     

Daring to Practice is Necessary in Educational Revolution

In his political report to the Ninth Congress, Vice Chairman Lin [Piao] called on us: It is necessary "to see the socialist revolution in the sphere of the superstructure through to the end." This great call has immensely encouraged the members of the Workers' and Liberation Army's Mao Tse-tung Thought Propaganda Team and the broad masses of revolutionary teachers and students who are probing the educational revolution. We are determined to emulate Vice Chairman Lin's glorious example in making a living study and a living application of Chairman Mao's thought on educational revolution, thus seeing this great political revolution of the superstructure through to the very end!     

Editors' Note

Since the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, millions of educated youths all over the country have answered Chairman Mao's great call that "educated youths must go to the countryside." With high revolutionary aspirations, they have made their way to the countryside and border regions. There they forge revolution and are reeducated by the poor and lower-middle peasants. Being tempered through the Three Great Revolutionary Struggles in rural areas, they are sturdily growing up.     

Consolidate the Leadership of the Working Class Over the Revolution in Education

This article discusses the way in which to build a leading body. In places where the intellectuals and the worker-peasant-soldier students form the principal objects of work, how to raise the leading body's consciousness in line, enforce the mass line and carry out the Party policy so as to consolidate further the political leadership of the working class is a key question bearing on carrying the revolution in education through to the end along Chairman Mao's revolutionary line.     

Strengthen the Building of the Ranks of the Urban Primary and Middle School Teachers

This article emphasizes that in strengthening the building of the ranks of urban primary and middle school teachers we should, on the one hand, conscientiously select fine workers to join the ranks of teachers according to Chairman Mao's proletarian line; on the other, we should organize the original teachers to remold their world outlook in the practice of the Three Great Revolutionary Movements, correctly handle the relationship between the use and the reform of teachers, and overcome the two deviations, i.e., using them without reforming them and reforming them without using them. In this process it is imperative to grasp the struggle between the two lines and the two world outlooks and to unfold revolutionary mass criticism in a deep-going and protracted manner.     

In The Struggle Maintain the Correct Orientation of MAY 7 Cadre Schools [Excerpt]: An Investigation of the May 7 Cadre School Run by Central Committee of the CCP

Seven years ago, in the brilliant illumination of Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive," this new socialist thing known as the May 7 cadre school came into being. Chairman Mao issued a great call: "Sending the masses of cadres to do manual labor gives them an excellent opportunity to renew their study; it should be done by all cadres except those who are too old, weak, ill or disabled. Working cadres should also go group by group to do manual labor." Chairman Mao's "May 7 Directive" and his injunction to "send the masses of cadres to do manual labor" are of great significance in opposing and preventing revisionism and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, and they have clearly pointed the direction that May 7 cadre schools should take. While people everywhere are engaged in studying the theory of proletarian dictatorship and investigating how to run May 7 cadre schools better, we would like to introduce a well-run May 7 cadre school to everyone: the May 7 cadre school of the CCP Central Committee office.     

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.     

The Problem of Transforming General Education in the Base Areas

Initial transformation of education in our anti-Japanese Base Areas began following the successive publication of Chairman Mao's speech "Reform Our Study" in May 1941; the Party Central Committee's "Decision on Investigation and Research" in August of the same year; the Central Committee's "Decision on Yenan Cadre Schools" in December; Chairman Mao's speeches "Rectify Study Style, Party Style, and Literary Style" and "Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing"; and the Party Central Committee's "Decision on the Education of Cadres in Service" the following February.     

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.     

Visualized Teaching and Cultivating the Capacity for Scientific Abstraction

An important question in the teaching of basic theory courses is how to improve the students' ability to analyze and solve problems by effectively relating the use of visual aids in teaching to the cultivation of the students' capacity for scientific abstraction, in accordance with the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge and Chairman Mao's instruction on "the unity of theory and reality."