Border Region Government Directive on Winter Study This Year (June 3, 1944)

Subregion Commissioners and district (City) chiefs (mayors): 1. "When the days are cold and the ground's frozen, it is time to study. When flowers bloom and the water's warm, it is time to serve the peasants." These two sentences, a north Shensi proverb, explain the popular historical basis of the winter study program. Today, due to the situation of the rural villages, where economic development is inadequate and most of the inhabitants are illiterate, winter study is still an extremely important form of education. It not only expands the capacity of the schools for educating youth but also results in an increase in training schools for adult men and women and for lower-level cadres. If we wish to eliminate illiteracy, if we wish to raise cultural standards, then we must broaden the winter study movement. We have in the past operated winter study schools, and in some areas they have met with success, but because the financial status of the majority of the people had not been raised to a satisfactory level, and because the way in which we ran winter schools was in some respects faulty, the schools were unable to develop, and those in operation were unable to continue. With the great development of agricultural production in the past two years, the life of the people has improved to the point where they may be said to be well off, and labor has been gradually collectivized; the demand for literacy and the need for an increased understanding of production have at the same time grown and spread, so that favorable conditions for a winter study movement have been created. Because of this, it has been decided that beginning this year winter education will be organized each year throughout the Border Region; the slogan for this winter is "every township run one winter school." Where conditions are favorable, as many schools as possible should be run. Classes in reading should be added to the winter training program of the self-defense forces. In the future, we wish to have a winter training program in every village, so as to attain the goal of having all citizens of the Border Region, except for those past the age of fifty who are decidedly unwilling to study, able to understand 1,000 characters and thus able to read mass newspapers; cadres who cannot read or whose reading ability is limited should in particular act as the vanguard and as models for the people's literacy movement.