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Sent-down youth

Chinese names
Educated Youth
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Literal meaning intellectual youth
Zhiqing
Chinese
Literal meaning [contraction]
Sent-down Youth
Chinese
Literal meaning demoted youth

The sent-down, rusticated, or "educated" youth（Chinese: 知识青年上山下乡）, also known as the zhiqing, were the young people who—beginning in the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution, willingly or under coercion—left the urban districts of the People's Republic of China to live and work in rural areas as part of the "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement".

The vast majority of those who went had received elementary to high school education, and only a small minority had matriculated to the post-secondary or university level.

After the People's Republic of China was established, in order to resolve employment problems in the cities, starting in the 1950s youth from urban areas were organized to move to the rural countryside, especially in remote towns to establish farms. As early as 1953, the People's Daily published the editorial "Organize school graduates to participate in agricultural production labor". In 1955, Mao Zedong asserted that "the countryside is a vast expanse of heaven and earth where we can flourish", which would become the slogan for the Down to the Countryside Movement.

Beginning in 1955, the Communist Youth League organized farming, and encouraged the youth to cultivate the land. From 1962, it was suggested that the Down to the Countryside Movement be nationally organized, and in 1964 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China established an oversight group. In 1966, under the influence of the Cultural Revolution, university entrance examinations were suspended and until 1968, many students were unable to receive admittance into university or become employed.

Additionally, the Communist Party leadership sent youth to the countryside to help to defuse the student fanaticism set in motion by the student Red Guards movement from 1966 to 1968. On December 22, 1968, Chairman Mao directed the People's Daily to publish a piece entitled "We too have two hands, let us not laze about in the city", which quoted Mao as saying "The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty." In 1969, many youth were rusticated.High school students were organized and assigned to the countryside on a national level.


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Wikipedia

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