Stranica 3 [3]
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grouping approximately four thousand people, both students and staff =
was selected as models its experiment in reshaping ideas was to become
a pattern, that all other Chirese universfities, cultural centers and
the entir& intellectual leadership was to follow.
The campaign, carried on atthe Shiao-Tung university was carefully
planned and directed by a group of nearly 50 experts: leaders of the
communist Youth Movement and graduates from the Chinese nevblutionary
Lead«srship Schoole
The Shiao-Tung project stretched over the period of an m tire semester
a d involved four consecutive steps. Throughout the month of February,
the basic principle contained in the "remodeling of ideas " and in its
connection to the "five anti" and “three anti" campaigns vas thoroughly
explained and studied. The work was compulsory for all students and
staff members alike and car ied out in general meetings and in small
study circlese The next step lasted two months - march and Aprile
after the theorétical study, it was devoted to the practical fight agai
corruptione The administration of the Universitg, just as much as the
private life of each one of the nearly four-thousand partickpants was
ruthlessly investigatede Uonfessions were enforced and the “tigers®
punished. The thira step was devoted to the true Yreshaping of ideas".
wach one had to examine and confess his "bourgeois ideas and reactions",
such as eg ism, individualism, keeping one's face, secking pleasure and
above all the family spirit and the respect toward the parents. The
last phase was that of the practical resolutions: each having to
formulate promises, in view of changing his bourgeois mentality
in a new democratic sense.
As foreseen, the "Shiao-Tung experience" was crowned With full success:
the few "tigers" = in other words those who refused to bend - were
eliminated. All the others accepted the “purification"™ and the complet
change in mentality and living, at least in everyone of their outward
reautionse Now the example is followed in all the Chinese universities
higher schools and cultural centers.
Along the lines of social thinking, the main principle is
the breaking of all previously existing ties: the family system that
was deeply entrenched in Chinese life; the traditions and habits that
are labeled as "feudalism"; the local and regional autonomies which
are abolished as being sectarian oppositions against national interests
Since all these attachments and traditions Bave deeper roots in rural
popplations than in the urban proletariate, and more conscious defender
among adult generations’ than in the very young, it is but logical that
the present regime finds its strongest support in the cities anda in the
youth movements.
This fact leads to a two-fold consequence: The recent Party and admini¬
stration purged has brought a new leadership to the forefront, which,
as @ general rule, is younger in age and steming from an urban
proletarian backgrounds while older "cadres*® came mostly from the
rural classes which form the overwhelming majority of the Chinese
bobutatione The other consequence is shown in the economic reorganiza¬
tion of the country that places greatest emphasis on industrialization,
while claiming heavy taxes from the rural masseSe
id: