Talk:Down to the Countryside Movement

Untitled
I am unaware whose feelings the author of this delicate stub was trying to spare. Chinese experts and Americans alike consider the Cultural Revolution's enormous purges one of the worst things China ever endured. If I have time I will splice in some data from the new (2006) Mao's Last Revolution or Jung Chang's Mao. As is, this stub is like accepting "ethnic cleansing" as a term. Well, we'll all fix it in time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ProfLd (talk • contribs) 19:14, 6 December 2006

Very much agreed. The neutrality of this article is suspicious. More statistics and impact of the Cultural Revolution on youths are needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:182:CF01:93E0:50DF:9159:3A1:32A9 (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2022 (UTC)


 * We already have a long article on the Cultural Revolution. This isn't it. There's no soft-pedalling going on here; this article deals with a specific aspect of the Cultural Revolution, whereby students were sent into the countryside to "learn from the peasants". Sure, it was shitty for many of those concerned (e.g. Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl); some other people made the best of it they could (e.g. writer Zhang Chengzhi, who learned to speak Mongolian and published his first poem while in exile), since it beat getting defenestrated by Red Guards. Anyway, the Down to the Countryside Movement wasn't going around creating artificial famines or beating people's parents to death. As I said in the edit history, I'll translate from the Chinese version when I get some time and some motivation. Don't understand your comment about "this stub is like accepting ethnic cleansing as a term" (we've got an article on that too: Ethnic cleansing) cab 21:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Particular editorial care needs to be observed. It's very tempting to color all aspects of the criminal Cultural Revolution as being all purely evil, but the Sent-down Youth Movement wasn't totally forced - a number of the young accepted and volunteered for what they were 'told' was an uplifting experience (though certainly thousands were also treated horribly). I've added some references that can serve as a springboard for further investigation. LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Miss janae.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

background section
The background section of this article seems to just be a summary of the cultural revolution. It is related background, but one could just link directly to the article for the cultural revolution. It feels like redundant filler content Meowshale (talk) 14:16, 13 December 2023 (UTC)