#sigrid schmalzer

[comradeocean]

The concern that youth follow the lead of peasants was very much in keeping with Mao’s own statements and with the dominant policy thrust of the late 1960s and 1970s. Thus such stories almost invariably emphasized at least their cooperation with, and usually their reliance on, or even subservience to, peasants. For example, a group of sent-­down youth in Hebei Province set up an experiment station with the support of the local Party branch. Instead of allowing themselves to be guided by the “old peasants,” however, they pursued impractical ideas in an attempt to “startle” people with their innovation, such as hybridizing cotton and paulownia to create a perennial “cotton tree.” And so the story continued, with local Party officials becoming aware of the problem and educating the youth about the importance of uniting with the masses, then the youth reportedly becoming very successful in designing new forms of pest control and fertilizer.

In many cases, references to youth being led by the masses appeared merely ritualistic, with little evidence as to the relevance of the education they were supposedly receiving. But some accounts were more specific in this regard. In one story, a rural youth graduated from secondary school, returned to the countryside, and was assigned to a weather station where poor and lower-­middle class peasants observed leech behavior to forecast the weather. At first he reportedly had a negative attitude and did not realize how much he could learn from the peasants. Then came a day when the youth carelessly lost his leeches. He found a new leech, but his next forecast failed. A peasant explained that there are three kinds of leeches and that he had collected the wrong kind. The youth then realized that old peasants had a wealth of experience watching weather patterns. He visited more than eighty old peasants to collect their knowledge of observing animals to predict weather. Such stories underscored the Maoist class-­based philosophy of science, in which “old peasants”—​by virtue of their class status—​possessed knowledge of critical importance to the pursuit of agricultural science.

-- Schmalzer, Sigrid. “Youth and the “Great Revolutionary Movement” of Scientific Experiment in 1960s–1970s Rural China.” Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism

[comradeocean]

Like their counterparts in the humanities, scientists faced persecution in Mao-­era China because of their status as “intellectuals,” “authorities,” and “experts.” But scientists had several things going for them that substantially reduced their risk. First, science was seen as both essential to socialist construction and capable of disproving traditional ways of thinking. Second, science often involved physical work—​sometimes dangerous physical work—​and therefore had some claim to the privileged category of labor. So it was never science itself that came under attack, but rather elite, bourgeois authority in science. This in turn shaped the way propaganda presented youth participation. Propaganda stories about model youth participants in scientific experiment thus took pains to highlight the political character of their efforts. It was not enough that their efforts should result in the implementation of more effective technologies and thereby increase production. Rather, scientific experiment had to be revolutionary. In propaganda accounts, revolutionary science often involved hard physical labor or braving dangers to life and limb, but most importantly it was explicitly rooted in class struggle and pursued through class consciousness.

Portrayals of the scientific work of educated youth typically highlighted the gritty, daring face of science in the field rather than science as pursued in laboratories and libraries. Youth possessed the energy and courage necessary to try new ideas and to withstand physical hardships. In 1959, the media celebrated the discovery of large deposits of minerals by a “young girl” and geologist “hero” named Liu Jinmei. Liu “traversed some 7,000 kilometers in the towering ridges of the rugged Changpai Mountains in Northeast China, the haunt of tigers and bears.” In 1973, Lang Yuping, a returned youth in Miyun County (near Beijing), sought to control a wheat virus with a highly toxic insecticide: “One time I really was poisoned, dizzy, nauseous, sweating... I was scared to death that I... ​would lose the fall crop. I went to the clinic, got an injection, and continued work. The Party branch [official] told me to go to the hospital to get a checkup and rest a few days, but I didn’t go.” Nominally self-­critical, the account in fact emphasized the youth’s courageous and willing self-­sacrifice. Other examples abound of young people celebrated for braving cold, rain, mosquitoes, and sweat, and going so far as to refuse medical treatment when ill, all because of their dedication to science and to production.

-- Schmalzer, Sigrid. “Youth and the “Great Revolutionary Movement” of Scientific Experiment in 1960s–1970s Rural China.” Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism

[comradeocean]

this looks good!

In 1968, the director of USAID coined the term “green revolution” to celebrate the new technological solutions that promised to ease hunger around the world—and forestall the spread of more “red,” or socialist, revolutions. Yet in China, where modernization and scientific progress could not be divorced from politics, green and red revolutions proceeded side by side.             In Red Revolution, Green Revolution, Sigrid Schmalzer explores the intersection of politics and agriculture in socialist China through the diverse experiences of scientists, peasants, state agents, and “educated youth.” The environmental costs of chemical-intensive agriculture and the human costs of emphasizing increasing production over equitable distribution of food and labor have been felt as strongly in China as anywhere—and yet, as Schmalzer shows, Mao-era challenges to technocracy laid important groundwork for today’s sustainability and food justice movements. This history of “scientific farming” in China offers us a unique opportunity not only to explore the consequences of modern agricultural technologies but also to engage in a necessary rethinking of fundamental assumptions about science and society. (x)

[sskennel]

I'm trying to learn to make really good prints from my photos with a really good inkjet printer by watching Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe's video tutorial series "From Camera to Print." I must say the learning curve is quite steep.