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Four types of elements became the targets of the “revolution”. (Picture source: Internet picture)
Filed underFour types of molecules“This word, inMao ZedongIt can be said that no one who has lived in this era does not know this.
So what specific types of people do the four types of molecules refer to?
On August 4, 1950, the 44th Government Affairs Conference of the Government Affairs Council of the Communist Party of China passed the “Decision on Classification of Rural Class Components”, which delineated the class components and listed landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries and bad elements as The enemies and targets of the revolution were collectively referred to as the “four categories of elements” after 1957. It was not until 1984 that the CCP removed more than 20 million Category Four elements across the country.
During Mao’s era, the fate of the four types of elements was extremely tragic. How miserable?
Being discriminated against and being transformed
Since the land reform, discrimination against the four types of elements has begun. In one village, 10 measures to control landlords were formulated during the land reform and posted on the door of the landlord’s house: 1. Sweep the streets and pave the way; 2. Move tables and stools for farmers’ night schools; 3. Scoop sludge from the ditch; 4. Get up at six o’clock, Go to bed at six o’clock and are not allowed to walk around; 5. Except for working and mowing grass, you are not allowed to exceed Going out for one mile is like going out for one mile, it is a gangster; 6. If someone comes to the landlord’s house, it is bribery; 7. If you encounter people while walking, you are not allowed to walk in the middle, you must keep your head down and walk to the side; 8. Not allowed Scribing with a pen; 9. Not allowed to interact with relatives; 10. Not allowed to worship Buddha, light incense and burn paper. During the land reform process, some places even forced women from wealthy landowners to marry poor peasants and laborers.
Having four types of elements wear some kind of insulting symbol is a common form of discrimination and has a long history. During the land reform sweeps in Qian’an County, Jilin Province, poor middle peasants wore red stripes on their chests, rich peasants wore yellow stripes, landlords wore white stripes, and dog legs wore dog skin strips. During the Great Leap Forward, some local commune members had to be evaluated. Those with good labor performance and good family backgrounds could wear the “upper reaches” badge on their chests, while those with average performance could wear the “midstream” badge. Regardless of whether they perform well or poorly, all four types of molecules will wear the “Downstream” logo with black letters on a white cloth background.
In 1965, it was stipulated that those in the four categories of companies who have not taken off their hats are not allowed to enjoy the company’s labor insurance benefits and retirement benefits. In rural areas, some places stipulate that 3% of the work points actually performed by the four types of elements must be deducted and turned over to the brigade. In 1957, a major unjust case occurred in Fu’an District of eastern Fujian. More than a thousand young cadres from landlords and rich peasant families were labeled as “impure elements” overnight and were purged from the cadre ranks. This group of people were expelled from the Communist Youth League and the Party, and sent back to their place of origin to supervise labor. They became the sixth category of elements after the five categories: landlords, rich, rebels, bad, and rightists. They were only allowed to participate in agricultural labor in the production team and were not allowed to engage in other occupations. Some people were sent to farms for reeducation through labor because they sold calligraphy and paintings to make a living. More than 300 people were sent to reeducation through labor for not doing their jobs properly and refusing to obey discipline.
Under normal circumstances, the fourth type of elements have to do unpaid work for public welfare, such as being assigned by the sub-district office and neighborhood committee to supervise street sweeping and carry out labor reform. In 1964, the Agricultural Bank of China Head Office stipulated that credit cooperatives would not grant loans to the four categories of individuals in principle. Beijing also implements a class line for needy households: for orphaned elderly households, the average per person per month in urban areas is generally 7 to 10 yuan, and in suburban areas and towns is 6 to 9 yuan; for the family members of the fifth category, the average per person per month in urban areas is generally 5 to 7 yuan, and 4 to 5 yuan per person in suburbs and towns.
If the four types of elements are not careful in their speech and behavior, disaster may occur. In January 1976, a son of a landowner in Songtao Miao Autonomous County, Guizhou Province couldn’t bear the ridicule of others and drank some wine. He said to the teaser: “You are making fun of me. If you make me angry, I will kill both of you.” .” As a result, the man was beaten. They extorted confessions and created a huge unjust case. They tracked down 36 counter-revolutionary riot groups with 1,359 members, involving 5 counties in two provinces. In just a few months, 32 people were shot, beaten to death, beaten to death, and forced to death. A premeditated murder attempt failed. 18 people.
According to conservative estimates, in the early 1970s, the number of “teachable children” (children of the four types of elements) among educated youth exceeded 10% of the total number of educated youth. Some rural commune teams give “teachable children” different pay for equal work, or allocate heavy work but do not record work points. In the recruitment process, there is long-term and widespread discrimination against “teachable children”. As a result, the composition of the rural educated youth has undergone significant changes. In the early 1970s, “teachable children” accounted for more than 10% of the educated youth, and it has increased year by year since then. A 1979 survey of 18 counties in Guizhou Province showed that “teachable children” among the youth who jumped in the queue in Shanghai accounted for 19.1%. In Taijiang County, the number increased from 27% to 43%. Among the educated youth in Yanji County at the end of April 1976, about 31% had “teachable children”.
When the policy was implemented after the Cultural Revolution, the conclusion of “suicide out of fear of crime” was simply removed from the land and wealthy elements who committed suicide during the movement.
expelled
During the land reform, there was a phenomenon of expelling landlords and rich peasants. Before the Cultural Revolution, there were cases in some areas of forcible relocation of the Four Categories elements and those considered politically unreliable from border areas. During the Cultural Revolution this situation developed into a common practice across the country.
In the autumn of 1958, tens of thousands of wealthy landowners, rebels, right-wingers and their families were driven out of Shanghai in order to build a “glowing red Shanghai”, resulting in the tragedy of countless wives and children being separated and families destroyed. In October 1958, a group of 1,789 Category Four elements from Shantou City were relocated to the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong. In November 1960, in Changhai County, an island region of Liaoning Province, five types of elements with bad behavior and their families, family members of counterrevolutionaries who were sentenced to heavy sentences, family members and main relatives with overseas relations, some returned fishermen and people with practical problems were deported. A total of 273 households with 1,541 people belonging to dangerous anti-socialist elements were forcibly moved to Jianping County in the interior of Liaoning Province. After the relocatees arrived, many died and fled. Among the 131 households still there in 1980, an average of one person died per household. There are 142 households with more than 810 people who could no longer live there and have moved to other places. Some live a life of begging and wandering, and some even sell their children and daughters. In 1963, Xinjiang experienced the relocation of Category Five elements and those who attempted to flee the Soviet Union.
During the Cultural Revolution, it was common for the four types of elements to be expelled from cities and forced to move to rural areas. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, more than 85,000 people in Beijing were labeled as landlords, rich, reactionaries, bad, and rightists and were expelled from Beijing. According to statistics from Tianjin City in July 1969, 42,000 people were deported to the countryside, including 16,000 elements and 26,000 family members. It is estimated that more than one million people of the four categories and their families were expelled from cities across the country at that time.
The body is destroyed
Landowners or “bad elements” were shot by the CCP. (Picture source: Internet picture)
During the early land reform process, relatively serious incidents of indiscriminate killing of landlords and rich peasants, and even middle peasants, occurred in some areas of Northeast China, North China, and East China (mainly Shandong). Some landlords and rich peasants were physically eliminated. During the entire land reform process in Qian’an County, Jilin Province, among the 348 people who died from various reasons, 247 were landlords and 42 were rich farmers. There were 7,337 households in Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province before the land reform, including 424 landlords and rich peasants. After the land reform, there were 8,214 households, including 272 landlords and rich peasants. The number of landlords and rich peasants before and after the land reform decreased by 152, which is equivalent to 35.85% of the number before the land reform. Why has the number of landlord and rich peasant households dropped so dramatically? This may indicate that some landowners and rich peasants have been physically eliminated. In Yilan County, as many as 103 local rich farmers were shot, beaten to death or committed suicide during the land reform. Even during the relatively mild land reform process after 1949, a large number of Category Four elements died. There were 950 people who committed suicide during the land reform in Enping County, Guangdong Province, including 570 landlords (some members of a family of seven all committed suicide) and 108 rich farmers.
During the Cultural Revolution, many Category Four elements and their families were massacred. This kind of massacre occurred not only in some relatively remote areas, such as Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Shaanxi, but also in the capital city of Beijing. According to some published literature, more than 10,000 people were killed. During the massacre, some of the four types of elements who faced death threats took desperate measures and in turn killed other people, thus triggering even more brutal killings. After some of the four types of elements were brutally killed, their corpses were not spared, and a denouncement meeting was held against the corpses.
During the Cultural Revolution, 9,093 people died abnormally in the Lingling area of Hunan, of which 7,696 were killed and 1,397 were forced to commit suicide. Among the dead, there were 3,576 Category Four elements, accounting for 39.33%; 4,057 children of Category Four elements, accounting for 44.63%; and 1,099 poor and lower-middle peasants (most of whom had historical problems of varying degrees), accounting for 11.54%. ; There are 411 other components, accounting for 24.20%. Among those killed, 826 were minors, the oldest was 78 years old and the youngest was only 10 days old. The killing methods were extremely cruel and inhumane. Some murderers fear revenge from the victims’ children in the future, so they resort to heinous measures to involve children in the massacre. Implication is a tradition in Chinese society, and this kind of thing also happens from time to time in contemporary China’s civil wars. The massacre and implication of the four types of elements in Daxing County, Beijing during the Cultural Revolution was just a continuation of history. During the suppression of counterrevolutionaries in Miyun County in 1948, the entire family of a landlord and rich peasant was killed.
Editor in charge: Zi Meng
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