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Witness History: Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution

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19/03/2024 GMT

Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution

BBC World Service - Witness History, Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution

Thousands of people were sent to re-education camps during China’s cultural revolution

In 1968, Jingyu Li and her parents were among thousands  sent to labour camps during Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution. The communist regime said they needed to be 're-educated'.

In 1968, Jingyu Li and her parents were among hundreds of thousands of Chinese people sent to labour camps during Mao Zedong’s so-called cultural revolution.

The aim was to re-educate those not thought to be committed to Chairman’s Mao drive to preserve and purify communism in China.

Jingyu’s parents – both college professors - were put to work among the rice and cattle fields, and made to study the works of Chairman Mao. Fearful for their daughter’s safety, they disguised six-year-old Jingyu as a boy. 

Over the next six years, the family were sent to four different camps. Not everyone could cope, as Jingyu tells Jane Wilkinson.

(Photo: Reading Mao's little red book in 1968. Credit: Pictures from History/Getty Images)

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