The 7 May Cadre Schools were set up in late 1968, in
accordance with Mao Zedong's 7 May Directive, which was released on 7
May 1966. In this directive, Mao suggested setting up farms, later
called cadre schools, where cadres and intellectuals, "sent down" from
the cities, would perform manual labor and undergo ideological
reeducation. "Sending down" cadres was first put into practice during
the Great Leap Forward Movement in 1958. Cadres would take turns to go the villages or grass-roots levels to gain
first-hand experience in productive work.
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During the Cultural Revolution, "transferring cadres
to lower levels" became a favored method to remove unyielding cadres
and intellectuals from the cities. The Central Committee and the State
Council built 106 7 May cadres schools, scattered over eighteen
provinces. Over 100,000 officials from the central government,
including Deng Xiaoping,
and 30,000 family members were sent there. Lower-level government
offices set up tens of thousands more cadre schools, where an unknown
number of middle- and lower-ranking cadres was sent for reeducation.
The living conditions in these schools were usually
quite bad. The cadres, used to a less strenuous life, had to do manual
work, growing their own food. The aim of the schools was to become
self-sufficient in food; usually, however, basic rations had to be
brought in by the units to which the cadres belonged. Moreover, the
goal of learning from the poor and lower-middle level peasants was no
success either: many peasants living in areas where a cadre school was
set up resented their arrival, and saw the cadres, who in their eyes
did not amount to much in terms of labor power, as a threat to their
own survival. Many cadres and intellectuals could not deal with the
harsh life and died in the process of reeducation.
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After Lin Biao fell
from power in 1971, the cadres and intellectuals, as well as their
dependents, were allowed to return to the cities and resume their work.
One by one, the 7 May cadre schools were closed down; they ceased to
exist after the Cultural Revolution.
Sources:
Guo Jian, Yongyi Song & Yuan Zhou, Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Lanham, etc.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006)
Yang Jiang, A Cadre School Life—Six Chapters (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Company, 1982)
Kwok-sing Li (editor) & Mary Lok (translator), A Glossary of Political Terms of the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995)
Li Zhensheng , Red-Color News Soldier - A Chinese Photographer's Odyssey through the Cultural Revolution (London, etc.: Phaidon Press, 2003)
Lu Xing, Rethoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution—The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture and Communication (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004)
Michael Schoenhals (ed.), China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969—Not A Dinner Party (Armonk NY: M.E Sharpe, 1996)
Yang Kelin (ed.),Wenhua dageming bowuguan [Museum of the Cultural Revolution] (Hong Kong: Dongfang chubanshe youxian gongsi, Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 1995) [in Chinese]
Return to Cultural Revolution Campaigns 
s.r.landsberger@let.leidenuniv.nl
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