Note: This is a discussion within Renmin Square about the “Black Five Types” individuals encountered by Yu Luo Ke and his reactionary article “On Birth.” The words within the brackets “［ ］” are added by me; the rest of the original text remains unchanged.
Sunrise: Is “On Birth” a black article?
Proletariat Comrade: I think so, there are posts about it on the forum.
Sunrise: I haven’t found it.
Proletariat Comrade:
Screw: I think “The Theory of Original Family” and “On Birth” are not the same thing.
Isn’t “On Birth” the bloodline theory?
Criticized vigorously by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
If Sunrise is talking about the “On Birth” signed by Yu Luo Ke at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, I just looked at the original and the critical articles about him, and this is indeed a black article.
Luanma: [“On Birth”] is a black article, and Yu Luo Ke used it to exonerate the Black Five Types.
His most reactionary argument is that the children of the Black Five Types are the most revolutionary because they suffered the most “persecution” and have the strongest rebellious spirit.
[He] means to say that socialism is a complete mess, that the children of the Black Five Types under socialism are cruelly persecuted by the Communist Party, and that their inheritance of reactionary old parents’ activities for counter-revolution is justified.
Moreover, [he] also denies the influence of birth on a person. If someone is from the Black Five Types, although they may not be as reactionary as the Black Five themselves, they will inevitably be heavily influenced by old ideas and need ideological transformation to overcome them.
Screw: Seems like two extremes—bloodline theory and “On Birth.”
“On Birth” doesn’t consider birth, while bloodline theory only considers birth.
Luanma: The class basis of bloodline theory is the bourgeoisie within the Party, used to attack a large group, protect a small group, turning the rectification movement into a purge, only targeting the so-called “Black Five Types” outside the Party, but not touching the bourgeoisie inside the Party.
Yu Luo Ke’s fallacious theory is based on the bourgeoisie outside the Party, who are suppressed, and when they see the Cultural Revolution coming, they want to criticize the bourgeoisie within the Party, thinking the Communist Party is “disorganized,” and see an opportunity to exonerate themselves and change the power.
Whether it’s Yu Luo Ke or the high-ranking officials promoting bloodline theory, they are just tools. They don’t only represent themselves but also the class and groups behind them.
Sunrise: Why did Yu Luo Ke promote such views? What is his background?
Screw: Yu Luo Ke is obviously just a pseudonym.
No one knows who the real person is.
His background is already clearly explained by Comrade Luanma above.
It is the bourgeoisie outside the Party and their offspring.
Damn, uh, I haven’t investigated and am speaking recklessly.
Didn’t expect this person actually exists.
Sunrise: His parents are both rightists.
Luanma: This person has been executed, clearly not a “pseudonym.”
Yu Luo Ke was finally arrested and executed.
Screw: Yes.
I just assumed and spoke nonsense.
Luanma:
Yu Luo Ke’s death sentence
Beijing Intermediate People’s Court Criminal Judgment (No. 70-Xing Zi No. 30)
Yu Luo Ke, male, born 1942, Han ethnicity, from Beijing, family background capitalist, personal status student, employed as an apprentice at Beijing People’s Machinery Factory, residing at No. 13, 5th Floor, South Sanlitun East, Chaoyang District, Beijing. His parents are rightists, his father is a counter-revolutionary.
Yu’s reactionary thoughts are extremely intense. Since 1963, he has spread a large number of reactionary remarks, written tens of thousands of words of reactionary letters, poetry, and diaries, viciously slandering the proletarian command, and during the Cultural Revolution, he wrote more than ten reactionary articles, distributed nationwide, creating reactionary public opinion. He also recruited more than ten reactionary and bad elements from Beijing and outside, planned and organized a counter-revolutionary group, and threatened to carry out conspiracy and assassination activities, attempting to overthrow our proletarian dictatorship. During his detention, Yu’s reactionary arrogance remained very high. His crimes are extremely heinous, and public outrage is immense. With the approval of the Beijing Public and Legal Military Control Committee of the People’s Liberation Army and the Supreme People’s Court, Yu Luo Ke, a counter-revolutionary, was sentenced to death and executed immediately.March 5, 1970
Qian Ren0: Yu Luo Ke could recite “Orange Secret” and “Plum Blossom Chart” chess scores in prison, indicating he has not changed his ideological stance at all, still living a decadent life, indulging in pleasure. Even now, being able to memorize thousands of scores is beyond ordinary chess learners, only petty bourgeoisie or parasites would do such things.
Lin Zhao, Yu Luo Ke, and Zhang Zhixin are the three so-called liberal “saints” of anti-communism, but in reality, they are all utterly disgusting. Upon closer inspection, they are all reactionary to the core, filthy and despicable beasts.
Translating a long essay
I need to translate a long essay from Chinese to English while ensuring we keep the formatting intact. There are no code blocks to worry about. I must translate the content, including headers in Chinese, while preserving Markdown formatting. Inline quotes, italics, and bold text should remain formatted correctly. The footnotes, indicated by brackets like 【1】, also need translation. They’re part of the content, so they must be translated into English as well, including the text within them.
Translating headings and formatting
I need to keep the newline structure from the original text. The headings, which use “###” for third-level, must be translated properly. For instance, “### 一. 社会影响和家庭影响问题” should be translated as “### I. Social Influence and Family Influence Issues.” The original uses full-width Chinese numerals, so translating them as “### 1.” or “### I.” is essential for clarity. Nested sections like “#### 1. 出身和成份完全不同” should also follow this consistent format to maintain structure.
Translating headings with nuances
I need to keep the original structure while translating the content. This means the numbering should be in Arabic numerals instead of Chinese numerals. For example, I’ll convert headings like “### 一. 社会影响和家庭影响问题” to “### I. Social Influence and Family Influence Issues.” The same goes for subsections, such as changing “#### 1. 出身和成份完全不同” to “#### 1. Origin and Class Affiliation Are Entirely Different.” I also need to note that “保险” refers metaphorically to “insurance” in the context of safety.
Translating nuanced phrases
I’m working on translating “出身好坏和保险与否毫无关系.” This means “Origin quality has nothing to do with safety or insurance.” In this context, “保险” refers to security guarantees among the political elite. I think a more natural translation might be “Origin’s quality has nothing to do with security” or “no relation to protection.” They argue that a good origin doesn’t guarantee safety. So, I’ll translate it to “#### 3. The goodness or badness of origin has nothing to do with immunity.” This captures the nuance about “保险” meaning protection from persecution.
Translating a significant text
I’m translating a piece titled “On Birth Status Theory” by Yu Luoke, written on January 18, 1967. The editor’s note describes the struggles in Beijing’s middle school sports scene, pointing to the stronghold of the bourgeois reactionary line. The birth-status theory is identified as a significant barrier to critique. I’ll maintain formatting and translate subsections clearly, providing context where needed. Phrases need attention, especially around nuanced terms like “自来红,” which refers to perceived “natural revolutionaries.” Maintaining clarity and structure throughout is essential.Full text below:
On Birth Status Theory
Yu Luoke
（1967.1.18）
Editor’s Note: At present, middle school sports in Beijing are generally showing a pattern of nearly dying out; although the rebels are making great efforts, the masses fail to mobilize, and the bourgeois reactionary line remains rampant as before. This phenomenon makes many comrades doubt: what exactly is still so powerful to this day that it hinders the critique of the bourgeois reactionary line?
We believe that, besides nothing else, the birth-status theory that has a broad market in society is to blame.
The bourgeois reactionary line that in the past was commonly executed in various middle schools is rooted in nothing else but the reactionary birth-status theory.
The reactionary birth-status theory finds its theoretical justification in the philosophical garbage heap of bourgeois metaphysics, dividing students into three, six, and nine classes, and attempting under the socialist system to reconstitute a new privileged class that wears a cloak of deceit, thus producing a reactionary caste system and new oppression among people. It is this reactionary birth-status theory that has caused a portion of young students to bear the burden of being “born red,” imagining themselves to be natural-born revolutionaries, and as a result becoming seedlings of revisionism. It is this birth-status theory that has compelled another portion of young students to develop a strong inferiority complex, causing them to settle for mediocrity and to give up their responsibilities toward the country’s and the world’s future. It is this same thing that has caused many comrades blinded by the bourgeois reactionary line to persist in their errors to this day. It is this crime that causes so many comrades to tremble and fear before the bourgeois reactionary line!
Comrades, with such a hateful thing, how can we critique the bourgeois reactionary line without defeating it? Without defeating it, where will we train and cultivate hundreds of millions of proletarian successors? Without defeating it, China’s colors will inevitably change!
All of Beijing’s revolutionary rebels, aren’t you trying to push back the frenzied counterattack of the bourgeois reactionary line? Aren’t you trying to mobilize tens of millions of people to fight together? Then you should raise a surging wave, thoroughly breaking through the embankment of the reactionary birth-status theory! On that day, millions of people will break free from all restraints and merge with you into an irresistible force. Only on that day will the bourgeois reactionary line be completely buried in the grave, and China’s color will forever be bright red.
The “Beijing Family Birth Issues Study Group” published “On Birth Status” and it provoked strong reactions in society. We say its appearance was timely! It proclaimed the bankruptcy of the bourgeois birth-status theory and marked a great victory of the proletarian revolutionary line.
On Birth Status dares to break the fetters of old social ideas, bravely declare war on the still powerful bourgeois birth-status theory, and this revolutionary rebellious spirit is very commendable!
The appearance of On Birth Status is bound to be seen by some as a big poisonous weed, but what of it? Marxism was also considered a poisonous weed at its beginning, yet today it has become the guiding ideology of the people of the world. Truth can only develop and be accepted by the broad masses through the struggle with error. We firmly believe: though the reactionary birth-status theory appears powerful, its reactionary essence determines that it is but a rotten paper tiger; the revolutionary On Birth Status is today but a spark, tomorrow it will become a prairie fire.
At the same time, we also believe that because the authors’ mastery of Mao Zedong Thought is limited, and because the social investigation conducted is not thorough enough, On Birth Status surely contains many defects and imperfections. We earnestly hope that the broad revolutionary comrades will measure it with Mao Zedong Thought, this great weapon, and sincerely welcome comrades to criticize On Birth Status.
The issue of family birth is a long-standing, serious social problem.
This issue covers a wide scope. If landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, criminals, and rightists account for 5 percent of the national population, their children and close relatives would be several times that number (not counting the children of capitalists, historically unclean elements, and high-level intellectuals, and not counting the children of clerks, prosperous middle peasants, and middle peasant classes). It’s not hard to imagine what enormous numbers of youths born into non-red backgrounds are. Because China is a backward country, before liberation there were only more than two million industrial workers, so not many truly came from birth into proletarian families. This large group of youths with poor birth backgrounds generally cannot join the army or hold sensitive positions. Therefore, in individual units, they (non-Red Five) held an absolute advantage.
Because of the influence of the left-leaning, right-leaning reactionary line, they often could not enjoy equal political treatment. Especially the so-called “Black Five” birth background youths, called “little dogs,” have already become quasi-state subjects; they are born “criminals.” Under its influence, birth status almost decides everything. Bad birth status not only places one below others, but even deprives one of the right to betray one’s own family, to defend the Party Central Committee, to defend Chairman Mao, and to join the Red Guards. During this period, how many innocent youths died accidentally or drowned in the abyss of birth-status? Facing such serious problems, any person who cares about the fate of the country cannot but face them squarely and study them. And those seemingly calm and comprehensive compromise viewpoints are actually cold and hypocritical. We cannot help but reveal and criticize them, and uphold Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line. Now we will seek answers from Chairman Mao’s writings and social practice, and阐述 our views in three questions.
I. The Social and Family Influence Problem
First, start from a couplet that has poisoned widely:
“Older father, hero son; old father, reactionary son—basically like this.”
Debating this couplet is in essence a debate about insulting youths with poor birth status. Because the best result of such debate is that they are not even considered “dogs.” Early on, few dared to argue with it head-on. Even those who did were often shy. In fact, the upper half of this couplet comes from the feudal mountain strongman Dou Er Dun. Is there much courage needed to criticize Dou Er Dun? Some say this couplet has done good. Is that so? Chairman Mao said: Any truth corresponds to the PEOPLE’S interests; any error is not in accord with the People’s interests. Whether it did good or not depends on whether it is truth—whether it conforms to Mao Zedong Thought.
This couplet is not truth; it is absolute error.
Its error lies in thinking that family influence surpasses social influence, not recognizing the decisive role of social influence. In short, it only admits the influence of the father (old father), thinking the father surpasses all.
Practice yields the exact opposite conclusion: social influence far surpasses family influence, and family influence serves social influence.
From the moment a child is born, it is affected by two kinds of influence. As soon as they can understand, they enter the school gate; teachers’ words carry more authority than parents’ words; collective education resonates more strongly than solitary education; time in school is longer than time at home; the Party’s rain and the sunshine of Mao Zedong Thought nourish this young shoot, and social influence thus becomes the mainstream.
Friends’ speculation, leaders’ guidance, newspaper, books, literature, arts propaganda, customs, work’s cultivation, etc., will give a person an indelible influence; all of these are social influences. All of these are beyond the reach of family influence.
Even family influence is a part of social influence. The goodness or badness of a person’s family influence cannot be mechanically judged by whether the father is heroic. A heroic father and a reactionary mother may not necessarily produce good influence. Parents are heroes, but children may be left to indulge; sometimes worse. If parents’ thoughts are good but their methods of education are simple and rigid, the effect may backfire. Likewise, if the father is bad, the family influence may not necessarily be bad; Lenin is an example. In short, a person’s family influence, good or bad, cannot be mechanically determined by birth; birth is only a reference for family influence.
Overall, our social influence is good. This is because: our social system is extraordinarily superior; our party has always emphasized politics and attaches great importance to the growth of the younger generation; the vast majority of our people love the new society. Of course, we also cannot ignore the complexity and sharpness of class struggle, and we cannot ignore that we are still in the vast ocean of petty-bourgeoisie. Our cultural and educational system still awaits thorough reform. Sometimes social influence is not wholly good. No matter what the birth background of the youth, if they are subjected to bad social influences, they generally submit to this harmful influence and make one or another mistake. But as long as guided correctly, they will quickly discard the old things and return to the correct position. Therefore, deliberately forcing youths to carry historical burdens, and to bear family burdens, is a kind of erroneous line; both are cruel. Because social influence is immensely powerful, yet not necessarily all good, regardless of birth background, to abandon ideological transformation is an error. For transformation of thought, youths with good birth background are not superior to those with bad birth background.
Family influence, or social influence, is at best an external factor. Overemphasizing influence is evidence of mechanical materialism, which denies human initiative. People can choose their own forward path. Is it really true that Mao Zedong Thought is the infallible, all-powerful instrument? Do you truly believe in the truth of Marxism-Leninism? Do you truly believe that Mao Zedong Thought is an invincible weapon of thought? Do you admit that internal factors determine outcomes? If so, you should not think that Mao’s influence is stronger than anything else. Otherwise, it only shows your thinking is extremely confused.
II. Emphasis on Performance
If you have no reason to refute that social influence is greater than family influence, and cannot refute that present social good influence is the mainstream, and must acknowledge that birth and family influence are not necessarily linked, then we can study several questions about “emphasizing performance.”
In the early stage of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution, many people said that “emphasis on performance” was a revisionist view. Later they heard this was raised by Chairman Mao, and were scared to recant. Clearly, they do not understand this policy at all. Let them explain this policy and they will distort it at will. Due to space, here we only examine three formulations to see whether they conform to Mao Zedong Thought.
- Birth status and component (class background) are completely different
Seemingly fair comrades often say to youths with poor birth status: “We have a theory of component, and not just the component; we emphasize political performance.” This is the reversed version of the birth-status theory. Compared to that, it is fifty steps apart but not much different.
Birth is dead; performance is alive. Using dead standards and living standards to measure a person, can you reach the same conclusion? In our article’s first question we already analyzed: birth is one factor of family influence; family influence is one factor of performance, and social influence is the main factor of performance. Therefore birth and performance are not identical. Whether a person’s influence is good or bad can only be tested through practice. Here, practice refers to a person’s political performance. Good performance means good influence; bad performance means bad influence. This has nothing to do with birth.
If you insist on looking at both birth and performance, then ask: bad birth but good performance, can it erase the person’s achievements? Good birth but bad performance, can it conceal the person’s faults? Bad birth and bad performance, should it be punished more severely? Good birth and good performance, should one exaggerate the merits? Is there any logic to that?
“Look at both birth and performance.” In reality, this almost slides into the quagmire of “only look at birth, not at performance.” It is incredibly easy to look at birth—just check the档案, and it’s done. Or on the street you can ask someone: “What is your birth status?” and you understand everything. It is both simple and convenient. But evaluating performance is extremely troublesome, especially for those who are suspicious without reason. They do not trust your usual performance, nor your performance in big waves, and they will doubt both your past and present, and even your future performance, and finally condemn you. They will even tire of you. If you look at birth, you solve a huge problem in two seconds. Moreover, performance, for some people, has no fixed standard. flatterers think flattering is the best performance; hypocritical people think politeness is the best performance; those who follow the wrong line think a youth from a poor background constantly repenting is the best performance. What can compare with birth? With just three sentences—“Old father, hero son; old father, reactionary son; old father, ordinary son”—the problem is solved.
Look at how Mao Zedong taught us: “The final dividing line between revolutionary and non-revolutionary or counter-revolutionary intellectuals is whether they are willing to unite with workers and peasants and implement it. We here present a standard, which I believe is the only standard.” Is this the standard of birth?
Did Mao present birth among the five conditions for revolutionary successors? Is birth among the Fifth Article’s seriously implemented clauses? Does the Fifth Clause of the Sixteen Articles mention birth as the basis for uniting whom and opposing whom? Do the three standards of the Revolutionary Left include birth as a standard? No! Not at all! Birth good or bad has nothing to do with one’s revolutionary stance. Even someone with bad birth can be a revolutionary Leftist, a successor to the proletarian cause, a rallying point for revolution. In terms of performance, all youths are equal. Youths with bad birth do not need charity or to be treated as outsiders. Who is the backbone? It is not predetermined by the womb. Any rights that cannot be obtained through individual effort, we do not acknowledge. The most resolute revolutionaries are those with the best performance. No one can say Wang Jie’s brilliance is less than that of Lei Feng.
Speaking about how to view performance, think of an ancient philosopher’s fable: there are always thousands of horses, but few people who can recognize a thousand-li horse. When people compare horses, they usually judge by dam, appearance, origin, price, forgetting to let the horse run, test it, see whether it can travel a thousand leagues by day and walk eight hundred miles at night; only then can you distinguish the heavenly horse from the ordinary horse. Aren’t some people like this today? They only focus on birth, social connections, these dead materials, forgetting the real basis—the performance. Over time, not only do you ruin the thousand-li horse, even ordinary horses become “dogs.”
We must rightly position birth and performance. To judge whether a youth is revolutionary, birth is not the standard; performance is the only standard. Do you really think that birth being good means performance will be good, and you can exceed those with bad birth in performance? Only poor performance makes people brandish birth as a banner and use Mao as a trademark to make others pay up. We say: if your performance is bad, for example: stubbornly persisting on a reactionary line, not studying or using Mao Zedong’s writings, etc., then even if you are among the first three categories of the Red Five (Revolutionary Cadres, Revolutionary Army, Revolutionary Martyrs), you have no use.
Birth and social connections are only references. As long as you understand a youth’s political performance, their birth and social connections lose their reference value.
- The goodness or badness of birth has nothing to do with security (guarantee)
The fair-minded comrades have changed their tune: “Children of the Black Five are not exactly the same as their parents…” In other words, they are not the same as the Red Five children. Why? Because (this utilitarian tool comes in) “they are not secure.” However, why are they not secure? “No matter what, they have been exposed to bad influences!” External factor determinists say. Not to speak of the bad influence of family background not necessarily being bad, not to speak of family influence being subordinate to social influence. Then, does bad family influence mean worse social influence; will performance be worse as well? This is not a simple algebraic relation but a dialectical one. Mao Zedong said, “There is no breaking without building,” and also, “to destroy first, then to establish.” If you do not struggle with the non-proletarian thoughts in your own mind, how can proletarian thought establish itself? We often describe certain youths who have only been educated in the color of Red One and have not undergone tough ideological transformation as flowers in a greenhouse. They cannot withstand winds and waves, and are easily used by bad people. Wasn’t it so in the early years of the Cultural Revolution when those who shouted “Old father, hero son” had birth backgrounds that many people envied, and later did they not implement revisionist路线 and become spokespeople for the bourgeoisie? Are they insured? Yet the great leaders of the proletarian revolutionary cause—the great mentors Marx, Lenin, and Mao—also did not come from good birth backgrounds; this is not an accident. The key problem is not birth but ideological transformation.
“Revolutionary cadres do not want restoration; they will not discard their father’s life.” People with strong family values often carry out restoration unconsciously. When reforming within the party, those who have risen in recent years typically have good birth backgrounds; are they insured? Later, Left-Right “Left” work teams or explicit rules or surreptitious policies to discriminate against youths with bad birth backgrounds—at that time, most who entered the revolutionary committee were from good birth backgrounds, and most became sellers for the reactionary line of work teams. A certain leader of the Beijing High School Red Guards had two secretaries for each sex, one driver, plus cars, motorcycles, watches, cameras, tape recorders, and so on; Comrade Chen Boda even called them pseudo-Red Guards. Clearly, simply relying on people with good birth background cannot eliminate the danger of restoration. In antiquity there is a queen named Wu Zetian: she killed the ministers Shangguan Yi but kept Shangguan Yi’s daughter as a personal secretary. People worry about her. She said, “So long as political reform is correct, people will naturally submit. What does this have to do with it?” Look at those implementing the reactionary line; they fear Mao Zedong Thought, they do not carry out the Party’s policies, and how can they be trusted by revolutionary youths? Ridiculous! They do not even have the foresight of a feudal emperor, yet they call themselves “proletarian soldiers”—the great leader Mao Zedong will never place birth as a criterion for a successor’s conditions, because his policy is correct and his line is clear, and under his leadership youths are most secure. Otherwise, even if, after victory, a country like the Soviet Union expels the exploiting classes, not all youths’ birth backgrounds would be good, and it would still be insecure.
Advocates of “security theory” are not few, yet they have no proper reasons. Is this the “class viewpoint”? No! This is “class prejudice,” it has nothing to do with the proletariat, and it resonates with the petty-bourgeoisie. These people have no notion of the public character and have a strong sense of private ownership, so they do not hesitate to adapt their own views to their own versions of things. According to their view, if the father is reactionary and the son is a dog, the whole generation will be dogs, and humanity will never be liberated, and communism will never succeed. So they are not communists. According to their view, if the father is good, the son will be good; they do not understand that thought arises from practice, so they are not materialists. According to their view, as long as the father and mother are good, a person’s thought will be good, and no hard ideological transformation is needed, so they are not revolutionaries. They do not revolution themselves, and they do not permit those with bad birth to revolution. They call themselves “self-made Reds,” not realizing that “self-made Red” is just a badly made mooncake.
We must believe that the broad youth nurtured by Mao Zedong Thought should first and foremost believe in those youths who perform well. Do not use genetics to demean some people and elevate others. Doing so is nothing but a clumsy political tactic, and has no grounds. We do not allow bourgeois class prejudice to replace proletarian class perspective. Of course, any youth with potential should resolve to reform themselves. In that case, even if influence is bad, one can turn bad into good, and resistance into motivation. If you do not have such resolution, then there is no good political performance to speak of, and the situation is unthinkable.
III. The Victimization Problem
A leader once said in 1961: “Among youths with different birth backgrounds, there should not be an insurmountable chasm.” There should not be, but there is. How did this happen?
Remember in the early stage of the movement, the victims’ problem was first raised by fashionable figures. Everyone said they were persecuted by revisionist groups. If revisionist groups are so reactionary that if they themselves were not persecuted but instead pampered, would that be revolutionary? Thus, Tan Lifu also claimed he was persecuted. Was it economically persecuted? He devoured Dutch condensed milk during hard times; was he persecuted politically? His thoughts were so reactionary that he joined the Party; which shows how he was a spoiled young noble. The newly reorganized Beijing Daily published many articles by Red Five birth-background youths voicing their grievances; they said they were victims of the preexisting Party-centered revisionist line. It must be said that all youths are victims; why then are only youths with birth backgrounds of the bad kind victims? Look at what miseries they endured.
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“We were barred from entering university; the university opens wide gates for the children of exploiters”;
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“In university, youths with good birth do poorly in studies and arouse the professors’ disdain”;
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“Some youths with bad birth backgrounds were promoted to cadres”;
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“……” If this is persecution, then the victims are the youths with bad birth backgrounds. The capital’s big newspaper of the capital openly inverts the truth, so it deserved its end. Let facts speak for themselves.
Remember during the revisionist group’s rule, every year when universities finished admissions, the Ministry of Higher Education issued a notice: “This year priority was given to工农子弟, and革干子弟.” Many universities hardly admitted Black Five birth-background youths. Important faculties in universities were not mentioned. Schools boasted of establishing “工农革干班” as an honor. Is this “opening wide the doors for children of exploiters”? Those who entered universities were those with good birth backgrounds and enjoyed preferential treatment. Many universities established organizations like “贫协,” equal to团组织. Since this movement began, there have been orders to prohibit Black Five birth-background youths from associating, to attack those who dare to write large-character posters using birth background, to not allow youths with bad birth backgrounds to participate in various revolutionary organizations, to incite crowds to fight crowds using birth background as a pretext… These things are not surprising. It shows that youths with bad birth backgrounds have long been persecuted. As for Black Five birth-background youths not performing well academically, that is pure slander against youths with good birth backgrounds. The same is true in secondary schools. According to investigation materials issued by Beijing Municipal Education Bureau on class disruptions, there is a birth background survey item for “disruptive” students (note: here “disruptive” and “counterrevolution” are not related; the materials refer to issues in romantic relations and theft). The majority had good birth backgrounds. In disruptions, those who did not disrupt had worse birth backgrounds; the reason given was: “My birth background is bad; others disrupt, I disrupt and have trouble.” This is not false. Not only at secondary schools, even primary schools show the same. A principal told a young teacher: “If two children both say a counterrevolutionary phrase, the one with good birth background affects the outcome; the one with bad birth background is the real issue.” Perhaps a prior directive from the Youth League Committee; at one time some schools replaced all their younger cadres with bad birth backgrounds. In recent years, Youth League cadres and class cadres in secondary schools have all been chosen with birth background in mind. Generally teachers, whether from a sense of public opinion or sincerity, have not treated youths with good birth backgrounds (especially革干子弟) as equals. The opposite case is the exception. Otherwise, you would have long ago been labeled “having no class viewpoint.”
In factories, this phenomenon is also very common. Almost without exception, every administrative cadre promoted in the last three or four years has a good birth background. Even in the list of candidates for advanced workers, birth background is included. Some factories even stipulate that masters with bad birth backgrounds are not allowed to mentor apprentices, not allowed to operate precision machines. At the movement’s early stage there were regulations: “Workers with bad birth backgrounds have the right to elect but not the right to be elected.” When summarizing the charges against the entrenched power holders, the so-called “recruit and defection” (i.e., promoting someone with a bad birth background to a technical cadre) is a very important one. It goes without saying that future power holders will not dare to do this again! Factories also organized Red Guards; birth background restrictions were very strict. Reviewing central documents, there is no one saying to rely only on workers with good birth background. Who split workers into two camps? The same is true for rural areas. In some rural areas, local revisionists grouped landholder and rich peasant children by birth status as a category. Poor performance was attributed to birth; good performance to agricultural workers; best performers to middle peasants. Why is the good performer always middle peasant? Shouldn’t they be classified as poor lower peasants? Then, do not the children of poor lower peasants also produce bad outcomes? Is performance the result of birth, or birth the result of performance? If birth is bad, one cannot take up administrative, financial, or store-keeping jobs, or transfer externally. In rural areas where middle schools were not widely established, those who could advance to middle school were recommended by the combination of teachers,贫协, and brigade leaders. Who would bear the blame if birth backgrounds were poor? A brigade leader said: “This child has a good birth background, listens well, and is capable of work—let him be the one.” Such cases are admitted into middle school. The social system everywhere follows birth background as a first criterion; even for the unemployed in streets, the birth background is considered. The people who fail to enroll in schools and seek work in street employment are mostly from bad birth backgrounds. Only during large-scale job distribution do they have some hope of being assigned.
“The saying ‘birth buries people’ is not false at all!” Similar cases can be found widely. Anyone who has overcome “class prejudice” can be cited more and more. So who are the victims? If this continues, what is the difference between the American Negroes, India’s Dalits, Japan’s Burakumin and the Indian caste system? This is exactly a test for them! Stop testing people and stop comparing home to home! Don’t you recall Marx’s words: “To expect the unfortunate to be perfect is immoral.” This is utterly immoral.
“Their father oppressed our father, so we are not polite to them now!” What a narrow concept of bloodlines! In a capitalist society, when a father goes bankrupt, the son can declare to renounce inheritance to cut off relations. One cannot imagine that today father-son relationships are so close; leftists look so adorable!
Enough! We will not waste more ink refuting such ignorant arguments. Let us study the root causes of the emergence of this new caste system!
This is one hand of the revisionist faction; then why do bourgeois elements oppress bourgeois birth-background youths? Is this strange? We say it is not strange. Because these youths belong to a different class from them, that is why they do it. And for achieving the restoration plot, whether it is children of proletarian birth or non-proletarian birth, in their view there is no difference. Perhaps those who are in the greenhouse, those who have little worldly experience and are clinging to the “self-made red” burden, are more favorable to them. Especially after Chairman Mao proposed the great call “Never forget class struggle” in 1962, these conspirators panicked. Who are they aiming at now? The struggle’s main target is the power holders who follow the capitalist path within the Party, and the demonized specters they shelter. To divert the struggle, they switched concepts: originally the father’s component should be the son’s birth, but now they have turned the father’s component into the son’s component. Thus, under the banner of “class struggle,” a large-scale persecution began with tangible and intangible means. Birth-unstable youths became their shield, and oppressing these inherently “guilty” people became their signboard to lure the masses. The Party Central correctly identified that they are implementing a “Left” cover for a Right path—this is one of the sources of this phenomenon.
They commit these evil acts using the old social habits, the naïveté of youths, and especially the blind pride of some higher-officer children (for example, classifying themselves as in 1–3 categories because revolutionary cadres and martyrs are effectively revolutionary cadres, while workers’ offspring have to be in the fourth or fifth category). They also exploit some shortcomings and errors of lower-level cadres; some cadres therefore admit and promote this reactionary policy. The theoretical ignorance of these cadres leads them to fail to distinguish Marxist class theory from petty-bourgeois birth-status theory; in their cognition, the youths’ true essence cannot be distinguished from their superficial appearance; in practice, they do not provide youths with opportunities to demonstrate political thought; they do not do political work, thus making birth into a tool, attacking some people, and encouraging others to advance the line; politically, they exhibit zeal but lack meticulous investigation, content to use birth as a framework; in revolutionary will, they are fearful of the word and do not dare to promote those who truly perform well, fearing responsibility. Thus, all these things together drive the phenomenon, creating a new privileged class within our social system and a new oppressed class that follows. And this is congenital and cannot be changed. As Chairman Mao pointed out, racial oppression is class oppression. This set of methods by the reactionary revisionists is also the prelude to bourgeois anti-revolutionary restoration. We must point out that even so, the main violence of the revolutionaries is still from the right; they shelter the rich and rightists as well as bourgeois elements within the Party. They bring bourgeois authority into the Party, bestow high salaries on certain fifth-category people, and preach peaceful coexistence to them, yet they persecute youths with bad birth backgrounds and persecute some successors of proletarian cause. What else is this if not a sharp, complex class struggle?
During the work-team governance, the “Left” facade masked the class line even more. In handling birth issues, they can be called a comrade from the same nest as the revisionist group. Therefore, this serious social problem not only remained unsolved but deepened, and the contradiction broadened and exposed. The ruthless “root-and-branch” destruction and the so-called “debates” passed to humiliating searches, insults, detentions, beatings, and other serious human rights violations, all presented as “hyper-Mao Zedong Thought.” This forced so many people to become disheartened, feeling themselves to be guiltless criminals, inferior and disreputable, barely able to show their faces. They could not invest all their strength in the movement. They wanted to revolt without the capital to wage it; they wanted to resist without the conditions to resist; this killed the enthusiasm of many revolutionary youths! The revolutionary ranks shrank. This exactly matched the tyrannical line’s plan. Objectively, it protected and sheltered those who infiltrated the Party to pursue capitalist-road power and incited crowds to fight crowds. It is reasonable to say that unless the formerly most oppressed vast majority of revolutionary youths are thoroughly liberated, this movement would not have achieved thorough victory!
Comrades, can we still allow this phenomenon to continue? Should we not immediately rise to thoroughly cleanse all the dirty water and sludge? Should not the artificial chasm be leveled? During the rule of reactionary forces, oppressed youths were not only those with bad birth backgrounds, but also those among worker-peasant birth youths who faced the capitalist-road power and other revolutionary youths. We call upon: all revolutionary youths oppressed by reactionary forces, under the banner of Mao Zedong Thought, unite and organize! You are most oppressed by the bourgeoisie; your resistance should be more resolute. When criticizing them, you have the most say. Those Tan Liufu types who pretend to be victims have no say. Relying on them for criticism will be shallow and insincere. Therefore you are not outsiders; you are masters of your own fate. Only cowards wait for others’ grace, while revolution has always depended on struggle! You should unavoidably defend Mao Zedong Thought, defend the Party’s class line. Do not allow revisionist groups to distort it from the right, and do not allow reactionary lines to attack it from the left. You should believe you can undertake this glorious mission! You should also not exclude youths who have not faced oppression or prejudice. You can unite them, fight together, and improve together. Comrades, we must believe in the Party, and remember Chairman Mao’s instructions: “The thorough materialist is fearless!”
Victory will belong to us!
All oppressed revolutionary youths, rise up and bravely fight!
Beijing Family Birth Issues Research Group
Original published in Capital’s Middle School Cultural Revolution Newspaper, inaugural issue, January 18, 1967
First draft in July 1966
Final draft in September
Revised in November
[1] When On Birth Status was first published, we had to write like this. Now we see that Li Xuefeng and his top-tier figures who spoke these words at the Ninth Central Committee Youth League plenary meeting in July 1966 have all become representatives of the bourgeois reactionary路线.
[2] When On Birth Status was just posted, beside this sentence was written “great poison weed,” “nonsense,” and other words, expressing the cheap anger of Tan Lifu and others. They have vision, because this is exactly the theme of On Birth Status. However, history is merciless. Today many Red Guards organizations already cite this sentence as their organizational creed. One Red Guard organization issued a宣言 stating: “In the past, red guard organizations could only be formed by so-called ‘Red Five’ children, and joining this is inconsistent with Mao Zedong Thought; we must create an opposite.” Our revolutionary salute goes to these fearless actions.
[3] “Zi Lai Hong” is the name of a Beijing Mooncake.
[4] In some rural regions, when advancing from primary to junior high, birth background accounted for sixty points, performance twenty, academic成绩 five, others fifteen.
[5] We suggest comrades who are interested in studying this issue to conduct a social survey. For example, in this unit, how many youths have good birth backgrounds? How many youths have bad birth backgrounds? What is the ratio of those who hold administrative posts? What is the ratio of Party members and League members? Are there restrictions on political activities for those with bad birth backgrounds? In addition, one can also consult China Youth since 1964 and other journals. Comrades can see how close the articles in such revisionist-controlled publications on class路线 are to the views of some of us today.
[6] While counting the charges revisionist groups used to persecute youths with bad birth backgrounds, someone accused us of “glorifying revisionist groups.” This is not surprising, because they still think oppressing youths with bad birth backgrounds is a great achievement. To say who persecuted the “dogs’ pups” according to their rotten logic, isn’t that glorifying someone?
Why did Qian Ren0 post the full text of this black article?
Qian Renling posts the full text of this black essay here without any critique, which is very irresponsible. Now I post an excerpt from the “Essay on Origin” signed by the “Fifth Research Group” during the Cultural Revolution, so you can compare with the full text posted by Qian Renling and criticize it. The part about how different families influence youths differently may still be of reference value today.
On Origin (Excerpt)
Whether in the socialist revolution or in socialist construction, we must solve the problem of who to rely on, who to win over, and who to oppose. The proletariat and its vanguard must conduct class analysis of socialist society, rely on the genuinely reliable forces that firmly follow the socialist path, strive to win over all possible allies, unite the people who make up more than 95% of the population, and jointly combat the enemies of socialism. In rural areas, after agricultural collectivization, we must also rely on poor peasants and lower-middle peasants to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, consolidate the worker-peasant alliance, and defeat capitalist spontaneous forces, continually consolidating and expanding socialist positions.
There is no such thing as origin without critique
First, we should discuss what is meant by “family background/origin.”
Nowadays, “family background” refers to the father’s class position.
In fact, family background should refer to “family component,” that is, the social class position of the family you live in.
But, in reality, the father’s class position often determines the family’s class position. This is because a typical family’s income mainly comes from the father; and due to the remnants of the old society’s “patriarchy” and “husband’s authority,” the father is usually the greatest “authority” in the home; and because “Jia family’s Zhao Da would not love Lin Daiyu” the story of a dirt-poor person who picks up a rich young lady is more a trope of old society’s romance novels, thus, the exception that the “heroic father and reactionary mother” can exist only as an exception. Therefore, using the father’s class position to represent the family’s class position generally won’t be far wrong.
We also quote a passage from the Chairman’s quotes often cited when discussing origin: “In a class society, everyone lives in a certain class position, and all kinds of thoughts bear the imprint of that class.”
A person, from childhood through to growing up and entering society, inevitably goes through the important process of “family life.”
The class position of this family (political and economic status) thus makes the thoughts of the people living in it bear the imprint of their own class. This is what is called “the base determines consciousness.” People in this family inevitably edu cate and influence their descendants with their own class thoughts and consciousness (whether consciously or unconsciously).
This is called “family influence.”
Like all ideologies, family influence has a distinct, strong class character.
Revolutionary families are mostly good and proletarian in their influence.
Counter-revolutionary families are mostly bad and bourgeois in their influence.
The influence of petty-bourgeois families is largely petty-bourgeois.
This is the law of class struggle.
This is the objective fact of our country’s political life.
This cannot be erased by any “exception” or sophistry.
The author of “On Origin” fundamentally confuses the class nature of family influence and fundamentally denies the role of family influence on a person’s thoughts and political behavior. With the exception of the “heroic father, reactionary mother,” and with the sophistry of “family background does not necessarily determine political behavior,” he extols family influence, while propagating overseas anecdotes about “political behavior being unrelated to origin,” which has confused some people’s thinking.
We believe: a family with poor origin generally has bad influence (of course not absolutely), and some people with poor origin show poor political behavior precisely because their bad family influence acts to some extent.
Let us first give an example!
Hè Lóng’s son, Hé ××, during middle and high school, performed terribly. He behaved like a young master who can come and go as he pleases. When he failed to get into university, through his father’s “effort,” he remained at a nearby high school for a year, and was eventually admitted to Tsinghua University on special grounds. In this Cultural Revolution, he functioned as a fanatic promoter of the reactionary path (money) promoted by Liu and Deng. Such a person can be said to have quite dreadful political conduct. So is Hé ××'s poor political conduct related to his family background or not?
Facts speak louder than eloquence. Let us briefly discuss Hé Long’s family life.
When Hé Long was in the Southwest Bureau, he lived in Chiang Kai-shek’s house. Yet he still found that house inadequate. He then spent more than 1.5 million yuan to build a better one than Chiang’s. They ate very well, and their home produced 20-30 kinds of vegetables, not enough. Once they even killed more than twenty specially fed dogs and served them with famous dishes in a “dog meat banquet.” In 1965, Hé Long celebrated his birthday three times: the first when his children had to return to Beijing for school, a pre-celebration; a few days later, Hé ×× flew to Guangzhou to celebrate again during a Saturday; and on the actual date, another celebration. Hé ×× had been raised into a pampered young master who even wanted to fly in an airplane and enter the cockpit to tinker with it. He often drove with Li Jingquan’s son to the countryside for hunting and pleasure. He suddenly wanted to play table tennis, so at home they built a refined table tennis room, moved Zhong Zedong’s championship table in, and found a “world-famous” coach to practice…
Enough! Enough!
Isn’t this family background bad enough? Can Hé ××'s political behavior be said to have “no relation” to family influence? And can his family influence be said to have “no relation” to the activities of the Party’s Three-anti-Three-anti movement? How many more Hé ××s are like this? From the countless facts you know, you can conclude this: class origin imprints on people’s thoughts.
Mao Zedong taught us: “Bourgeois, petty-bourgeois thoughts must be expressed. In political matters and ideological questions, use all kinds of means to stubbornly express themselves.”
Lenin taught us: “Everyday, trivial, unseen corruption activities create the evils needed by the bourgeoisie to restore its rule.”
Reactionary parents— their reactionary thoughts must be consciously or unconsciously reflected and expressed. The proletariat must reform the world according to its world outlook, and the bourgeoisie must reform the world according to its own world outlook. The bourgeois ideology, through various channels, influences and corrupts those around them, transforming the surrounding people; this is an important manifestation of class struggle. Here, children from exploiting classes are always in the front line. Needless to say, their thoughts bear the imprint of old ideas to a greater or lesser extent.
The author of “On Origin” may object: even if origin is bad, family influence is not bad! But, “social influence far exceeds family influence; family influence serves social influence.” Tell me, can the reactionary family influence “submit” to revolutionary influence in society? Don’t revolution and reactionary influence want to conquer each other through struggle? Can they coexist peacefully?
No! Absolutely not!
Social influence is not an abstract concept. It has a clear class content.
Let us analyze the society that youths are exposed to and see what influences they can receive.
We believe there are three main aspects:
- Family influence.
- School influence. Including contact with teachers, classmates, and various activities on campus.
- Other influences. Including culture, education, arts, propaganda, etc.
It must be pointed out that the main current of the latter two is good and proletarian. However, we must not ignore that social influence is composite and complex. Revolutionary influence and reactionary influence are in fierce struggle with each other.
But regarding family influence, generally it is always distinct: good is good, bad is bad. There is no room for compromise.
Family influence has the most primal nature. When a baby wriggles in the mother’s womb, relatives have already “planned” what kind of person to raise (which class they belong to). A child’s mind is like a blank sheet; the family imprint is always the first to be stamped, how profound it is!
Family influence, through food, clothing, shelter, and the widest channels of teaching and modeling, through the most meticulous methods, influences people with stubborn, lasting, all-pervasive impact. Often decades later, when the youth becomes an elder, one can still see the parent’s shadow in them.
Family influence also directly or indirectly interferes with youths’ contact with the other two influences. The family’s class position forces youths to accept the influence emanating from their own class within school and public opinion. Visit a worker’s home and you’ll see the window-sill holding “Four Histories” books, while in the bed of an old capitalist you can’t help but find the stories of “The Three Heroes and Five Righteous” and Zhang Zeping novels.
In sum, family influence is not small, it is not simply to “obey” social influence. On the contrary, family influence is a powerful factor within the entire social influence.
Family is the battlefield of class struggle.
Our generation is the generation that comes after the old and before the new. The proletariat’s hope is placed on us, and the bourgeoisie’s “hope” is placed on us as well. When those new and old bourgeois elements face death, how much they hope their “successors” will grow and mature!
In this sharp and complex class struggle, reactionary families (including the new and old) are at the forefront, often the fiercest battleground. In this battleground, preaching “On Origin” and denying family influence, in a youth’s head-to-head fight against reactionary thoughts, what kind of crime is this!
Some people who read this might become complacent and cry out: “Good! Excellent! If origin is bad, family influence is bad! Family influence is huge! Very, very huge! Hmm, then people with bad origin are not scoundrels! The old reactionary child is basically so, ha ha ha!”
To tell the truth, for those noble “bloodline” proponents, people often look at them with contempt. But for those who use criticizing “On Origin” to repeat “bloodline theory” as “fighters,” the pity must be greater than contempt—because they have already reached an incurable stage. We do not want to waste words with these people; let us study a Mao Zedong quote instead.
“People’s social existence determines their thoughts. And the correct thoughts of the advanced class, once grasped by the masses, will become a material force to reform society and the world.”
We think that for youths of different origins, class origin imprints different marks on them, but it does not play a decisive role; what determines is their effort (people can choose their direction) and their effort to grasp the correct thoughts that represent the advanced class—the glorious, invincible Mao Zedong Thought, to be a successor in the proletarian revolutionary cause. To lead all with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought is the fundamental guarantee for all youth to be revolutionized.
For youths whose origin leads to bad family influence, as long as they recognize this point, and take control of their minds with glorious Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, completely eradicate the bad influence, and break ideologically with reactionary families, they can become firm leftists, they can become successors in the proletarian revolutionary cause, they will not wait for someone else’s “favor,” they will not be content with being on the periphery due to inferiority, they will stride boldly toward the road to communism.
“Origin theory! Origin theory! Down with origin theory!” Those previously elated fellows are now about to explode in anger again.
Isn’t it clearly written in “On Origin” that even if origin is bad, one can still be a revolutionary leftist, a successor in the proletarian cause, or a revolutionary object of support?
Isn’t it clearly printed in the “Secondary School Cultural Revolution Newspaper”?
“Young people with bad origin do not need someone’s gift of unity; they should not be only fringe members.”
However, what we discuss is completely unrelated to what “On Origin” discusses. This is obvious to any wise person.
“No! You and ‘On Origin’ are the same ilk!” Those bloodline advocates who stubbornly insist on the old insult will still say so.
When Lenin fought against opportunists, he said: “Can we have a serious talk with those who obviously do not take serious issues seriously? Comrades, it is difficult! Yet some people themselves do not take questions seriously, so it is also not wrong to analyze those obviously unserious answers to these questions.”
Now, we may as well dissect how the author of “On Origin” argues about “class origin,” a serious issue, in an unserious manner; and at the same time answer the pitiful questions of those who petty-argue about “bloodlines.”
How does the author of “On Origin” argue? His logical reasoning is, frankly, a sophistry. To prevent others from finding hard evidence, the author engages in tedious philosophy, going over and over, examining from all angles. He always selects exceptions from a wealth of objective facts, then deduces with “not necessarily” and arrives at superficially plausible conclusions.
“On Origin” talks at length: “the bonds of family have loosened, the younger generation now belongs to society,” and “in a socialist society, generally young people receive proletarian education, prepared to serve or already serving the proletariat,” “the class position of young people is either to become workers or to have already become workers,” etc.
Question: If youth belong to society, what does that mean? Does society no longer distinguish between the proletariat and bourgeoisie!
Question: Do young people really all have to be prepared to serve the proletariat or have already served? In a “linked movement,” all youths—serving which class?
Question: Are the class positions of youths all workers? Then where do the idlers who “eat the old man’s food” come from?
Based on these odd things, the author tries to prove: family influence is very small, social influence is very large, to the extent that family influence on youth is useless, and origin and behavior are only marginally related. Therefore, youths with bad origin can still become leftists and successors in the revolutionary cause.
Whether the conflict between the efforts of progressive youths and the bad influence of the family is faced squarely or erased, whether it guides youths to actively overcome bad influence or persuades them to passively avoid the contradiction, this marks the difference between “originism” and “no-originism.”
We believe that “On Origin” is off-topic and off-content. It should be called “No-Origin Theory.”
The essence of “On Origin” is to abolish class and class struggle in the socialist era.
We believe: for people with bad origin, family influence is bad (of course not absolutely). This influence is not small. If they want to advance, they must inevitably clash with bad family influence, must inevitably have ideological and emotional conflict with the family. Revolutionary youths must not avoid this contradiction (in practice, they cannot avoid it). The only way is to arm their minds with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, face the contradiction squarely, and through continuous struggle resolve this contradiction, and with their ideological and emotional stance completely sever ties with the family. On that day, you will break through the nets binding you, shed the heavy burden on your shoulders, and sprint forward along the road of revolution.
“Even if there is a heaven, heaven would age; the righteous path in the human world is stormy and rough.”
Dear comrades, do you believe that glorious Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought is invincible? Do you believe the bright red banner must fly across the world? Do you believe you can become a proletarian fighter? Do you believe that reactionary “originism” and “no-originism” will eventually fail? Then, according to Chairman Mao, bravely fight forward! Throw away illusions, start the struggle! Break through every net, drive away all ridicule, and move forward boldly!
Victory will surely belong to the revolutionaries whose minds are armed with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought!
If Black Wen is released without approval, wouldn’t it become spreading Black Wen?
Where was this article found?
Full text here:
Materials related to “On Birth” (“Feng Lei Ji” Editorial Department).pdf (11.3 MB)
Comrade Screwdriver promptly published the critique of “On Birth” by the “Fifth Research Group,” emphasizing the importance for readers to recognize ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and to understand the class stance and class struggle within. These critiques are also highly relevant today!