≡ 小红鞋 ≡

Reeducation of young "intellectuals" was a major focal point of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. It was run by fanatical supporters of Mao, known as the Red Guards - college students infected with the wave of Communist support sweeping the nation. Educated, relatively wealthy middle-class individuals (referred to as the bourgeoisie) were humiliated in public by the Red Guards, while their children were forced to leave their homes and march to the countryside. There, they would be "reeducated" by the peasants to work for their glorious nation's agricultural or iron industries. This was because the Cultural Revolution placed emphasis on revolutionizing the country's agricultural and steel industries - and removed it from upper-class education. Thus, the peasants were seen as the means to move China into the 21st century. Conversely, educated/rich people were seen as a roadblock to this goal - a roadblock that had to be removed and converted into something useful. Thus, this "reeducation".
However, the revolution eventually spiraled out of control. When the killing grew to uncontrollable proportions, the army finally stepped in to take control. Millions of Red Guards were then banished to the mountains, and the revolution had ended.

The narrator suspects, "The real reason behind Mao Zedong's decision was unclear. Was it a ploy to get rid of the Red Guards, who were slipping out of his grasp? Or was it the fantasy of a great revolutionary dreamer, wishing to create a new generation?" (7-8)