The Master in Bondage by Huaiyin Li

Author:Huaiyin Li
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The feeling of gratitude was also strong among workers recruited from the rural area. Given the barrier of the household registration system preventing the free flow of rural populations into the cities, the sharp contrast between the registered urban residents and their rural counterparts in their entitlement to the benefits offered by their respective production units, and the extremely rare opportunities for villagers to become state-enterprise employees, those who “jumped out of the farmers’ gate” (tiao chu nongmen) felt themselves to be truly lucky, compared to the large number of young villagers left behind them. They felt that working hard was the only means to preserve their status as state employees and seek further opportunities for upward mobility. At the aforementioned dockyard in Guangzhou, many of the workers making concrete preforms were recruited from the countryside and thus felt “satisfied” about their living condition. For them, “having moved from the countryside to the city, entered a large state enterprise, and become workers and urban residents, all these meant that their livelihood would be guaranteed by the state, and that they would have higher political standing. So they had a sense of honor. Most of them thus were highly motivated—this was very different from the materialism nowadays.” The informant himself, receiving thirty-one catties of rice a month like others, felt so grateful that he sincerely noted in his diary: “Thanks to the Party Central, and thanks to Chairman Mao” (N7). Likewise, the three female interviewees who had been villagers and later recruited by the Filature of Huanggang Region in Hubei province in 1966, 1960, and 1971, respectively, all said that they felt “very proud,” “very glorious,” and “very happy” for having moved “from the countryside to the city” and changed their status “from a peasant to a worker” after three months of apprenticeship (H1, H3, H4). As a worker at Shijiazhuang Chemical Fertilizer Plant, Mr. Cui (b. 1936) felt “particularly proud” of his change from a villager to a worker of a state firm in 1957, which, as he put it, “appeared to be even more spectacular than having a child going to college nowadays from the villagers’ point of view” (B2). The same was true about the miners at the Shitouzui Mine of the Mining Industry Bureau of Wuhan Municipality, who were mostly recruited from the rural area. According to one of the miners, to “jump out of the farmers’ gate” and become a miner, hence a state-firm employee, “was very difficult” because the recruitment involved strict investigation of candidates’ political background. Once hired, all the young miners were highly enthusiastic, and everyone “wanted to perform well” (H13).

Entering a state enterprise also meant a lot to urban residents. In the 1960s and 1970s, as the urban population grew quickly, employment in state firms became increasingly competitive. Alternatively, more and more job candidates accepted positions in collective firms funded and run by local government authorities. The collective-enterprise employees accounted for 26.5 percent of the entire working force in 1957, 30 to

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