All schools and disciplines (primary schools, middle schools, universities, military academies,
medical schools, art schools, and other schools such as Party schools, journalism schools,
foreign language schools, diplomatic schools, etc., covering social sciences, natural sciences,
and the general knowledge of both) should follow this approach. Step by step and with due
preparation, all students should be discharged from the school system and sent to factories
and rural areas, living, eating, and working alongside workers and peasants, learning about
industry and agriculture, and studying. The ideal work-study ratio should be 50:50, and at
most 4:6. Therefore, the amount of studying should be greatly reduced. Reading is
necessary, but excessive reading is fatal. Teachers and students should be equal, putting
aside their airs, and learning from each other. Experiences should be constantly reviewed
and mistakes corrected. Many useless books should simply be shelved. Just as the reading of
the Five Classics, the Twenty-Four Histories, the various philosophers, and the endless
collections and anthologies of essays was abolished in the past, the revolution triumphed.
For example, among the Communists and our military cadres, over 90 percent are illiterate
or barely literate. Those who can read a little more, such as those who attended a few years
of high school, the Whampoa Military Academy, the Yunnan Military Academy, or Soviet
military academies, are a tiny minority, and there are practically no university graduates.
Therefore, some say that the Communists are "unlearned but skilled," while they are
"learned but unskilled." This statement is somewhat correct in form. But in essence, it is
completely wrong. Communists have attended military and revolutionary universities for
over twenty years (those twenty years of war and revolution), while university professors
and students are only able to pore over books (a relatively easy task). They can't fight, they
can't make revolution, they can't work, and they can't farm. Their knowledge is extremely
poor, and when they talk about these things, they have no idea what they are talking about.
Many of them do have one skill: anti-communism, anti-people, and anti-revolution, and they
remain so to this day. They also have "techniques," methods of counter-revolution. That's
why I often say that intellectuals are the least learned, compared to workers and peasants.
They have no shame in themselves, and they spend their days going from book to book,
from concept to concept. If this continues, they will be incapable of anything except counter-



revolution, bourgeois restoration, and cultivating revisionists. Some who participated in the
first and second Four Cleanups Movements and learned from the workers and peasants
returned feeling ashamed of their inferiority and invigorated by revolutionary drive. This is a
good thing. A Tang Dynasty poem [2] goes like this: "The smoke from the bamboo hangings
melts, the emperor's legacy is empty; the mountains and rivers are empty, the home of the
first emperor. The ashes of the pit are still burning, yet Shandong is in turmoil; Liu and Xiang
failed to read." Some comrades have said: "The less educated overthrow the more educated;
the younger overthrow the older." This is a law of the past and present. The classics, history,
philosophy, and anthologies have accumulated to the point of filling up volumes and
becoming a vast sea. This has declared its own demise. Only one in a few hundred thousand
people still cares about them; the rest are completely unaware of their existence. This is a
great liberation, and we are extremely grateful. Therefore, all schools must be relocated to
factories and rural areas, and part-time work and study must be implemented. Of course,
this must be done in stages, in batches and phases, but it must happen. If not, such schools
must be disbanded to prevent endless trouble.
Mao Zedong,
April 14th

[1] This comment appeared in "Document and Telegraph Abstracts," No. 168, published by
the Confidential Office of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China on April 12, 1966. The article "Trial Practice of Part-time Work (Farming) and
Studying in Beijing's Art Schools" published in this issue described the China Conservatory of
Music's transfer of first-year students and some faculty to the Beijing Branch of the China
Automotive Industry Corporation to pilot factory-based education, and to Wenquan
Commune in Beijing's Haidian District to pilot a part-time farming and studying program.
Mao Zedong's comment was not published at the time.
[2] This is a seven-character quatrain titled "Burning and Burying Books," written by the late
Tang poet Zhang He. The original poem reads: "The bamboo smoke scatters the imperial
legacy, leaving nothing behind. Empty gates and rivers block the Emperor's home. The ashes
are still warm, yet Shandong is in turmoil. Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, it turns out, didn't read."