China: Re-education Camps

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution the Communist Party built andutilized what were referred to as re-education camps. These camps wereessentially prisons in which the detainees were forced to work. Thosesent to the camps were often teachers, doctors, thinkers, writers, orpoliticians whose views were either considered “counter-revolutionary”or who were simply denounced by members of the Red Guard for any numberof reasons. Communist Party thought of the time was that anyone who wasagainst the Revolution—a category which included most intellectuals—wasconsidered bourgeois, and therefore time spent doing tough labor in thecamps would provide them the empathy for the common worker that theywere surely lacking. In addition, many political opponents were sent tothe camps, including Deng Xiaoping himself, who was interned therethree times and would eventually become the leader of the ChineseCommunist Party.

The camps had a significant effect on China during and after theRevolution. So many university and primary school teachers were sent tothe camps that the Chinese educational system almost ground to acomplete stop. Illiteracy rates skyrocketed after the Revolution,especially in rural areas, and many schools had to rely on certaingifted students to take over the work of their absent teachers.

Many of these camps were closed after the death of Mao Zedung andthe end of the Cultural Revolution, and many intellectuals andpoliticians were politically and socially rehabilitated. However, theimpact on China as a whole was long-lasting, and contributed to thepost-Mao belief that the Cultural Revolution itself was a largemistake. Further, the camps have become synonymous outside of Chinawith the inequities of Communism, and are considered a symbol, alongwith Tiananmen Square and other events, of the turbulence that theCultural Revolution caused. The camps have become known through theworks of many prominent Chinese writers who were interned there, suchas *.

China still employs the use of re-education camps today, although ina different capacity. The modern camps are referred to as Laojiao, andare reserved for petty criminals, such as thieves. However, the methodof indictment remains the same as it was in the 1950s, when the systemwas first created by the Communist Party. Sentencing to there-education camps are handed down directly by police, with no courtinvolvement. They are rarely available for judicial review, and eventhen, not until after the sentence has been partly served. The Laojiaoare explicitly named and condemned in the “08 Charter,” which wasoriginally signed by a group of 303 Chinese intellectuals but which hassince grown to include over 8,100 signatures.