Creation: Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association Political Economy Group
Recently, a video has been circulating online. The video shows a young girl being bullied by two boys. The two bullies demand the girl’s only notebook, and when she refuses, they directly slap her. When an adult who filmed the incident steps forward to scold them, the two bullies reluctantly leave without saying a word. It is understood that the girl is a left-behind child in the village, with parents working away from home, and has long been subjected to bullying by boys in the same village. Although the girl is already in second grade of elementary school, the bullies are still in kindergarten, but due to the crowd and the absence of her parents, she has nowhere to seek help after being bullied, so she can only silently endure the bullying for a long time. Previously, these bullies had already snatched her pen and thrown it into a water ditch; they are simply like vicious robbers, grabbing anything the girl has at the sight of her. However, what is even more heinous than robbers is that their bullying is not driven by greed for the girl’s possessions but is a completely extreme twisted and perverted act of oppression. They simply cannot stand the girl’s happiness or her owning her own belongings, and they want to cause her pain by robbing and destroying everything she has, building their own pleasure on her suffering—this is utterly an extreme form of egoism. The moral corruption of these people is evident.
Why does such a thing happen in China, which is said to have achieved “comprehensive well-off society” and “poverty alleviation nationwide”? Why do such heartbreaking bullying incidents occur in the rural areas of China, which are supposedly filled with happiness and “moderate prosperity”? This must be explained from the current situation of rural China. To understand why left-behind children suffer bullying, we must understand why left-behind children appear in the first place.
The emergence of left-behind children has deep social and historical roots. Since China’s reversion to capitalism, the original collective ownership economy in rural areas has been dismantled, and China’s vast rural regions have once again become a vast sea of small-scale production composed of individual households. Lenin pointed out that “small production constantly, daily, spontaneously, and in large quantities produces capitalism and the bourgeoisie.”[1] With the collapse of rural public ownership and the continuous development of the commodity economy, small-scale production quickly polarized. When rural areas regard cities as markets for selling agricultural products, cities also see rural areas as sources of raw materials and markets for industrial products. However, under capitalism, the relationship between urban and rural areas is antagonistic. The urban bourgeoisie relies on industrial monopoly, selling industrial products to rural areas at extremely high prices, while exploiting monopolized channels for agricultural products to buy from farmers at very low prices. The notorious Sino-Soviet bureaucratic monopoly capital, China National Grain Group (COFCO), exemplifies this. COFCO nominally offers what seems like “reasonable” purchase prices, giving farmers the illusion that they can barely meet their basic needs by selling grain. In reality, farmers cannot sell directly to COFCO because its channels have long been monopolized by several grain contractors, who in turn are monopolized by even lower-level contractors, forcing farmers to deal with these intermediaries at prices much lower than the official purchase price. By this point, most of the profits have already been divided among COFCO and the layered grain contractors, leaving farmers with almost nothing. Sometimes, the price drops to an absurd level—one jin (half a kilogram) of wheat, filled into a mineral water bottle, costs even less than a bottle of water! The layered exploitation by Chinese agricultural capital further burdens small farmers, making it difficult for them to survive solely through farming. Ultimately, only a few farmers can get rich under this exploitation, quickly becoming so-called “ten-thousand-yuan households,” new rural rich, and new capitalists, while most farmers, due to the disadvantages of small-scale production, go bankrupt and can no longer sustain themselves through farming. As a result, driven by poverty, farmers spontaneously flee the countryside and pour into cities.
Faced with no other options, most farmers enter cities in search of work, becoming wage laborers hired by urban capitalists. Thus, a large proletarian group—the migrant workers—emerged in China. These migrant workers come from rural areas, often with a small piece of land at home, but they cannot rely solely on this land to survive. Some hand over their land to relatives or rent it to wealthy farmers in the village, receiving a small periodic rent, effectively having their land appropriated by the wealthy. Initially, only adult men went out to work, but as rural living conditions worsened and agricultural income declined, families became so impoverished that not only husbands but also wives had to leave home to find work in the city. Consequently, their elders and children are left behind in the countryside, leading to the phenomenon of “empty-nest elderly” and “left-behind children.” Clearly, the emergence of left-behind children is entirely a consequence of China’s capitalist restoration after the collapse of socialism, which sharply widened the urban-rural and worker-peasant divides, causing mass bankruptcies among farmers and forcing many to work outside the countryside. This is a disastrous result of capitalism and one of the major crimes committed by the revisionist traitor group after re-establishing capitalism.
Once left-behind children appear, it is inevitable that they will suffer bullying, because the reasons for their existence and the reasons for their being bullied are the same. Ultimately, like all other social problems, the issue of bullying among left-behind children boils down to a class struggle. To understand why left-behind children in rural areas are bullied, one must study the class forces in rural China. During the socialist period, farmers held the dominant position in rural society, with reactionary elements such as landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, and rightists being strictly controlled in villages. The class composition in rural areas was predominantly peasant laborers, who made up the majority of rural life. Naturally, the dominant ideology was socialist, under the leadership of the proletariat and the Communist Party, and farmers underwent socialist transformation, collectivization, and ideological awakening. Under these circumstances, bullying was extremely rare in rural areas, and bullying of children was almost impossible. However, with the capitalist restoration, farmers were reclassified from masters of the land to oppressed classes under bourgeois suppression. Many reactionary elements, previously under socialist control, were released en masse under the guise of “correcting wrongful convictions,” and subsequently seized rural political power. Along with the degenerated and corrupt rural cadres, they formed the basis of the bourgeois rule in rural areas. “The ruling class’s ideology is always the dominant ideology of each era.”[2] These new and old bourgeois elements and their lackeys established bourgeois dominance in rural areas, spreading reactionary and backward bourgeois ideas, especially Confucianism. As a result, superstitions, male supremacy, filial piety, clan loyalty, and other reactionary ideas, which had been nearly eradicated in rural areas, revived and once again dominated the spiritual world of the countryside.
Moreover, because most rural laborers work outside the countryside, the class composition in rural areas has become even more favorable to oppressors and more unfavorable to the oppressed. After the disintegration of socialism, farmers lost their leadership under the proletariat and lacked advanced proletarian ideological guidance, leaving capitalism to grow spontaneously. Based on this, many farmers, impoverished, had to go out to work, leaving the countryside. Among the remaining population, besides the elderly and children, there are only idle rich farmers, village tyrants, and various bourgeois lackeys. They often abuse their privileges, act arrogantly, bully men and women, and commit heinous crimes. They harass and rape left-behind women, especially targeting women with intellectual disabilities who cannot work outside and must stay in the countryside. Their crimes are often so brutal that even young girls left behind are not spared! After being victimized, oppressed women either dare not speak out due to fear of their powerful oppressors or are unwilling to reveal their suffering due to Confucian notions, fearing social condemnation and shame. The Confucian ideas of hierarchy and male dominance are a major reason why a small group of villains, beasts, and robbers can act with impunity. In this case, the bullied girl, as a daughter in the countryside, is regarded as “a money-losing item,” with an extremely low status, and her parents, impoverished, have to work away from home, leaving her isolated and helpless. Therefore, the boys who usually act as “little emperors” at home can brazenly use her vulnerability to beat and insult her, even though they are still in kindergarten!
Why are these boys so morally depraved? Why have they already become notorious bullies at such a young age? This is not due to any innate tendency to bully others but must be understood through their social environment. Initially, these children cannot choose their environment; only adults who have lived for many years can. But what kind of environment do these adults choose? As previously mentioned, the rural areas of China under capitalism have become a hellish place haunted by ghosts. In families, these children lack parental guidance and are left wandering, receiving education from society itself—namely, being poisoned by bourgeois ideas under capitalism. In schools, Confucian ideas of “learning to serve” and the teachings of reactionary teachers brainwash children with slogans like “All pursuits are low, only reading is high,” and the survival of the fittest ideology of the bourgeoisie. This causes children from a young age to either become obsessed with opportunism, chasing fame and fortune in capitalism, becoming selfish and cold, or turn cruel and ruthless, enjoying oppressing others. Furthermore, rural rich farmers, village tyrants, and their lackeys serve as instigators for these children; many of them are children of bourgeoisie or their lackeys, naturally becoming the new generation of oppressors. Additionally, with the spread of rural internet and electronic devices, rural children are exposed from a young age to various spiritual opiates manufactured by bourgeoisie, absorbing reactionary ideas that promote corruption and theft, forming an extreme individualist worldview that justifies oppression and bullying. Those disguised as “funny” and spreading insults and torment against oppressed groups, especially oppressed women, are actually poisoning children’s minds, making them see reactionary and shameful bullying as “funny” behavior that can bring them happiness. Through jokes and laughter, the oppression of others becomes normalized.
All these factors are key reasons why rural left-behind children suffer bullying. In summary, the miserable situation of rural left-behind children today is a direct result of the revival of capitalism in rural China, which has plunged the majority of farmers back into poverty and oppression, enduring double hardships and suffering. If rural children were not living in this dark capitalist society, not living with parents who are away for long periods, not in environments filled with bad people wandering the village, and not subjected to reactionary education in schools, but instead lived in a socialist society like decades ago—where farmers are the masters, oppressors are subjected to mass dictatorship, and children receive socialist education from their parents and teachers—then they would never be in such a position of bullying, discrimination, and insult today! We must fight for our next generation to no longer live in this heavy China, but to grow up in a happy, revolutionary generation under the red flag of socialism! Save the children!
Lenin: “Left-Wing Childish Disorders in the Communist Movement,” Selected Works of Lenin, Volume 4, Chinese Second Edition, People’s Publishing House, 1972. ↩︎
Marx and Engels: “The German Ideology,” Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Chinese First Edition, People’s Publishing House, 1960. ↩︎
