Actually, the idea that I no longer want to waste time in the bourgeois academic institutions of Zhongxiu did not arise suddenly. This idea had already begun to form earlier, six years ago, when I first entered middle school and experienced the education machine that transforms the corrupting petty bourgeois children into students with degenerate and foul bourgeois ideas. At that time, I had already conceived the idea of dropping out. (This was specifically reflected in the exploitation machine demanding students to read early in the morning at 6:30, and dismissing only after 10 p.m., and suppressing all activities that students relax.) However, I was still too young then, lacked strength, and had not truly learned revolutionary theory. Both physically and mentally, I had no support to carry out the act of dropping out, so I could only continue to muddle through in that system that constantly oppresses and controls students. Moreover, at that time, my desire to drop out was merely because this exploitative system hindered my continued absorption of spiritual opium such as games, reactionary literature, and 二次元 (2D culture).
During middle school, the event that left the deepest impression on me—an event I believe changed me—will now be listed in chronological order. Because I lived with my mother at my grandmother’s house while attending middle school, the most impressionable moment in the first year of middle school was when I observed my grandmother working (she has always been a farmer). I wrote an essay about this (which was assigned as homework), and when my Chinese teacher received it and read it aloud in the office, she was so pleased that she read it out loud in the office. I didn’t understand why she did that at the time, but after that, I could no longer write such good essays. I continued to sleep in class and looked for extracurricular books to escape the exploitation of the machine. Perhaps because she didn’t want to see a talented student wasting away in despair, after scolding me as usual in class, she said, “If someone like you doesn’t study hard, you will definitely become a threat to society in the future. You should read Mao’s Selected Works.” I have always remembered this sentence, but at that time I didn’t understand what use reading Mao’s Selected Works had. I only cared about how to continue absorbing spiritual opium. Influenced by the internet and textbooks, I believed that to be useful to the country, one must dedicate oneself selflessly, and I was obsessed with relying on this so-called country to become a rentier who exploits labor rather than relying on self-sufficiency. However, out of love for extracurricular books, I read 《钢铁是怎样炼成的》 (How the Steel Was Tempered), and thus established an ideal similar to what Paul Korchagin said: “Fight for the cause of the proletariat for a lifetime.” But shortly after establishing it, I abandoned it and picked up bourgeois spiritual opium again.
Life went on day by day. Soon, it was the second year of middle school. I remember that during the winter vacation of the second year, a pandemic broke out. The school’s planned reopening was indefinitely delayed. During that period, when the reactionary rule of Zhongxiu was severely impacted, something happened that led to my ideological transformation and progress. While I was still acting as a little pink, I unintentionally entered a group that promoted North Korean revisionism. The people there, with malicious intent, posted countless images of the 64 Tiananmen Square incident. I was shocked. Did the Communist Party that claims to serve the people really run over students with tanks and shoot students with guns? Were all those fights and voices for the poor I saw in my childhood false and nonexistent? Is communism a scam? I had many doubts.
At that time, I did not realize that Zhongxiu was a traitor, nor that they were not the true Communist Party. I fell into the whirlpool of liberalism and nihilism, denying communism wholesale. But then I saw a book called Spark Manual in a online group chat. Reading it was incredibly shocking—this was my first time learning the term Zhongxiu and realizing they were traitors. After finding an explanation, I regained confidence in communism. I bought Mao’s Selected Works, Lenin’s Selected Works, and Capital, but I couldn’t understand them. I immediately set them aside and joined the so-called Left circle, cursing Zhongxiu slogans while indulging in pleasure.
In the third year of middle school, out of curiosity, I found a group that used text-based national policy games. There, I met a very influential former comrade. He used a dog as his avatar, and we called him Gou Sheng. Now he is addicted to petty bourgeois spiritual opium and cannot extricate himself, fantasizing about continuing to rely on petty bourgeois studies to pass time. But at that time, he was not like that. His enthusiasm had not faded; he always wanted to resist oppression. When I knew almost nothing about theory, he had learned more than me. During the game, when I proposed some anti-Marxist theories, he could correct me. Through this process of correction, I learned some useful knowledge. But I still couldn’t escape the indulgent nest of the Left circle, and after making some efforts (printing the Spark Manual and distributing it at school), he was caught by Zhongxiu’s spies and “had tea” with them. After that, his enthusiasm disappeared, and his spirit of rebellion was gone. He finally compromised. Since then, he no longer talked to me about revolutionary theory. We have recently lost contact.
My academic performance was not good because I slept in class, read extracurricular books, and learned how to play on my phone in class. The “Old Nine” (a term for bullies) couldn’t do anything about me. When they attacked me, I fought back; when they cursed me, I ignored it. In the end, I was admitted to a five-year college program.
Initially, I thought I could no longer live a degenerate life like before, but it was not because I wanted to transform myself for the revolution. It was because, at the end of middle school, I broke up from a petty bourgeois love affair that lacked emotion. Due to my poor conditions, I thought the failure was because I was not good enough, without realizing that this so-called love was insincere! When I tried to reform myself, the vocational students around me kept playing. After more than half a month of self-discipline, I gave up and fell back into pleasure-seeking.
I continued my muddle-headed life until the third year of vocational college, when I met another comrade online. We have since lost contact. I was still addicted to the national policy game. He is very smart and theoretically strong. When I proposed some incorrect theories, he would correct me with correct theories and proper actions. For example, when I attacked other net Leftists, he said, “Is that how revolutionaries treat comrades? Revolutionaries do not do that. They criticize and help correct comrades with errors, not attack them like that.” Such words had a deep impact on me. Although I didn’t understand it at the time and was angry, I later realized it was reasonable. I began to withdraw from the rotten Left circle online. But before he studied Marx, Lenin, Mao, I thought he was a formidable imperialist (you can see in his self-introduction if interested). According to him, he studied Marxist theory because he was in love with a female comrade. But it seems they broke up later, and he no longer was passionate about it, focusing instead on petty bourgeois life (his family is well-off and he was not directly oppressed or exploited). So we gradually lost contact.
During this period, I should mention that in the third year of vocational college, in the second semester, students were supposed to go for internships. The school’s plan was to send us to a shop, but I heard from an intermediary that the base salary was only 800 yuan. I immediately recognized that this was the kind of black vocational school and black intermediary that exploit students online. I didn’t go and asked my petty bourgeois friend to help change the company’s seal to match our major’s industry.
Thus, I got my first opportunity to practice. But I didn’t cherish it. After finding a factory, I only worked for nine days (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.), doing repetitive labor. But for a student still under petty bourgeois influence and not practicing to transform his thoughts, it was too bitter. Under petty bourgeois ideas, I left the factory and continued my degenerate life at home. However, during those nine days, I saw the oppression and exploitation of workers in the factory. I entered the factory through my petty bourgeois mother’s connections; perhaps because of that, the team leader was polite to me. But what about other workers? They maintained production discipline—if they slack off, they get scolded. They are required to attend meaningless slogan-shouting meetings in the morning. I, being “connected,” received much better treatment than them, even eating with the management team. Their speech was full of discrimination against workers; men talked about reactionary porn topics, women could only echo, and during my work, they often talked vulgar things, disturbing my serious work. Although I still held petty bourgeois leftist ideas, I sympathized with the proletariat. My father worked for my grandmother and my grandparents—they are all workers and farmers. I knew that workers are not as they are slandered—full of money-mindedness and fond of low-level entertainment. I also hated this work atmosphere.
The petty bourgeois love of leisure, avoiding hardship, and indulging in pleasure, combined with the external environment of this work, led me to decide not to go to the factory anymore and to continue being a degenerate parasite at home. Then I entered university. During the three years in college, I learned nothing because I thought I could learn something at university.
At the beginning of last semester, I tried to reform myself again—exercising regularly to improve my physique, maintaining a routine schedule. But the people around me were lazy and had chaotic routines, which made my petty bourgeois ideas, suppressed for a while, reemerge and tempt me again. I persisted in exercising and maintaining a routine, but the former was broken in the later stage, and the latter was broken in the middle. In classes, it was no different from middle school—almost nothing learned, just continued indulging outside class. Every so often, my conscience would question me: “If you continue wasting time like this, will it help you fulfill your promise to fight for the liberation of the proletariat?” Yet, the dominant petty bourgeois ideas always evade and deceive themselves, claiming that the conditions for revolutionary revisionism are not yet met.
So I continued in confusion and muddle until a few days ago, when I encountered a forum. After reading about the Chinese New Democratic Revolution and hearing what comrades said, I thought—I had never seen such people, such organizations before. The only time I saw them was in history books about the Communist Party. The Chinese New Democratic Revolution explicitly pointed out my current situation. In this atmosphere, I thought—since so many comrades have already engaged in ideological struggle and pointed out my path forward, what reason do I have to continue deceiving myself and remain useless to the proletariat? I can no longer allow petty bourgeois ideas to hinder my pursuit of my ideals. So I decided to break with bourgeois thoughts and fight against the bourgeois corruption of my mind! I will clean all pornographic software and works from my phone and computer. I have also uninstalled all reactionary literary channels and novel apps I used to enjoy. The games on my phone are also cleaned up. But due to my inability to completely eliminate the cowardly petty bourgeois ideology, I have not yet physically destroyed the games on my computer. After reading theory every day, I still indulge in these spiritual opiums. I think—if I return to the bourgeois school, the breeding ground of petty bourgeois ideas, it will be detrimental to my ideological struggle! So I have decided to drop out, no longer be a parasitic student, and plan to combine theory and practice in the factory after studying the theory for a while.
This is the course of my ideological transformation.