In 1966, Beijing, during the Red Guards movement, which resembled quasi-anarchy, a political commentary, "On Family origin," was posted in the streets and alleys by its author, a 24-year-old worker, Yu Luoke (遇 罗克). The main argument of his political commentary was against discriminatory policies based on family origin. In Mao-era China, especially since the 1960s, everyone was divided into different classes based on their family origin (Jiating chushen) and personal manifestation (Geren biaoxian). If the regime considered someone's family origin politically discredited, this person would be discriminated against in terms of employment, university admissions, and access to other social resources. Many young people who did not come from powerful families supported Yu's criticism of these practices, creating significant social influence during the early period of the Cultural Revolution. Yu was arrested and executed in 1970 as a rebel. This study aims to answer several questions: What ideas, perceptions, and life experiences drove the social movement that Yu started with public writing as the primary means? Why was Yu killed as a rebel instead of being supported by the CCP leadership, led by Mao Zedong, when both Yu and the CCP leadership opposed discrimination based on someone's family origin in principle? What endogenous contradictions and paradoxes of the Chinese Communist regime are reflected in the social movement of Yu and his eventual execution in the context of the 1960s and 1970s? Furthermore, how did such endogenous contradictions and paradoxes influence and relate to other civil disobedience movements in post-Mao China?
Lyu Henry Cheng (Tue,) studied this question.