May 7th

In a letter to Lin Biao dated May 7th 1966 Mao proposed revolutionizing the education system by getting workers, peasants, and students to experience each others' roles in society. In practice this resulted in the establishment of farms called "cadre schools" where officials and bourgeois intellectuals were sent for re-education through manual labour and political study. Beginning in late 1968, millions of urban youths were sent down to May 7th schools in rural locations.