Editing Openai/693af22c-95ec-8008-9486-f714a282fa64 (section)

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A formal political category used from the 1950s through the Cultural Revolution to classify individuals and families according to perceived class background—e.g., worker, poor peasant, middle peasant, petty bourgeois, landlord, rich peasant. These labels had long-term political consequences, determining one’s access to schooling, employment, Party membership, and political trustworthiness.

===== Considered one of the most reliable “red” backgrounds. Industrial workers were ideologically valorized as the leading class of the socialist state. A worker background provided political capital independent of education, skill, or personal merit. =====

===== A designation used in cadre evaluations. It implied political loyalty, conformity to the current Party line, and alignment with socialist values. The term often substituted for formal education or administrative competence, especially in the 1950s. =====

===== A popular slogan meaning that both one’s family background (“roots”) and one’s own class status and political behavior (“shoots”) were “red” (i.e., proletarian). It signaled political reliability across generations. Individuals so labeled were frequently fast-tracked for promotion or early Party admission. =====

===== Admission into the CCP typically required reaching adulthood and demonstrating political maturity. Early admission for teenagers was treated as a mark of exceptional political trust, usually reserved for youths with strong “red” class background and high participation in political campaigns. =====

===== A designation for detainees whose cases involved political sensitivity, ongoing investigation, or instructions from higher-level Party or security organs. Such individuals were placed under heightened, personalized surveillance, often outside normal administrative procedures. =====

===== A metonym for the Party as an omnipresent, quasi-sacred authority. When cadres spoke of “the organization’s trust,” they invoked not a bureaucratic department but the moral authority of the CCP itself. The term carried heavy emotional and disciplinary weight. =====

===== A trope of Party political culture. Cadres were taught that receiving confidential tasks was evidence of the Party’s confidence in their political reliability. This helped bind cadres emotionally to the Party and justify otherwise troubling assignments. =====

===== Permission for a cadre to report directly to higher-level Party authorities rather than through the standard administrative hierarchy. Such authority usually accompanied politically sensitive cases. It created a dual chain of command and effectively placed the cadre under the control of political/security organs rather than local administrators. =====

===== A standard requirement in political supervision. Cadres in charge of sensitive detainees filed periodic reports on the inmate’s behavior, emotional state, ideological stance, and interpersonal interactions, functioning as both surveillance and assessment tools. =====