Article 6 of the Common Program

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Mao Zedong (1927) wrote in his ‘Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement.’ about the position of Chinese women. "A man in China is usually subjected to the domination of three systems of authority: (1) the state system (political authority), ranging from the national, provincial and county government down to that of the township; (2) the den system (clan authority), ranging from the central ancestral temple and its branch temples down to the head of the household; and (3) the supernatural system (religious authority), … As for women, in addition to being dominated by these three systems of authority, they are also dominated by the men (the authority of the husband)."
The CCP committed itself at the second Congress in 1922 to women’s liberation as an integral part of the revolution. Later on, during the Japanese war, the position of women is still linked to the ‘four systems’ of authority. In our view, mobilising women to participate in the war is the basic task of the current women’s movement. However, if we are to increase women’s enthusiasm for participating in the war and want to enable them to participate spontaneously and self-consciously, then we have no option but to take appropriate steps to remove their feudal fetters, raise their social position, protect their personal interests and improve their lives.⁴²
Mao Zedong articulated in his preface in the first edition of "Women of new China" ("Women of China" first appeared in Yan’an on June 1, 1939), the guiding principle that the emancipation of women has to meet. "Unite and take part in production and political activity to improve the economic and political status of women." This preface was in line with the CC decision taken on December 28, 1948, about women work in the rural areas in the “liberated” Regions. "The orientation of women’s work in the liberated areas should still be based on mobilizing and organizing women for an active part in production."
During the period of land reform, women were encouraged to share their grievances. The objective behind mobilizing women to voice their bitterness was to provoke political awareness and empowerment. By engaging in the act of expressing grievances, the aim of the organizers was for women to understand that land reform meant the overthrow of landlords who exploited the peasants. In essence, it was the desire of impoverished people to become their own masters. It is evident that the mobilization had two primary goals: the first focused on highlighting 'exploitation', while the second centred on the peasants' ambition to not only eradicate economic exploitation but also to empower themselves and assert their political rights as a collective. Therefore, the specific grievances expressed by women would ultimately be directed by the organizers of this bitterness-sharing towards a collective class awareness.

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See Timeline
the party considers itself as the first political party with commitment to women's development. The party hereby ignores previous attempts of the GMD government to improve the position of women. On May 5, 1932, the GMD enacted a family law, which recognized the equality of husband and wife. However, the law considered the husband as head of the family and he had the right to decide on parental responsibilities. The GMD took the emancipation of the women as an important political issue, because it wanted to break the loyalty to the family and strengthen the loyalty to the government. In reality, the GMD government made little effort to implement the law and relied on a natural development.
Both men and women did not have free choice in marriage partner, this was certainly the case in rural areas. Here the (financial) status of the family was decisive. The patriarch of the family took the decision. Sons continued to live with their parents after marriage in an arrangement that benefited the entire extended family through a sharing of political, economic, and social resources. Parents sought the assistance of matchmakers, typically women, to make marriage decisions for their children. Given that many women grew up in one village but married into another, their social connections extended across multiple communities. Older sisters, sisters-in-law, and other distant female relatives frequently participated in identifying suitable families and suggesting matches to the parents of the woman. Engagements were sometimes arranged when the individuals were very young, occasionally involving the offspring of friends or relatives. The majority of women married within a few miles of their birthplaces. Before 1949, bigamy, child marriage, concubines, killing of baby girls, and human trafficking occured throughout the country. The in-laws frequently treated the new wife as a house "slave". After the fall of the empire, members of the middle and higher classes in the big cities were able to escape from prearranged marriages.

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The CCP's new Marriage Law aimed to eradicate misogynistic practices. The drafting process lasted approximately eighteen months, involving continuous review, discussion, and revision. It's reported that many provisions underwent thirty to forty revisions, reflecting the incorporation of feedback from diverse groups, including the All-China Democratic Women's Federation, the People's Supreme Court, and the Ministry of Justice.
The first 2 articles of this law, promulgated on May 1 1950, state the law objectives of the New-Democratic marriage system, which is based on the free choice of partners, monogamy, equal rights for both sexes, and protection of the lawful interests of women and children. Article 2 states "Bigamy, concubinage, child betrothal, interference with the remarriage of widows, and the exaction of money or gifts in connection with marriages, shall be prohibited." In practice, Article 1 was not equally applicable to everyone. Party and Youth League members were expected to inform their organizations about any developing romantic relationships. While they were not outright forbidden, they were strongly discouraged from marrying individuals from formerly wealthy classes or those with questionable personal backgrounds. See also Article 7
This legislation, akin to the GMD law, embodied the characteristics of family law rather than just a marriage law. Firstly, it established the state as the primary and direct authority over marriage and family affairs. Secondly, it aimed to eradicate the historical dominance and authority of senior males in marriage and family matters within traditional Chinese society. It seeked to abolish practices such as forced marriage, gender inequality, polygamy, and child marriage what the CCP refered to as "feudalistic" customs. Instead, it promoted freedom in choosing marriage partners, monogamy, gender equality, and state protection of the legal rights and responsibilities of individuals involved in marital and family relations.
A marriage is forbidden with a person who is impotent caused by physical circumstances, or who has venereal disease or who is mentally ill (article 5) the control on the marriage is described in article 6. The newlyweds have to register in person to control the age of the partners and voluntariness of the marriage. If partners do not register, the wedding is not legal. This article is meant to diminish the role of family and friends and to enhance the role of the state. Control over society therefore, is at the heart of marriage registration. In the beginning, this rule of registration is not widely upheld. While unregistered marriages are prohibited by law, such marital unions may be recognized, and individuals in such relationships can have their marriages legalized at any time upon registration. The inclusion of both registration and social acknowledgment as criteria for marriage recognition in China's new Marriage Law can be seen as a pragmatic approach. This approach enables the government to address archaic feudalistic marriage practices not only through the registration system but also in various other domains. Moreover, it allows for extending legal protection to women and their children. Marriage registration in urban areas was often not regarded as a significant bureaucratic priority. The situation in rural China was likely even more challenging. Reports frequently indicated that marriage registration was overshadowed by other, more urgent political tasks. Unlike legal scholars, who emphasized the role of registration in ensuring the "health of the nation," this perspective was largely overlooked by rural officials.
Articles 8 and 9 of this law define that both husband and wife seek after the welfare of the household and the construction of the new society. The Party aimed to alleviate concerns regarding the potential disruptions caused by marriage reform by assuring peasants that the benefits of a successful marriage would remain unchanged. Furthermore, they emphasized that the modernized family structure would be even more fruitful in terms of reproduction and agriculture compared to the traditional one.

Article 13 makes it clear once again that this marriage law has the characteristics of a family law. The children have a duty to support the parents. Even children from landlords and counter revolutionaries, who are pressed to distance themselves from their ‘bad’ parents are obliged to take care of them. In the magazine “China’s Youth” of 1954, it is stated in an article “Revolutionary youth should properly treat their own landlord and rich peasant families” "To be sure, during the revolutionary period and during land reform, it had been necessary to overemphasize the need to separate oneself from one’s parents’ ways of thought and behavior. It was now, however, a time of socialist construction, and except for unusual circumstances one must support one’s parents whatever their background. Not to do so would be to lose an opportunity to reeducate them."
One significant aspect of rural marriage that the Marriage Law failed to acknowledge was patrilocality. This practice involved daughters leaving their parental homes upon marriage to reside with their husbands, typically in a separate village. The CCP found it challenging to contest patrilocality as a characteristic of "feudal" marriage, given its deep-rooted presence in rural communities. However, the omission to address this issue had repercussions: the perpetuation of patrilocal marriage has constrained women's opportunities to attain political influence and has fostered a prevalent preference for male offspring.
SU legislation has clearly influenced the text of Article 8 and 9 of the Marriage Law. This influence can be noted in the registration of the marriage; conditions of marriage regarding kinship, rights and duties of the couple and the conditions of divorce.

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The new government started an intensive campaign to promote the new law. The CCP, the ACFDW, the ACFTU, the PLA, educational institutes, and several social organizations had been mobilized to back this campaign. Posters, radio broadcasts, discussion meetings (in Shanghai a marriage reform exhibit ran from 5 October to 5 December 1951, coinciding with a land reform exhibit), illustrated versions of the marriage law and cultural performances had been deployed to make this law known by the masses.
A particularly extreme form of public meetings were the divorce trials, where both the proceedings and the executions were conducted in front of large crowds, deliberately assembled by the government to showcase the law in action. In 1951, the Beijing Municipal Marriage Office held 211 public trials, with most defendants being men who had killed their wives during violent assaults. Many of the guilty were executed. At the Shanghai Hengfeng Cotton Mill, 1,800 people gathered to witness the trials of men accused of raping, abusing, or seducing women. Those found guilty were sentenced to two to four years in prison or labor camps. Various forms of popular culture were adopted in supporting the marriage reform campaign.
The administration intensely supported local cadres, who had to overcome much resistance in the countryside and often themselves were not convinced of the purpose of the law. The Marriage Law campaign often coincided with revolutionary transformations in rural areas, notably Land Reform. In numerous instances, the rhetoric, methodologies, and target selection of land reform extended beyond the boundaries of its own campaign and merged with the execution of the Marriage Law, leading to a complete fusion of agendas.
One year after the implementation of the marriage law, resistance appeared to be big. On September 26, 1951, the minister of Justice Shi Liang announced the start of an extensive investigation into the application of the Marriage Law. Shi Liang visited grassroots governments and courts to assess the law's implementation. One of the results of this investigation is "The system of judgement and work style have to be revised: the cadres must handle marital cases positively. They should not only await people to appeal, but should actively support women's rights and carry out the task of educating the masses."
Certain households were hesitant to employ women, apprehensive that they might not perform tasks up to standard. When women undertook agricultural work such as hoeing the land, men would often join in, resulting in disputes over task completion and credit allocation.

Mao Zedong also expressed his concern about the implementation of the law and about the slackness of the cadres who were in charge of implementation and control. On November 12, 1952, in a conversation with delegates of the ACFDW, he offers three hints: "… (first, submit proposals to the Party committee);… (second, push for the Party committee to reply) ;…( if the first two methods did not work, third, just curse and swear.)." Many party cadres wanted to postpone the law by presenting it first to the "masses". Mao Zedong was opposed, "…after its promulgation it is right, without doubt, that the broad masses of the people should be roused to express their opinion through discussion. However, the idea of temporarily postponing its operation cannot be accepted." The Marriage Law, as a large-scale political campaign implemented within a short timeframe, was primarily driven from the top down, often leaving minimal space for local adaptation, flexibility, or integration. On February 1, 1953, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai announced the start of an enforcement campaign to eliminate the still existing feudal thoughts and behaviour regarding marriage. 18 days later, he instructed the party cadres. The emphasis was laid more strongly than ever on the gradual process of education as the main weapon. This crusade differed in character from the 1950 campaign. The harmonious aspect of family was more emphasized and the fast implementation was delayed because of the disturbance of the existing social order. The class struggle played a major role in the implementation of the Land reform law but a very minor role in the execution of the marriage law.
In November 1953, a commission of inquiry published their results. The campaign had been a success in 15% of the country, in 60% of the country the campaign was fairly conducted, and in 25% the situation was still bad. The commission concluded, the campaign can be ended, and the welfare work will be a part of the next five-year plan 1953-1957. This campaign did not run in minority Regions and areas where the land reform was still not finished.
The party itself was not a forerunner in women emancipation. In the 7th CC (1945), only 2 delegates of the total of 77 were female. In the 8th CC (1956), there were only 8 female delegates. The total number exists of 170 members. Only 12% of the elected delegates of the NPC (1954) were female and the delegates to the CPPCC (1949) only 10% were female.
Another aspect of the propaganda emphasized the dangers of women's sexual activities outside of marriage. Sex was no longer considered a private or personal matter, and love was no longer viewed as an individual concern. Marriage was framed not as a biological or emotional bond, but as a serious necessity shaped by historical and material conditions. Xin Zhongguo funü (New China Women) and Zhongguo qingnian (Chinese Youth), published under the auspices of the ACDWF and the CYL respectively, played a key role in shaping the discourse on sex-related issues. Their editorial boards were tasked with defining the boundaries of these discussions, effectively acting as agents of the state in regulating the conversation around sexuality.

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In the first four years of the new regime, abortion, contraception, and sterilization were strictly prohibited. Mao Zedong believed that a large population was beneficial for China. He argued that even if the population grew significantly, the country could adequately address this growth through increased production. The flawed reasoning of Western bourgeois economists like Malthus, who claimed that food production could not keep up with population growth, had long been debunked by Marxist theory and was further disproven by the realities observed in the Soviet Union and the liberated areas of China following their revolutions.
When the figures of the 1953 Census became known, the ministry of public health lifted the ban on contraception. On December 27, 1954, Liu Shaoqi held a special conference on birth control. In January and February 1955, a newly established ad hoc commission—comprising representatives from the ministries of health, light industry, commerce, foreign trade, and the Women’s Federation—began studying specific birth control measures. The commission's recommendations were approved by the Party’s Central Committee in a March 1955 internal directive. The Central Committee recognized the increasing demand for contraceptives among urban cadres and workers, connecting birth control to the nation's economic stability.

In essence, there was a belief that women should fulfill their biological role as mothers, while also ensuring they could continue to contribute effectively to the workforce without being burdened by excessive childbirth. From the early 1950s, couples were advised to have children when both partners were physically ready and at a pace that was conducive to the mother's health. This approach aimed not to restrict population growth but rather to enhance its quality: healthier mothers would lead to healthier children and a stronger workforce. In 1955, in Guangzhou, the first condom factory starts the production of this rubber. See also Article 48

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Husband and wife have the right of free choice of profession, and freedom of participation in social activities. This freedom of career choice is very limited. See also Article 43. For example, after 1949, legitimate professional opportunities were confined to the public sector. Discontented professionals and managers not only found it impossible to withdraw into private life, but they were also prohibited from resigning without obtaining approval from the very superiors they sought to distance themselves from. For years, the private sector had been the most important source of employment. Since 1952, this sector slowly disappeared and the collective segment took this position. In 1949, unemployment was seen as a temporary issue, but it gradually became more severe than expected. The Soviet-influenced focus on heavy industry led to the decline of much of the light industry, where women traditionally found employment. As a result, more urban women lost their jobs compared to men, despite CCP propaganda encouraging women to achieve emancipation through productive work. While ideology and propaganda were aligned, they conflicted with the reality at the grassroots level. A 1952 official employment conference concluded that the employment situation was too unstable to encourage women to work full-time in production.

Graduated students were required to apply through a national job allocation system, making it nearly impossible to refuse the jobs assigned to them. They were reminded of how much better their situation was compared to graduates before 1949, who often faced unemployment after finishing their studies. To ensure that the limited number of university graduates were placed in the most essential positions in a planned manner, the basic policy for the summer's unified distribution of graduates emphasized concentrated deployment in key areas. However, some students still did not fully understand the unified job allocation process. As a result, regions continued to enhance the political and ideological education of graduates, encouraging their love for the motherland and fostering enthusiasm for contributing to national development. This initiative aimed to improve their comprehension of the distribution process so that they would accept their assigned roles willingly and with a positive attitude. At the highest levels of government, there was concern. In August 1950, Mao Zedong sent a brief note to Zhou Enlai, urging him to ensure that the individuals responsible addressed the situation regarding three Qinghua graduates who had refused their assignments.
The state is increasingly influencing where individuals are employed, which can lead to extended periods of absence for spouses within the family. The family is in socialist society looked upon as a partnership to be productive for the state and not for the individual. The importance of the state is preferential above the family and the individual. Within the family, the idea of equal status between husband and wife challenged the traditional notion of male superiority over women. Additionally, parents were impacted as their influence over their children's marriages was diminished. There were no measures in place for parents to exercise authority in their children's divorces. Instead, this traditional role has been taken over by neighbors and colleagues who participate in divorce mediation.

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The SU influence can also be noted in the periodical “Women of China”. This magazine propagandizes the enlightment of the Chinese women through stories about the life and work of the Russian women. An entire generation of women in China benefited from this Soviet influence not only in their way of thinking, but also in the way they lived their lives. Soviet female experts and staff played as a very good example for Chinese female when they came to China for working or living. In 1954, during the visit of Soviet Union leader Khrushchev, new clothing for women was introduced, emphasizing floral dresses to symbolize the prosperity of socialism. However, the adoption of Soviet styles was marked by covert resistance and mere imitation. For instance, while urban women embraced a Soviet dress style called bulaji, rural women found it impractical for their agricultural tasks, as it required frequent bending. In an effort to promote this "advanced" Soviet fashion, one village mandated that at least one woman from each household wear bulaji, with female cadres and party members taking the lead. Despite pressure, some women complied, albeit only during inspections.
The narrative of Liang Jun, China's pioneering female tractor driver, drew inspiration from Soviet films. Liang Jun's life story echoed a key theme of propaganda campaigns in the early 1950s, promoting the idea of "Learning from the Soviet Union" and the belief that "The Soviet Union is China's Tomorrow." These campaigns, along with their Chinese counterparts, portrayed Soviet women as progressive role models for both Chinese women and men. Their lifestyles and challenges were perceived as mirroring the struggles faced by the Chinese populace, fostering a sense of solidarity and identification with these women as integral to the international socialist movement.
Following 1953, women began participating in growing numbers in both national and domestic sports competitions. Among the popular sports were basketball, volleyball, athletics, swimming, gymnastics, and cycling. It is noted that the inception of elite female sports was nearly parallel to that of males. There was no discernible disparity in the range of sports accessible to both genders. This stands in stark contrast to America and other Western countries, where male involvement in elite sports commenced much earlier.

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In 1954, the magazine's tone shifted, clearly highlighting the woman's role as a housewife and mother. The housewife was portrayed as contributing to society by supporting her husband and family, effectively serving as an (unpaid) service worker for those engaged in production.

The status of women in Chinese society posed consistently a challenge for the CCP. According to the CCP's perspective, the social standing of housewives was ambiguously associated with the bourgeoisie. Therefore, officials at the Shanghai Women Federation found it necessary to emphasize that among the one million Shanghai housewives (including all women without stable employment at the time, as of August 1949), the majority were not bourgeois parasites but rather lower-class and impoverished women. Drawing on Engels's theory of women's liberation, they argued that while her work remains unpaid and lacks significance in social production, she was not merely a consumer in society.
This change of status in 1954 is not without a struggle, especially women who have been active in the military and political work have major problems to adapt to this change. For example, a considerable portion of the Hainan fighting force comprised women, who were instructed to go back to their homes and commence family life. This directive was particularly challenging to accept, given the ostensibly progressive ideology of New Democracy espoused by the new regime in Beijing. The women who had served as Communist spies, soldiers, and field doctors in Hainan voiced their objections to the sudden transition from active roles to becoming housewives and caregivers. See Article 2
The urban housewife's mission becomes the pursuit for 5 good things (wu hao): cooperation with the neighborhoods; perform household work in a hygienic way; to raise the children with reason and not with violence; to stimulate children and husband to work hard and to study; and finally, to study herself. The reason for this change in policy was the high rate of unemployment in the cities. The status of the working woman in the propaganda was high, but in reality, she had the burden of 2 jobs, because keeping the household was an exclusive task of the woman. As urban women were increasingly integrated into public workplaces during the modern era, the emergence of the woman writer posed a persistent challenge. The identities of being a woman and a writer appeared irreconcilable, leaving women grappling with the dilemma of how to reconcile their female identity with their literary aspirations.
The situation for the rural women is different. "In July 1954, the All-China Women’s Federation issued the ‘Instructions on Work with Peasant Women’, which stated: ‘currently the key task of working with peasant women is to further educate and organise peasant women to warmly support and take an active part in the great production movement with the mutual aid teams and cooperatives as the central force’.²⁵"
The extensive collectivization campaigns of the 1950s in the rural areas (See Article 29) were accompanied by heightened efforts to mobilize women's labor. In fact, from an economic standpoint, the complete utilization of female labour was crucial to the rationale behind collectivization. The goal of collectivization was to establish an organizational structure for production that would enable a more efficient utilization of land and labour, as well as promote diversification within the agricultural economy. Given the relatively low investment rates in the agricultural sector, achieving increased agricultural production relied heavily on altering the production organization and significantly augmenting the utilization of labour. Recognizing the potential of women's "underutilized" labour, labour-intensive development strategies considered it a significant source of new labour.
Most CCP cadres had a rural background, an area where ‘feudal’ thought about women still had the strongest influence. The "3 bonds of obedience" for women were still solidly felt, they were obeying father when young, obeying husband when married, and obeying adult son when husband died. Although the CCP preached equal rights in the hearts of most men, women should be subordinate to men. The Daoist philosophical doctrine of the yin-yang (阴-阳) dualism still prevailed. Yang is generally associated with positivity, energy, heat, life, light, strength, activity, and masculinity; whereas yin is associated with negativity, stasis, coldness, death, darkness, weakness, passivity, and femininity. Women should be housebound, cook, clean, and weave. Men should be farming and fighting.

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The marriage law did not include any list of the kinds of offenses that would warrant divorce. Instead, it focused almost entirely on procedures, and not on principles. The right for women to be able to ask for a divorce met much resistance. Both wife and husband had to agree to the divorce (article 17 of the marriage law) and had to go to court. The court will order an attempt at conciliation and if this fails will rule sentence. The mediation system within Chinese society has deep historical roots, suggesting that the longstanding tradition of people resolving issues independently has been passed down to contemporary Chinese society. Nowhere was the mediation ideology more consistently and energetically applied than in disputed divorces: the primary objective of court intervention was to reduce the occurrence of divorce by actively promoting "mediated reconciliations." The justification provided was that marriages should not be treated as casually in "socialist China" as they were in the capitalist West. Despite the justice system's emphasis on the freedom of marriage and divorce, as well as gender equality, divorce was intended to be much more difficult to attain and should be approached as such. See Article 17
According to Deng Yingchao, the leader for the ACFDW, the mediation is required to protect the position of the wife. Most divorces are in the rural areas and not in the cities. Partly influenced by rural cadres who were dispatched to the cities and drawn to attractive urban women, there was a notable preference for well-educated and sophisticated young women. During the Civil War period, this attraction was so pronounced that some male cadres viewed the Communists' eventual takeover of urban areas as an opportunity to pursue modern women. There was also another reason for these ‘rural’ divorces. The rural cadres were completely occupied in their Land reform work and were often from home. The mothers in law were in no position to interfere because they could be accused of having feudal characteristics. Townspeople were less inclined to go to court because they feared loss of face and the aversion for the involvement of legal researchers. The official number of divorces is in 1950: 186.000, 1951: 409.000, and 396.000 in the first 6 months of 1952. The number of divorce cases in the courts reached more than 1,170,000 nationwide in the single year of 1953. During 1950-1953 each year, 70.000 to 80.000 Chinese women and men (mostly women) committed suicide or were killed because of the lack of freedom in marriage.

In February 1953, Zhou Enlai introduced some restrictions on divorce. "...for the very few couples with extremely poor relationships who cannot continue even after mediation, divorce should be permitted." The responsibility of upholding the marriage and supporting the husband falls on the woman. Ideal wives were depicted as being engaged in political matters and equal to their husbands, yet also ready to make sacrifices for them when the men were involved in the construction of socialism. There was no similar literature aimed at husbands. When marital harmony was mentioned in the media, it was primarily framed as a woman's obligation to foster and sustain.
As a process that could be influenced by gender, women's liberation seldom focused on emancipation from male dominance solely based on gender. Instead, it usually advocated challenging male authority when it was linked to class oppression. In the social classes and sectors where the concept of women's liberation was relevant, it was not meant to be divisive. Its aim was to address men from non-revolutionary classes, those who were not considered part of the ranks of the "renmin," the People.
The opportunities of women after a divorce were very limited. They had to hope that their own family will adopt her. There were barely alternatives, all nunneries and brothels were closed, and to live as a concubine was also impossible.

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Immediately after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, the government started a campaign to close all brothels in China. This operation started in Beijing in October 1949 and ends in January 1950, but in some cities the brothels closed in 1952 (Xi’an, Qingdao, and Wuhan). In Shanghai, there were still operative until 1958. "In October 1949, the number of brothels in Shanghai was 525; by the end of 1950 it was 156 and by the end of the Campaign to Suppress counterrevolutionaries in November 1951 it was seventy-two. Similar tactics in Tianjin were successful in reducing the number of brothels by 213 by January 1950."
Prostitutes were seen as both agents and victims of a broader social disorder. The prostitutes were sent to little detention center to be re-educated. They were put under medical supervision and had to learn a profession in order to support themselves and were organized into study sessions, of which the most important goal was to install a sense of class consciousness. After their release, they were still under supervision. Luo Ruiqing, the minister of public security, states: "Beijing is one of the very first cities to carry out reeducation. We have gained a great deal of experience through the processes of interning and dealing with the reeducatees, material preparation, and the like. We must summarize all of these facts ... so that cities currently undergoing the takeover process and those about to do so can absorb lessons from that experience and carry out their work more effectively."
Not everyone was eager to alter their lifestyle. Interned prostitutes resisted government control due to their years of exploitation and oppression, which left them feeling terrified, suspicious, and mistrustful. The majority of prostitutes, even after undergoing "reform," were relocated to farms and distant provinces, unless claimed by family and returned home. In practice, they were permanently marked with a stigma. This label would remain with them for the rest of their lives, making it exceedingly challenging for them to reintegrate into social life. The thought reformers have to make a clear distinction in the nature, causes, and resolution of each type of resistance. See Article 17 .
Besides the existence of brothels, also nude photographs—particularly of women posing alone—filled the market. Photos of foreign nudes were obtainable at extremely high costs but also cheaper pictures remained available. Trafficking those materials was a profitable way of making a living, most of these traffickers were poor but also disenfranchised.
Indulgence in love and sex was seen as perilous individualism. In 1949, the General Administration of Press and Publication published the indictment of The Self-Control of Sexual Urges, it stated: "… the state has long since promulgated the Marriage Law, bringing them enormous happiness. Thus mere sexual desire is not the most important problem for young people living during the era of Mao Zedong. If they need to know physiological and hygienic information, there are a large number of scientific…books already published. (sexually tinted) Books like this are not necessary today, and their content is unsuitable."

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Chapter 1 of Common Program

• Road to Common Program
• Common Program
• Bibliography
• Documents