Abstract
The Shanghai Small Third Front brought radical changes to the lives of many, whether they were city folk sent to the remote countryside or rural farmers who witnessed some of the relative luxuries and cutting-edge technologies—and the pollution and other harms—brought by the relocated factory compounds. This chapter focuses on people’s assessments of the Small Third Front many years after the project ended and the factories were transferred to local control. Some of our interlocutors remain enthusiastic about their positive material and relational experiences. Others describe negative memories and consequences of relocating these factory communities. Readers are invited to think with empathy about the different Small Third Fronters they have encountered throughout the book and imagine the choices they might have made if they were in similar circumstances.
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Further Reading
On Environment and Ecology in the Mao era
Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Mel Gurtov, “Swords into Market Shares: China’s Conversion of Military Industry to Civilian Production.” China Quarterly 134 (1993), 213–241.
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On Remembering the Mao Era
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Hanchao Lu, “Nostalgia for the Future: The Resurgence of an Alienated Culture in China.” Pacific Affairs 75:2 (2002), 169–186.
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Sebastian Veg ed., Popular Memories of the Mao Era: From Critical Debate to Reassessing History. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2019.
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Xu, Y., Wang, Y.Y. (2022). Appraisals and Critiques. In: Everyday Lives in China's Cold War Military-Industrial Complex. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99688-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99688-8_10
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