Chapter 4 2. Patriots in a foreign land

The official name of the activity that Deng Xiaoping participated in when he entered Chongqing Preparatory School was "Work-study Program", whose forerunner was Li Shizeng.Lee was a patriot, believed in anarchism, and admired French civilization.He has worked hard for many years to try to establish a closer relationship between China and France, and try to make Chinese workers and students enjoy the benefits of work and education in France at the same time.He himself was wealthy and had studied in French secondary schools and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Lee's earliest plans began in 1908.He founded a tofu processing factory outside Paris and began to teach Chinese, French, basic science and good social behavior to workers (all from his hometown in China).Following the practice of most anarchists, he advocated strict management of students, prohibiting drinking, smoking and gambling, and only encouraging them to study hard.The attempt didn't last long.The tofu processing factory went bankrupt because it was not profitable, and Li had to send the students who participated in this experimental project back to their motherland.

Undeterred, Lee went on to hatch a new, more ambitious plan.In the years before the First World War, he arranged for about 130 Chinese boys and girls to study in secondary schools in Paris, Montages and Fontainebleau.During the war he founded a society.This society is to give basic education to Chinese workers in French factories and make them understand the importance of anarchism.The association opened a school in Paris, and some Chinese workers took time to study while working hard. In 1916, Li Shizeng, who was still in France, launched another plan: to recruit a large number of educated young Chinese to France to study while working.He earnestly hoped that well-educated Chinese intellectuals would overcome the bad idea of ​​underestimating manual labor, and at the same time let them teach the 30,000 Chinese workers in France at that time and enable them to learn useful skills for China's modernization.He founded the "Chinese French Education Association", hoping to "develop the relationship between China and France, especially with the help of French scientific and spiritual education, and improve China's moral, academic and economic life."He persuaded Chinese friends and people with good intentions to set up branches of the Chinese French Education Association in China, set up schools, recruit students, and prepare for living and working in France.

Because of the dire political situation in China at the time, and because the first generation of modern high school graduates had difficulty finding jobs, a large number of Chinese youth were attracted by Li's plan. Between March 1919 and December 1920, nearly 1,600 students, about 30 of them girls, sailed to France by sea.There are not many students like Deng Xiaoping who are less than 20 years old, and even fewer are in their 30s or even 40s. Most of them are young students in their early 20s.Most of them are from Sichuan and Hunan provinces.Some are university graduates, but the vast majority have no more than secondary education.They come from the middle class of society. Even if the steamship company offers a one-hundred-dollar discount ticket, most families still cannot afford it (sometimes, the chamber of commerce will lend them money to buy a boat ticket, and if they are inconvenient, the chamber of commerce will extend the loan period) .

Most work-study students leave for France optimistically, convinced that although they will have to work hard, they will eventually acquire advanced professional knowledge and industrial skills.One also wishes to understand the secret of how France became and remained a democratic republic.Zhou Enlai (who and Deng Xiaoping later became the most famous work-study students) wrote a poem in June 1920, five months before going to France. "Tear off the flag of liberty".On the French side, there are also high expectations for these Chinese students.For a while, French politicians and educators were worried about the spread of Anglo-American culture, especially the influence of Protestant missionaries on China through the establishment of middle schools and universities.So they welcome this work-study movement in China, and think it is the best way for Chinese people to understand and admire French culture.Some of them are as romantic as the young Chinese, asserting that the sport will bring the two cultures together.One enthusiast wrote that the Chinese were "the French of the Far East."Because they are philosophers, poets and artists.

In Chongqing schools, compulsory basic courses are French, Chinese and basic industrial skills.How Deng Xiaoping fared in class is unknown, but one of his classmates wrote more than 60 years later that he studied "very diligently".From the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we can learn more.Documents state that when he arrived in France he wished to work in a metallurgical plant.The document also states that he was successfully admitted to the school and passed a French test administered by the French consulate in Chengdu.After graduating from the Chongqing school, Deng May returned to Guang'an for a short stay to prepare his luggage for the trip to France and bid farewell to his family.Parting is painful.Had he and his parents known in advance that they were destined never to see each other again, this parting would have hurt them all the more.

In September 1920, Deng, his uncle, and 83 other children from eastern Sichuan set off from Chongqing by ship and embarked on the first journey to France, and at the same time began his revolutionary career.