ABSTRACT
In discussing the members of a generational cohort deeply affected by the Cultural Revolution, this chapter explains how the young reformers’ interpretation of political events altered the effectiveness of certain political institutions to transmit to them the Party’s worldview. It discusses how this generational cohort is portrayed in the literature on the reform movement. The young reformers of the 1980s largely come from the Cultural Revolution generation and are variously referred to as “the young intellectuals,” the “third generation,” the “lost generation,” the “Red Guard generation,” and also the “bright hope” of future generations. Participation in the political upheavals left the young reformers with a sense of having a stake in the future of the country. The terms “young” and “young adult” were endowed with greater meaning than age place specifier and took on a symbolic expression of what the young reformers represented as they began to organize.
