The word "going to the countryside" first appeared in 1956125, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee's document "National Agricultural Development Outline (Revised Draft) from 1956 to 1967", which first put forward the concept of educated youth going to the countryside and became a symbol of the beginning of educated youth going to the countryside.

In the true sense, going to the countryside began with 1955 (in order to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas). On August 9th this year, Beijing youths Huayang and Li Bingheng proposed to the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League to reclaim land in the border areas. 1 1 In June, they were approved and encouraged by the Beijing Youth League Committee, which subsequently triggered an upsurge of urban educated youth going to the countryside and frontier areas to reclaim land. Promulgated by Chairman Mao. There is much to be done there ","It is necessary for educated youth to go to the countryside and receive re-education from poor middle peasants ",and the China Municipal Government has organized a mass movement of" educated youth "from cities to settle in rural areas.