Page 35 - 《社会》2021年第2期

社会·2021·2

Abstract： Private letters as a type of historical data of social life have attracted
attention in humanities and social sciences research in recent years. Through a holistic
ethnographic narrative, this study presented 922 personal letters written between 1972
to 1995 by a couple who and whose families during that period were in a concerted effort
to negotiate a job transfer back to Shanghai so the family could be united. The letters
revealed Guanxi in action such as adopting specific strategies and networks,
psychological changes and value alterations of the people involved， and so forth.
Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s， the three generations of direct families remained
very close. Despite the numerous socialist movements during the period, familism stayed
as the core value of the couple， who were family鄄oriented and family happiness was the
ultimate goal of their life. “Family” in this study contains two levels of connotation.
First， it refers to an idealized “small family”， that is， a nuclear family composed of
husband， wife and their children. Second， it refers to a conflicting yet interdependent
“big family” composed by parents and siblings （including married siblings and their
spouses）. We further argue that the compulsory and coercive moral education of the
socialist movements failed to reshape the moral behavior of the social actors while
familism with family “partiality” continued to exist in the cracks of the mandatory
institutional arrangements of the state and successfully resisted the statism.
Keywords：private letters ， familism ， Guanxi ， statism

学界部分研究将知识青年的“上山下乡”视为一场导致乌托邦破
灭 的社会运动 ，比 如 ，有 学 者 将 知 青 时 代 的 终 结 定 义 为 社 会 主 义“新
人 ”改 造 的失 败 ，从 而导致了“虚 无 主 义 、犬 儒 主 义 、政 治 冷 漠 大 行 其
道”（靳凡， 2019； 程映虹， 2012； 潘鸣啸， 2005， 2013）。 而另一些研究则
将“上山下乡”运动视为在当时历史条件下的一个理性决策。 比如，刘
小萌（ 1998）及定宜庄（1998）皆认为，尽管这是一场失 败 的“实验 ”，但
知识青年“上山下乡”运动是国家根据具体国情试图解决毕业生就业、
城乡发展不平衡、区域发展不平衡等问题而制定的一个理性决策。 尽
管既有研究对这场运动的初衷和结果有不同的看法，但学界普遍认为
这场社会改造运动在许多方面并未达到预期效果。 然而，究竟是什么
导致了预期目标的落空，这个问题依然有待基于实践的历史经验研究
予以讨论。 本文通过分析一组时间跨度长达 20 多年的私人书信，试图

· 28 ·