The Ditch

At the end of the 1950s, the Chinese government condemned many thousands of citizens - considered 'right wing dissidents' due their past activities, criticisms of the Communist Party or simply their backgrounds and families - to forced labour camps. Deported for reeducation to the Jiabiangou Camp in Western China, in the heart of the Gobi Desert, thousands of miles from their families and loved ones, some 3,000 poor or middle-class 'intellectuals' from Gansu Province were forced to submit to conditions of absolute destitution. As a result of backbreaking physical labour, an unrelentingly extreme climate and terrible food shortages, many perished nightly in the ditches where they slept. (Wild Bunch Distribution)