Opposition came mainly from the moderates represented by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who were unsympathetic to Mao's policies.
The Socialist Education Movement was soon paired with another Mao campaign, the theme of which was "to learn from the People's Liberation Army."
the PLA and the CCP would accentuate Maoist thought as the guiding principle for the Socialist Education Movement and for all revolutionary undertakings in China.
In connection with the Socialist Education Movement, a thorough reform of the school system, which had been planned earlier to coincide with the Great Leap Forward, went into effect.
The reform was intended as a work-study program--a new xiafang movement--in which schooling was slated to accommodate the work schedule of communes and factories
It had the dual purpose of providing mass education less expensively than previously and of re-educating intellectuals and scholars to accept the need for their own participation in manual labor.