Redefining Propaganda in Modern China: The Mao Era and Its Legacies 0367275279, 9780367275273

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of contents
Figures
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Redefining propaganda
Propaganda in modern China
Legacies of Maoism
Historical perspectives
Icons and imagery
Reception and affect
Transitions
Legacies
Notes
Part I Historical perspectives
1 Propaganda: A historical perspective
The Mao era and the Chinese experience of propaganda
Conclusion
Notes
2 China’s directed public sphere: Historical perspectives on Mao’s propaganda state
Introduction
A question of perspective
Keywords of the pedagogical state
Doctrinal culture of Chinese statecraft
China’s changing public spheres
Print capitalism and Qing legacies
The birth of China’s propaganda state
Conclusion
Notes
Part II Icons and imagery
3 Liu Hulan – ‘A great life, a glorious death’: Martyrdom across the media
Acknowledgement
Notes
4 The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ .. in Chinese propaganda posters of the Mao era
Images of Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots in the propaganda posters of the Mao era
Embedding the ‘old’ society in the present: The images of Taiwanese compatriots in the 1950s
Creating helpless victims and the poor relatives among the Chinese people
The martyr who could not show his face to the audience36
The distant relatives from a different society: Taiwanese compatriot in posters in the 1970s
Illustrating distance between China’s centre and her periphery
Weaving the HK/TW compatriots into the big family of China in a tianxia system
Conclusion: The image of the familiar ‘others’ – the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan
Notes
5 Anatomy of an emulation campaign: ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’
Depicting a model peasant cadre
Building the mythology of Wang Guofu: Beijing ribao (Beijing Daily) 20 January to 5 February 1970
The return of Wang Guofu (1972–77)
Frozen in time: A socialist model peasant
Notes
Part III Reception and affect
6 Developing patriotic anti-Americanism: Chinese propaganda and the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign, 1949–53
Imagining an American enemy
Cultivating a patriotic and productive anti-American citizenry
Signing devotion to the Anti-American cause
Popular reactions to and enduring legacies of the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign
Notes
7 One more time, with feeling: Revolutionary repetition and the Cultural Revolution Red Guard rally documentaries, 1966–67
Mao and zombies
‘A revenge of singularity on representation’
Where have all the film editors gone?
Multiplicity
Deluge
Notes
Part IV Transitions
8 Breaking with the past: Party propaganda and state crimes
The return of the propaganda state
Community through accusation
The asymmetry of representation
The recognition of official wrongdoing
History told through a few million reversed cases
Acknowledgement
Notes
9 From text(s) to image(s): Maoist-era texts and their influences on six oil paintings (1957–79)
Art in context: Three elite visual artists
Quan Shanshi on two Mao text-inspired paintings
Wen Lipeng and two text-inspired martyr paintings
Zhan Jianjun and two paintings on heroism
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Notes
Part V Legacies
10 Propaganda and security from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping: Struggling to defend China’s socialist system
Combating ‘peaceful evolution’: Propaganda, culture and education as weapons against revisionism, 1953–64
Struggling to the end with ‘bourgeois liberalization’: Thought work, 1979–89
Securing culture against globalization: Continuities in national policy from Jiang to Hu
Conclusion: Putting cultural securitization in context
Notes
11 Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway? Temporalities of ‘ethnicity’ in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang
Introduction: The temporalities of the ‘Chinese Dream’
The meaning of ethnicity
Propaganda and pastoral power: Theoretical approach and methodologies
Stories of the past: The provincial museums
The Provincial Museum, Urumqi
The Provincial Museum, Hohhot
Framing the present: Urban spaces
Urumqi
Hohhot
Imagining the future: Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?
Notes
12 China as ‘Third Pole Culture’: Between theorizing and thought work
Introduction: Anatomy of the third
The ‘Third Pole’
Thought work and huayu quan in propaganda
The Third Space and thirding
Towards a conclusion: Cultural diversity and difference in China’s Third Space discourse
Notes
Selected bibliography
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Index

Citation preview

Redefining Propaganda in Modern China

Usage of the political keyword ‘propaganda’ by the Chinese Communist Party has changed and expanded over time. These changes have been masked by strong continuities spanning periods in the history of the People’s Republic of China from the Mao Zedong era (1949–​76) to the new era of Xi Jinping (2012–​present). Redefining Propaganda in Modern China builds on the work of earlier scholars to revisit the central issue of how propaganda has been understood within the Communist Party system. What did propaganda mean across successive eras? What were its institutions and functions? What were its main techniques and themes? What can we learn about popular consciousness as a result? In answering these questions, the contributors to this volume draw on a range of historical, cultural studies, propaganda studies and comparative politics approaches. Their work captures the sweep of propaganda  –​its appearance in everyday life, as well as during extraordinary moments of mobilization (and demobilization), and its systematic continuities and discontinuities from the perspective of policy-​makers, bureaucratic functionaries and artists. More localized and granular case studies are balanced against deep readings and cross-​cutting interpretive essays, which place the history of the People’s Republic of China within broader temporal and comparative frames. Addressing a vital aspect of Chinese Communist Party authority, this book is meant to provide a timely and comprehensive update on what propaganda has meant ideologically, operationally, aesthetically and in terms of social experience. James Farley completed his PhD at the University of Kent in 2016. In 2016 he organized an international conference on ‘China’s Propaganda System: Legacies and Enduring Themes’ and his monograph, Model Workers in China, 1949–1965 (2019), was published by Routledge. He is currently a post doctoral researcher at Universität Hamburg, Germany. Matthew D. Johnson is an independent research consultant and analyst. He previously held academic appointments at the University of Oxford and Grinnell College, and as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. His books include Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (joint editor, 2015). He is also a director of the PRC History Group (prchistory.org).

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65 Alcohol Flows Across Cultures Drinking Cultures in Transnational and Comparative Perspective Edited by Waltraud Ernst 66 Red Money for the Global South East–​South Economic Relations in the Cold War By Max Trecker 67 In the Shadow of the Swastika The Relationships Between Indian Radical Nationalism, Italian Fascism and Nazism By Marzia Casolari 68 Russia in Asia Imaginations, Interactions, and Realities Edited by Jane F. Hacking, Jeffrey S. Hardy and Matthew P. Romaniello 69 The United Nations and Decolonization Edited by Nicole Eggers, Jessica Lynne Pearson and Aurora Almada e Santos 70 The Grand Strategies of Great Powers By Tudor A. Onea 71 Ruler Personality Cults from Empires to Nation-​States and Beyond Edited by Kirill Postoutenko and Darin Stephanov 72 Embassies in Crisis Studies of Diplomatic Missions in Testing Situations Edited by Rogelia Pastor-​Castro and Martin Thomas 73 Redefining Propaganda in Modern China The Mao Era and Its Legacies Edited by James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson For a full list of titles, please visit: www.routledge.com/​history/​series/​MODHIST

Redefining Propaganda in Modern China The Mao Era and Its Legacies Edited by James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​27527-​3  (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​429-​29650-​5  (ebk) Typeset in Times by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of figures  Notes on contributors  Acknowledgements  Introduction 

vii xi xiv 1

JA M E S FA R L E Y AND MAT T HE W D. JOHNS ON

PART I

Historical perspectives 

21

1 Propaganda: A historical perspective 

23

DAV I D   WE L C H

2 China’s directed public sphere: Historical perspectives on Mao’s propaganda state 

36

T I M OT H Y   C H E E K

PART II

Icons and imagery 

55

3 Liu Hulan –​‘A great life, a glorious death’: Martyrdom across the media 

57

JA M E S   FA R L E Y

4 The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞 in Chinese propaganda posters of the Mao era 

77

J I A Z H E N  賈甄

5 Anatomy of an emulation campaign: ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’  RICHARD KING

113

vi Contents PART III

Reception and affect 

135

6 Developing patriotic anti-​Americanism: Chinese propaganda and the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign, 1949–​53 

137

A N D R E W  K UE CH

7 One more time, with feeling: Revolutionary repetition and the Cultural Revolution Red Guard rally documentaries, 1966–​67 

162

E L D O N P E I

PART IV

Transitions 

181

8 Breaking with the past: Party propaganda and state crimes 

183

P U C K  E N G MAN

9 From text(s) to image(s): Maoist-​era texts and their influences on six oil paintings (1957–​79) 

205

C H R I S TO P H ER A. RE E D

PART V

Legacies 

239

10 Propaganda and security from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping: Struggling to defend China’s socialist system 

241

M AT T H E W D . JOHNS ON

11 Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway? Temporalities of ‘ethnicity’ in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang 

266

M E L I S S A S H ANI BROWN AND DAVI D O’ BRI E N

12 China as ‘Third Pole Culture’: Between theorizing and thought work 

295

P R E M P O D DAR AND L I S A L I NDKVI S T   Z HANG

Selected bibliography  Index 

314 319

Figures

3 .1 3.2 3.3 4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

‘Learn from the People’s Hero’ (1954)  Young Heroes Scrolls – Liu Hulan (1956)  ‘Young Hero Hanging Picture’ (1964)  ‘Resolutely Liberate Taiwan, Save the Taiwanese People from their misery’ 堅決解放臺灣,拯救苦難中的臺灣人民! (1955) 54 x 78 cm. Designed by Hu Jinye 胡金葉, East China Military District, Third Field Army Political Department 華東軍區第三野戰軍政治部, The IISH-Landsberger Collection  ‘Uncles from the People’s Liberation Army! Quickly Go and Liberate Our Little Distressed Friends in Taiwan’ 解放軍叔叔!快去解放臺灣受難的小朋友! (1955) 55 × 65 cm. Designed by Huang Dezhen 黃德珍 and Li Huanmin 李喚民, Sichuan People’s Publishing House 四川人民出版社, The IISH-Landsberger Collection  ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Brothers’ 臺灣同胞我們的骨 肉兄弟 (July 1976), 53 × 76.5 cm. Designed by Yang Yingbiao 楊英鏢 (native of Taiwan Province), Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民美術出版社, The IISHLandsberger Collection  ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ 臺灣同胞我們 的骨肉兄弟 (1976), 78 × 54 cm. Designed by Li Huiran 李惠然 and Zhang Weizhi 張為之, Shanxi People’s Publishing House 山西人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United Against British Imperialism!’ 港九愛國同胞動員起來 堅決反擊英帝國主義的挑釁! (1967) 53 × 69 cm. Designers unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民美術出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘Let the English Imperialists Experience the Chinese Working Class’s Steel Fists!’ 讓英帝嘗一嘗中國工人階級的鐵拳頭! (ca. 1967) 53 × 69 cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s

64 67 72

82

83

84

85

86

viii  List of figures

4.7

4.8

4.9

4.10

4.11 4.12

4.13

4.14 4.15

4.16

5.1

Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘Blood Debts Must be Repaid with Blood’ 血債要用血來償 (ca. 1967), 53 × 69 cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘Grasp Revolution, Promote Production, Supporting Hong Kong’s comrades with real action’ 抓革命,促生產,以實際行動支持港九愛國同胞反英抗暴鬥爭 (1967), 53 × 60 cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘We are Going to Win. British Imperialism is Doomed to Fail’ 我們必勝,港英必敗 (1967), 77 × 54 cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  Image of San Mao (Three Hair, 三毛), Zhang Leping 張樂平, The Complete Works of the Adventures of San Mao 《三毛流浪 記全集》(Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited, 2000), 15  ‘Loneliness’ 孤獨 (1943), Woodblock print, 21.1 × 17 cm. Huang Xinbo 黃新波, Collection of The National Art Museum of China  ‘Vigorously Support the Anti-imperialist Struggle of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America’ 堅決支持亞洲非洲拉丁美洲人民的反帝鬥爭 (ca. 1964), 77.5 × 107.5 cm. Zhou Ruizhuang 周瑞莊, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, The IISH Collection  ‘Chairman Mao is the Great Liberator of the World’s Revolutionary People’ 毛主席是世界革命人民的大救星 (April 1968), 77 × 53 cm. Designer unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, The IISH Collection  A view of Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution (1967). Anonymous photographer, China Pictorial, 12 (1967), p. 24  ‘Representatives of Brother Nationalities Visit a Textile Machinery Plant’ 兄弟民族代表參觀紡織廠 (1973), size unknown. Designer unknown, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  ‘Unite to Achieve an Even Greater Victory’ 團結起來,爭取更大的勝利 (1966?), 39 × 53 cm. Designer unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection  Study from Comrade Wang Guofu, ‘Pull the cart of revolution and don’t relax at the harness, Pull it all the way

86

87

88

88

91 92

96

97 101

105

106

List of figures  ix

5 .2 5.3 5.4

5.5

5.6

5.7

6.1 6.2 6.3

to communism’. Reproduced by kind permission of the artist, Professor Liu Chunhua  Outstanding Proletarian Warrior Wang Guofu  ‘I approve of slogans like this one, that says “First don’t fear hardship, second don’t fear death.” ’ Mao Zedong. Opening page of the notebook Study from Comrade Wang Guofu  Comrade Wang Guofu used the glorious laosanpian to govern his final moment, putting into practice his vow: I will stand fast with Chairman Mao, make revolution to the end and never turn back! His proletarian spirit of continuing the revolution, ‘pulling the cart of revolution and not …’ will forever inspire us to advance in struggle! (Calligraphic inscription: Study Chairman Mao’s writings, follow his teachings, and act according to his instructions. [signed] Lin Biao)  Not long after, the grand and dynamic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began. Wang Guofu led the poor and lower-middle peasants of Dabailou village in criticizing the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by Liu Shaoqi, and continuing to implement Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and stir up a high tide of studying Dazhai in agriculture, so that they would reap bumper grain harvests year after year, and continue to change the face of Dabailou  Late in the night, Wang Guofu waded door to door through deep and shallow water to see how things were. Aunty Zhang, who was in her sixties, was prostrate on her kang [brick bed] with illness, and her house was muddy everywhere. Wang Guofu ran inside and grasped the old woman’s hand: ‘You can’t stay here, come with me right now!’  The outstanding proletarian warrior and Communist Party member Wang Guofu worked arduously at the task of building from inside his ‘hired hand’s hut’, decades passing as a single day. This resplendent ‘hired hand’s hut’ was like a wall a hundred thousand feet tall opposing and protecting against revisionism. Comrade Wang Guofu’s revolutionary spirit encourages others to advance in struggle along the highway of continuing revolution! (slogan at lower left: In Agriculture, Study Dazhai)  Li Binghong 黎冰鸿, ‘Zhunbei bazhan quanshijie’ 准备霸占全世界 [Preparing to Occupy the Whole World]. Comic, Jeifang Ribao 解放日报, 4 January 1951, p. 8  ‘Zhongxin Zhuangbei’ 重新装备 [Re-Outfitting]. Manhua 漫画, 1 January 1951, p. 13  America is a corrupt imperialist country, the base camp of the world reactionaries and degenerates 

116 117 119

122

126

127

128 142 143 145

x  List of figures 6.4 The Chinese people absolutely cannot condone the encroachment of other countries  6.5 Long live the victory of the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers Army!  8.1 Cai Zhenhua’s Varieties of Nazism. From a selection of caricatures produced for an exhibition criticizing the Gang of Four that opened in Beijing on 18 February 1977  8.2 Facsimile of a recorded telephone conversation between Yao Wenyuan and the Xinhua News Agency. From the first set of materials with evidence against the Wang-Zhang-Jiang-Yao Anti-Party Clique, circulated by the CCP Center (Zhongfa [1976] 24), 10 December 1976  8.3 Photograph from the Qingming Day protests, in Xinwen yewu [News Profession], 1621, 26 March 1979  11.1 Mural, ‘The Road to Rejuvenation’, National Museum Beijing  11.2 ‘Han’, China’s Ethnic Groups touchscreen display, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing  11.3 ‘Uyghur’, China’s Ethnic Groups, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing  11.4 ‘Pumi’, China’s Ethnic Groups touchscreen display, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing  11.5 ‘Cherchen Man’, Tarim mummy exhibit, Urumqi Provincial Museum  11.6 Diorama, space program exhibit, Hohhot Provincial Museum  11.7 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum  11.8 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum  11.9 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum  11.10 Propaganda poster, Urumqi  11.11 Propaganda poster, Urumqi  11.12 Propaganda poster, Hohhot  11.13 Propaganda poster, Hohhot 

147 147 191

193 196 268 273 274 275 276 280 281 282 283 285 286 288 289

Contributors

Melissa Shani Brown is affiliated with the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-​ Universität Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include the conceptual uses of ‘silence’ in critical theory and cultural texts, as well as various conceptual approaches to identity. She has published on identity within tourism, as well as gender and sexualities. Timothy Cheek is Director of the Institute of Asian Research and a Professor in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Department of History at the University of British Columbia. His research, teaching and translating focus on the recent history of China, especially the Chinese Communist Party and intellectual debate in China. His books include The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History (2015), Living with Reform: China Since 1989 (2006), Mao Zedong and China’s Revolutions (2002) and Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China (1997). Puck Engman is PhD candidate in modern Chinese history at the University of Freiburg. He is co-​editor of Victims, Perpetrators, and the Role of Law in Maoist China: A Case-​Study Approach (2018, with Daniel Leese). As member of ERC The Maoist Legacy:  Party Dictatorship, Transitional Justice and the Politics of Truth, he helped build the Maoist Legacy digital archive. James Farley completed his PhD at the University of Kent in 2016. In 2016 he organized an international conference on ‘China’s Propaganda System: Legacies and Enduring Themes’ and his monograph, Model Workers in China, 1949–1965 (2019), was publish by Routledge. He is currently a post doctoral researcher at Universität Hamburg, Germany. Matthew D.  Johnson is an independent research consultant and analyst. He was previously a historian at the University of Oxford and Grinnell College, and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. His books include Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (edited with Jeremy Brown, 2015). He is also a Director at The PRC History Group (prchistory.org).

xii  Notes on contributors Richard King is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada. His principal research is on modern Chinese literature, film, visual culture, literary theory and propaganda. His publications include Milestones on a Golden Road:  Writing for Chinese Socialism 1945–​1980 (2013), edited volumes on the art of the Cultural Revolution, Sino-​Japanese cultural relations and Asian Popular Culture, and several volumes of translated fiction. Andrew Kuech is a PhD candidate in politics and historical studies at the New School for Social Research in New  York City. He was a Fulbright Student Fellow based in Shanghai in 2015–​16. His article ‘Cultivating, Cleansing, and Performing the American Germ Invasion: The Anatomy of a Chinese Korean War Propaganda Campaign’ was published in 2019. His doctoral thesis, ‘Imagining “America” in Communist and Nationalist China, 1949–​ 1965’ explores the role of imagery of the United States within the rival propaganda and developmental campaigns of early Cold War China and Taiwan. David O’Brien is a Lecturer in the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-​Universität Bochum, Germany. His research focuses on ethnic identity in contemporary China and the interplay between ethnicity and politics. He is the author of The Everyday Politics of China (with Neil Collins, 2018). Eldon Pei is a Lecturer in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. His research concerns intersections of mass art and mass politics in Mao era China, with a particular emphasis on cinema. Prem Poddar is Professor in Cultural Encounters at Roskilde University in Denmark. He is also Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow. He has taught in India, Britain and Denmark, where he was Associate Professor in Postcolonial Studies at Aarhus University. He is the author of many articles and books including Violent Civilities, and co-​editor of Empire and After, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought, A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Empires, and Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective. He is currently working with Lisa Zhang on a monograph relating to India–​China interfaces. His continuing interest in ‘state’ and ‘nation’ as conceptual contexts for analysing cultural representation forms the centre of his forthcoming book on the politics of the passport. Christopher A. Reed is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. He is the author of Gutenberg in Shanghai:  Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–​1937 (2004, Chinese translation 2014)  and co-​editor (with Cynthia Brokaw) of From Woodblocks to the Internet; Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 1800 to 2008 (2010). More recently, he has published on book and visual culture in modern and contemporary China.

Notes on contributors  xiii David Welch is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent. In 2013, he co-​curated the exhibition on propaganda and persuasion at the British Library and authored the book that accompanied the exhibition, Propaganda. Power and Persuasion (2013). Recent publications include Germany and Propaganda in World War I: Pacificism, Mobilization and Total War (2014), Persuading the People: British Propaganda in World War II (2016), World War II Propaganda: Analysing the Art of Persuasion During Wartime (2017) and Protecting the People: The Central Office of Information and the Reshaping of Post-​war Britain, 1946–​2011 (2019). Lisa Lindkvist Zhang is a Doctoral Fellow at the Cluster ‘Asia and Europe’, Department of Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University, and an affiliated PhD Student at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen. She has previously studied in London, Shanghai and Copenhagen. Her dissertation explores the image of India and Indian philosophy in early twentieth-​century China. She also enjoys dabbling in modern China–​India relations in the Eastern Himalaya. Jia Zhen 賈甄 was Research Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University from 2015 to 2017 and now works as an independent scholar. Her research focuses on Chinese visual arts of the modern era. Recent publications include ‘Reading the epitaph, self-​ mutilation and self-​ transcendence  –​Lu Xun’s prose poem “The Epitaph” and the Imagery “Seeking Steles” ’, Reviews and Research on Chinese Literature, 4 (2008): 71–​76 and ‘A Unique Flag? Women Warriors in the Battles Against Foreign Intruders in the Dianshizhai Pictorial’, in Gender and Vision: A Study of Chinese Images of the 20th century (2016).

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Acknowledgements

This volume has grown from a conference organized by the Centre for the History of War, Media and Society at the University of Kent. We would like to thank the contributors for their patience and input as the volume has taken shape, building on conversations we had at Kent and during each step of its completion. We would also like to thank the School of History at the University of Kent for their support, academic, financial and practical, without which this volume would not have been possible. We are particularly thankful to Dr Stefan Goebel and Professor David Welch for their encouragement and guidance. The editors would also like to thank Robert Langham at Routledge for his support of this project. James Farley Matthew D. Johnson

Introduction James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson

Usage of the political keyword ‘propaganda’ (xuanchuan) by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has changed and expanded over time. These changes have been masked by strong continuities spanning periods in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the Mao Zedong Era (1949–​76) to the New Era of Xi Jinping (2012–​present). Historians of propaganda in the context of China have explained the role of propaganda in creating a rich imaginary of socialist identity and basis for mobilization. Newer trends in social science have explored the dissemination of propaganda through new forms of digital media and in terms of its use in controlling and shaping public opinion. Both areas of inquiry see propaganda as an integral aspect of Communist Party governance –​a vital tool in the authoritarian toolkit of deep social management. Whether, and how, propaganda ever truly ‘worked’, given its close relationship to other tools of social control and repression, is a question that continues to haunt scholars of the subject. The struggle to see propaganda as meaningful and effective in its own right continues to shape how it is studied. Redefining Propaganda in Modern China builds on the work of earlier scholars to revisit the central issue of how propaganda was understood within the Communist Party system. What did propaganda mean across successive eras? What were its institutions and functions? What were its main techniques and themes? What was learned about popular consciousness as a result? In answering these questions, the contributors to this volume draw on a range of historical, cultural studies, propaganda studies and comparative politics approaches. Their work captures the sweep of propaganda –​its appearance in everyday life as well as during extraordinary moments of mobilization (and demobilization), and its systematic continuities and discontinuities from the perspective of policy-​makers, bureaucratic functionaries and artists. More localized and granular case studies are balanced against deep readings and cross-​cutting interpretive essays that place the history of the PRC within broader temporal and comparative frames. Our goal as editors is to highlight the distinctive contributions of each as they relate to the intertwined themes of propaganda’s social effects, and how the propaganda system itself has, from its inception, simultaneously performed other politically instrumental functions related to security, surveillance, education and censorship.

2  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson The task is not to normalize propaganda, but to more accurately describe it as an endeavour that, from the vantage point of those who engineered it, was repeatedly redefined in order to serve overarching Communist Party agendas of survival and legitimation. The main contribution of this interdisciplinary, propaganda system-​centred approach is that it provides an overview of propaganda in post-​1949 China that balances evidence from across successive political periods and from different organizational locations. The uses of propaganda by the Communist Party of Xi Jinping would have been instantly recognizable to late imperial elites during the Qing dynasty (1644–​1911). Viewed within a global frame, the history of propaganda in modern China provides numerous points of comparison with experiences in Europe and North America. However, much of it was also unfamiliar and new. Post-​1949 iconography and the interaction between propaganda and patterns of everyday life reflected new political experiments adapted to China’s existing society and Communist Party ambitions of creating a globally influential state. At the level of interactions between the Communist Party and ordinary people, however, the impact of these ‘Maoist’ experiments varied: some people may have responded positively to state-​defined ideals, but others either tuned out the bombast or repurposed the imagery and tools of propaganda-​making to their own ends. Following the Mao Zedong era, a debilitated Communist Party sought to reconstitute propaganda networks under uncertain and fundamentally altered conditions. While key personnel were replaced and functions re-​examined, one constant was the role of the propaganda system as an institution for managing ideology within the Communist Party as well as non-​party society outside of it. Yet what management meant continued to evolve. Propaganda was still deployed as inoculation against the corrupting ideals of the West, but with a repressive scale and intensity that, by the time of Xi Jinping’s rise to leadership as the ‘core’ of the Communist Party Central Committee, rivalled the Mao Zedong era for its commitment to purifying society of all capitalist thought. Along with other forms of post-​Mao governance and strict social control, propaganda also became increasingly ubiquitous in frontier regions that previously had existed in a looser relationship with Beijing –​a foreshadowing of even more recent ideological remoulding and cultural eradication efforts targeting China’s minorities. New think tanks and discursive frameworks were created to legitimize China’s model and party-​state sponsored culture internationally. Inevitably, propaganda in the PRC will remain an opaque and contentious phenomenon in terms of its popular impact. Personal accounts and the towering historical debacle of the Cultural Revolution tend to describe propaganda in outsized terms. More recent scholarship has brought to light many important features of political culture and political communication from 1949 to the present. Building on this research-​driven wave of new perspectives on the cultural and media dimensions of Communist Party authority, Redefining Propaganda in Modern China is meant to provide a timely and comprehensive update on what propaganda has meant ideologically –​as a reflection of a system of political thought –​ as well as operationally, aesthetically and in terms of social experience.

Introduction  3

Redefining propaganda Redefining propaganda begins with understanding how activities called ‘propaganda’ within propaganda studies and related disciplines may vary from the way the Chinese term translated as propaganda –​xuanchuan –​has evolved throughout recent history. A classic definition of propaganda comes from American political scientist and communications theorist Harold Lasswell, who described it as ‘ways and means of controlling public opinion’ –​or, more specifically: The control of opinion by significant symbols … by stories, rumours, reports, pictures, and other forms of social communication. Propaganda is concerned with the management of opinions and attitudes by the direct manipulation of social suggestion rather than by altering other conditions of the environment or in the organism.1 In the context of World War I, which formed the basis for much of Lasswell’s 1927 study, propaganda represented one of three chief elements of operation against the enemy: it was both a means of mobilizing the civilian mind under conditions of ‘communized’ warfare and a way to wage the ‘war of ideas on ideas’.2 Subsequent practitioners and observers of propaganda defined the term along more or less similar mass communications-​ oriented lines, with Austrian-​ American public relations pioneer Edward Louis Bernays writing in his Propaganda (1928) that propaganda meant ‘the conscious and intelligence manipulation of the masses’ necessary to the functioning of democratic life –​a positive and peacetime definition emphasizing the benevolent ‘regimentation’ of opinion.3 Decades later, French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul, shifting attention to Maoist China and Soviet Russia as well as Western Europe, analysed propaganda as a modern science, whose elements consisted of media, state administration and physical control over individuals. Ellul’s definition significantly expanded earlier twentieth-​ century understandings of propaganda as a means of managing opinion by emphasizing the interrelationship between media, organization and coercion in leading members of society towards specific actions rather than changes in belief.4 He wrote that, ‘To be effective, propaganda must constantly short-​circuit all thought and decision’.5 Propaganda was rooted in knowledge of human psychology and ‘mechanisms’ by which communication could be made to produce ‘reflex effects’. Western scholars of propaganda writing after the end of Cold War have largely reproduced the communications-​plus-​organization view of propaganda as a social activity. For Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, propaganda is ‘the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist’.6 Nicholas J. Cull, David Culbert and David Welch, acknowledging that propaganda has meant different things at different times, offer a general definition of propaganda as: A distinct political activity … the dissemination of ideas intended to convince people to think and act in a particular way and for a particular persuasive

4  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson purpose … [and] the deliberate attempt to influence public opinion through the transmission of ideas and values for a specific persuasive purpose that has been consciously devised to serve the self-​interest of the propagandist, either directly or indirectly.7 With the benefit of hindsight, researchers have also demonstrated a confident grasp of propaganda-​like activities spanning different contexts:  Bolshevik ‘agitation’, wartime psychological warfare, the interplay between mass media and censorship, and control overflows of information. All seem to agree, echoing Ellul, that media and communications comprise only one element of propaganda’s social power, with Phillip M. Taylor describing propaganda as ‘a process for the sowing, germination and cultivation of ideas’.8 The chapters in this volume all describe aspects of political activity that fit within the paradigmatic definition of propaganda as a process that, at its core, is distinguished by the exercise of power over human perception. However, they also expand and challenge this paradigm in at least three ways. First, they suggest that the organization of people through mobilization, reconfiguration of cultural consumption and public space and bureaucratic management of art, literature and intellectual life was more central to Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts than communication. ‘Voluntary coercion’, a term used by Aryeh L. Unger to describe mass mobilization in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, represented a higher goal than legitimization and transforming belief.9 Second, the chapters show that while propaganda’s effects –​including its organizational effects –​may have been incomplete or uncertain, propaganda activities were a vital means by which the Communist Party learned about society, and specifically about opinions, sentiments and overall social ‘temperature’ towards new policies and movements. Propaganda was not only a tool of coercion, or top-​down governance; it was also a window through which society became more legible, predictable and controllable from the standpoint of party-​state functionaries and elite planners alike. Finally, propaganda was also a form of creative expression. Artists within the propaganda system, and even some outside of it, manipulated the aesthetic conventions of propaganda in ways that they experienced as stirring, beautiful, or even quietly original. Rather than seeing propaganda as a science, or considering its behavioural effects, their relationship to propaganda was as the willing builders of a new culture. Whether people targeted by propaganda ended up internalizing or believing its messages is therefore not a question that this volume seeks to answer. Instead, the main contribution is to provide a wide-​angle perspective on the propaganda system in modern Chinese society that will enrich broader comparative discussions within other fields of study, as well as a historically and empirically grounded introduction to propaganda’s broad and changing meaning within the specific context of modern China.

Propaganda in modern China While China is only infrequently addressed as a specific case within the field of propaganda studies, the study of propaganda is not new to researchers whose

Introduction  5 focus is China. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, numerous disciplines have engaged with questions of how propaganda has been conceived, the imagery it has employed, its place within broader relations between state and society, and the horizons of meaning and expectation that it has created. Conventional demarcations of China’s modern period tend to begin with the first Opium Wars (1839–​1942) and end with the founding of the PRC in 1949. Our ‘modern China’, however, begins in 1949 and ends in the recent past of the first years of the New Era of Xi Jinping. This periodization reflects both the volume’s focus on the propaganda system created by the CCP, and that the history of propaganda is intertwined with the history of mass communication, bureaucracy and the nation-​ state –​a distinctively modern configuration that is continuous across the twentieth century and extends up to the present day.10 The first studies to describe the CCP propaganda system were informed by post-​1945 social science and area studies as those fields took shape within research universities after World War II.11 While not explicitly focused on propaganda, research on China adopted a mass communications-​centred approach that sought to explain political change within ‘developing areas’ in terms of shifting cultural values.12 Elite control over the ‘flow of information and control of messages’ was a key variable in this process of change, the outcomes of which were determined by, among other factors, the penetration of society by mass media.13 The mass communications paradigm was deeply ingrained in research on the CCP produced during the 1960s and 1970s: ideological conformity, national integration and the creation of new values and beliefs were all portrayed as having contributed significantly to the Party’s ability to control society and establish a viable new government after 1949.14 Other research stressed the organizational aspects of the new party-​state and the impact of organization on value change that supported the Communist Party’s totalitarian vision of a fully politically integrated socialist society.15 What all these studies shared in common was their foregrounding of politically driven cultural transformation as a primary aspect of Party rule. Ambiguity arose over whether the cultural focus was itself cultural  –​a manifestation of inherited tradition –​or the result of Russian communist influence.16 In either case, propaganda was believed to have played a pivotal role in the transformation of China’s social structure. This volume follows earlier social science trends by placing the propaganda system at the centre of research, though it defines ‘system’ less in terms of specific institutional mechanisms –​which appear in some, but not all, of the c­ hapters –​ and more in terms of activities and experiences that link back to propaganda as a concept whose meaning was also defined in settings beyond the upper echelons of the party-​state. It is even more directly informed by new histories of propaganda within the growing transnational subfields of ‘Communist Party history’ (dang shi) and ‘contemporary China history’ (dangdai Zhongguo lishi), the latter referring to China’s history after 1949. Here we note several important points of departure. Work in the 1990s by Michael Schoenhals, Julian Chang, Timothy Cheek and Perry Link marked a new wave of scholarship that took Communist Party political culture and propaganda seriously as subjects of source-​driven

6  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson inquiry which sought to explain both the distinctive features of socialism in China, as well as how socialism was experienced by intellectuals and others within the system.17 Other studies focusing on media, art and popular culture during the Mao Zedong era also added to this reconstructive effort;18 within the space of elite politics and state–​society relations, Elizabeth J.  Perry updated the decades-​old political culture paradigm of Chinese Communist success by portraying the Party and its leaders as creative manipulators of both traditional culture and modern mobilization techniques  –​architects of ‘a dynamic and diversified propaganda operation that is as attentive to popular emotions as to party ideology’.19 More granular inquiries into party–​society relations from the perspective of propaganda and public culture have further enriched the perennial debate over whether Communist Party cultural self-​legitimization and mass mobilization, as opposed to violent coercion, represented the most distinctive aspect of ‘Maoism’ in practice.20 These perspectives on propaganda as a historical phenomenon have provided an important basis of comparison for assessing the expanded role of the propaganda system in the present day.

Legacies of Maoism The end of the Mao era, crucially, did not result in the end of the propaganda state. Julia Lovell states that, ‘The former propagandists of global Maoism no longer believed in the message they had been trained to communicate’.21 However, the legacy of Maoist propaganda is rather more complex. Aspects of earlier messages, such as the promotion of collectivization, may no longer be the focus of propaganda, but other elements certainly persist. The CCP continues to deploy propaganda as a means of control and as a way to encourage inclusion, but also to highlight division. It is also used specifically as a tool to further the vision of great power nationalism. Furthermore, the message of Mao era socialism may no longer be fully believed, but the means by which current messages are communicated still bear the hallmarks of the past 70 years of CCP rule. As Anne Marie Brady notes, the role and basic functions of the propaganda department have not changed since the Mao era, despite different goals –​including efforts to promote a market economy.22 It continues to function as the ‘spiritual core’ of the CCP’s system, by providing guidance.23 Indeed, as Timothy Cheek points out, the Party would be unable to function successfully without a commitment to thought reform because of its status as an indispensable component of ideological control.24 There persists a belief that the people require political, moral and social guidance, and that this can be provided by the Party. The continued use of Model Workers and the control of the wanghong phenomenon demonstrates the extent to which the Party still believes there is a need to guide the people. As the Party has now transitioned from being a ‘Revolutionary Party’ to a ‘Party in Power’,25 there have naturally been some changes to the ways in which propaganda campaigns have been conducted in the PRC. However, as Sorace, Franceschini and Loubere argue, the influence of Mao can still be clearly seen guiding aspects of the propaganda apparatus. Mass campaigns may no longer be

Introduction  7 the means by which ideology is promoted, but the importance of propaganda has remained constant and has reached new heights under Xi Jinping.26 Xi himself repeatedly states in The Governance of China that the past must be used to serve the present in order that the people of China will better understand the mission of the Party and their role within the nation in narrative form.27 One of the legacies of Maoism has been the way the leadership has continued to understand the importance of, in Lovell’s terms, ‘Mao’s ability to create compelling, comprehensive narratives of human history’.28 As Engman argues in Chapter 8, it was vital for the CCP to be able to craft a successful narrative that would deal with the past so the supremacy of the Party would not be brought into question. The influence of this narrative approach has been broadened as Xi has argued for the importance of ‘telling China’s story’ to the world. Compelling and forceful narratives lie at the heart of the Maoist experience, and the importance of a well-​crafted story has not been lost by the CCP’s propagandists in the post-​Mao  era. Domestic propaganda of the 1960s frequently mentioned world revolution, with China leading the oppressed nations to liberation. By this stage, the CCP was selling a dream of international liberation led by a new system of development that had resulted because of the unique conditions of the Chinese revolution of 1949. Following a period of introspection after the end of the Mao era, the CCP is once again proclaiming its suitability as a model of liberation for oppressed and disadvantaged nations. It may no longer be proclaiming the benefits of a socialist revolution, but it is offering an alternative method of development, conceived by the CCP in China. Projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative serve to not only provide nations with financial aid and infrastructure spending, but also help to tell China’s story to the world, to further the CCP’s vision of a ‘compelling comprehensive narrative of human history’.29 The relationship between the Party and the masses has altered significantly. Mao may once have regarded the Party as a tool by which the will of the masses could be processed,30 thus justifying the use of propaganda as a means of control as its content was generated by the people via the ‘mass line’. However, the ‘mass line’ –​whether illusionary or not –​has now ceased to be a two-​way system of communication and increasingly has become a one-​way flow of information from the Party to the people.31 As Patricia Thornton argues, the changes made to the Maoist mass line have resulted in a ‘technocratic engineering of public opinion’.32 Technocratic engineering, described by Xi as ‘consultative democracy’,33 finds its expression through consultation and new feedback mechanisms that allow the people to express their views and concerns on a limited set of a issues. These tools serve to feed the party-​state with the means by which propaganda can be targeted more effectively to assert control over a society that is largely disinterested in ideology.34 Aspirational propaganda, such as Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’, is supplemented by a continued focus on inclusion, as well as on division as a means by which national unity and the supremacy of the system can be maintained. For content creation, the issue of active self-​censorship that Shambaugh argues is prevalent persists.35 It is a natural component of the propaganda structure of

8  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson belonging, a concept that has been part of the overall system since the Mao era. This is also a form of conformity, similar to the one Christopher Reed outlines in Chapter 9 for artists creating work for elite Party members. However, in the post-​ Mao era the shift has been such that instead of a desire to conform to an ideology, it is now about knowing how to operate within a set of limits of freedom of expression in order that loyalty to the party-​state is not questioned. By working within these limits, the individual –​both as a receiver and creator of propaganda –​is part of the party-​state. A further legacy of the Mao era has been the continued focus on patriotism in order to encourage feelings of ‘belonging’ and unity within the population. There was significant increase in aiguozhuyi during the early 1990s.36 For example, the National Programme for Patriotic Education in 1994 focused on promoting the unity of the state.37 This has reached new heights since the administration of Xi Jinping. This sense of belonging focuses, to a great extent, on presenting the Chinese state as unique or exceptional. Significantly, Xi Jinping devotes lengthy sections of The Governance of China to detailing the extent to which the country has not only made unique contributions to the world, but is also ‘special’. This exceptionalism is hardly a new development. In order to continue to combat what is perceived to be the pernicious influence of ‘Western culture’ on the nation, the Sixth Plenum of the Fourteenth Party Congress established a fifteen-​year plan to promote ‘spiritual civilization work’,38 which focuses on clearly delineating the differences between the Chinese experience and that of other nations. This legitimizes the CCP’s rule by reinforcing ideas that have existed since the founding of the PRC regarding the unique nature of the Chinese Revolution. Those who are deemed to be in opposition to CCP-​sanctioned thinking are excluded and associated with those who are hostile to the nation. For example, the attack on Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi also took the form of accusing him of being in league with ‘hostile foreign forces’. This once again demonstrates the extent to which the propaganda of belonging and integration continues to be powerful and a vital component of all aspects of CCP reform.39 Significantly, Xi himself states that patriotism has always been the inner force that binds the Chinese nation together, and reform and innovation have always been the inner force that spurs us to keep abreast of the times in the course of reform and opening up.40 As we will see in the chapters that follow, the evolution of the propaganda system has been underpinned by faith in communication as a powerful political tool. Although messages, institutions and media have all been transformed with time, the Communist Party’s bedrock definition of propaganda as power over human consciousness and action endures.

Historical perspectives Our exploration of changes and continuities in the emergence of China’s propaganda state begins with two chapters that explore propaganda’s richness of

Introduction  9 meaning from a comparative perspective. In Chapter 1, David Welch shows that governance by influence  –​using ‘the dissemination of ideas intended to convince people to think and act in a particular way and for a particular persuasive purpose’ –​has remained an enduring feature of politics throughout history. The meanings of the word itself have changed along with the shift from societies governed by hereditary and religious elites to total states capable of waging modern communications-​ enabled mass warfare. During the period following World War I, use of wartime mobilization techniques for peacetime indoctrination of citizens gave ‘propaganda’ a negative connotation within democracies. However, during World War II, combatants on all sides resorted to the use of propaganda and psychological warfare. Global use of propaganda in various forms lasted into the Cold War. Even today, the fusion of wartime operations with round-​the-​clock television coverage exhibits many of the same characteristics as classic wartime propaganda. Propaganda is also used as an asymmetric weapon that allows small groups and paramilitary forces to seize the informational battle space for the purposes of recruitment, disinformation and psychological terror. As Welch’s chapter illustrates, China’s modern history has followed a similar trajectory from use of propaganda under more limited revolutionary conditions to its full flourishing as a tool of the state. Welch also highlights more conscious emulation of European experience by Mao and the Communist Party–​in particular the personality cult and economic mobilization techniques of Stalinism. The Maoist party-​state model has been a direct inspiration for the present-​ day Communist Party of Xi Jinping. Yet Maoism was not purely the product of Marxist-​Leninism and Mao’s admiration of Joseph Stalin. Taking the Qing Dynasty (1644–​1911) as a starting point, Chapter 2 by Timothy Cheek provides a China-​centred interpretation of the propaganda state’s historical origins by examining links between imperial and contemporary understandings of propaganda as an element of statecraft. The chapter begins by making two key conceptual points: that the principal Chinese-​language term for propaganda, xuanchuan, has enjoyed positive meanings associated with modernization and the transmission of civilization generally, and that this more beneficent form of propaganda is also familiar in democratic societies. Analysing keywords associated with what Cheek terms China’s ‘pedagogical state’ reveals a doctrinal culture of Chinese statecraft that is not explicitly derived from European experience, but rather involves a longer tradition of techniques intended to bind leaders to subjects through the establishment of tutelary relationships. Of course, as the chapter also shows, tutelary politics provided a ready basis for totalitarianism, and the subjection of all forms of public (and some private) communication to direction by state administrators. Cheek tracks the transition from the polemical print capitalism of the late Qing and Republican (1911–​49) eras to the full-​blown propaganda system established with the founding of the PRC. Under Mao, the scope of propaganda was widened to include maintaining internal party discipline, investigating society and politicizing ever-​larger segments of everyday life. ‘Rectification doctrine’, a process of constant ideological remoulding, became normalized. Whether modelled on Stalinism, developmental modernization, or earlier iterations of statecraft from

10  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson China’s own recent history, party-​state activities associated with propaganda/​ xuanchuan were institutionalized as a bureaucratic system  –​one with its own internal culture and elite professional class –​that was integral to the Communist Party’s centrally planned state-​building project.

Icons and imagery At least initially, the PRC’s state-​centric model of propaganda production and theory ensured a generally unified approach to the creation of propaganda materials and the policy goals that had been established via ideological texts. In order that the CCP should succeed where earlier governments had failed in their attempts to create a ‘new China’, the issue of ‘place’ –​or rather the location of the individual within the newly established People’s Democratic Dictatorship –​ needed to be established. As noted by scholars, the state wasted no time in gaining control of the methods by which materials could be created and disseminated. The Party was determined to ensure that the population would be clear not only about their place within the system, but also the expectations the state had of them. This was presented to the population not only depicting citizens of the mainland, but also those of the wider, unliberated Chinese community in British-​controlled Hong Kong and the Guomindang safe haven of Taiwan. The importance of ‘exceptional’ individuals, used for the promotion of ideological goals, has been noted by a number of scholars who have explored the nature of their involvement and significance for the state’s overall propaganda aims. The individuals selected provided not only guidance but also a sense of place, belonging and position within a larger system of governance, both at home and abroad. This was achieved not only by providing positive examples, but also by presenting images that defined icons against what they were not. This was achieved via negative representations of the new state’s many adversaries and also those who were still to be liberated. The ‘icons’ of the Revolution may have shifted frequently throughout the period as political developments both at home and abroad changed priorities and perspectives. However, the use of icons and iconic imagery remained consistent and has survived the transition from the Mao era to the present day. Despite the diverse range of ‘Models’ available for study, this selection of chapters makes it apparent that a number of key overlapping themes have been identified by the authors that provide new insight into the importance of ‘icons and imagery’ for state propaganda efforts. The need for the ‘rebirth’ of the nation had been a consistent theme in pre-​Revolutionary China, with the question of ‘belonging’ and the responsibilities of the citizenry within the nation a continual theme. In Chapter 3, James Farley explores representations of Liu Hulan, the peasant worker, across a range of different media. This examines the extent to which the CCP was intent on avoiding the failures of former social reform efforts during the pre-​Revolutionary period by ensuring that the values of the new Chinese citizen were communicated clearly to the population. Farley argues that Model Workers served three functions. First, they established behavioural

Introduction  11 norms for the social classes of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. Second, they provided inspiration to impart these new values. Third, they presented idealized versions of recent historical events. All these elements were functions of largely integrative, rather than agitational, propaganda as the state attempted to reinforce newly established social norms. The success of the individual within this context was predicated not only on adherence to these social norms but also via comparison with the inevitable failure of those who opposed the Revolution, both internally and externally. Despite the general consistency in the core values promoted by Model Worker propaganda throughout the early Mao period, political events –​both internal and external –​had significant bearing on the delivery of propaganda. This was the case for depictions of individuals promoted within the mainland, such as Liu Hulan and Wang Guofu, but also for propaganda depicting Chinese citizens outside the influence of the mainland. In Chapter 4, Jia Zhen explores the role of the Chinese ‘compatriot’ as a construction of CCP propaganda that was intended to illustrate the position of individuals who had blood ties to the mainland but had not been liberated by the CCP. Despite having clear links with the motherland, Chinese compatriots were still defined as being an ‘other’, as is evident from the way propaganda posters presented these citizens as being not only under the control of the forces of imperialism, but also unable to liberate themselves without the assistance of their comrades, guided by the CCP, on the mainland. Consequently, Jia Zhen argues that the creation of this structure of propaganda bears a striking similarity to the Imperial era’s tianxia system. She asserts that PRC propaganda depicting Chinese ‘compatriots’ showed them to be largely in submission to their imperial or Guomindang masters. This could then be used as a point of comparison for mainland observers that would serve to highlight the perceived social, moral and economic advances inherent in the socialist system. This was in sharp contrast to the image of the inherent backwardness of the compatriot, caused by the society within which they existed. Indeed, the failure of protest or resistance by the compatriot was because they were part of an inferior political, social and economic system. Poster propaganda depictions therefore provided an integrative function for the mainland viewer as their place within the system was confirmed by illustrating the superiority inherent in the social norms of their society. In Chapter 5, Richard King explores the extent to which Models were selected by the government in order to inspire the population by encouraging them to believe that anyone could be a hero of the New China. The campaigns focused on the promotion of social norms such as exertion, frugality and delayed gratification as values to be emulated, but also promoted the promise of a bright socialist future. King achieves this by examining the peasant cadre Wang Guofu. However, he notes that despite Wang’s peasant background, he was instead praised as a proletarian warrior, with his qualities identified with the industrial proletariat rather than the peasantry. King argues that this is because it was considered that ‘peasant consciousness’ was too narrowly focused and not advanced enough to be suitable for emulation. Propaganda images of Wang focused not on the conditions of life as

12  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson they had been, but rather on the promised future provided by socialism, and specifically industrialization. This fusion of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism aided in providing a context for the social norms promoted by the work of the Model in question. This aided in the construction of an idealized past, present and future, within which the population could identify their own particular position. The fate of Wang Guofu reveals the extent to which the propaganda of the icon was tied to integration and the promotion of social norms. Following the age of ‘reform and opening up’, Wang was no longer a suitable representative of the government’s objective to continue the reconstruction of society, demonstrating the importance of the Model as a means by which social norms could be established.

Reception and affect Scholars analysing propaganda at the level of reception are invariably drawn towards one of three conclusions. The first is that people believed or internalized the messages transmitted to them. The second is that people listened but, out of message fatigue, cynicism or both, conformed outwardly but doubted inwardly. The third is that propaganda was confusing and its effects were inconclusive. In Chapter  6, Andrew Kuech draws from a range of archival sources and propagandist materials to show that though propagandists in the early years of the People’s Republic of China were concerned with ambivalence and disbelief, they attempted to overcome these obstacles through sheer force of production, repetition and penetration of everyday life. Focusing on the Korean War period (1950–​ 53), Kuech also demonstrates that propaganda strategies evolved over time. Through signature drives and pledge campaigns, propagandists attempted to sidestep lingering questions concerning the impact of media and cultural propaganda on public sentiment by aiming for commitment over comprehension. Korean War-​era propaganda was far from subtle, but it was nonetheless effective insofar as it increasingly demanded specific behavioural responses that were inseparable from propaganda itself. Kuech argues that insistence and promotion were ‘more critical to the visual, discursive and epistemological construction of the Chinese Communist state than the total embrace of … ideas by the general public’. At the same time, the example of the Korean War also suggests that spreading ideas was only one half of what propaganda meant during the early 1950s period of PRC state consolidation, with the other side of the equation being achievement of specific goals through action. Kuech’s deep dive into the internal discourses of Korean War propaganda captures propagandists’ own sense that, despite the Communist Party’s overarching goal of ‘reshap[ing] the beliefs of the Chinese public’, certainty concerning what that public believed would always be elusive. The chapter also draws out how propagandists segued effortlessly from the anti-​Japanese tropes of World War II to anti-​American tropes made popular through sheer dint of force –​the ‘Three Hate’ strategy and mobilization of popular energies through the propaganda system’s expanding reach. China’s national identity was based on anti-​ Americanism

Introduction  13 because propagandists said it should be, and it demanded affirmative expressions through participatory behaviour linked directly to the war effort. Jumping ahead more than a decade, to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1966–​76) and its aftermath, in Chapter 8 Eldon Pei captures this same system at the moment of its disruption by Mao Zedong’s unpredictable personality cult and the Red Guard youth movement spawned by the cult. Through interpretation of photographic portraiture and newsreels, Pei explicates the subtleties of Maoist propaganda even at its most visually repetitive. Rally films, which focused mainly on Mao’s public appearances before followers, were ‘monotonous and immediate’. In a sense, their seriality and unrelenting aesthetic link them to the insistence of Korean War-​era propaganda as described by Kuech. However, Pei is also able to detect patterns within the repetition that disclose propagandist agency, and possibly the emergence of a new aesthetic –​and affect –​that broke with the wartime mobilization-​derived propaganda approach of China’s 1950s and early 1960s. Like Kuech, Pei draws on archival sources, official publications, and artefacts of propaganda to position propaganda both in terms of propagandist agency and impact on everyday life. With respect to agency, Pei argues that cultural producers were not all persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and that those who were able to continue (or, in some cases, begin) their work began to break from central authority and recast Mao in increasingly irrational ways. This irrationality was not random; rather, it brought the passionate Mao worship of the ‘multitudes’ to film in ways that paralleled the ideals of the Cultural Revolution by generating a new visual language, which eschewed ‘top-​down propagandistic control’. Pei’s chapter thus indirectly poses the question of how propaganda functioned during a period previously understood in terms of its Mao-​centredness and the intensity of its visual representation. The chapter’s research also uncovers lesser-​known and locally made short films that were screened alongside Cultural Revolution newsreels, and that raise further questions concerning how audiences in different locations might have interpreted events in relation to films, and films in relationship to one another. While mainstream propagandists may have been replaced by ‘deviant’ cultural producers only temporarily before top-​down order was ultimately restored, the Cultural Revolution’s legacy of allowing new groups the licence to speak may have transformed propaganda aesthetics and reception in ways that could never be fully overwritten by centralized politics.

Transitions The early years of the PRC had seen the CCP utilize propaganda in order to integrate the people of ‘New China’ into a new system of governance. The ‘icons and imagery’ deployed in these campaigns enabled the message of continual agitation for revolutionary change to be combined with a more integrative form of propaganda that would ensure adherence to and adoption of social norms by the citizens of the PRC. Icons of the CCP served to shape collective memory of the recent past, providing citizens not only with inspiration for what was possible within the new system, but also what was expected of them as a result of the sacrifices made

14  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson in order to ensure the success of the revolution and the creation of a ‘new society’. Post-​1949 was a period of transition, during which the state worked to ensure that the conditions could exist so that its ambitious economic and social plans would be realized. Following this period of immense upheaval, the CCP was able to fill the information void left by the withdrawal of Japanese forces and the retreat of the Guomindang to Taiwan. The icons and imagery of the era worked to ensure stability and provide guidance. Following the end of the Cultural Revolution, the PRC found itself in another period of significant transition. The victors in the battle to control China following Mao’s demise swiftly proceeded to ensure that the new information void left by the removal of the ‘Gang of Four’ from power would be filled. They worked to ensure that there would be a shared understanding of the events of the previous decade that would not threaten the continued place of the Party as the supreme arbiter of power within the PRC. In Chapter 8, Puck Engman explores this period of transition by examining the relationship between the restricted Party sphere and the directed public sphere as the authorities attempted to deal with cases of historical injustice. Whereas earlier accounts have focused on critiquing the propaganda narrative via comparisons with unofficial accounts, Engman instead examines the extent to which the system ensured that the issue of injustice and the place of the individual within the system served the interests of the state. During this period of transition, the state swiftly re-​established the central propaganda department, first in reaction to events, but then in order to proactively ‘expose’ and ‘criticize’ the leadership of the Gang of Four. This demonization sought to contain violence and political disruption by focusing anger on a minority. Propaganda consequently continued to employ icons and images –​in this case, those that were negative –​to ensure that social norms and societal ‘belonging’ would be understood by the population. As Engman argues, the trial of the group emphasized the reinstatement of both the legal system and legal norms. This facilitated the obfuscation of issues of criminal liability by individuals who had abused power during the period. This was intended to ensure that national unity was maintained, and that the role of the Party and its surviving members would not be examined in significant detail. Through management of public debate via control of its content and form, the state was able to ‘augment and aggregate’ public consciousness to ensure a unified collective memory in order that this period of transition be managed in the spirit of ‘paternalistic reconciliation’. Engman’s examination of propaganda as a function intended to ‘augment and aggregate’ public memory is not limited to the experiences of the general public. Integrative propaganda was also used as a tool to ensure that those engaged in the creation of media would correctly reflect the social norms that the Party attempted to re-​establish after the Cultural Revolution. In Chapter  9, Christopher Reed explores the symbiotic relationship between the artist and state policy-​makers. He discusses the impact on the artist of their connection with integrative propaganda and the way it shaped their choices. As he notes, even when interviewed decades later, these artists still invoke the same texts to justify their artistic choices, indicating a continual need to feel that they have successfully integrated within the

Introduction  15 social norms established by Party policy. Maoist texts played their part to inspire, but also constrain, visual memory and cultural production within the realm of oil paintings targeted at the Party elite. These creations did, according to the artists under consideration in this chapter, require a deeper understanding of Mao’s texts to be fully appreciated. The artist’s ability to accurately express these texts visually determined the extent to which the endeavour could be considered successful. Furthermore, individuals engaged in artistic creation worked for the accumulation of capital. This capital was symbolic and represented the attainment of honour, reputation and prestige, which would indicate the extent to which the individual had been fully assimilated within the system. Icons and images served their purpose for the promotion of social norms for the broader population; however, integrative forms of propaganda permeated content creation and policy at every level.

Legacies The resurgence of propaganda during China’s post-​Mao Reform Era (1978–​ present) has taken communicative integration and norm-​setting to new heights. The resurgence can mainly be attributed to new possibilities inherent in media and technology change; the persistence of China’s ruling-​party political model even amidst economic restructuring; and new insistence on the importance of Communist Party-​led thought work following domestic waves of unrest during the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet system and popular democratization and rights movements linked to the Arab Spring. Three linked chapters on contemporary legacies of the historical propaganda system drive home the point that propaganda remains deeply intertwined with internal and external ideological policing, activities which in turn are linked to the security needs of the party-​ state. In Chapter  10, Matthew Johnson describes how Communist Party concern with ideological subversion –​what Mao called ‘sugar-​coated bullets’ –​has persisted from the Cold War to the near-​present. In response, leaders have sought to inoculate China from cultural change through massive social engineering initiatives focused on the preservation of socialist values against the West and globalization. Under Xi Jinping, propaganda and security are linked through the concept of ‘cultural security’, which refers in turn to the Party’s determination that its continued rule may be challenged by a range of non-​traditional national security threats, including the delegitimization of socialism as a result of Western cultural pressure. Redefinition of propaganda as a field of political activity overlapping with broader internal security concerns has not only transformed China’s international relations, but also life on the ground. Chapter  11 on Communist Party unification work along China’s ethnically heterogeneous borders, by David O’Brien and Melissa Shani Brown, demonstrates how ‘ethnic harmony’ is constructed through museum exhibitions, street-​level propaganda art, and the display and use of force. O’Brien and Brown begin their ethnographic inquiry in the museums of Urumqi (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and Hohhot (Inner Mongolia). Noting that Mao Zedong, in 1942, emphasized the crucial role of language in shaping

16  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson thought and behaviour, they unpack official narratives in the present to show how populations belonging to non-​Han ethnic categories –​Uyghurs and Mongols –​are represented historically as elements in the larger saga of Communist reunification of China. Representations of ‘minorities’, who in some frontier regions may actually constitute the majority, emphasize building and safeguarding the borderland; accepting the Communist Party as the legitimate bearer of historical progress; and an unchanging relationship to Chinese civilization that is invariably subordinate. Once outside the detached space of the museum, however, O’Brien and Brown illustrate how representations coexist with control of everyday space through security forces and checkpoints: ‘barriers parcelled the spaces through which one might move, and the need to pass through each barrier served as a visual and physical reminder of “who is in control” of this space’. Particularly in contested Xinjiang, the state’s discursive power and violence serve to divide challenging minorities (‘terrorists’) from the acquiescent, who are depicted as harmlessly traditional and child-​like. Although security is less of an issue in Inner Mongolia, non-​ Han ethnicity is still depicted as both separate from, and dependent upon, forces of modernization identified with the party-​state. The conclusion of O’Brien and Brown’s chapter raises challenging questions branching in several directions. Can legitimization of the Communist Party and paternalistic state occur separately from the exercise of violence? Is China’s government, as a pastoral power, also the centre of a multi-​ethnic empire in the sense that no coherent image of national unity yet exists along its frontiers? Can theorists of European society such as Michel Foucault explain how propaganda and state power are intertwined in ways that previous scholars of China’s propaganda state have not yet fully grasped? In Chapter 12, by Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang, the question of theory is taken in another direction, away from Europe and back towards China. Poddar and Zhang examine, in sweeping and suggestive terms, what another concept closely related to propaganda –​culture –​ means within the quasi-​official spaces of international communication. Focusing their inquiry on Huang Huilin, a prolific scholar who has championed the notion of China as a ‘third-​pole culture’ using the Beijing University Academy of International Communication of Chinese Culture and Beijing Cultural Forum as platforms, they track parallels between contemporary theories espousing China’s cultural uniqueness and flexibility, or ‘thirding’, and policies enacted under Xi Jinping to strengthen the position of China’s culture within the international system. Key to their argument is the insight that, whether academic or official, theorizing around China’s culture extends beyond the nation into the space of global relations between civilizations: European, American and Chinese. The terms of third-​ pole theorizing are, of course, highly contestable. Nonetheless, its significance is that it is taking place across multiple institutional spaces, and ultimately at the highest levels of policy. Xi’s ‘community of common destiny’ (first identified with Asia, and now with global humanity as a whole) emphasizes cultural diversity, but coincides with parallel efforts to increase China’s independent cultural power on an international scale. Poddar and Zhang trace the history of these efforts back to earlier Cold War moments, some

Introduction  17 of which have survived into the present: the non-​alignment movement; the 1966 Africa-​ Asia-​ Latin America Tricontinental Conference; Mao Zedong’s ‘Three Worlds Theory’ and Third World-​ism. As a thinker, Huang Huilin echoes these earlier ‘thirding’ efforts by articulating the need for China to establish its own culture pole. Becoming a more culturally self-​confident nation is the first step; cultural dissemination to match China’s growing overseas economic and military clout is the second. ‘Cultural self-​confidence’ has become a favourite Xi mantra; likewise, since 2013 Xi has also championed the elevation of China’s soft power, as well as the importance of countering the ‘discourse power’ (huayu quan) of the West. This last point bears further reflection. From a cultural perspective, China is being transformed into a ‘system of discourse’ for purposes of increasing national power. Revival of belief in national essence through public spectacles of state Confucianism and the neo-​tianxia imaginary of imperial restoration under the aegis of the Communist Party is meant to convey a specific image of China to both domestic and international audiences: civilized, tolerant, socialist, and non-​Western. Here the parallels with the propaganda system and its operation are obvious, which raises yet another question for observers of propaganda in both modern and contemporary China to ponder: at the level of official pronouncements and political strategy, is there any working understanding of culture that does not have propaganda at its heart? The study of propaganda is animated by tensions such as: authentic meaning versus manipulated communication; belief versus coercion; genuine popular consciousness versus elite representation. The history of propaganda in modern China is thus a history of how, and by who, truth and morality are defined. All the chapters in this volume touch in some way on these questions from the perspective of the propaganda system, using methodology that undoubtedly privileges the institutions, categories and chronologies of the Communist Party-​led state. Though some might argue that the power of this party-​state has been such that few alternatives to the worldview it has imposed on society exist, several of the chapters suggest otherwise, which raises another set of important questions concerning the limits of propaganda and the extent of the resistance it engenders. We do not presume to be able to answer those questions here. Instead, we suggest in closing that propaganda-​focused research begin to explore more fully the relationship between propaganda and other forms of political power, given that the meaning of the term itself extends –​as this volume has shown –​into areas beyond the more narrowly delimited space of media and communication. In this way, the experience of modern China may have much to offer as an example of how propaganda actually functions within societies throughout the world.

Notes 1 Harold Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971 [1927]), pp. 4, 9. 2 Lasswell, Propaganda Technique, pp. 10–​12. 3 Edward Bernays, Propaganda, (New York: Ig Publishing, 2005 [1928]), pp. 37–​38.

18  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson 4 Jacques Ellul, Propaganda:  The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New  York:  Vintage Books, 1973 [1965]), pp. 20–​27. The relationship between propaganda and organization in totalitarian societies is described in greater detail in Aryeh L. Unger, The Totalitarian Party: Party and People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). On Leninist manipulation, see also Kenneth Jowitt, ‘Inclusion and Mobilization in European Leninist Regimes’, World Politics 28(1) (1975): 69–​96. 5 Ellul, Propaganda, p. 27. 6 Garth S.  Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 2nd ed. (London: Sage, 1992), p. 2. 7 Nicholas J. Cull, David Culbert and David Welch, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopaedia, 1500 to the Present, (Santa Barbara, CA:  ABC CLIO, 2003), p. xix. 8 Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day, 3rd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 2. 9 Unger, The Totalitarian Party, p. 43. 10 On modern society and its distinctive political features, see Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society:  Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, ed. John B.  Thompson (Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 1986). On modernization and the total war system as transcending the mid-​twentieth century wartime/​post-​war split, see Yasushi Yamanouchi, J. Victor Koschmann and Ryūchi Narita, eds, Total War and ‘Modernization’ (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). 11 See Bruce Cumings, ‘Boundary Displacement:  The State, the Foundations, and International and Area Studies During and after the Cold War’, in Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-​East Asian Relations at the End of the Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 173–​204. 12 Lucian W.  Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961). 13 Lucian W. Pye, ‘Introduction’, in Lucian W. Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 3–​5. 14 See Franklin S.  Houn, To Change a Nation:  Propaganda and Indoctrination in Communist China (New York: The Free Press, 1961); Frederick T.C.Yu, Mass Persuasion in Communist China, (New York: Praeger, 1964); Alan P.L. Liu, Communications and National Integration in Communist China, (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1975 [1971]); Godwin C.  Chu, Radical Change Through Communication in Mao’s China (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai’i, 1977). 15 Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968 [1966]); James Chieh Hsiung, Ideology and Practice: The Evolution of Chinese Communism (New York: Praeger, 1970); Martin King Whyte, Small Groups and Political Rituals in China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974). 16 Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism:  A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China (New  York:  W.W. Norton, 1969 [1961]); Lucien W.  Pye, ‘Mass Participation in Communist China:  Its Limitations and the Continuity of Culture’, in John M. Lindbeck, ed., China: Management of a Revolutionary Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), pp. 3–​33. 17 Michael Schoenhals, Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics:  Five Studies (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992); Julian Chang, ‘The Mechanics of State Propaganda: The People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union in the 1950s’, in Timothy Cheek and Tony Saich, eds, New Perspectives

Introduction  19 on State Socialism in China, (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 76–​124; Timothy Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China:  Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Perry Link, Uses of Literature: Life In the Socialist Chinese Literary System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). 18 See, for example, Paul Clark, Chinese Cinema:  Culture and Politics Since 1949 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1988); Julia F.  Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995); Melissa Schrift, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge: The Creation and Mass Consumption of a Personality Cult (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001). 19 Elizabeth J. Perry, Cultural Governance in Contemporary China: ‘Re-​Orienting’ Party Propaganda (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University, 2013), p.  2. See also Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘Introduction: Chinese Political Culture Revisited’, in Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J.  Perry, eds, Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China: Learning from 1989, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992); Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘Moving the Masses:  Emotion Work in the Chinese Revolution’, Mobilization:  An International Journal, 7(2) (2002): 111–​28; Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012). 20 See Chang-​tai Hung, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011); Daniel Leese, Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2011); Brian James DeMare, Mao’s Cultural Army: Drama Troupes in China’s Rural Revolution (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2015); Denise Ho, Curating Revolution:  Politics on Display in Mao’s China (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2017). 21 Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History (Random House, 2019), p. 448. 22 Anne-​Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship (Lanham, MD:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), p. 14. 23 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 15. 24 Timothy Cheek, ‘Thought Reform’, in Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, eds, Afterlives of Chinese Communism (Canberra:  ANU  Press, 2019), p. 291. 25 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 47. 26 Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, Afterlives of Chinese Communism (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), p. 6. 27 Xi Jinping, The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2014), p. 174. 28 Lovell, Maoism, p. 96. 29 Lovell, Maoism, p. 96. 30 Aminda Smith, ‘Practice’, in Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, eds, Afterlives of Chinese Communism (Canberra:  ANU  Press, 2019), p. 198. 31 Lin Chun, ‘Mass Line’, in Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, eds, Afterlives of Chinese Communism (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), p. 123. 32 Patricia M.  Thornton, ‘Retrofitting the Steel Frame:  From Mobilizing the Masses to Surveying the Public’, in Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J.  Perry, eds, Mao’s Invisible Hand:  The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre, 2011), p. 253. 33 Xi, The Governance of China, p. 91. 34 Cheek, Afterlives, p. 287.

20  James Farley and Matthew D. Johnson 35 David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party:  Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), p. 107. 36 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 49. 37 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 50. 38 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 51. 39 Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 53. 40 Xi, The Governance of China, p. 42.

Part I

Historical perspectives

1  Propaganda A historical perspective David Welch

The importance of propaganda in the politics of the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries should not be under-​estimated. Although propaganda is thousands of years old, it really came of age in the twentieth century, when the development of mass media (and later multimedia communications) offered a fertile ground for its dissemination, and the century’s global conflicts provided the impetus needed for its growth. Investigating the history of propaganda necessarily invites consideration of what the word itself means. It has largely become a portmanteau word, which can be interpreted in a variety of ways, so ‘propaganda’ has never been a static term, especially at a time of rapidly changing methods of communication. Nevertheless, there are some basic descriptions that can be applied. If we exclude purely religious and commercial propaganda (advertising), it is a distinct political activity that can be distinguished from related phenomena such as information and education. The distinction lies in the purpose of the instigator. Put simply, propaganda is the dissemination of ideas intended to convince people to think and act in a particular way and for a particular persuasive purpose. Throughout history, those who govern have attempted to influence the way in which the governed viewed the world. The Ancient Greeks, notably Plato and Aristotle, regarded the art of persuasion as being a form of rhetoric and recognized that logic and reason were necessary to communicate ideas successfully. In fourth-​century BCE Greece, historians and philosophers were the first people to describe the use of propaganda in the service of the state. In The Republic, while advocating that rules should at least adopt the appearance of truthfulness, Plato recognized that rulers might sometimes need to employ censorship (and deception) in the greater interest of implementing democracy. Clearly, propaganda can be traced back deep into history. The pyramids of Egypt provide a form of visual eulogy; they are some of the oldest monumental structures designed to symbolize the power and magnificence of individual rulers and dynasties. Around the late sixth century BCE, the Chinese general Sun Tzu was writing The Art of War, and he knew all about the power of persuasion –​the ‘munitions of the mind’: ‘For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill’.

24  David Welch The origin of the word ‘propaganda’ can be traced back to the Reformation, when the spiritual and ecclesiastic unity of Europe was shattered. During the ensuring struggle between forces of Protestantism and those of the counter-​ Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church found itself faced with the problem of maintaining and strengthening its hold in the non-​ Catholic countries. A  Commission of Cardinals was set up by Gregory XIII (1572–​85), charged with spreading Catholicism and regulating ecclesiastical affairs in heathen lands. A generation later, in 1622 when the Thirty Years’ War (1618–​48) had broken out, Gregory XV made the Commission permanent, as the Sacra Congregatio de propaganda fide (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith), charged with the management of foreign missions and financed by a ‘ring tax’ assessed upon each newly appointed Cardinal. Finally, in 1627, Pope Urban VII established the Collegium Urbanum (College of Propaganda), to serve as a training ground for a new generation of Catholic propagandists and to educate young priests who were to undertake such missions. The first propaganda institute was therefore simply a body charged with improving the dissemination of a group of religious dogmas. The word ‘propaganda’ soon came to be applied to any organization set up for the purpose of spreading a doctrine; later it was applied to the doctrine that was being spread; and lastly to the methods employed in undertaking the dissemination. From the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, the ‘modernization’ of propaganda continued to be refined in accordance with scientific and technological advances. Its employment increased steadily throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly at times of ideological struggle as in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. Yet it was during World War I that the wholesale employment of propaganda as an organized weapon of modern warfare served to transform its meaning into something more sinister. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the introduction of novel forms of communication created a new historical phenomenon: the mass audience. The means now existed for governments to mobilize entire industrial societies for warfare to disseminate information (or propaganda) to large groups of people within relatively short timespans. One of the most significant lesson learned from the experience of World War I was that public opinion could no longer be ignored as a determining factor in the formulation of government policies. Unlike previous wars, the Great War was the first ‘total war’ in which whole nations, and not just professional armies, were locked in mortal combat. Propaganda was an essential part of this war effort, developing in all the belligerent countries as the war progressed. In World War I, all sides supplemented military engagement with propaganda aimed at stimulating national sentiment, maintaining home front morale, attempting to win over neutrals and spreading disenchantment among the enemy population. The British in particular were credited with having carried out these objectives more successfully than any other belligerent state. Britain’s wartime consensus was generally believed to have held under the exigencies of war –​despite major tensions. One explanation for this was the skilful use made by the

Propaganda: A historical perspective  25 government of propaganda and censorship. After the war, however, a deep mistrust developed on the part of ordinary citizens, who realized that conditions at the front had been deliberately obscured by patriotic slogans and by ‘atrocity propaganda’ that had fabricated obscene stereotypes of the enemy and their dastardly deeds. The population also felt cheated that their sacrifices had not resulted in the promised homes and a land ‘fit for heroes’. Propaganda was associated with lies and falsehoods, and as a result the Ministry of Information was immediately disbanded. A similar reaction against propaganda took root in the United States in the wake of the wartime experience. In 1920, George Creel published an account of his achievements as director of the CPI, thus contributing to the public’s growing suspicion of propaganda, which created a major obstacle for propagandists attempting to rally American support against fascism in the late 1930s and 1940s. Fledgling dictators in Europe viewed war propaganda in a different light. The experience of Britain’s propaganda provided the defeated Germans with a fertile source of counter-​propaganda aimed against the post-​war peace treaties and the ignominy of the Weimar Republic. Writing in Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters to propaganda. By maintaining that the German army had not been defeated in the field of battle but rather had been forced to submit due to disintegration of morale from within, accelerated by skilful British propaganda, Hitler (like other right-​wing politicians and military groups) was providing historical legitimacy for the ‘stab-​in-​the-​back’ theory. Regardless of the actual role played by British (or Soviet) propaganda in helping to bring Germany to its knees, it was generally accepted that Britain’s wartime experiment was the ideal blueprint on which other governments should subsequently model their own propaganda apparatus. Convinced of the essential role of propaganda for any movement set on obtaining power, Hitler saw propaganda as a vehicle of political salesmanship in a mass market, so it was no surprise that a Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was the first government body to be established when the Nazis assumed power in 1933. The task of propaganda, Hitler argued, was to bring certain subjects to the attention of the masses. Propaganda should be simple, concentrating on a few essentials, which then had to be repeated many times with emphasis on such emotional elements as love and hatred. Through the continuity and sustained uniformity of its application, Hitler concluded that propaganda would lead to results ‘that are almost beyond our understanding’. Unlike the Bolsheviks, though, the Nazis did not make a distinction in their terminology between agitation and propaganda. In Soviet Russia, agitation was concerned with influencing the masses through ideas and slogans, while propaganda served to spread the Communist ideology of Marxist-​Leninism. The distinction dates back to Georgi Plekhanov’s famous definition, written in 1892: ‘A propagandist presents many ideas to one or a few persons; an agitator presents only one or a few ideas, but presents them to a whole mass of people’. The Nazis did not regard propaganda as merely an instrument for reaching the Party elite, but rather as a means for the persuasion and indoctrination of all Germans.

26  David Welch If World War I  demonstrated the power of propaganda, the post-​war period witnessed the widespread utilization of the lessons drawn from the wartime experience within the overall context of the ‘communication revolution’. What distinguishes the media of communication in the years between 1870 and 1939 is quite simply their transformation into mass media. During the 1920s and 1930s, the exploitation of the mass media  –​particularly film and radio  –​for political purposes became more commonplace. Totalitarian states such as the Soviet Union, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany provide striking examples of media being conscripted for the ideological purposes of the state. World War II witnessed one of the greatest propaganda battles in the history of warfare. All the participants employed propaganda on a scale that dwarfed other conflicts, including World War I. Britain’s principal propaganda structures were the Ministry of Information (MOI) for home, allied and neutral territory and the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) for enemy territory. The programmes of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) proved an asset long after the war had ended. When Sir John Reith (1889–​1971), the former Director General of the BBC, was appointed Minister of Information in 1940, he laid down two of the MOI’s fundamental axioms for the balance of the war:  that ‘news is the shock troops of propaganda’ and that propaganda should tell ‘the truth, nothing but the truth and, as near as possible, the whole truth’. Although Hitler believed implicitly in the ‘big lie’, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, took a different view, claiming that propaganda should be as accurate as possible. Similarly, in the early part of the twentieth century, Lenin proclaimed that ‘in propaganda, truth pays off’ and this dictum has largely been accepted by propagandists. Known in Russia as ‘The Great Patriotic War’, World War II propaganda played a central role in rallying the Soviet population to resist the Nazi invasion. Soviet propaganda was determined by the Council of People’s Commissars and the Political Bureau of the All Union Communist Party. It was supervised by the Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee under A.S. Scherbakov and administered by the newly established Soviet Information Bureau. The story of US propaganda during World War II can be divided into two phases:  a period of neutrality from September 1939 to December 1941, during which a great debate raged among the population at large, and the period of American involvement in the war, when the government mobilized a major propaganda effort through the Office of War Information (OWI). The United States used propaganda to orient troops (most famously in the US Army Signal Corps film series Why We Fight) and to motivate its civilian population. In all phases of war propaganda, the commercial media played a key role. The extraordinary level of government and commercial propaganda during the war continued during the so-​called Cold War (1945–​89). This appellation describes the period of hostility between Communist and capitalist countries in the years following World War II. During the Cold War, propagandists on all sides utilized their own interpretations of the ‘truth’ in order to sell an ideological point of view to their citizens and the world at large. President Harry S. Truman described the conflict in 1950 as a ‘struggle above all else, for the minds of

Propaganda: A historical perspective  27 men’. From the mid-​1950s, US  policy-​makers believed that cultural diplomacy would successfully complement psychological warfare and that in the long term it might prove more effective. From the 1950s, the export of American culture and the American way of life was heavily subsidized by the US government and coordinated by the United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999. Cultural exchange programmes, international trade fairs and exhibitions, and the distribution of Hollywood movies were some of the activities designed to extract propaganda value from the appeal of America’s way of life, particularly its popular culture and material success. From the 1960s, the Voice of America (VOA) utilised the popularity of American rock music with audiences behind the Iron Curtain, using the music to boost the standing of the United States. The Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin, untroubled by negative connotations evoked by ‘propaganda’, viewed the role of the media as mobilizing and legitimizing support for its expansionist policies. Stalin’s determination to control the countries ‘liberated’ by the Soviet armies led to a growth in arms production and strident anti-​capitalist propaganda, which contributed to the growing tensions of the Cold War. The Department of Agitation and Propaganda (Agitprop) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party fed official propaganda to the media, closely scrutinized by the Soviet censors, while the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) in September 1947 began a systematic campaign, masterminded by Agitprop, to marshal international support for Moscow against the West. Radio remained an important weapon for waging psychological warfare against the Soviets; indeed broadcasting was seen as a conduit through which the United States could win hearts and minds globally by means of a long-term process of cultural propaganda. Throughout the Cold War, the United States was also able to call upon private ‘philanthropic’ and multi-​national concerns such as Coca-​ Cola, McDonald’s and Levi jeans. The universal popularity of such symbols of ‘Americanization’ testified to the success of this approach. Such ‘cultural imperialism’ was designed to homogenize the world into a global village dominated by American values (‘apple pie propaganda’). The spread of television as a mass medium from the 1950s opened up possibilities of different level of exposure of civilian populations to the ‘realities’ of war. The Vietnam War was the first war fought before a mass television audience, and its impact on American (and world) opinion is claimed to have been decisive. However, the term ‘media war’ came into common usage during the Gulf War in 1991. In the Kosovo War (1999), both sides in the conflict understood the importance of manipulating real-​time news to their own advantage. Moreover, the war witnessed the first systematic use of the internet to disseminate propaganda, including its use by non-​governmental players. Kosovo highlights the forces of change between the pre-​Cold War era and the current globalized information environment. The centrality of propaganda was apparent once more in the 9/​11 terrorist attacks against the United States, which were planned for their media impact as acts of propaganda by deed (a textbook operation in asymmetric warfare). Propaganda subsequently became a major feature of the ‘war against terror’ that followed (a battle of indefinite durability). The war to remove Saddam

28  David Welch Hussein as leader of Iraq began on 19 March 2003 with an invasion by the United States and Great Britain. Officially, the war was related to the campaign against international terrorism, including weapons of mass destruction, but also became a plan to ‘liberate Iraq’ by ‘Coalition Forces’, the latter a propaganda device to describe the United States and British in flattering terms. Media reporting of the war (and the proliferation of international news agencies such as Al Jazeera) and the war’s psychological dimension are of particular concern to students of propaganda. It produced a number of media innovations, particularly the decision to ‘embed’ reporters and television journalists as actual members of the invasion forces, on the one hand allowing a direct immediacy never before possible and on the other hand introducing a new intensity of information overload. The multitude of news channels beaming constant images attracted two different types of criticism. Some critics suggested the 24-​hour news channels were little more than purveyors of ‘war porn’ for the manner in which they broadcast relentless images without context or explanation. Other critics feared that too much reality could have serious effects on morale. In subsequent ‘limited’ and ‘asymmetric’ wars and in the ‘war on terror’, discussion has shifted to the importance of ‘soft power’ (information operations), ‘psychological operations’ (‘psyops’), ‘public diplomacy’ and the appropriation (at least for a period) by the military of public relations and strategic communications approaches. In contemporary warfare, governments have attempted to influence the media through what the Pentagon termed ‘perception management’ –​a euphemism for propaganda (it then morphed into ‘strategic communications’ and, under President Obama’s administration, ‘global engagement’, ‘overseas contingency operations’ and ‘military information operations’). It is also true that fundamental changes in the nature of warfare have affected both the ability to cover wars and the style of reporting. Asymmetric and Hybrid Information Warfare will be the dominant form of conflict in the modern age, simply because of the lack of enemies capable of contemplating a conventional war against the major industrial powers. So, in the face of conventional firepower, the weaker state or organization uses different weaponry. Al Qaeda is the first guerrilla movement to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. We are now entering a new phase in which small groups, operating without overt state sponsorship, are able to exploit the vulnerability of ‘open’ societies. Terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and more recently ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) represent a new and profoundly dangerous type of organization, a ‘virtual state’ that is borderless but global in scope. Groups and organisations such as Al Qaeda and ISIS now have access to a limitless means of communications through the internet (and other social networks) and this changes the dynamics of the propaganda war. More recently, ISIS, also known by its Arabic language acronym Daesh, has gained prominence and employs propaganda even more widely (and aggressively) than Al Qaeda. The Amaq news agency that is part of ISIS is (or was) notorious for its blizzard of propaganda –​most notably the highly choreographed execution videos. However, it also distributes gory battle footage alongside images

Propaganda: A historical perspective  29 attempting to depict the idyll of everyday life in the so-​called Islamic State. Amaq is just one strand of the ISIS propaganda machine, which includes glossy-​style magazines such as Dabiq published online in multiple languages (and replaced by Rumiyah in 2016), video sites, social media channels and countless mirror accounts set up by supporters to thwart authorities’ attempts to take the outlets down (the latest being in the more private cloud-​based messaging apps such as Telegram). ISIS propaganda portrays the Islamic State as it wishes to see itself: boasting of its victories and painting a romantic image of the restoration of an Islamic golden age and the heralding of a new caliphate based on holy war.1 ISIS media operatives make up an elite corps; they are generally better educated, they are paid more and they receive special benefits such as better housing. In the last few years, ISIS has employed a largely successful cyber propaganda campaign to ‘Incite, Inspire and Recruit’. In short, for terrorist and aggrieved groups (or nations such as Russia) who want to destroy the status quo, cyberspace is now a major battlefield and the ‘war’ is one of ideas. The subsequent military incursions of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and its aggressive recruitment programme, together with its sustained terrorist activities in the Middle East and Europe, have again challenged the way in which, in the past, governments could largely control the coverage and shape the narrative. (Revealingly, both Russia and China appear to be bucking this trend by continuing to shape the wider media narrative by their insidious anti-​Western propaganda and their censorship of social media and the conventional media.)2 For this reason, it is not possible to understand terrorism in the twenty-​first century –​let alone counter it effectively –​ unless we understand the rapidly changing process of communication and the nature of the propaganda that underpins it. We are now witnessing a new phenomenon, ‘Hybrid Warfare’  –​a military strategy that employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare and cyberwarfare. The importance of propaganda in the politics of the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries should not be under-​estimated. Propagandists assess the context and the audience, and use whatever methods and means they consider to be the most appropriate and effective. In the past, governments could largely control the coverage and shape the narrative. However, the twenty-​first century’s new media have brought a host of new questions. How is propaganda changing in a world populated by the internet and social media? Have the new media freed citizens from the tyranny of oppressive governments (as many suggested after the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 –​blogs, real-​time news and online community conversations)? Can propaganda still be identified as such, given the preponderance of communication methods and the sophistication of the originators? What is the role of state propaganda in the twenty-​first century and where does it go next (witness recent developments in China and Russia)? In the age of Facebook and Twitter, is everyone now a propagandist? Indeed, in this Information Age, when cyber-​attacks have become a regular occurrence, do we know when we are actually at war? The next-​generation battle is between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’, so how do we transfer theory into practice in the (dis)Information Age –​or, to put it more succinctly, ‘Who will own tomorrow?’

30  David Welch

The Mao era and the Chinese experience of propaganda During the course of the last century, propagandists –​whether operating in democratic or authoritarian regimes –​have been forced to respond to these changes. Having set out a brief history of propaganda, what does this history reveal about the specific nature of the Chinese experience? This volume of essays demonstrates the core role played by propaganda in China since the revolutionary Communist state was established by Mao Zedong in 1949 and the overriding role played by the state in coordinating propaganda and reshaping the beliefs and everyday actions of the Chinese public. When Mao Zedong came to power and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC), he had to overcome a relatively weak media in a large country with a low level of literacy. Although historically China had made significant contributions to the media by inventing both paper and printing, its huge peasant population presented significant logistical problems for the dissemination of effective propaganda. By 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had forced its main political rival, the Nationalist Party (Guomindang), out of mainland China, but the battle for the hearts and minds of the people had only just begun. A fundamental question that arises out of the wide-​ranging and perceptive essays in this volume is whether it is possible to identify a specific pathway that is unique to the Chinese model of propaganda/​propaganda experience? On balance, it would appear that although Mao adapted propaganda techniques that were specific to Chinese culture and politics, there remained considerable overlap with other ideological regimes of the twentieth century. The propaganda system considered a central part of CCP’s ‘control system’ drew considerably from Soviet, Nazi and other totalitarian states’ propaganda methods. This certainly applied to one major feature of propaganda during this period: the cult of personality. In the twentieth century, the personality cults attached to national leaders were not in themselves new phenomena, but the arrival of the mass media, in conjunction with the rise of communist and fascist states, highlighted them as a means to legitimize regimes. Dictators seeking to alter or transform their nations according to radical ideas have invariably used the mass media and propaganda to create idealized, heroic public images of themselves. Such hero worship has been defined by Max Weber as ‘charismatic authority’. The cult of the leader, surpassing any normal level of trust in political leadership, is central to an understanding of the appeal of totalitarian dictatorships –​of both right and left –​and is undoubtedly the most important theme cementing their propaganda together. Mao Zedong and his fellow revolutionaries understood the importance of propaganda and put considerable effort into disseminating Communist ideology by maintaining direct control over the mass media and the educational system in China. The party used a wide range of propaganda techniques –​including, and not limited to, mass meetings, posters, musical compositions, film and theatre. In addition, oral media such as memorizing Mao quotes, as well as thought reform and political study classes to communicate an easily understandable message became closely identified with its leader. A  personality cult around Mao, ‘the Great

Propaganda: A historical perspective  31 Helmsman’, soon followed. Large quantities of politicized art were produced and circulated, with Mao at the centre. A Chairman Mao badge was an icon of this cult of personality. Wearing these badges, which were ubiquitous during the Cultural Revolution period in China, was a visible means of political and ideological identification with the leader. In the 1960s, Chinese factories produced 50  million badges bearing Mao’s face every month. Numerous posters, badges and musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrases ‘Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts’ and a ‘Saviour of the people’. Partly as a result of Mao’s proclivity for believing his own propaganda, by 1960 the country was in the grips of a disastrous famine. After being briefly sidelined following the failed ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958–​61), Mao re-​launched himself in the mid-​1960s by reaching out first to the army and then to China’s youth. Produced by Lin Biao, a key figure in the creation of the cult of personality surrounding Mao, an anthology of Mao’s writings, Quotations from Chairman Mao (known as the Little Red Book) was created. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them. Posters of Madame Mao (Jiang Qing) holding the Little Red Book carried slogans such as ‘The invincible thoughts of Mao Zedong illuminate the stages of revolutionary art!’ The ‘thoughts of Chairman Mao’ accompanied the ‘Cultural Revolution’, which was unleashed in 1966 and marked by successive waves of violence and propaganda. The PRC was, however, the first Chinese government to successfully make use of modern mass propaganda techniques. It adapted them to the needs of a nation with a largely rural and illiterate population. Just as ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ was the cornerstone of Chinese Communist ideology, similarly in Nazi Germany, Hitler’s Mein Kampf became compulsory reading for all National Socialists and was offered up in millions of copies as official reading matter (it was even distributed to newly married couples, a practice bearing some comparison to more recent campaigns in China that have encouraged couples to make copies of the constitution).3 Until the edifice of the Third Reich began to crumble, Mein Kampf remained an ‘official’ source of reference and legitimized much of Nazi practice. Like Hitler and Stalin, Mao had successfully manipulated the hatred of the people by identifying enemies of the state –​both internal and external. The images of the enemy in China were a moveable feast and changed from one figure to another –​landlords, nationalists, Japanese, American, capitalists and petty bourgeois intellectuals. Each representation became a useful and rallying scapegoat and at the same time provided an important escape valve from serious political and economic problems. Allied with these images of the enemy that were largely manufactured came the control of the message though an all-​embracing system of censorship that, allied to the ubiquitous use of terror and coercion, served to reinforce the propaganda. As a young man, Mao had studied Leninist principles of propaganda, eventually adapting them to his own circumstances. Lenin famously made a distinction between propaganda and agitation (see the discussion outlined above). Mao initially adapted Leninist principles to the Chinese cultural and historical experience. He was not unique in this: during the course of the twentieth century, governments

32  David Welch have employed the propaganda of agitation when, having gained power, they wish to pursue a revolutionary course of action. We witnessed this in the early Soviet Union when Lenin, having installed the Soviets, organized the agitprops and mobilized sustained campaigns of agitation in Russia to overcome resistance groups and to crush the kulaks. Similarly, in Communist China in 1949, having gained power, Mao launched a series of campaigns that were precisely propaganda of agitation. Mao argued that only by means of such propaganda could the ‘great leaps forward’ be achieved. A system of communes was established, and propaganda would simultaneously unleash physical action by the population and at the same time change their behaviour by subverting ‘bourgeois’ habits, customs and beliefs that were obstacles to achieving the desired ideological ‘leaps forward’. However, having gained power, Mao and the CCP recognized the importance of promoting the patriotic notion of the need for the ‘rebirth’ of the nation to create a ‘New China’. This would be achieved partly by encouraging ‘exceptional individuals’ and ‘model citizens’ to provide exemplars for the rest of society on questions such as ‘belonging’ and the responsibilities of citizenry. This necessarily involved a shift to more integrative, rather than agitational, propaganda as the state attempted to reinforce newly established social and political norms. The political ideology presented in Mao’s earliest writings led to ‘blueprints’ such as the Common Programme of 1949, which provided propagandists with idealized visions for modern China. Propaganda was employed to ‘sell’ this future to the people. By contrast, Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included socialism in one country, rapid industrialization, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture and subordination of interests of other communist parties to those of the Soviet party. Stalin insisted that such rapid industrialization was needed because the country was previously economically backward in comparison with other countries, and that it was needed in order to challenge internal and external enemies of communism. The overriding aim of the series of five-​year plans was to transform Russia into a modern industrial state by means of rapid industrialization. The First Five-​Year Plan (1928–​32) concentrated on heavy industry and the Second Five-​Year Plan (1933–​37) again concentrated on heavy industry but also provided for increases in consumer goods. Realizing (and surpassing) production targets became as much a psychological stimulus –​a promise of better things to come –​as an opportunity to show solidarity with the party and its leader. Propaganda eulogizing the achievements of the regime had an important function in mobilizing enthusiasm and pride in the modernization of Russia. Posters in particular had an important role to play. These urged workers to ‘Work, build, and no complaining’, or ‘Let’s storm the production targets!’ and ‘Long Live the Stalinist Order of Heroes and Stakhanovites!’ (Aleksei Stakhanov, the prize-​winning miner, became the national symbol of the diligent Stalinist worker who succeeded in surpassing his production targets.) The similarities to the way Chinese propaganda eulogized its own ‘model workers’ as icons of the Revolution are once again instructive. In the Chinese context (and this remains to the present day), individuals selected represented

Propaganda: A historical perspective  33 positive, idealized role models that served to ensure that the people would be clear not only about their place within the Chinese system, but also the expectations that the state had of them. The positive images disseminated contrast sharply with the negative representations of ‘new China’s’ adversaries, who are represented as constituting a constant and menacing threat to Chinese achievements and solidarity.4 The use of simple icons and imagery for state propaganda –​both for positive and negative impact –​have an important educative role in China. Revealed in the context of the visual arts, for some years Mao rejected existing Chinese art styles, which he believed were bourgeois, and instead favoured imitation of Soviet propaganda art.5 The ‘icons’ of the revolution may have shifted throughout the period after Mao gained power, but the use of iconic imagery, together with the use of metaphor, has remained consistent and has survived the transition from Mao to the present day. Similarly, the belief in the power of inspirational individuals (‘exemplars’) who represent the values of the state in pursuit of the ‘Chinese Dream’ remains as potent today under the leadership of Xi Jinping as it was under Chairman Mao. Like the Paitiletka campaign in the Soviet Union and the creation of the Volksgemeisnschaft in Nazi Germany, the Chinese campaigns were aimed at creating a heightened level of patriotism and activity, thus releasing internal brakes, destroying psychological barriers of habit and custom, and forcing the individual to participate in the desired activity with clearly designated goals/​outcomes. Although operating in a very different cultural and historical context, the similarities between Chinese propaganda and other modes of propaganda disseminated by totalitarian regimes is quite striking. Indeed, we can see similarities with contemporary forms of propaganda operated by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS and the manner in which Jihadi martyrs are idealized as heroic role models to be admired and emulated by others in the pursuit of the Islamic Caliphate. Furthermore, since Xi became General Secretary in 2012, ‘model citizenship’, which provides exemplars to the rest of society, has taken what appears to be a markedly sinister course as the state-​imposed system of social credit expands, aggregating and analysing the significant amount of data generated by Chinese citizens. The intrusion of the state, aided by the all-​pervasive use of the internet as a means of political and social engineering under Xi, points to a future where classrooms in China may all be equipped with artificial intelligence cameras and eye trackers to monitor pupils’ concentration levels.6

Conclusion These essays, which have identified a number of key overlapping themes, have provided us with new insights into the continuing importance of propaganda in Chinese history from the Mao era to the present day. By identifying and analysing in such detail the major themes in Maoist propaganda, this volume demonstrates the centrality and importance of propaganda as a major tool in both securing victory for the Communists and a crucial weapon in its political arsenal in maintaining power over such a long period of political turmoil.

34  David Welch The individual essays have focused on the core aspects of the Chinese revolutionary experience under Chairman Mao, such as the overriding role played by the state in coordinating propaganda and reshaping the beliefs and everyday actions of the Chinese public; the importance of ‘exceptional’ individuals, used for the promotion of ideological goals; the core values promoted by ‘Model Workers’ that both defined the Chinese experience and separated it from other types of regimes; and the role of charismatic leadership in helping to project an all-​powerful leader-​ figure embodying the nation’s will and aspirations. They provide an illuminating bridge between Maoist propaganda and the propaganda that exists under the leadership of Xi Jingping. Although Xi has eased restrictions on business and individual wealth in a manner that would have been unthinkable under Mao, the current CCP marshalled by Xi and supported by the PLA remains paramount, and propaganda is employed both to support these institutions and to attack any threats to their existence. The connections between the two regimes is particularly striking as China has orchestrated a vast propaganda exercise to celebrate the 70th anniversary since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The importance of this volume is not only in breaking new ground by analysing specific aspects of the Chinese experience of propaganda, but in demonstrating that Chinese propaganda is not separate from the history of propaganda but rather adapted a whole series of propaganda techniques to respond to the specific demands of the Chinese situation in the post-​World War II era. The authors have brought together a multidisciplinary assembly of compelling insights that confirm that propaganda is an essential tool in the arsenal of modern politics and, moreover, helps us understand how different ideological regimes have gained and maintained power and shaped a specific national identity during the course of the Information Age.

Notes 1 I have attempted to address these developments, including the nature of ‘fake news’ and ‘post-​truth’ politics in D. Welch, ‘ “We are All Propagandists Now”: Propaganda in the twenty-​first century’, in M. Connelly, J. Fox, S. Goebel and U. Schmidt, eds, Propaganda and Conflict:  War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century (London:  Bloomsbury, 2019), pp. 311–​24. 2 For a perceptive analysis of the Russian experience see A. Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War (New York: Viking, 2016). For an excellent collections of essays detailing China’s attempts to control the mass and social media, see A.-​M. Brady, ed., China’s Thought Management (London: Routledge, 2016). 3 The Guardian, ‘Chinese Couple Spend Wedding Night Copying Communist Constitution’, 18 May 2016, www.theguardian.com/​world/​2016/​may/​18/​chinese-​couple-​ wedding-​night-​copying-​communist-​party-​constitution. 4 D. Shambaugh, ‘China’s Propaganda System:  Institutions, Processes and Efficacy’, China Journal, 57 (2007): 25–​58. In early 2009, the CCP embarked on a multibillion-​ dollar global media expansion, including a 24-​hour English-​language news channel in the style of Western news agencies. For a wider view that demonstrates China’s more recent attempts to use propaganda overseas to increase its international power, see K. Edney,

Propaganda: A historical perspective  35 The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda: International Power and Domestic Political Cohesion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and M. Curtin, Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007). 5 For an analysis of the role of art in contemporary China see, M. O’Dea, The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance, and the Making of Modern China (New York: Pegasus, 2017) and R. Vine, New China, New Art (New York: Prestel, 2008). For an excellent overview of how the cinema has been used for propaganda purposes, see, Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2004). 6 New York Post, quoting Reuters report, 17 May 2018, https://​nypost.com/​2018/​05/​17/​ china-​is-​using-​ai-​to-​keep-​high-​school-​students-​in-​line.

2  China’s directed public sphere Historical perspectives on Mao’s propaganda state Timothy Cheek

Introduction In August 2013, Xi Jinping declared a propaganda war on independent political criticism on China’s internet, especially the popular Weibo social media platform. He urged his colleagues in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to ‘seize the ground of new media’.1 He has continued to press his campaign to revive Party propaganda, variously calling on the media to ‘tell China’s story well’ (讲好中国故事) and demanding that the press serve as the ‘mouth and tongue of the Party’. The Party has waged this war on social media with a crackdown on ‘Big V’ popular Weibo commentators, clamping down on WeChat groups and shutting or taking over annoying websites or publications. This has been combined with a charm offensive promoting the virtues of what Xi Jinping claims is the ‘Chinese Dream’.2 Western reporters scoff and many Chinese ignore it, but the Party is working overtime on propaganda as if it really matters.

A question of perspective Propaganda remains a dirty word to most readers of The Guardian or the New York Times –​and indeed to many Chinese and those living in China today. Yet China scholars know only too well that propaganda was embraced by Chinese governments throughout the twentieth century, and well before. It is likewise employed by Xi Jinping as a good and necessary thing –​in fact, as an indispensable tool of governance. One goal of this volume is to explain why. Previous studies have generally looked at Chinese propaganda from the perspective of post-​World War II memories of Nazi and Stalinist (as well as US and Allied War) and Cold War propaganda. That is, most people and many scholars view propaganda as negative  –​as a distorted form of public communication. That is, ‘to identify a message as propaganda is to suggest something negative and dishonest’.3 Communication scholars such as Jowett and O’Donnell have laboured mightily to move to a more value-​neutral social science approach, and China studies scholars such as Anne-​Marie Brady and David Shambaugh have tried to focus on the form and function of contemporary CCP state propaganda.4 Yet the common treatment of propaganda in China studies is in a negative

China’s directed public sphere  37 sense, apparently drawing on a combination of Cold War images of ‘Chi-​Com brainwashing’ and contemporary Chinese stories of the foolishness and cruelty of Great Leap and Cultural Revolution propaganda. Still, some scholars have noted some affinities of CCP propaganda with Confucian values and have traced the political organisation and impact of propaganda and rectification policies under the CCP.5 Recently, Kerry Brown has made a spirited effort to explain (without endorsing) how Xi Jinping’s propaganda makes sense to the Party leadership.6 The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies from 2013 offers a more empathetic reading of ‘propaganda’. The editors, Jonathan Auerbach and Russ Castronovo, offer ‘Thirteen Propositions About Propaganda’ that are well worth considering, not least Proposition 12:  Propaganda is an integral feature of democratic societies.7 This drives home two points:  first, we need to address openly our attitude about propaganda. We can hate it –​and I am no fan of the Zhongxuanbu, the Party’s Central Propaganda Department –​but we need to separate our moral judgement from our professional analysis. Second, the failure to undertake a bit of academic hygiene (reflexivity) risks projecting our concerns onto our subjects and occluding the possibility of understanding their intentions and experience. This chapter offers three themes from the history of government efforts to control public information as a part of Chinese statecraft: core assumptions, reflected in keywords; doctrinal culture, embodied in core texts and activity of propagandists; and the fundamental impact of changing public spheres over China’s long twentieth century. These are the vocabulary, the syntax and the speech acts that formed propaganda in Maoist China and continue to shape public life in China today. The Qing dynasty has bequeathed to modern China a ‘directed public sphere’ that has been embraced enthusiastically by China’s reformers and revolutionaries of varying stripes, but has been shaped  –​constrained and empowered  –​by the changing nature of China’s public spheres. This directed public sphere asserts a role for the government as a pedagogical state that has the responsibility to provide order and prosperity through civilizing its citizens according to the superior insights of certified transformational bureaucrats learned in a body of thought that, when applied properly, will bring great harmony to all under its sway. In short, it is worth viewing Mao’s propaganda state in the longue dureé of Chinese statecraft as well as in the context of international communist movements. This historical perspective draws from the New Sinology employed by many humanities-​oriented scholars working on modern China, and particularly CCP history and politics. Its most vocal champion is Geremie Barmé, late of the Australian Centre for China in the World at the Australian National University and editor of The China Story, the notable annual review of Chinese politics and culture, and its related website.8 It takes Chinese history and culture very seriously in any analysis of China’s public and political life. This is the approach of traditional sinology applied to contemporary history and politics, but it is not a scholarly orientation much favoured in contemporary social science analysis of China. What, exactly shaped the origins the propaganda system of Mao’s time and ‘carries on’ in China today? I identify three things to look for: the presence of core assumptions; the operation of doctrinal culture; and the impact of different

38  Timothy Cheek formations of the public sphere. These take our analytical gaze from assumptions to action (or at least ‘speech acts’) and then to the contexts within which they operate. We get at core assumptions through keywords and the concepts to which they point. A full analysis of these words requires the rigorous documentation employed by Reinhart Koselleck in his Begriffsgeschichte, or ‘history of concepts’. Raymond Williams and his successors have usefully applied a focus on ‘keywords’ as a related way to bring not only core concepts, but the changing meaning of keywords to our attention.9 Together, they remind us that the use of the same term by different people at different times –​even in the same culture –​does not mean they are saying the same thing. The core analytical category here –​the concept  –​is defined by Koselleck as a word representing an idea that is both powerful enough in a certain discourse to direct thought and ambiguous enough to hold a range of meanings within it. One example he gives is of ‘democracy’, which carries a Greek definition of the constitution of a polis, the rules of eighteenth-​ century European states and the expectations of industrialized society. These are all different meanings, but they are related, showing that the term ‘democracy’ is able to encompass persistence, change and novelty within its meaning. Koselleck concludes that, ‘Each concept establishes a particular horizon for potential experience and conceivable theory, and in this way sets a limit’.10 I suggest five such core concepts in China’s directed public sphere, drawing from the broadest and most general cultural assumptions to norms specifically embraced in Maoist and post-​Mao  China. ‘Doctrinal culture’ is particularly helpful to understand the historical role of propaganda and the directed public sphere in China. According to Steven Van Zoeren, doctrinal culture is the social embodiment of doctrine as ‘communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practices that are considered essential to the identity or welfare of the group in question … [and] … indicate what constitutes faithful adherence to the community’.11 Doctrinal culture reminds us that propaganda work in Qing, Republican and Maoist China was built around a vigorous ideology, embodied by proponents and institutionalized in state and social practices. Clifford Geertz long ago identified ideology as a cultural system, but it matters whether or not the ideology in question is backed up by a Confucian bureaucracy or Leninist organization –​both with military might. However, the fact that both Confucian bureaucrats and cadres of either the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-​shek or Communists under Mao embraced an ideology does not make them identical. Aside from specific content of each ideology (Confucianism, ideas of Sun Yat-​sen and Mao Zedong Thought), the nature of enforcement matters. Confucianism and Sunism were in practice promoted in a latitudinarian manner; Maoism was not –​it was, and is, exclusive and when enforced it is intolerant of alternatives. This is Ideology with a capital ‘I’ to distinguish this muscular, state-​ led and enforced ‘cultural system’ from the more fluid and less centralized ideologies that circulated in Qing and Republican times and, indeed, that shape thinking in the West. ‘Doctrinal culture’ is not an exhaustive framework, but it reminds us to attend to the social embodiment of ideas and of purposes to which they were put at a given time. We sample this doctrinal culture through snapshots of three

China’s directed public sphere  39 texts from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, in which Party propagandists celebrate and worry about their work. Core assumptions and doctrinal culture do, of course, exist in particular historical contexts. The key contextual variable for propaganda is the nature of the public arena. The information systems of the both the Qing empire and Chinese twentieth-​century states correspond in many ways to what Jürgen Habermas calls the ‘public sphere’ in European societies. This model is important not only for making the Chinese experience more comparable with other examples, but also for highlighting the distinctive experiences that have shaped public life in China. The key difference in the European example, of course, is that Habermas sees the public sphere as independent of state power. Indeed, it is unlikely that Habermas or his colleagues would call China’s information system under Mao any sort of ‘public sphere’ with any sort of ‘civil society’. I use his terms because scholars interested in China (both Chinese and Western) use ‘public sphere’ all the time to describe the public arena in China, whether in eighteenth-​century Hankow or twenty-​first century Shanghai. However, China does not conform to the Habermasian model because the public arena in Qing times or Mao’s time, and even to a large degree in the mid-​century Republic and today, is not composed of independent professionals and intellectuals freed from both state power and communal ties in the sense in which Habermas uses the term ‘public sphere’. Yet China has had a public arena under all these governments. The Party aspired to, and in the high Mao period pretty much did, control all public and much private expression. China’s leaders have always sought to lead the press, propaganda, public discussion and popular mores in order to pass on the enlightenment of ideological leaders and qualified cadres  –​be they Qing officials or reformers, Republican modernizers or revolutionaries, or Maoist cadres. China has had a public sphere in which individual ideas and values were made public, but compared with the Habermas version it was a directed public sphere. We can identify at least three distinctly different public spheres in modern China that have shaped the origins, operation and afterlives of Maoist China:  print capitalism in the late Qing and Republic; the propaganda state perfected under Mao; and a directed or managed public sphere in post-​Mao China.

Keywords of the pedagogical state Five key terms from the lexicon of Chinese statecraft can offer a glimpse into the core concepts and doctrinal culture of China’s pedagogical states. We will see them ‘in action’ in authoritative CCP texts on propaganda that come from Chinese historical experience in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to which we turn in the next section. Here, I arrange these core ideas of Chinese statecraft from the hoary and general in Chinese culture to the recent and specific in the Chinese Communist political system. Together, they reflect an enduring framework of China’s directed public sphere that asserts a role for the government as a pedagogical state that, as we have noted, has the responsibility to civilize through the ministrations of certified transformational bureaucrats. These keywords from Chinese statecraft are

40  Timothy Cheek not specific ideological formulations (提法) or slogans (口号), but rather are core concepts similar to the example of ‘democracy’ discussed by Koselleck.12 Transform the people through the Rites 以礼教民 reflects a belief in the transformative power of correct models. It comes from the Liji 禮記, an ancient Confucian Classic of Rites. Its constant repetition by Chinese governments and leading thinkers over the past two thousand years reflects a shared belief among China’s cultural and political elite in the educability of humans. People can be taught how to be good, and correct ways of acting, thinking, speaking and even sitting can directly contribute to that noble goal.13 Thus role models –​especially top leaders such as emperors –​need to act well, or at least be seen to act as exemplars of morality.14 This fundamental assumption lends itself to positive or negative role models (what to copy or not copy). The goal throughout, and the term that carries this long-​standing orientation in Chinese statecraft today, is jiaohua [教化], ‘to transform’ the subject through moral-​ political education. The Sacred Edict Lectures 宣讲 came from the Qing Dynasty but were built on imperial propaganda popularizing the Sacred Maxims of the Emperor (starting with six for the Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang and growing to sixteen for the Qianlong Emperor in the eighteenth century). Local Confucian officials were required to lecture on these Sacred Maxims to their public regularly for their edification. Themes extended from filial piety to ‘maintain harmonious relations with your neighbours’ to ‘be content with your work’ to administrative concerns such as ‘keep your baojia [residence] register up to date’.15 The point of this tradition is that Chinese governments from the fourteenth century consistently insisted on giving the lectures despite all available evidence showing that locals paid next to no attention to them. The ritual performance of moral-​political education for the people signified legitimate government, regardless of whether anyone was paying attention. These lectures were not simply in books. Local magistrates were instructed to recite the Sacred Maxims and expound upon their meaning at monthly public meetings. Handbooks such as Li Laizhang’s Explanations of the Sacred Edict Lecture System of 1705 literally mapped out how to hold these meetings, down to diagrams showing the placement of the tablets with the Sacred Maxims and altars, and the locations where both scholars and townsfolk should stand, as well as instructions for how to hold the meeting and fill out the registers of good and bad behaviour.16 Political tutelage 训政 was Sun Yat-​sen’s explanation for putting democracy off for another day and the primary expression of the pedagogical state under his Nationalist Party. The founding father of China’s Republic, by the 1920s Sun had come to feel that the Chinese people were not ready for democracy and instead required a period of political education during which his one-​party state would inculcate the masses in modern civility. This ‘Tutelary State’, as John Fitzgerald calls it in his study of Sun’s political model, was meant to awaken the Chinese people and teach them how to be modern citizens.17 This responsibility (or presumption, depending on one’s view) was enthusiastically embraced by his successors. In China’s Destiny, Chiang Kai-​shek quotes Sun Yat-​sen saying, ‘When there is

China’s directed public sphere  41 one purpose, and it is the purpose of the entire people, and when the people all work to achieve this purpose, it is easy to succeed’.18 Chiang concluded that such unity required the complete domination of political life by the Nationalist Party to maintain order and educate the people. Chiang famously did not succeed in this unification of political wills, but for a time Mao did. Rectification 整风 is the political education and reform process used to train Party leaders and rank and file members that Mao Zedong perfected in Yan’an in the 1940s. It is nothing less than the Chinese application of Leninist ideology and organization. It is often employed in an orchestrated campaign, a rectification movement 整风运动 (such as in Yan’an in 1942–​44 and in the other base areas in the years to follow, among intellectuals in 1950–​51, and down through the Hundred Flowers Campaign and Anti-​Rightist Movement in 1957–​58), the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to today’s ‘mass line campaign’ under Xi Jinping. However, according to Frederick Teiwes, rectification characterized everyday politics under the CCP as well as triggering intense campaigns.19 When undertaken seriously, this form of political training resembles nothing so much as Bible study in small groups run by your local police department (with officers from the Intelligence Service and military on hand when needed). Individual study, public confession of your sins, review of your personnel record and public propaganda about role models (and a few negative role models to show what is to be avoided) define a CCP rectification campaign. Rectification was taken to absurd and tragic extremes in the anti-​Rightist Campaign and Cultural Revolution, but it has been a staple of political life in the CCP since the 1940s.20 Xi Jinping’s current anti-​corruption campaign is just such a rectification effort, although it is not yet a formally announced campaign.21 Propaganda 宣传 has all these layers within it. It carries the xuan 宣(proclamation) from the xuanjiang Sacred Edict Lectures. It runs on the operating system of ‘transforming the people through the rites’ by performing correct behaviours and providing suitable images, examples and endless orthodox lectures on what to do and why. Propaganda is needed to provide the political tutelage for a population that is not yet ready for democracy, but that can be made ready. Propaganda is produced, disseminated and measured by an elite cadre of political professionals who merit their privileged position by having been rectified by Party training. Without propaganda by rectified political teachers, how can the people be transformed to become full citizens? It all makes sense –​and not just to Xi Jinping. Of course, modern political propaganda in China, particularly for the Chinese Communist Party, drew from the example of Russian Communist propaganda. The Communist and Nationalist Parties took as their model the propaganda system first outlined by Lenin in his 1902 pamphlet ‘What is to Be Done?’, and implemented in the new Soviet Union in the early 1920s. The point of this short excursion into the world of conceptual history of China’s pedagogical state is to show the native resources that shaped the adaptation of the Soviet Leninism to Chinese society. We see this most strikingly in the examples of doctrinal culture among China’s eager propagandists, to whom we now turn.

42  Timothy Cheek

Doctrinal culture of Chinese statecraft We can see these core concepts and assumptions in action through the doctrinal culture revealed in the texts produced by China’s propagandists, particularly reflective texts that celebrate, give guidelines for or fine-​tune propaganda work. This focus allows us to see the ideals of this organizational culture, the sinews of power that have sustained it and the enduring problems repeatedly faced by the practitioners of this form of statecraft. In short, New Sinology as an orientation with a conceptual history of keywords and doctrinal culture as lenses offers a way to understand why and how propaganda has been such a powerful system of both political power and cultural hegemony in modern China. Of course, we can look to programmatic statements of Chinese propaganda –​ for the Nationalist party or the CCP –​but the language approach of Koselleck and Williams suggests we mine operational statements, both public and to closed-​door professional gatherings. Here we sample this world through a close reading of three such texts, one from each decade of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. First, from 1938: Of course, the production of Resistance News (抗敵報) has its mission. It must become the propagandizer and organizer of the Border Region’s mass resistance and salvation movement, it must represent the needs of the broad masses, reflect and pass on the real conditions and experiences of the broad masses’ struggle, promote various aspects of work, and educate the masses themselves. At the same time, from the promotion and assistance of the broad masses, the paper itself progresses. It is the paper of the masses; it gives impetus to others, and at the same time it also gets impetus from others. It teaches others, and at the same time is taught by others. Only under this mutual promotion and education has it been able to come to today [its fiftieth issue].22 This is an editorial penned by partisans in the hills south and west of Beiping (Beijing’s name during the Republic.) It is the second year of China’s devastating major war with Japan. The newspaper is published by a newly formed rural government, the Jin Cha Chi Border Region, set up to organize fighting against the Japanese. It is (reluctantly) recognized by Chiang Kai-​shek’s government but is fully run by the CCP and its army under Nie Rongzhen. The editorial is penned by Deng Tuo, the 26-​year-​old chief cook and bottle washer of this three-​day-​a-​week tabloid-​sized paper published from donkey back on the run from Japanese troops. This is propaganda of a struggling insurgency that has nonetheless mastered the rudiments of military and administrative organization. In the context of resistance (to Japanese invasion) and reform (of agricultural rents), this CCP newspaper does not champion class warfare, but rather the ‘resistance and salvation movement’. Yet the totalizing claims of the pedagogical state are present. The paper exists to represent popular needs, reflect actual conditions, promote the policies of the Border Region government and educate the public.

China’s directed public sphere  43 This is not advertising –​it is governance. The Communist Party is not mentioned in the editorial, but as part of the CCP’s emerging propaganda state (albeit limited to areas of Party control, largely in rural base areas until the late 1940s), the paper claims the role that other political systems would give to elections, to an independent commercial press, to political parties and executive bureaucracies and to functionally independent professional educational institutions. In the context of beleaguered partisans running from superior forces of the Imperial Japanese Army, these are heady claims. For Deng Tuo and his colleagues, these claims framed a noble vocation to redeem China.23 The editorial may not promote class warfare, but it certainly reflects the revolutionary praxis, the political epistemology of the CCP –​of what came to be called ‘the mass line’, summarized later by Mao Zedong as the ‘from the masses, to the masses’ work methods of the CCP.24 This is summed up in Mao’s phrase, ‘Correct leadership must come from the masses and go to the masses’. The editorial memorably claims for the paper that, ‘It teaches others, and at the same time is taught by others’. This interactive claim presents a novel addition to the statecraft of the pedagogical state compared with the one-​way communication of Qing sacred edict lectures. Second, from 1944: In order to reform the correspondence and reporting methods of our Party periodicals, every single correspondent and Party periodical worker must reform his own thought and, on the basis of comrade Mao Zedong’s speech at the Yan’an forum on literature and art, the Central Propaganda Department’s resolutions on literary and art policy, and the directives on military propaganda by the General Political Department, each one of us must link our personal thought and work through deep personal self-​ examination and reflection.25 This comes from Guidelines on Journalism (1946), based on talks given at a CCP propaganda work conference in 1944. Our speaker is again Deng Tuo, now the successful editor of Jin Cha Ji Daily, a major CCP regional newspaper that would combine with other North China CCP papers to become the People’s Daily (also under his editorship) in 1949. The Anti-​Japanese War is over, the CCP is on the rise and heading to the final confrontation with Chiang’s Nationalist forces. Revolution is now front and centre, and the newspaper stresses its Party nature: its journalists are not professionals, they are ‘Party periodical workers’ and they are subject to the ideological remoulding of the Yan’an Rectification Movement led by Mao. Indeed, now Mao’s name and (in)famous ‘Yan’an Talks’ that declared Party supremacy over all intellectual production are mentioned directly and endorsed. The quote also shows the sinews of power and the internal tensions in the emerging propaganda state. This short quote shows how Party periodical workers should reform their journalism, not only by following Mao’s pronouncements, but also by obeying the resolutions of the Central Propaganda Department and the directives of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department.

44  Timothy Cheek These are the organizational sinews of power that organized and sustained the revolutionary pedagogical state. These are the bureaucracies (and police) behind Party slogans. It is a daunting list. And herein lay one of the internal tensions of Mao’s propaganda state. How a shred of enthusiasm  –​the core of agitation or agit-​prop work –​could survive this labyrinth of texts and bureaucracies listed in this speech is beyond imagination. The text clearly presents these institutions as guides to the correct implementation of Mao’s guiding principles, but one could also see this as relegating Mao’s genius to the realm of basic principles, which the various departments, and their expert cadres, must articulate in any given situation. Mao becomes scripture to the Party establishment’s theology. Deng Tuo and his colleagues in the Propaganda Department did not see this as a problem but, fatefully, Mao would. Third, from 1954: Newspapers are the most potent weapon used by the Party to educate and lead the broad masses of the people in the revolutionary struggle and the construction of the new life … We need the supervision of the masses. No matter how highly placed or hard-​working the cadre, if we do not have the supervision of the masses we will lose vigilance … The work of self-​and mutual criticism in the papers should be intimately linked with the Discipline Inspection Committees of various Party Committees and the People’s Police Committee at various government levels.26 This is from a collection of documents on Party journalism published in 1954 in an ‘internal reference’ (neibu faxing) collection by Xinhua. Now Deng Tuo is speaking not on the run in the hills, or to a Party conclave in North China, but to the national propaganda conference for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These are the reflections of a leading propagandist in Mao’s newly established propaganda state. There are problems. The conference was held in May 1954, as the Party was reeling from its first post-​victory leadership fight (Gao Gang lost and a purge was underway). Things are not going according to plan. The Party press, continuing its governance role, clearly has not done all that the Party hoped that it would. So the text begins with the Maoist article of faith: the Party educates and leads the ‘broad masses of the people in revolutionary struggle and construction’. But it is necessary to emphasize something we have not seen before: ‘supervision of the masses’. Party propaganda failed to nip Gao Gang’s conspiracy in the bud; it has ‘lost vigilance’ –​or has allowed leading Party cadres to do so. The solution, again, is a combination of faith (ideology) and organization –​self-​and mutual criticism buttressed by the Central Discipline Inspection Committees and the police. Indeed, the whole speech elaborates on these themes and details how to do better propaganda, essentially by more hard work of what we would call professional journalism: articles need to be factual, well-​reasoned and written in an interesting style. All letters to the editor must be read and answered, and important ones published. Newspaper editorial boards need to serve as supervisors and censors to local Party committees. This is all less about mobilizing the masses

China’s directed public sphere  45 than about disciplining Party cadres. The details of the speech paint a picture of a practical religious organization, where goodwill, study of the scriptures and ‘prayer’ (study sessions and mutual criticism) are backed up by organizational muscle to promote and protect group goals. This form of governance is part of what Weber calls patrimonial domination under the personal rule of a supreme leader but also, importantly, in which administrative problems are turned into moral problems.27 Rectification applied through and supported by the sinews of the propaganda state was the preferred solution to these administrative-​moral challenges in Mao’s China.

China’s changing public spheres As the commentary on these three texts from the CCP’s propaganda system suggests, the doctrinal culture of the pedagogical state did not develop or operate in a vacuum. We cannot make an adequate analysis of China’s directed public sphere by looking only at fundamental assumptions and the actions –​individual and collective –​of its institutional culture. We must attend to the stage on which these scripts were enacted, the historical context, the social structures through which actors of varying social status and experience acted out some of these ideas. The most relevant social structure shaping public debate and propaganda is what we have come to call the public sphere. The nature of the public sphere shapes political and cultural expression and participation in public life, for propaganda systems as much as for individuals. Earlier we reviewed why China’s changing public spheres do not match easily with Habermas’s conception based on the Early Modern European experience. Yet China’s experience with the public arena, while distinctive, addresses the issues that concern Habermas (publicity, political life) and can fruitfully be compared with European and other experience of publicity and propaganda. Over the course of China’s long twentieth century, we can identify three distinct forms of the public sphere in which China’s politicians, intellectuals and activists operated. At the beginning of the century, print capitalism of newspapers and magazines published by commercial companies helped to redefine public debate in China. In combination with the power of foreign treaty ports (which protected residents in parts of Shanghai and other major cities from Chinese state censorship), these non-​state, private media outlets provided a huge new public space in which China’s thinkers and writers could speak. Alongside the very successful commercial newspapers like Shenbao and Shibao, revolutionaries and reactionaries also published small print-​runs of specialized and short-​ lived political periodicals. These were able to exist because of the norms of free circulation of print capitalism aided and abetted by foreign powers in China. The next development was the propaganda state envisioned by Sun Yat-​sen in the 1920s, fitfully applied by the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-​shek from 1928 until the Nationalists’ move to Taiwan in 1949 and fully realized by the CCP, first under its administration in Yan’an and North China from the late 1930s and then nationwide in the new PRC from 1949. In the propaganda state, as the three texts we reviewed above suggest, all forms of public communication are

46  Timothy Cheek controlled by the Party, which seeks to make all public life conform to the norms of its ideology. This is what we know as ‘totalitarianism’. Chinese proponents, on the other hand, saw themselves as implementing the pedagogical state envisioned by Sun Yat-​sen and improved by Mao. The propagandists were intent on ‘teaching the people to be free’. The propaganda state was only fully realized under Mao and for most Chinese between 1949 and Mao’s death in 1976. In the post-​Mao period, the CCP has loosened its control over the public sphere considerably –​but this has been a change in tactics and not in strategy. The goal remains the same: for the party-​state to direct or now to manage public life to move society towards its ideological goals. Since the 1990s, this relative latitude has been combined with a resurgence of a print capitalism without full legal protections and with a key technological innovation in communication –​the internet. Together these have produced a directed public sphere in China, which today is characterized by a social media revolution. China’s social media has changed public discourse by bringing in the voices of ordinary Chinese and putting them into contact with each other with an ease and efficiency never seen before (as is also the case for other countries). At the same time, it has extended the reach of China’s central and local state through e-​governance offerings, subtle propaganda and pervasive monitoring and censoring of internet communication. China’s citizens can organize street marches, as well as chess clubs, over social media and China’s intellectuals have infinitely more outlets through which to express themselves –​ in fact, too many for people to read. China’s netizens can surf the world as well, although their main interest is China and their main language is Chinese. This social media, however, are not fully free. They are managed in the ongoing directed public sphere of China’s reformed party-​state. Under Xi Jinping, since 2012, we have seen a concerted effort to reassert many of the key elements of Mao’s propaganda state –​from ‘educating the people’ to cadre ‘self-​and mutual criticism’. The focus of this chapter, however, is on the origins and establishment of the propaganda state of Mao’s China. The detailed essays in this volume explore what happened. Below, we flesh out briefly what went on in the first two public spheres of China’s twentieth century: print capitalism and the propaganda state. We can see the fundamentals of China’s directed public sphere in the work of the Qing state. By the late nineteenth century, its detractors had gained a new platform, a radically restructured public sphere: print capitalism. We can also see how, based on those developments, political actors and agitators borrowed the Soviet Russian model to create a Chinese propaganda state. Print capitalism and Qing legacies We have seen in the case of Li Laizhang and the Qing Sacred Edict lectures (above) something of the practice of the directed public sphere in Qing China. Before the nineteenth century, there was nothing like the public sphere of Habermas’s conception, although of course there was public life –​that is, life beyond the family but not official or governmental. Such social life was organized locally rather

China’s directed public sphere  47 than nationally and along the pathways of residence, clan or community-​religious observances. There were many small publics, but the only big public was that of the Great Qing (Da Qing guo). These small publics were social, not political; if they were political (as in so-​called ‘secret societies’ or associations or dang of scholars), they were illegal.28 There was, as Benjamin Elman details, a vibrant inter-​provincial book trade among scholars, and elite intellectuals have ‘worried about China’ since the time of Confucius.29 Still, it was illegal for commoners to speak up on government policy, and only officials of a certain rank were permitted to offer their thoughts to local governors, much less to the central government. The political public sphere of the Qing was dominated by officialdom and, as far as the general public was concerned, represented by the Sacred Edict Lectures and local official support of state cults, such as local Confucius Temples (城隍庙). Newspapers in the 1890s were a new world of public discussion for China’s thinkers and writers. The model was distinctly Western  –​the modern commercial daily newspaper was introduced into China by Western missionaries  –​but the application was distinctly Chinese. What Westerners brought, along with better printing presses, was the example of the circulation of public information in channels not directed by the state. Rather, these newspapers wrote up information to attract a broad readership willing to pay for the service. This was print capitalism: newspapers run as businesses and funded by commercial advertising revenues as well as sales of individual copies of the paper.30 This became the hardware on which the software of new and repurposed words, ideas and thought began to change the Qing’s directed public sphere. As early as 1873, the Chinese-​ language newspaper Shenbao in Shanghai offered an example. Though established by a foreigner, British merchant Ernest Major, its content was written and read by Chinese literati and their merchant brethren.31 The model of Shenbao was powerful:  public information could be circulated and commented on independently of the Qing government (because the paper was located in the International Settlement of Shanghai and not under Qing law) and free of the burden of the religious proselytizing of foreign missionaries. Moreover, the project could pay for itself. A new medium took root in treaty port China. The editorial focus of the paper was clear:  educational journalism. Shenbao intended to edify and instruct its readers; Liang Qichao opened his paper, Shibao, in 1904 with the declaration, ‘China needs a guide of the right kind’.32 Liang’s use of the new medium in this way was not unique in China’s emerging public sphere, nor in East Asia. The Japanese scholar Fukuzawa Yukichi famously held forth in a similar fashion in an early Meiji publication from the 1870s, Meiji Six Journal. This journal and other early Japanese newspapers were directed at the educated former Samurai audience, with their front pages taken up by long, moralizing essays. No pictures, no news, no ads –​just ideas and policy.33 It was only in later decades, and certainly by the 1890s, that the raucous commercial press familiar to us emerged in Japan with headlines, drawings and soon photographs, plus scandal and gossip –​all the things that sell newspapers to a general urban public.34 Both models took root in China, but Liang was dedicated to the first: newspapers as an intellectual public sphere for the elite.

48  Timothy Cheek The rise of print capitalism in China at the turn of the century reinforced the polemical and educational nature of the presumption to ‘transform the people through the rites’ and the practice of Sacred Edict Lectures by scholar-​officials in the Qing, marrying the urge to instruct with mass market newspapers to produce a distinctive brand of ‘educational journalism’ that continued through the twentieth century, becoming part of the propaganda efforts of both Nationalist and Communist regimes.35 In his study of Liang Qichao’s generation, James Pusey says that, ‘Editors were interested not in “all the news that’s fit to print”, but only that news pertinent to their main concern, China’s welfare’.36 Professional associations and their publications were also a part of this new public sphere. Public commentary was not limited to the high-​minded. The raucous tabloid press, particularly of Shanghai but by the new century active in a number of cities from Tianjin to Chengdu (in Sichuan), addressed public affairs through the metaphors of scandal and celebrity, and directly by criticizing officials and mocking the elite.37 Although they aimed to entertain rather than to instruct, what caught the newspaper-​buying public’s interest reflected their concerns, and editors began to attend to popular tastes in order to sell papers. This public sphere of print capitalism in Shanghai and other treaty ports of China was ‘free’ or pluralistic in only a de facto way. Treaty ports were fundamentally important for providing both an example of Western modernity –​from newspapers to streetcars to modern warships in the harbour –​and for providing safe havens for Chinese critics, dissidents and revolutionaries, as well as all sorts of newspapers, outside Qing jurisdiction. Of course, commercial newspapers were also constrained by the disciplines of the capitalist market, from owners or shareholders who wanted to make a return on their investments to the felt need to pander to the prurient tastes of urban readers in order to ‘sell papers’. The urges of the pedagogical state in public discussion and journalism were simply muted –​ ironically, by the presence of Western imperialists  –​rather than fundamentally transformed. In other words, the values and institutions of an independent press that produced ‘informational journalism’ to a discerning public had not taken root in Chinese society, and certainly had not changed the pedagogical urges of China’s leaders by the 1930s. The birth of China’s propaganda state By the 1940s, the print communism of the propaganda state came to replace the print capitalism of earlier years as the defining institution of China’s public sphere. The Communist and Nationalist Parties were influenced heavily by the propaganda system of the new Soviet Union in the early 1920s under Lunacharski’s Commissariat of Enlightenment. This is the system that Peter Kenez calls ‘the propaganda state’. Kenez’s picture of the Soviet information system gives a vivid sense of the goals of print communism, to which both parties aspired and that were achieved by the CCP by the 1940s: The newspaper was the blood-​circulation system of the body politic: it carried essential information everywhere rapidly … The average citizen learned what

China’s directed public sphere  49 were the legitimate public issues as defined by the leaders and learned the verbiage of political discourse. For the activist and for the Party functionary, reading the newspaper diligently was even more important. They found out how they had to act in small and large matters and learned how to discuss political and even nonpolitical issues with their fellow citizens.38 The CCP borrowed more than a media system from the Soviets. It created its own version of the Bolsheviks’ propaganda state. Peter Kenez calls this a state-​dominated polity that coordinates the education of cadres, the development of political language, the politicization of ever-​larger segments of life and the substitution of ‘voluntary’ state-​controlled societies for independent organizations.39 Propaganda was not only a total media system; it was a political project. In China, propaganda provided the concrete application of what came to be known as Maoist leadership methods in political campaigns. Party propaganda in newspapers and other media was meant to be a major example of the ‘from the masses, to the masses’ function of Party leadership, in which Party representatives go down among the common folk, discover their problems and needs, go back and synthesize those particular problems with the insights of their ideology and finally return to the masses to publicize the Party’s insights among the people in such a way as to make them take on such formulations as their own values.40 This was seen as transforming the masses through education (jiaohua). It fulfilled the dream of Sun Yat-​sen’s pedagogical state. However, the Nationalists destroyed the local infrastructure of their own Party organization as a part of their purge of leftists after their break with the Communists.41 By the mid-​ 1930s, it was only the CCP that was effectively developing the institutional capacity to bring a full propaganda state into being. As we have seen, propaganda was part of elite training and monitoring of CCP cadres, part of the ‘rectification’ of cadres. Study sessions have been part of both cadre training and policy implementation in this model. Since the late 1930s, propaganda writings, as well as official Party publications, have been read and discussed in orchestrated study sessions for cadres and local leaders, including intellectuals.42 Rectification, when it works –​as it did in the 1940s –​is the organizational system used to back up the ideological pronouncements of the CCP. Propaganda, then, is central to a system that underwrites CCP legitimacy, provides practical political feedback on current policy, and informs the Party’s cadre training and discipline system. The propaganda state institutionalized this system in the danwei  –​ self-​ contained, full-​service organizations. For example, a Communist newspaper –​ be it Yan’an’s Liberation Daily or papers in the war-​torn hinterland, such as the Jin Ch Ji Daily –​were just such all-​embracing danwei. In addition to strong Party control of professional activities and personnel matters, each newspaper provided housing, healthcare, social services, education of children and even approved marriage proposals. The weight of such unified social services was to make the work unit’s members dependent on the leadership of their danwei for most aspects of their lives; this centrally controlled welfare promoted compliance, if not enthusiasm.43

50  Timothy Cheek

Conclusion China’s modern states employed the assumptions and doctrinal culture of the directed public sphere from the Qing with the modifications of print capitalism to create propaganda states in which the Party directly managed the public arena and controlled public associations of ‘civil society’. New Sinology suggests two historical perspectives: living ideas and lived contexts. Living ideas are inherited ideas that succeeding generations find compelling, including unreflective assumptions. Lived contexts are the social experience of individuals and groups in which those framing assumptions and positive ideas are adopted, adapted and put into practice. This historical perspective makes it hard to dismiss Mao’s propaganda state as an unfortunate copy of the Stalinist model, the ghastly product of Mao’s ego, or a simple stage of modernization. The roots go too deeply into lived Chinese culture. If we keep an eye on those roots, or mental structures, or social habitus, then we can better make sense of Mao’s propaganda state then and its legacies today –​what Heilmann and Perry call ‘the long tail of Maoism’ and I term ‘living Maoism’.44 The New Sinology approach leads me to suggest that it is worth viewing Mao’s propaganda state in the longue durée, that the propaganda system of the Mao era and the basic ideology on which it operated –​that is, the rectification doctrine –​are part of twentieth-​century China’s contributions to the long tradition of Chinese statecraft.45

Notes 1 ‘Xi Jinping Rallies Party for Propaganda War on Internet’, South China Morning Post, 4 September 2013, www.scmp.com/​news/​china/​article/​1302857/​ president-​xi-​jinping-​rallies-​party-​propaganda-​war-​internet. 2 ‘The art is red’, The Economist, 17 December 2014, www.economist.com/​news/​china/​ 21636783-​propaganda-​art-​enjoying-​new-​lease-​life-​art-​red. 3 Garth S.  Jowett and Victoria J.  O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015), p. 2. 4 Anne-​Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship:  Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party:  Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 2009), particularly Chapter 6. 5 James Chieh Hsiung, Ideology and Practice:  The Evolution of Chinese Communism (New  York: Praeger, 1970); Frederick C.  Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993 [1979]). 6 Kerry Brown, China’s Dream:  The Culture of Chinese Communism and the Secret Sources of its Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 7 Jonathan Auerbach and Russ Catronovo, The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 11. 8 The China Story website includes an archive, electronic editions of the annual, and additional posts and article, at www.thechinastory.org; on New Sinology 后汉学／後漢學 see www.thechinastory.org/​new-​sinology and Geremie Barmé ‘New Sinology’ (2005) at http://​ciw.anu.edu.au/​new_​sinology/​index.php. Barmé’s ongoing work appears on the China Heritage website: http://​chinaheritage.net.

China’s directed public sphere  51 9 Raymond Williams’ 1976 original study has been extended and updated in Colin MacCabe and Holly Yanacek, Keywords for Today:  A 21st Century Vocabulary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 10 Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Begriffsgeschichte and Social History’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 82. For another application of Koselleck’s approach to Maoist propaganda, see Timothy Cheek, ‘Attitudes of Action:  Maoism as Emotional Political Theory’, in Leigh Jenco, ed., Chinese Thought as Global Theory: Diversifying Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences and Humanities (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2016), pp. 75–​100. 11 Steven Van Zoeren, quoting George A. Lindbeck on Christian ‘doctrine’ and applying it to Confucian hermeneutics of the classics in Poetry and Personality:  Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional China, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 18–​25, 254. 12 Koselleck, ‘Begriffsgeschichte and Social History’. 13 A standard verse from the Liji [Book of Rites] is from the chapter, 學記 [Record on the subject of education]: ‘If the junzi [prince] wishes to transform the people and to perfect their manners and customs, must he not start from the lessons of the school?’ See ‘Yang Guorong 楊國榮,’《顯魁與和樂：對生命意義的逆流探索》[Xiankui and Hele: A  Contrarian Investigation of the Meaning of Life], (Hong Kong:  Joint Publishing Company, 2010), pp. 272–​73. Yang’s title terms are difficult to translate, but mean something along the lines of ‘expressing the holy and finding happiness in peace’. See his comments on p. 11. 14 See David L.  Hall and Roger T.  Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany, NY:  SUNY Press, 1987); Donald J.  Munro, The Concept of Man in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1977). 15 Translated in Wm. Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano, eds, Sources of Chinese Tradition: From 1600 to the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed., Vol. II, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp.  71–​72; Guo Moro noted the continuation of these lectures in his village in the early twentieth century: see de Bary and Lufrano, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. II, pp. 125–​26. Kung-​ch’úan Hsiao (Xiao Gongquan), Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960). 16 Li Laizhang 李來章, 聖諭宣講鄉保條約 ‘Shengyu xuanjiang xiangbao tiayue’ (Regulations for ‘Community-​Security’ Sacred Edict Lectures), preface dated 1705, from his collected works 《李山園全書》 . 17 Articulated in Sun Yat-​sen’s ‘Fundamentals of National Reconstruction’ (1923): see John Fitzgerald, Awakening China:  Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 79. 18 Chiang Kai-​shek, China’s Destiny and Chinese Economic Theory (New  York:  Roy, 1947), p. 112. 19 Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 2nd ed. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), esp. pp. 25–​62. 20 Kirk Denton provides a fine introduction and overview in ‘Rectification:  Party Discipline, Intellectual Remolding, and the Formation of a Political Community’, in Ban Wang, ed., Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution, (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 51–​63. 21 Suisheng Zhao, ‘The Ideological Campaign in Xi’s China:  Rebuilding Regime Legitimacy’, Asian Survey, 56(6) (2016):  1168–​1193. Christian Sorace, ‘Extracting Affect: Televised Cadre Confessions in Contemporary China’, Public Culture, 31(1) (2019): 145–​171.

52  Timothy Cheek 22 Yin Zhou [Deng Tuo], ‘Kangdi bao wushiqi de huigu yu zhanwang’ [Review and prospects of Resistance News upon its 50th issue], Kangdi bao (27 June 1938), p. 1. Reprinted in Xinwen shiliao 5, pp. 8–​9. 23 Timothy Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China:  Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 24 ‘Resolution of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Methods of Leadership’, passed by the Politburo of the Central Committee, 1  June 1943, in Mao’s China: Party Reform Documents, 1942–​44, trans. by Boyd Compton (Seattle, WA:  University of Washington Press, 1952), pp.  176–​82. This text is attributed to Mao and appears in Volume 3 of his Selected Works as ‘Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership’, www.marxists.org/​reference/​archive/​mao/​selected-​works/​ volume-​3/​mswv3_​13.htm. 25 ‘Gaizao women de tongxun yu baodao fangfa’ [Reform our new and reporting methods], Xinwen gongzuo zhinan, 1 (Kalgan: 1946): pp. 53–​54. Listed as a speech of May 1944 by Deng Tuo to a CCP propaganda work conference in Jin Cha Ji. 26 Deng Tuo, ‘Zenyang gaijin baozhi gongzuo’ [How to advance newspaper work], Zhongguo gongchangdang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian [Collection of documents on CCP journalism work], Vol. 2 (Beijing:  Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp.  323–​44. A speech given at the CCP national propaganda conference in May 1954. 27 See Philip A. Kuhn’s chapter, ‘Political Crime and Bureaucratic Monarchy’, in Kuhn, P. A, ed., Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 187–​222. 28 For excellent accounts of conditions in the Qing, see Susan Naquin and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987) and William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). 29 A good starting point is Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China, rev. ed., (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). 30 Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–​1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004). 31 Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–​1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 32 Mittler, A Newspaper for China?, p. 14. 33 Sharon Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983), pp. 16ff. 34 James Huffman, Creating a Public:  People and Press in Meiji Japan, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997). 35 Educational journalism seeks to guide, lead and transform an uncritical audience that must be protected from alternative, and presumably dangerous, ideas and information for their own good. See Timothy Cheek, ‘Redefining Propaganda: Debates on the Role of Journalism in Post-​Mao China’, Issues & Studies (Taipei), 25(2) (February 1989), pp. 47–​74. 36 James Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 84–​5. 37 Juan Wang, Merry Laughter and Angry Curses: The Shanghai Tabloid Press, 1897–​ 1911 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2012). 38 Peter Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State:  Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–​1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 224. The term ‘print

China’s directed public sphere  53 communism’ as a parallel to ‘print capitalism’ was coined by Christopher Reed in ‘Advancing the (Gutenberg) Revolution:  The Origins and Development of Chinese Print Communism, 1921–​1947’, in Cynthia Brokaw and Christopher A.  Reed, eds, From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 2800 to 2008 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 275–​311. 39 Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State, pp. 12–​13 and Ch. 10. 40 The classic formulation is in ‘Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership’, issued by the CCP central committee but included in The Selected Works of Mao, Vol. III (Peking:  Foreign Languages Press, 1975). This rectification system is carefully analysed in Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–​1965, 2nd ed. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993). 41 Sun Yat-​sen’s pedagogical state is explored in Fitzgerald, Awakening China. Bradley K. Geisart, Radicalism and Its Demise: The Chinese Nationalist Party, Factionalism, and Local Elites in Jiangsu Province, 1924–​1931 (Ann Arbor, MI:  University of Michigan Press, 2001). 42 The Yan’an experience is detailed in David Apter and Tony Saich, Mao’s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994) and Teiwes, Politics & Purges in China, pp. 30–​57. For the 1950s, see Franz Schurmann, Ideology & Organization in Communist China (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1966), pp.  60–​61. The classic book on these ‘study sessions’ is Martin K.  Whyte, Small Groups and Political Rituals in China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974). 43 Patricia Stranahan, Molding the Medium:  The Chinese Communist Party and the Liberation Daily (Armonk, NY:  M.E. Sharpe, 1990); Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China, Ch. 2.  On danwei, see Andrew Walder, Communist Neo-​ Traditionalism:  Work and Authority in Chinese Society, (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1986) and Lü Xiaobo and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds, Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). 44 Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J.  Perry, Mao’s Invisible Hand:  The Political Foundations of Adaptive Government in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Timothy Cheek, Living with Reform: China Since 1989 (London: Zed Books, 2006). 45 Timothy Brook has focused recently on late imperial Chinese statecraft with close readings and exegeses of the noted Ming statecraft scholar Qi Jun (1420–​95). The papers from that project are currently under review for publication. Brook’s history of the Yuan and Ming is, in many ways, a meditation on the evolution of Chinese statecraft ideology and practice over those centuries: see T. Brook, Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).

Part II

Icons and imagery

3  Liu Hulan –​‘A great life, a glorious death’ Martyrdom across the media James Farley

‘A great life, a glorious death’. Mao Zedong’s statement to commemorate the life and sacrifice of the Model Worker Liu Hulan could have been used to describe a large number of the heroes utilized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its mission to rebuild and transform society following the ‘Century of Humiliation’, a ruinous war with Japan and a highly divisive civil war. The use of Model Workers for propaganda purposes was hardly a new innovation by the CCP. The Stakhanovite movement in the Soviet Union had pioneered the use of ‘shock workers’ to improve production by providing role models for the workforce and the presentation of the ideal new ‘Soviet man’. Chinese Model Workers were deployed in a similar fashion following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. However, because of differences in both revolutionary experience and the establishment of new systems of government, the Chinese concept of the Model Worker differs somewhat from its Soviet counterpart. Prior to the establishment of the PRC, there had been attempts to define what was needed to advance the nation. In his collection entitled Xinmin Shuo –​ Renewing the People, published between 1902 and 1906, Liang Qichao detailed what was required, arguing that social reform was an essential component. Later, Sun Zhongshan developed these ideas further with the Three Principles of the People (Sanmin Zhuyi). In response to Sun Zhongshan, the New Culture Movement (Xin Wenhua Yundong) (1911–​37) attempted to offer a rather different approach to revitalizing society. Towards the end of this era, Jiang Jieshi, leader of the Guomindang, produced his own campaign to rejuvenate the nation. The name given to this was the New Life Movement (Xin Shenghuo Yundong). The movement was launched on 19  February 1934 and was designed primarily to reform Chinese society by encouraging individuals to act in a more socially responsible way. However, unlike similar Maoist attempts at social reform, the New Life Movement was based principally on promoting the virtues of ancient China. Elements of each of these campaigns, as well as the Soviet experience, informed the development of the CCP’s own attempts at reforming the nation. However, it would be inaccurate to state that the Party’s reform efforts were simply an evolution of earlier endeavours. Prior to gaining power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party, through the theoretical work of Mao Zedong, had already developed a blueprint for how the

58  James Farley nation could be rebuilt following a successful revolution.1 Earlier campaigns had contained rather vague goals  –​something that Mao was keen to avoid. Consequently, propaganda aimed at national rejuvenation would be based on three core concepts: nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism. The Model Worker concept would be employed to promote these core ideas and in addition to supporting government propaganda campaigns, also served an overarching function of disseminating the values of the new state and its conception of an ideal citizen. To aid in this endeavour, propaganda material was produced in a highly integrated way as messages were presented through different forms of media. Film and posters were both extensively utilized to carry these messages. The extent to which propagandists worked according to the core values outlined above is evident in the way in which these themes are dominant in both media forms throughout the first decade of Party rule. The selection of models for this process owes a great deal to the development of the CCP’s adaptation of the Soviet system of governance through the creation of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. This system built on ideas that Mao had developed in 1926 in his article, ‘Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society’.2 Mao stated that there were five major classes in China that represented three distinct views:  pro-​revolution, anti-​revolution or undecided.3 By 1949, Mao’s thinking had evolved as the five distinct classes had been reduced to four: the working class, the peasantry, the urban petit bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. Following the revolution, models were chosen from the social classes of this system established by the new government, with the exception of the urban petit bourgeoisie. Mao summarized this union, describing its nature in ‘On New Democracy’ (‘Xin Minzhuzhuyi Lun’), stating that, ‘New-​democratic culture is the proletarian-​led, anti-​imperialist and anti-​feudal culture of the broad masses’.4 From this, the core values of Model Worker propaganda –​nationalism (anti-​imperialism), social reform (anti-​feudal culture) and the development of socialism (proletarian-​led) –​can be derived. Although bearing significant similarities to the Soviet designed Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Chinese system differed enough that the impact on representations of the people –​particularly in propaganda  –​was significant. Models derived from this social system had three key functions. First, they provided guidance for members of each social class by establishing behavioural norms. Second, they were intended to provide inspiration to the people and impart the core values of the new state. Third, their exploits, presented by propagandists, depicted idealized versions of recent historical events. Consequently, the People’s Democratic Dictatorship was intended to be an alliance of those groups, which would work together under the guidance of the Party in the transition to socialist development. The flag adopted by the new state was intended to represent this alliance, and was itself a powerful propaganda instrument as it demonstrated the inclusiveness of the new society under the principles of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. Whereas the new Soviet society was intended to be built on the foundations of agriculture and industry, China’s new society would be built by the cooperation of its diverse peoples. This

Liu Hulan  59 difference in thinking between the Soviet Union and the PRC is argued by many historians to be largely illusionary; indeed, Maurice Meisner stated that the whole concept of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship was ‘semantically obscure and socially ambiguous’, further adding that the statement that the country was being led by a party of the proletariat was ‘a hollow and purely ideological claim’.5 However, this ‘hollow and purely ideological claim’ was to have a profound impact on the implementation of propaganda as it acknowledged the existence of four distinct groups in society, which would all require different levels of attention with respect to propaganda. The evidence for this lies in the selection of Model Workers, each of whom was drawn from one of the social classes of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, with the exception of the capitalist petit bourgeoisie class. An examination of various forms of propaganda designed to promote each Model Worker demonstrates the extent to which the social classes were not only specifically targeted but were also continuously exposed to the core values of nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism. This is evident in an examination of media designed to promote the Model Worker Liu Hulan. Her actions, as detailed by CCP propagandists, provided guidance for the peasantry regarding what was expected of them. In addition, depictions of her ‘glorious life and glorious death’ promoted the core values that inspired and motivated all Model Workers. Although The People’s Democratic Dictatorship remains part of the Chinese constitution to this day, the social classes that comprised it experienced mixed fortunes throughout the first two decades of CCP rule. Depictions of other Model Workers such as Zhao Yiman altered throughout the decades, and to this day portrayals of Lei Feng differ quite considerably from their initial representations in the early 1960s. By contrast, propaganda featuring Liu Hulan remained generally consistent, as is evident from analysis of poster and film propaganda throughout the first fifteen years of the PRC. Liu was born in Shanxi Province in 1932 and fought in the Chinese Civil War. She joined the Communist Party in 1946. When her village was under the control of the Guomindang, CCP members were taken into custody and Liu was executed when she refused to name her comrades.6 Her actions as a defiant member of the peasant class in the face of imperialist aggression made her an ideal candidate for immortalization as a Model Worker. CCP propagandists used her experiences to highlight not only the importance of their own brand of nationalism in the face of imperialist aggression from the Japanese and the Guomindang, but also the importance of social reform through rejection of perceived feudal thinking and the importance of the development of socialism among the peasantry. Liu Hulan personified this struggle as she fought the imperialists and rejected feudal expectations related to her gender. The evidence for this lies in the vast range of propaganda created throughout the first ten years of Party rule and beyond, which depicted her actions in both film and poster formats. Elements of nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism were core components of the propaganda message utilized by directors, writers and artists as they followed Mao’s instruction to depict a new-​Democratic culture made possible by adherence to Party values.

60  James Farley The importance of cinema to Party propaganda cannot be overstated, as is evident from the speed by which control was extended over the film industry.7 An appraisal of the ideological theory guiding film development prior to the Cultural Revolution provides conflicting results. At first glance, it would appear that the government was following the Soviet approach of ‘socialist realism’; however, there appears to be confusion about what this actually meant.8 Indeed, Zhou Enlai used two contradictory ways to explain the meaning of socialist realism. At first, he stated that, ‘Socialist realism is the combination of revolutionary realism and revolutionary idealism’. At a later date, he declared that socialist cinema had created ‘new styles that combined revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism’.9 Realism and romanticism are not wholly compatible ideals;10 however, Zhou’s second interpretation may better explain what the CCP was trying to achieve with film media. The films’ revolutionary romanticism was intended to represent revolutionary realism –​that is, an idealized version was intended to replace the more realistic truth. It is clear that the ‘correct’ depiction of history was an important ideological concern for the leadership of China. Although class struggle and the development of socialism were also undoubtedly dominant themes during this era, the focus on presenting history ‘correctly’ was overwhelming, as evidenced by the sheer volume of films devoted to historic conflicts. Zhou’s stated aspiration, to see the combination of ‘revolutionary realism’ with ‘revolutionary idealism’, led to the use of heroes who would relive difficult moments in China’s history. These heroes would provide inspiration for the masses that would unify the new nation for the socialist mission ahead. The North-​East Film Studio developed a number of films based on this formula, and frequently utilized Model Workers for propaganda purposes. In 1950, the studio released Zhao Yiman, a film that chronicled the life and sacrifices of a member of the National Bourgeoisie social class. Although reactions to the film were rather mixed, the North-​East Film Studio developed the Model Worker formula further in another film released later in 1950 that was clearly designed to support the ongoing Land Reform propaganda campaign. Liu Hulan follows the same ‘defiance’ model as Zhao Yiman, but instead focuses on a figure from a less problematic social class, the peasantry. While Zhao Yiman was made with a more literate audience in mind, the film makers of Liu Hulan considered the wider audience more carefully. In Zhao Yiman, plot points are conveyed via newspaper cuttings, whereas in Liu Hulan text is used far more simplistically and directly. In addition, the actors detail plot direction directly to the audience. Text is generally instructional or specifically didactic. There is little room for confusion about the characters and their motivations because these are laid out extremely clearly. Thematically, Liu Hulan is considerably denser than earlier attempts at the Model Worker format in the cinematic medium. Despite coming from the same production studio, there are some notable differences between the two films. Whereas Zhao Yiman focused almost entirely on nationalism and the unification of the nation, Liu Hulan deals in more detail with the benefits of socialism and the anti-​feudal nature of social reform. The nationalist theme is still strong; however, the film has more in common with Sun Yu’s The Life of Wu Xun in

Liu Hulan  61 its representation of the difficulties of peasant life,11 albeit through the lens of a vastly simplified class system depicting simply exploiters and the exploited. Considerable time is spent both discussing and portraying the problems of the old feudal society, but little is seen of how Liu was solving these problems with the aid of the Party’s social reform. It is perhaps for this reason that the reception of Liu Hulan was, according to articles published in the film magazine Dazhong Dianying, far more negative.12 The problems of imperialism and the importance of national unity feature prominently in Liu Hulan. However, the way in which collaboration was dealt with is far less nuanced than in earlier films.13 Instead of detailing a more conflicted and confused city population, the peasants of Shanxi are far more polarized. The poor are oppressed and the rich are cruel collaborators who share little in common with their countryside kin. The director explicitly portrays those who worked with the Japanese –​in this case, a landlord –​as being not only beyond redemption, but appearing to be distinctly ‘foreign’. Early in the film, a thunderstorm erupts upon the arrival of the Japanese forces. This is repeated when the landlord returns to oppress the people after their liberators are forced into temporary retreat. A clear connection is consequently made between the collaborator and the imperialist oppressors. Furthermore, the link between the ‘class enemy’ –​the Guomindang, and Jiang Jieshi in particular –​is made explicit early in the film. When the People’s Army arrives, its commander proclaims, ‘We are the Red Army, we journey to eastern China to resist the Japanese invaders, we aim to annihilate Japanese imperialism and overthrow the quisling Jiang Jieshi and help you to defeat the rich’.14 Liu Hulan combines ‘revolutionary realism’ with ‘revolutionary idealism’ to an even greater extent than earlier films. Major events, such as the defeat of the Japanese, are credited solely to the actions of the Communist Party. Indeed, two-​thirds of the way through the film, word comes that the Japanese have been defeated with the assistance of Soviet forces in the north. The soldier bearing the news then states that Mao has demanded that they seize the abandoned guns and use them to take the cities.15 It is implicitly indicated that the Japanese have surrendered to the People’s Army; there is no mention of the role of the United States or the Guomindang forces in the defeat of Japan. When the conflict shifts to the Civil War, the new oppressors bear a striking resemblance to the Japanese forces. The differences between the landlord class, the Japanese and the Guomindang become exceptionally blurred. The landlord is first seen acting as a Japanese collaborator and then leads the Guomindang interrogation of Liu Hulan. The Nationalist, anti-​imperialist road ahead is made clear by the closing song, which states, ‘We will surge forward for our national liberation, we must defeat the aggression of Jiang Jieshi and America’.16 Messages of anti-​feudalism and the importance of social reform dominate Liu Hulan, as a number of social issues that were thought to be problematic –​particularly in the countryside  –​are dealt with. The director spends a substantial amount of time addressing issues connected with perceived female inferiority. Prior to liberation, Liu can be seen undertaking heavy manual labour. The idea

62  James Farley that woman had a lower social status in feudal society is made explicit when Liu grinds corn accompanied by her exhausted mother. While they are working, her grandfather engages in conversation with a neighbour and laments his bad luck at having a granddaughter. Although the neighbour argues that this ‘deficiency’ could be remedied by Liu marrying a wealthier man, her grandfather states that, ‘When she grows up, she becomes another family’s … a daughter is always a loss’.17 It is through this social commentary that the director drives the reform agenda. By the end of the film, Liu is a confident, successful woman and succeeds in her mission, independent of any male assistance. Her actions, inspired by social reform ideals, are intended to provide an antidote to perceived feudal values. This is achieved by the promotion of greater empathy that focuses on community spirit. This extends beyond the family, through selflessness, hard work, self-​criticism and the desire to fight injustice. Indeed, as the anti-​Japanese war rages, Liu can be seen dutifully taking care of the needs of all the villagers. She displays empathy for their suffering and donates food from her own family to those with starving children. She is selfless and unafraid of hard work, and when offered additional food to aid in her recovery from exhaustion she refuses, stating that it would harm the socialist spirit of the community. Throughout the film, she struggles uncompromisingly with her oppressors. This culminates in her defiant last words at her execution when she states, ‘We didn’t bow our heads to the Japanese invaders, let alone the reactionaries, their doom is certain, victory will be ours’.18 Liu personifies the concept of the Chinese people ‘standing up’ and breaking the chains of both imperialism and feudalism. Execution scenes were frequently used in both film and poster propaganda to demonstrate the conviction of Model Workers. They achieved this by fulfilling two functions: first, the incrimination of the class enemy; and second, by strengthening the resolve of the revolutionaries to overthrow their oppressors.19 While these two points are certainly valid, they also serve a third function:  to reverse the idea that China was the ‘sick man of Asia’ by demonstrating that its people had value, a fighting spirit and a social and moral conscience. Liu Hulan’s resolute actions, and those of her fellow Model Workers, were the ideal antidote to the humiliation of the past century; the Model Workers were citizens of which the masses could be proud. The third core element of Model Worker propaganda, the promotion of socialism, is also a vital part of Liu Hulan. This aspect focuses to a large extent on land reform and the eventual benefits of socialist liberation. The film details the miserable exploitation of the peasants working under the feudal lord. Following liberation, the same fields are worked by happy, motivated peasants. The heavy work is performed by animals while each of the peasants gains an equal share from their labour, boasting to each other about how much land they now have. Liu herself states that it was because of the liberation by the People’s Army that the people of her village could have hope again and that the ideal of socialist equality could be realized.20 She credits the Party with being the guiding force of this liberation and promises to follow it for the rest of her life.

Liu Hulan  63 Despite it focusing on each of the core elements of the Model Worker in more detail than in earlier films, the critical reaction to Liu Hulan was not entirely positive. The film appeared on the cover of film magazine Dazhong Dianying on 1 October 1951. However, it was subject to criticism in a number of articles. In one of these, the responses from ‘workers from many factories’ were recorded. These workers complained that the depictions were not vivid or passionate enough. Furthermore, one worker stated that, This film hasn’t shown us the passion and love between Liu and the people from her social class. That’s why when Liu was executed –​we can’t feel how mighty and glorious she is to sacrifice her life for the benefit of her social class and people’s happiness.21 Similarly, the article also states that a worker from a ‘pen factory’ complained that the link between Liu and the Party was not clear enough by stating, ‘We didn’t see the Party’s cultivation [of Liu] and its influence on [her] development as a hero’.22 The portrayal was clearly not heroic enough, an element that was to be rectified in later films. Articles containing such observations by ‘factory workers’ not only provided supplementary propaganda for new films, but were also intended to guide filmmakers towards a more specific goal. The evidence for this lies in their increasingly didactic nature during the first decade of the PRC. In addition to film propaganda, posters were used extensively to promote ‘a great life, a glorious death’ of Liu Hulan. As a Model Worker, Liu had great significance for propaganda artists learning their craft during the early 1950s. She had been selected to be one of the models that artists were required to draw before they were allowed to move on to other projects. Consequently, a great deal of care and attention was given to portrayals of Liu, as artists used her likeness to hone their skills and master the challenges of painting in the style of Socialist Realism. Numerous posters were produced of her throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Although each of them shares attributes in common, particularly the presentation of Liu as ‘defiant’, there were subtle differences depending on the time when they were produced and the intended audience. An examination of three posters, the first produced in 1954, the second in 1956 and the third in 1965, demonstrates the extent to which artists pursued their mission to present the three core propaganda themes of nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism through increasingly idealized versions of the defiant peasant. The reaction to the success of these posters is rather difficult to gauge; however, it is possible to gain some insight into what had been deemed to be successful from the way certain posters either appropriated elements of design from their predecessors or were outright facsimiles. Film director Sun Yu had been criticized for failing to correctly demonstrate the connection between Liu and the people. Poster depictions largely avoided making the same mistake, as by contrast to the posters of lone hero Dong Cunrui, Liu is never alone. In later posters, her connection is quite clearly with the people of her social class, the villagers she had been attempting to liberate. However,

64  James Farley in the early depiction of Liu shown in Figure 3.1, designed in 1954 by the artist Qian Daxin23 and published by the East China People’s Art Publisher (Huadong Renmin Meishu Chubanshe), Liu’s connection is not with the village she sought to liberate, but rather with the ‘present’ and the school children that her story was

Figure 3.1 ‘Learn from the People’s Hero’ (1954).

Liu Hulan  65 intended to inspire. The presentation of Liu is clearly a precursor to what would become the standard for depictions of the ‘ultimate’ Model Worker, Lei Feng. Lei was often surrounded by children as he told stories of his harsh upbringing in the ‘old society’. In the figure, the children are similarly learning, inspired by the image of the defiant Liu as she faces the harsh reality of her situation. The layout of this early 1954 print is rather less complex compared with the later ‘Young Heroes Scrolls’ propaganda posters. The image is composed on two planes of perspective, with a statue of Liu dominating the background. There is no other detail to distract the viewer from Liu as the light and shadows draw attention to her defiant pose. Revolutionary martyrs such as Liu were heroes not simply because they fought the Japanese, but also because they died for their communities and the people of China as a whole. In this poster, Liu’s defiant pose is clearly intended to reinforce this message as she stares ahead unafraid, with her eyes fixed on her adversaries, her lips pursed and her fists clenched as she faces execution. In the foreground, two teenage school children provide a contrast to the statue of Liu as the girl appears to be explaining to the boy who she was. This is made explicit by the copy of the book that the girl is clasping to her chest, entitled The Biography of Liu Hulan. The boy stands in awe and appears to be attempting to replicate Liu’s defiant pose, his hands similarly clenched, his chest pushed outwards and his head looking upwards. He carries a book and a cap of the type similar to those worn by factory workers. This detail is perhaps intended to emphasize his place as part of the next generation. The peasant life of Liu Hulan has been left behind and, thanks to her sacrifice, the youth will be part of a new economy based on industry. Similarly, the girl is presented as an image of modernity, representing the gains made because of Liu’s sacrifice, her clothing and hairstyle in stark contrast to the peasant she stands beside. The way in which the image is enclosed is also of interest, as the boy’s hand overlaps the frame, providing a further connection with the viewer who could almost reach out and touch him. In contrast to other Model Worker images, which generally focus on the martyrdom of the individual, this depiction focuses instead on the children. Consequently, there are three models in this poster, not one. Collectively, they represent the past, present and future of China. The objects being held represent the Party’s exhortation to never forget the revolutionary struggle, but to work hard to build the industrial future. The children’s clothes serve to provide a contrast with Liu. The two children represent modernity with their clean and colourful Western-​style school clothing. Liu is dressed as a peasant, wearing the clothing of a serf. Naturally, as indicated by their red scarves, the children are Young Pioneers (Shaonian Xianfengdui). Although the viewer’s eye is drawn to these red scarves, the use of colour overall was intended to reinforce the message of contrast. The pre-​liberation days represented by the background are grey, dark and austere, with only shades of darker colours and the light of Liu breaking through the darkness. By contrast, the present is bright and colourful. The clothing is overall lighter in colour, which helps to draw more attention to the red scarves, symbolic of the Party and its

66  James Farley connection with the youth of China. In addition, the deep red, perhaps representing the martyrs’ blood, is used to highlight the copy of Liu’s biography. The colour used to present the children’s complexion is also of significance, designed to present a further contrast with Liu. Their skin is particularly pale, their hands clean. Liu’s statue may be monotone in colour, but the artist has chosen to use a darker shade for her face and hands, perhaps to indicate how hard her life has been working as a serf in unpleasant environmental conditions. Although Mao Zedong would later embrace the hardier image of a peasant worker as being an ideal, at this stage the perception that lighter skin meant better education and a higher social standing was still current. The design choice of a pale complexion for the children consequently demonstrates the extent to which their position has been improved in contrast to that of their peasant predecessors. There is therefore a subtle, but obvious difference between the two eras of pre-​and post-​liberation. Further contextual information in the form of written text is relatively sparse in this poster. It was not from the Young Heroes Scrolls series shown in Figure 3.2 (later in the chapter) and consequently the life of Liu Hulan is not explicitly detailed through the use of text. This is unsurprising as earlier posters rarely contained a great deal of written information to ensure that the message could be understood by as wide a range of people as possible. Below the image is the following exhortation: Xiang Renmin Yingxiong Xuexi (Learn from the People’s Hero). The book held by the young girl provides further contextual information. This kind of book would not have been compulsory reading at this stage, although articles detailing the life of Liu Hulan were part of textbooks of this era. Consequently, the target audience of the poster was conceivably older school children, as the design choice would have resonated most strongly with those who were in the secondary level of education. However, as with much Chinese propaganda, this poster would also have been intelligible to a broad swathe of society. Children may have taken the message to learn from Liu Hulan, but the people would also have been impressed by the material changes that school children had enjoyed since liberation. Director Sun Yu’s interpretation of the Liu Hulan story focused largely on the importance of Chinese nationalism. The image of the defiant Liu can only be interpreted in a nationalist context if her biography is fully understood. The enemy she is defying is unseen and could be the forces of Japan or the Guomindang. Depictions of the children do, however, promote nationalism to some extent. Both wear the symbol of the ‘New China’, the scarf of the Communist Party. As a nationalist image, the scarf is a powerful reminder of the Party’s propaganda message, which persists to this day; the Party, the government and the country are the same thing –​without one, the others cannot exist. The message of social reform is strong here as, through the use of contrasts, the viewer is encouraged to feel empathy for Liu as she is presented in monotone colours, standing alone against an unseen enemy. She is contrasted with post-​ liberation children of a similar age who have benefited from her sacrifice. The viewer is thus reminded that, on a personal level, individuals like Liu were real people and deserved not just respect, but also to be remembered. The children, through their interest, are engaged in the same action as the viewer. The story of

Liu Hulan  67

Figure 3.2 Young Heroes Scrolls –​Liu Hulan (1956).

68  James Farley Liu was designed to elicit feelings of community spirit, although this aspect is slightly less apparent in this poster than in later depictions. In this 1954 portrayal, the issue of community spirit is represented by a childhood community as Liu is united with her peers across time. Above all else, the desire to fight is present in this poster. It exhorts the viewer to ‘learn from the people’s hero’. In the foreground, the boy is doing just that as he emulates Liu’s defiant pose. The benefits of socialism are also evident. The contrast between background and foreground was designed to make it clear that China had emerged from the darkness of the days of serfdom to a brighter future, as represented by the children’s immaculate clothing and access to knowledge through study. Moreover, it is the girl who is teaching the boy about Liu, perhaps indicating the extent to which Chinese society had evolved. This prefigured the later message of ‘Learn from Lei Feng’. In Sun Yu’s film version of Liu Hulan, one of the characters describes the birth of a girl as ‘always being a loss’. In contrast, in this poster the viewer can see that the status of girls and women has been elevated significantly by the implementation of socialism.24 The propaganda message is clear: woman such as Liu led China out of the darkness, so they cannot be forgotten and the values in which they believed must be studied, upheld and above all applied by the people. Figure 3.2 is considerably different from Figure 3.1, in part because of its target audience. It was designed by Xu Jiping, and published by People’s Art Publishing in Shanghai (Shanghai Renmin Meishu Chubanshe). The poster was first produced in 1956, but it was re-​released in 1961 and forms part of the, Young Heroes Scrolls series. This series was designed primarily to be displayed in schools and often paired two Model Workers together, side by side. These posters were published by the Education Ministry (jiao yu bu) as part of a set of usually ten pieces, each featuring different models, although other sets were also produced in different sizes. The propaganda posters were directly connected with school textbook stories. In addition, the Young Heroes Scroll series was inspired by the traditional painting design of the four seasons, with panels dedicated to spring, summer, autumn and winter. The seasons were changed to represent heroes of the new Chinese republic. Each year, new posters would be produced until the series was withdrawn in 1966. The designs used for these posters were not solely employed for the Young Heroes Scrolls series. When searching for related images, I have found the same representations used for other posters, but with the text removed. This indicates that designs were most probably shared between different propaganda departments, but with minor alterations to suit the situation. This 1956 version of Liu Hulan takes the standard Young Heroes Scrolls approach of dividing the poster into three distinct frames. In this style of poster, the three frames were always organized according to a consistent format: the model’s head, a recreation of their most heroic act and a written explanation of their revolutionary role. In the first frame of Figure 3.2, Liu is presented in portrait form. Compared with the stern expression in Figure 3.1, the design of Liu in this version has clearly been modified in order to appeal to a younger audience. Liu’s features are softer, lacking the severity of the earlier 1954 version. She is plump, with red cheeks and bright eyes –​perhaps a representation

Liu Hulan  69 of ‘the ideal child’. In addition, her clothing is light in colour, adding to the ethereal quality of the frame. The lower frame provides an important contrast. Here, Liu is standing on a raised platform, surrounded by a diverse group of people comprising a Guomindang officer, local militia, a landlord and local villagers. The people in the lower frame are presented in a wholly different way to Liu: they lack her appearance of serenity. The landlord and Guomindang officer are shrinking away from her as she resolutely stands, ready to accept her fate. The villagers stand and watch, some covering their eyes and shielding their faces. In a similar way to presentations of Dong Cunrui, the second frame serves to demonstrate the hellish conditions of feudal China, with the upper frame providing an image of the Model Worker as a quasi-​saintly figure, symbolically above the conflict below. In the lower frame, the sky is overcast and the buildings are crumbling. Liu stands in the centre, clearly intended to be a beacon of colourful light surrounded by darkness. As an image of propaganda, the poster is effective on three levels. First, the viewer is presented with a relevant aspirational image of childhood in the upper frame. Second, the enemies are clearly defined and provide a contrast with Liu by appearing cowardly as she stands in the face of death. Third, the connection is made between the terrible conditions of feudal China in the lower frame and the purity of idealism portrayed in the upper frame. The poster was therefore meant to encourage the people to emulate the ideals of the Model Worker so they could also ascend from the depths of the corrupt and barbaric society represented by the lower frame to the paradise of the upper frame. The composition of the upper frame is largely flat, with little background detail beyond a soft focus ‘cloud’ designed to avoid detracting from the foreground image of Liu’s face. The background and foreground of the lower frame are considerably more complex, but are also designed to draw attention to visual elements emphasized by the artist. The most important of these elements can be found in the foreground, with Liu, the Guomindang officer, landlord and militiamen all highly detailed. The way the background of local villagers was depicted in this version was to be corrected in later posters. Here, the people are cowering, afraid and appear to be spectators to Liu’s fate –​even the Guomindang officer appears to be in awe of her. The artist may have felt that this was a more realistic way to present the villagers; however, with regard to propaganda objectives, it could be deemed problematic as the people do not appear to be united against their oppressors. Colour is used to emphasize the difference between the two frames as the lighter, brighter colours of the upper frame are contrasted with the darker mood palette of the lower. Overall, though, the use of colour is more muted in this edition with less-​stark contrasts than in the 1954 version. Here, vivid colours are used to highlight the key points, clearly defining people’s allegiances and focusing on the disrepair and decay of the buildings. Furthermore, attention has been given to the uniform of the Guomindang officer, which appears to fit rather poorly. The mountains in the background, although dark in texture, serve to emphasize light emanating from behind, perhaps signally the new dawn of the coming Communist era. Also of note is Liu’s attire, precisely because of how unremarkable it is, being

70  James Farley standard peasant clothing of the era. There is little to distinguish her from the masses in the background. The image is far softer with less well-​defined edges. In addition, the Guomindang officer has a comic style, no doubt in order to appeal more directly to the intended primary audience of younger people. As part of the Young Heroes Scrolls series, Figure  3.2 contains a sizeable amount of written contextual information. In the lower frame, the story of Liu Hulan is relayed to the viewer. This text is significant because the enemy that Liu was fighting is ambiguous. Liu Hulan, an excellent CCP member, was from Yunzhouxi village Wenshui County of Shanxi province. She served as a secretary to the Women’s Salvation Council in the village. She actively encouraged the masses to support the war of liberation. In January 1947, Yunzhouxi village was attacked by the enemy. Because she didn’t have enough time to evacuate, Liu was captured. She showed her unbending spirit and noble quality as a CCP member when confronting the enemy and sacrificed her life. Chairman Mao personally wrote the inscription ‘A great life, a glorious death’ to commemorate her life. Nationalist interpretations of the image are rather difficult to assess as the theme is only tangentially related through the inclusion of the Guomindang officer and the landlord. Consequently, a Nationalist interpretation of the image can only be understood by analysing these characters and their relation to the scene. Liu’s execution takes place on a raised platform. This is occupied only by the accused (Liu) and her accusers (the landlord and Guomindang officer); they are standing above the people. However, Liu alone provides a symbol of leadership for those below, as the others –​although figures of authority –​cower behind her. This is consistent with the overall propaganda message related to both class enemies and the Guomindang: that they had no part in the nation. Here, Liu’s leadership of the people, which was later endorsed by her membership of the Communist Party, represents the intended Nationalist image of China. As with Figure 3.1, social reform elements are far stronger in this image. The people surrounding Liu are not simply bystanders. They are actively involved, their feelings for Liu are clear in how they cannot bear to watch as she faces horrific execution by beheading. Liu stands firm, but the others recoil behind her; the importance of this aspect cannot be overstated. Lu Xun wrote extensively about what he perceived to be the problems in Chinese society. These ideas were seized upon by propagandists. One of the key issues identified by Lu Xun was a perceived lack of empathy for fellow citizens among the population. He stated that he was inspired to become a writer after watching a newsreel of a Chinese spy being executed by Japanese forces while the man’s contemporaries watched with indifference.25 Lu Xun’s mission to ‘change the spirit’ of the people of China can be seen, exemplified by Liu in this scene. The villagers are far from indifferent: they can barely bear to watch as one of their own is executed. In addition, the structure of the community is represented once again by the platform. The villagers, rich in empathy, are separated from their masters, who tremble on top of

Liu Hulan  71 the platform fearful of Liu’s defiance, her willingness and her commitment to the community she serves. However, compared with Figure 3.1, this later design offers far less that could be described as a promotion of the development of socialism. There is no indication that Liu is a member of the Communist Party, with perhaps the only link being the promotion of a more Maoist egalitarian society where women held the same status as men and were a critical part of the revolutionary struggle. Here, Liu embodies the attributes of a Model Worker and stands front and centre as the pretenders to leadership, the Guomindang, cower behind her. Following the re-​issue of Figure  3.2 in 1961, an entirely new version was released in 1964. The poster, which is shown in Figure 3.3, was paired with Dong Cunrui. The Young Heroes Scrolls series would appear to have been judged a successful propaganda format as the layout style was used continuously for over a decade from 1955 to 1966. This depiction of Liu shares a number of similarities with the 1956 edition; however, there are also a number of differences, not least in the artistic style. Here, the youthful, chubby Liu, surrounded by clouds in Figure 3.2, has been replaced by an older-​looking girl, flanked by red flags. Similarly to the 1956 image, the poster is divided into three distinct sections. Liu’s face is considerably more angular, her features more defined than in the soft-​focus, ethereal style of the 1956 image. In the centre, Liu’s name is displayed, followed by an explanation of her role in society. In the lower frame, there is another representation of the scene of her heroic sacrifice. There are, however, significant differences compared with earlier versions. Liu no longer stands alone. She is flanked by other members of her community, a group of hardy-​looking men of mixed ages. This time the enemy is unseen. There are no cowardly Guomindang commanders or landlords. They are replaced by two bayonets, wielded by an unseen enemy. In the bottom-​right of the frame can be seen a chopping block, complete with a hatchet hinting at Liu’s fate. By contrast to earlier depictions, the focus is now on Liu’s membership of the Communist Party and the unity of the peasantry in the face of the enemy. As propaganda, the image is perhaps slightly less effective than the earlier 1956 version because the poster as a whole relies more heavily on the text to detail the story. Liu appears to be less of a child in this edition. The childish rosy cheeks and red lips of the earlier version are absent and there is a certainty in her expression. The lower frame follows artistic conventions established by Jiang Qing. Jiang was believed to be one of the primary advocates of the concept of the Three Prominences. The purpose of this concept was to ‘give prominence to positive characters among all characters, give prominence to heroic characters among positive characters, give prominence to the main heroic character among other heroic characters’.26 Liu stands front and centre, slightly raised; she is the focus, surrounded by her fellow peasants. In the background, what appears to be a bell-​ tower dominates. The sky is overcast but, as with the earlier 1956 version, there is the hint of light shining from the horizon. The bayonets and execution block are only partially visible, indicating that they are not intended to be the main focus of the piece.

72  James Farley

Figure 3.3 ‘Young Hero Hanging Picture’ (1964).

Liu Hulan  73 Liu’s comrades are bound and, although this detail is not immediately apparent, it is important as it helps to emphasize the unity that exists among the peasantry. The red flags surrounding Liu in the upper frame further serve to associate her with a specific cause, as her allegiance to the Party was less clear in earlier depictions. Colour is significantly more muted in this version; indeed, the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to the red flags in the upper part of the poster as the lower panel is dominated by one colour in particular: black. When viewed from a distance, Liu stands out, the deep black of her peasant clothing providing a focal point. The entire focus is on Liu and, despite the crowd behind being elevated from a position of empathic mourners in the 1956 image to fellow revolutionaries in this 1965 edition, they are still considered secondary characters who are not intended to detract from the prime significance of the chief Model Worker. As is to be expected of a Young Heroes Scroll, the poster contains an accompanying text to explain Liu’s background and the story of her martyrdom: Liu Hulan was born in Yunzhouxi village, in Wenshui county of Shanxi Province on the 8th of October 1932. She secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party as a youth member in June 1946. She served as a secretary of the Women’s Salvation Council in the village and as a member of the Women’s Salvation Council in the district. On the 12th of January 1947, Liu was arrested by the armies of Jiang Jieshi and Yan Xishan and sacrificed her life. Liu was entirely devoted to the liberation of the people. When confronting the enemy, her firm and unyielding attitude showed her noble quality as a Chinese Communist Party member. On 1 August 1947, Liu was posthumously awarded the title of full Chinese Communist Party member by the Chinese Communist Party’s Jinsui Bureau. Interestingly, by comparison to the text that accompanied other Model Workers in the Young Heroes Scrolls series, there is very little here that provides additional detail to aid an interpretation of the poster. The viewer learns of Liu’s background and the great revolutionary work she has undertaken, but information regarding the reason for her sacrifice or its nature is rather sparse. In contrast to Figure 3.2, the enemy are explicitly named as the Guomindang. Earlier posters were produced during the period of nation-​building following the Civil War, but perhaps it was not deemed wise to draw attention to the conflict that had riven society. By 1964, the political situation had changed considerably as the identification of class enemies became a greater priority. Indeed, there is a clear focus on this aspect in the text. To make the distinction clear, the text reads not ‘Gongchandang’ (The Communist Party) but ‘Zhongguo Gongchandang’ (The Chinese Communist Party). In contrast, the opposition is referred to as ‘Guomindang’ (Nationalist Party) and not ‘Zhongguo Guomindang’ (Chinese Nationalist Party). The written information thus provided a factual account and is intended to influence the reader by establishing a clear link between a hero of the people, Liu Hulan and the CCP. The focus on dates and titles

74  James Farley further indicates that the image was intended for school children who were being educated in the history of the struggle of the CCP. As with the 1956 depiction of Liu Hulan, this 1964 edition is similarly light on nationalism, with the exception of the red flags surrounding her in the upper frame. By contrast, as with earlier representations, the social reform aspect is considerably stronger. Both empathy and community spirit are symbolized and promoted by the way Liu is backed by those around her. The revolutionaries share the same fate because of their devotion to the community. In addition, there are specific details of female emancipation as the text notes Liu’s position as secretary of the Women’s Salvation Council. It is, however, the desire to fight that is most pronounced in this image and the aspect that differs most notably from earlier representations. In Figure 3.2, the people were empathetic but powerless. In Figure 3.3, their spirit has been changed as they are united against a common enemy. The egalitarian nature of the new socialist society is presented to an even greater extent than in the 1956 version, as Liu –​a woman –​leads a diverse group of men in defiance of the enemy. The image may appear rather dark, but unity was perhaps intended to be the beacon here, the people brought together not just by a female Model, but by a ‘child’, the future of the People’s Republic. In conclusion, the use of propaganda to create a positive narrative detailing the exploits and potential of the people of China, when guided by the Communist Party, had been a key aspect of CCP strategy from its conception. Following victory in 1949, the Party, with the power of the state now at its disposal, refined and developed this process, extending its use of poster propaganda and utilizing the medium of film to present a highly consistent message to the population. This message, guided by the theoretical work of Mao, focused to a great extent on the promotion of core values designed to remedy the problems the country was believed to be facing following the ‘Century of Humiliation’, a ruinous war with Japan and a highly divisive civil war. The concept of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship may have been ‘semantically obscure and socially ambiguous’,27 but for CCP propagandists it provided an underpinning framework that allowed for the simple identification of societal groups that required attention. Whether these groups existed as they were depicted by the constitution is, I would suggest, irrelevant to the propagandist. Their position was to depict society and historical events as they should be rather than as they may have been in reality. Poster and cinematic propaganda depicting the Model Worker, Liu Hulan, consequently served two functions. It provided a revised and idealized version of the struggle of the peasantry during the period of Japanese occupation and then the Civil War. It communicated the importance of nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism for the possibility of victory. As is evident from the sources examined, propaganda themes remained remarkably consistent both chronologically and across both media. In addition, propaganda communicated to viewers’ behavioural norms associated with the social class they were observing. Correct behaviour was highlighted and celebrated, incorrect behaviour was vilified and condemned. Official responses and critiques of film and poster propaganda shaped its development, as is evident from stylistic modifications in both

Liu Hulan  75 forms of media. The creation of the ideal citizen, fit to assist in the creation of a ‘New China’, relied on adherence to key values outlined by Mao and supported by the establishment of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. This ‘hollow and purely ideological claim’28 consequently had a significant impact on the development and promotion of social behaviour via the use of Model Workers throughout the first fifteen years of the Communist Party’s control of the country.

Acknowledgement This chapter is a revised version of material published in J. Farley, Model Workers in China, 1949–​1965: Constructing a New Citizen (New York: Routledge, 2019).

Notes 1 See Mao Zedong, ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​ Tung, Volume 2 (Peking: People’s Publishing House, 1965); Mao Zedong, ‘Serve the People’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​Tung, Volume 3 (Peking: People’s Publishing House, 1965); Mao Zedong, ‘The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountain’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​Tung, Volume 3 (Peking:  People’s Publishing House, 1965); Mao Zedong, ‘Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​Tung, Volume 3 (Peking: People’s Publishing House, 1965). 2 Mao Zedong, ‘Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​Tung, Volume 1 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 13. 3 C.T. Hsü, ‘Communist Education: Theory and Practice’, in R. MacFarquhar (ed.), China Under Mao: Politics Takes Command (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), p. 246. 4 Mao Zedong, ‘On New Democracy’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​Tung, Volume 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 372. 5 M. Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 61. 6 Detailed biography:  ‘Liu Hulan  –​All China Women’s Federation’ (2016), www. womenofchina.cn/​womenofchina/​html1/​special/​13/​949-​1.htm. 7 P. Clark, Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 38. 8 Y. Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 202. 9 Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, p. 202. 10 Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, p. 202. 11 The Life of Wu Xun (1950), Directed by Sun Yu [Film], China: Kunlun Film Studio. 12 ‘Criticism from the Workers About the Film Liu Hulan’, Dazhong Dianying, 28 (1951). 13 Zhao Yiman (1950). Directed by Sha Meng, [Film], China: Changchun Film Studio.. 14 Liu Hulan (1950), 10:30. 15 Liu Hulan (1950), 59:40. 16 Liu Hulan (1950), 1:24:50 17 Liu Hulan (1950), 15:40 18 Liu Hulan (1950), 1:24:20. 19 Y. Zhang, Screening China:  Critical Interventions, Cinematic Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary Chinese Cinema (Ann Arbor, MI: Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2003), p. 177.

76  James Farley 20 Liu Hulan (1950), 51:00. 21 ‘Criticism from the Workers About the Film Liu Hulan’. 22 ‘Criticism from the Workers About the Film Liu Hulan’. 23 chineseposters.net. Qian Daxin (钱大昕), http://​chineseposters.net/​artists/​qiandaxin. php. 24 Liu Hulan (1950), 15:40 25 P. Ebrey and A. Walhall, East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume II: From 1600 (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2013), p. 422. 26 X. Chen, Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), p. 106. 27 M. Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 61. 28 Meisner, Mao’s China and After.

4  The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞 in Chinese propaganda posters of the Mao era Jia Zhen 賈甄

Put simply, the term ‘worldview’ refers to ‘a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint’.1 To have a comprehensive conception of the world –​especially the significance of the self in the world from a specific viewpoint –​people constantly judge themselves against others and try to find their ideal position. This chapter examines a small fragment of this question created by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Mao era (1949–​76) by inspecting the characteristics of a group of Chinese people depicted in propaganda posters:  compatriots. In the political vocabulary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the concept ‘compatriot’ indicates distance and separation in comparison to renmin (people) and ‘comrade’, both of which refer to the Chinese people, and ‘brothers and sisters’, which sometimes refers exclusively to ethnic minorities. In contrast to the concept of ‘friends’ –​a general salutation for foreigners who are from friendly or allied countries –​‘compatriot’ has a specific emphasis on kinship and blood ties shared by all Chinese people. In the Mao era, ‘compatriot’ was the definition of Chinese people who had yet to become citizens of the ‘New China’, and typically referred to the Chinese people of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, as they were either subjected to the colonial governments or under the rule of the Nationalist Party. Like other groups of people at that time, the concept of ‘compatriot’ had a series of responsibilities and obligations attached to it. In propaganda arts, the image of the compatriot suggests the status of ‘others’ among the Chinese people, notably dressed in a different style, sometimes with no badges (or the Quotations from Mao Zedong, usually known as the Little Red Book) attached to them. This chapter will discuss the characteristics of the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan2 through a series of comparisons, inspecting the changes of this topic, and will analyse their function in the discourse. The interpretation of visual representation of compatriots in propaganda posters also reveals the world order constructed by the CCP. Although the concept of the ‘compatriot’ includes Chinese people living in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, this chapter will not discuss the images of the compatriots of Macau because they were not prominently displayed on propaganda posters. Due to changes in the political situation,3 Macau was regarded as a semi-​ liberated region, and there are barely any surviving posters depicting compatriots of Macau. Several albums of propaganda posters faced the public since the 1990s,

78  Jia Zhen 賈甄 all of which provide proper introductions on the themes, materials, styles and production/​circulation processes. In Chinese Propaganda Posters from Revolution to Modernization, Landsberger focuses on the formal qualities of the posters, such as the ways in which Soviet and Chinese folk art influenced the production of propaganda arts, the development of themes and the target audiences.4 The introductory essay to Chinese Propaganda Posters from the Collection of Michael Wolf is also written by Landsberger. This essay emphasizes the iconography of the posters so that readers can extrapolate their meaning through the combinations of numerous symbols.5 The introduction to Chinese Posters: The IISH-​Landsberger Collections, written by Shen Kuiyi, gives a brief and clear categorization of the types of propaganda posters, the most noteworthy topics, production systems and famous subject matter.6 Besides the introductory essay format of these albums of Chinese propaganda posters, research papers touch on deeper questions. The earlier ‘Propaganda Posters from the Chinese Cultural Revolution’ provides a good introduction to the historical events of the Cultural Revolution using several famous propaganda posters.7 In ‘Contextualising Posters’, propaganda posters are discussed in the context of production and circulation, such as the methods used by the propaganda departments to control the artists and designers, their organization and the mechanism of production and circulation.8 In Marketing Dictatorship:  Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, Anne-​Marie Brady investigates the propaganda system and thought work (思想工作) in both the Mao era and contemporary China.9 Focusing on the activities of the propaganda system and thought work in the post-​1989 era, Brady provides a brief introduction to the working mechanism of the propaganda department and the structure of the propaganda system in the early chapters. Harriet Evans and Stephanie Donald’s Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China:  Posters of the Cultural Revolution includes eight research works, all of which paid attention to discourse analysis. These tried to find the multiplicity of meanings to different groups of readers, focusing on the visual discourse.10 Art and China’s Revolution is a collection of 16 research papers,11 in which the authors focus on four aspects of propaganda art:  (1) images of Mao; (2)  a general introduction to propaganda posters; (3)  art development in 1949–​76; and (4)  the art campaign started by the Red Guard. The complexity of the personal experiences and the lasting influence of propaganda forms in the Cultural Revolution are analysed in Barbara Mittler’s ‘Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China’, which also discusses the effectiveness of the propaganda, different interpretations of propaganda art forms in the Cultural Revolution and the appropriation of the propaganda images in contemporary China12. Gary D Rawnsley’s ‘The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea: How Beijing Sold the Korean War’ analyses the propaganda of the Korean War concerning the political situation and the propaganda strategy –​a highly successful case study of using heroic images and a visualized foreign threat. The author briefly mentions Taiwan and the propaganda related to Taiwan’s recovery by the CCP in the 1950s.13

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  79 There have been many discussions on the gender stereotypes constructed and strengthened through propaganda posters, including heroines in posters, revolutionary films and literary works. See, for example, ‘Maoists Mapping of Gender: Reassessing the Red Guards’ and ‘Female Images and National Myth’.14 If viewing propaganda arts as a small segment of a rhetorical phenomenon, Lu Xing’s Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution:  The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication provides an insightful analysis of the rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution as a social and linguistic phenomenon.15 Lu focuses on written sources and performance, such as the slogans, wall posters, songs/​operas and political rituals, finding that this powerful language is a complex combination of the ‘lingering’ Confucius spirit and Marxist-​Maoist ideology. Symbols and metaphors were widely used to reach ordinary people, to polarize their thoughts and to encourage violent behaviour. In summary, among existing studies, introductory essays to the albums of propaganda posters include general knowledge and usually include images of Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots, since they represented a crucial aspect of the government policy: reunification. However, these introduction essays lack in-​depth research on a specific topic. Other more focused research works have covered many important themes, such as the complexity of the visual representation of a particular subject matter (e.g. visual representations of women, children, propaganda of the Korean War), the limited freedom of the designers/​artists, their art practice and its significance in Chinese art history, and the multiplicity of meanings targeting different types of audiences. Scholars also researched oral history (and its limitations) and the appropriation of propaganda images in contemporary society. These studies did mention the existence of the compatriots as a subject of propaganda posters, and have presented multiple analytical methods, but they lack inspection and interpretation of this specific topic. The ‘foreignness’ embedded in the definition of ‘compatriots’ means this topic is not only reliant on studies of propaganda art, but also benefits from the research of Hong Kong/​Taiwan affairs and the foreign affairs of the Chinese government of the Mao era, and analysis of the Chinese world order in a historical context. The Confucian understanding of the world order in ancient China, usually known as the tianxia system, was raised by Fairbank in The Chinese World Order as a series of concentric circles. In the very centre was located the Chinese empire, the superior civilization admired by the ‘barbarian’ states.16 From the aspect of trade, the tianxia system assumed the form of the tributary system, through which the barbarian states could import and export goods and gain profit. Fairbank’s analysis is influential, but it has been challenged; many later studies have considered that the module overlooked the flexibility of the tributary system and emphasized a Sino-​centric view too much. Despite the limitation of the framework, this ‘overly simplistic’ view of the Confucian tributary system or the Chinese world order can describe the popular impression of the Chinese world order in the Party’s instructions and doctrines to prove the ideological progress of New China –​as a socialist party-​state. The possibility of introducing a smaller tianxia system to illustrate the worldview connects to studies discussing nationalism in the Cultural

80  Jia Zhen 賈甄 Revolution. ‘The Cultural Revolution and the “Chinese Path”’ by Cheng Yinghong analyses the nature of nationalism in the Mao era and looks at how the ideological-​ based thought spread to the public and functioned in scientific research.17 In Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People’s Republic, Anne-​Marie Brady examines the complexity of the concept of ‘friends’ and illustrates the Communist Party’s means of developing its relationship with Asian, African and Latin American countries in the 1960s.18 This research work quotes a lot of historical records, revealing that the Party assumed the leadership of ‘the underdeveloped, decolonized world’ and a new foreign policy line, Three Struggles, One Increase, to increase aid to anti-​imperialist, Marxist-​Leninist revolutionary parties and factions. More importantly, Brady points out the function of the foreign friends’ appearance as a tool of propaganda targeting Chinese citizens. The Chinese government’s Taiwan policy experienced quite a few changes in the Mao era, and ‘The Development of PRC’s Policy Toward Taiwan (1949–​2000)’ by Kao Su-​lan provides a precise summary of the changes and their impact on the Taiwanese community at that time.19 The historical facts of the Hong Kong Leftist Riot in 1967 benefited from the information in several books. The Inside Story of Zhou Enlai and ‘Hong Kong Leftist Riot’ reveals the Communist Party’s undercover activities in Hong Kong and the involvement of the Party’s high-​ranking officials in Hong Kong’s Leftist Riot in 1967.20 The short description of the development of the riot in this chapter is summarized from some facts in Cheung Ka-​ wai’s book Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots.21 ‘Hong Kong Leftist Media in Cold War and Beyond’ by Lu Yan discusses the two forces that limited ideological propaganda in the Cold War era and thus made ‘leftist’ media in Hong Kong a much less ideological vehicle than mainland media.22 Meredith Oyen’s ‘Communism, Containment and the Chinese Overseas’ analyses the propaganda war waged to win the hearts of Chinese overseas. Both articles provide information about the larger context.23 The content discussed in this chapter contributes to the existing understanding of this overlooked topic of Chinese propaganda arts. In studies addressing Hong Kong and Taiwan affairs, propaganda posters that targeted the Chinese people would not be a relevant factor for analysis. In studies of propaganda posters, this small topic with few examples has not raised significant attention. In former studies, scholars revealed the multiplicity of the interpretation of propaganda images by different groups of target audiences through direct instruction or intimation, but the identities of characters in the propaganda posters are in harmony with each other regarding class categorization, gender, ethnicity, and profession. In the case of Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots, two contradictory identities existed on the same level: they were Chinese people but they lived in regions yet to be reclaimed, under the regulation of the class enemies of British imperialists and the Nationalist Party. To summarize, compatriots are at the margin of ‘Chinese’ and the beginning of ‘foreign’. How this contradictory nature was manipulated to serve ‘the Chinese people’ deserves more attention, particularly considering the possibility of the creation of a smaller world order that need not conflict with the CCP’s direction in foreign affairs.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  81 The initial step of this study correctly recognizes the identity of the figures. Icons such as the Mao badge, the Little Red Book and the uniforms are crucial for a basic yet necessary iconographic study. In the Mao era, class categorization and other political movements assigned each member of society a class identity and certain privileges. Under these circumstances, the figure(s) who do not have any icons of the Party are worth the same attention when compared with the people who do have them. While the people born of a good class categorization can wear a Mao badge, the ‘class enemy’ was deprived of this privilege. In the selected posters, checking the absence of certain icons is necessary to discover the identity of the figures. On this basis, Foucault’s discourse analysis has been used in this chapter. This research method inspects the power relations of different parties in a society, the connection between language –​written and pictorial –​and power, and how the dominant discourse strengthens itself in texts and practices.24 Propaganda posters of the Mao era in China relied on aggressive, provocative and polarized imagery to strengthen the rule of the Party and are consequently a suitable subject. The author first examines the images of Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots concerning multiple sources –​war propaganda, left-​wing woodblock prints and sarcastic cartoons created in the early twentieth century, new photos of political events and the indication of certain details in the Mao era –​and compares the characteristics with those of images of the mainland Chinese people. This step intends to reveal the alienation of compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwanese origin embedded in the posters and the indication of separation that the propaganda posters tried to naturalize. With additional historical records and the inspection of the nationalist thoughts in the Mao era, discourse analysis can also reveal whether the relationship of the CCP, the Chinese people of the mainland and compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan could form a system like the tianxia system in traditional Chinese society.

Images of Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots in the propaganda posters of the Mao era According to the official history of the PRC, the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan were not absent in the Chinese revolution and modernization, despite the fact that Hong Kong and Taiwan had been a British and a Japanese colony respectively for an extended period. In propaganda arts, Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots belonged to the anti-​imperialist category and were usually a response to political upheavals or military incidents. The posters depicting Hong Kong/​Taiwan compatriots (hereafter abbreviated to HK/​TW compatriots) are clustered in several timeslots: the mid-​to late 1950s and 1976 regarding Taiwanese compatriots, and 1967 regarding their Hong Kong counterparts. Propaganda arts of the Mao era, like other forms of propaganda media, relied on formalized texts to instil the Party’s directions to its audience. Depictions of Chinese people of different occupations, places and class categorizations are steadily present in every piece, but the key pointer to the theme of the poster is the subject of the revolutionary

82  Jia Zhen 賈甄 masses. In this case, the characteristics of the image of HK/​TW compatriots and the development of the images could reflect the slight changes that occurred in the direction of the CCP. In the 1950s, posters depicting Taiwanese compatriots were a part of war propaganda, calling on all Chinese people to liberate Taiwan. Besides examples showing the brave soldiers and hard-​ working civilians, images exhibiting Taiwanese compatriots subjugated to the cruel rule of the Nationalist Party and its army functioned as a strong motivation to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and ordinary Chinese people. In the poster titled ‘Resolutely Liberate Taiwan, Save the Taiwanese People from Their Misery’ (《堅決解放臺灣, 拯救苦難中 的臺灣人民!》, 1955, Figure 4.1), the female revolutionary is being tortured in a concentration camp on an island, with smaller, monstrous-​looking Nationalist soldiers in the background. Similarly, the poster entitled ‘Uncles from the People’s Liberation Army! Quickly Go and Liberate Our Little Distressed Friends in Taiwan’ (《解放軍叔叔!快去解放臺灣受難的小朋友!》, 1956, Figure  4.2) shows two children:  one lonely child without food or proper clothing and, in contrast, a

Figure 4.1 ‘Resolutely Liberate Taiwan, Save the Taiwanese People from their misery’ 堅決解放臺灣,拯救苦難中的臺灣人民! (1955) 54 × 78  cm. Designed by Hu Jinye 胡金葉, East China Military District, Third Field Army Political Department 華東軍區第三野戰軍政治部, The IISH-​Landsberger Collection.

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Figure 4.2 ‘Uncles from the People’s Liberation Army! Quickly Go and Liberate Our Little Distressed Friends in Taiwan’ 解放軍叔叔!快去解放臺灣受難的小朋友! (1955) 55 × 65  cm. Designed by Huang Dezhen 黃德珍 and Li Huanmin 李喚民, Sichuan People’s Publishing House 四川人民出版社, The IISH-​ Landsberger Collection.

chubby child of the ‘New China’ wearing a school uniform and urging the PLA to save her little Taiwanese friend. In both posters, Taiwan is represented as an isolated, barren tropical island, with palm trees growing on it and surrounded by iron barbs, visualizing the rule of the Nationalist Party. Both posters call for action –​reclaim Taiwan Island by force, rescue the victims of the Nationalist Party in accordance with the Communist Party’s strategy and China’s military activities in 1954–​55 and 1958.25 Compared with the posters in the 1950s, the theme and visual representation of Taiwanese compatriots in the 1970s changed significantly after the PRC’s international relations improved. Events such as the restoration of its seat on the UN Security Council, the normalization of Chinese–​Japanese diplomatic relations and improvements in the Chinese–​US relationship were significant factors in this improvement. One of the signs was the release of the song ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’《臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟》,26 the title of which was

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Figure 4.3 ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Brothers’ 臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟 (July 1976), 53 × 76.5  cm. Designed by Yang Yingbiao 楊英鏢 (native of Taiwan Province), Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民美術出版社, The IISH-​Landsberger Collection.

appropriated by propaganda posters. The theme emphasizes the kinship between Taiwanese compatriots and the people of mainland China and was increasingly popular at that time. In ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Brothers’ 《臺灣同胞 ( 我們的骨肉兄弟》, 1976, Figure  4.3), compatriots are dressed more poorly than their  mainland brothers, but the image of the evil Nationalist enemy has disappeared. In addition, the compatriots no longer appear to be victims of the Nationalist Party. In another example released in the same year (‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’《臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟》, 1976, Figure 4.4), the team of Taiwanese compatriots includes Han people and ethnic minorities, emulating the Chinese nationalities presented in the Party’s constitution. From the different clothing of the Han people from across the Taiwan Strait, it can be seen that the Taiwanese compatriots live a Westernized lifestyle –​they wear suits rather than uniforms or Mao suits, and one of them has a camera. Compared with the Taiwanese compatriots, the dress and activities of the mainland Chinese people in the posters printed over more than two decades are homogenous:  the clothing of the leading classes is military uniforms, workers’ uniforms and the ‘standard’ militia dress, a combination of weapons and the local peasants’ clothing. Besides the activities and interactions of the people, in the two examples released in 1976, the reunification of the Taiwanese people and their

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Figure 4.4 ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ 臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟 (1976), 78 × 54 cm. Designed by Li Huiran 李惠然 and Zhang Weizhi 張為之, Shanxi People’s Publishing House 山西人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

mainland counterparts are staged in a mainland city or town. This reveals the root of the depiction of Taiwanese compatriots. Taiwan, which was depicted in the posters in the 1950s as a concentration camp and a barren island, is absent from the scenes. This suggests that the island was still the enemy’s land, and that reunification would not include the Nationalist Party but (only) the innocent Taiwanese compatriots. The propaganda posters supporting the Hong Kong Leftist Riot27 in 1967 are comparatively few. In most posters, the designers depicted mainland Chinese people protesting the atrocities of the British imperialists while Hong Kong compatriots could not be identified clearly, as shown in ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United Against British Imperialism’ 《港九愛國同胞動員 起來 堅決反擊英帝國主義的挑釁!》 (ca. 1967, Figure  4.5) and ‘Let the English Imperialists Experience the Chinese Working Class’s Steel Fists!’ 《讓英帝嘗一嘗中國工人階級的鐵拳頭! 》(the 1960s, Figure 4.6). In ‘Blood Debts Must be Repaid with Blood’, 《血債要用血來償! 強烈抗議港英當局的法西斯暴行!》 (Figure 4.7), the protesting compatriot of Hong Kong is a martyr, being held in the arms of his comrade from the mainland, judging by his uniform. He is poorly dressed, and does not wear a Mao badge or

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Figure 4.5 ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United Against British Imperialism!’ 港九愛國同胞動員起來 堅決反擊英帝國主義的挑釁! (1967) 53 × 69 cm. Designers unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民美術出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

Figure 4.6 ‘Let the English Imperialists Experience the Chinese Working Class’s Steel Fists!’ 讓英帝嘗一嘗中國工人階級的鐵拳頭! (ca. 1967)  53 × 69  cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

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Figure 4.7 ‘Blood Debts Must be Repaid with Blood’ 血債要用血來償 (ca. 1967), 53 × 69  cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

carry the Little Red Book. Compared with the three-​quarter profiles of the Chinese workers showing their strength and perseverance, the martyr’s profile appears at the lower part of the poster, his head almost out of the frame. In ‘Supporting Hong Kong’s Comrades’ 《抓革命,促生產,以實際行動支 持港九愛國同胞反英抗暴鬥爭》 (1967, Figure 4.8), compatriots of Hong Kong are much smaller than mainland Chinese workers and are painted in grey colours in the background. Obviously, Hong Kong compatriots are not the main focus. While the Chinese people knew that Hong Kong compatriots were the main body of the political movement, the number showing a positive image of them is few. ‘We are Going to Win. British Imperialism is Doomed to Fail’ 《我們必勝, 港英必敗》 (1967, Figure 4.9) belongs to this tiny group. In the poster, a group of enlarged compatriots are marching forward holding each other’s arms. They occupy the largest space of the poster and cover the background scene, composed of multiple billboards painted in a grey colour. Each of the compatriots has a Mao badge and a copy of the Little Red Book, suggesting a bright future and assured victory. From the selected posters, it seems that the icons

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Figure 4.8 ‘Grasp Revolution, Promote Production, Supporting Hong Kong’s comrades with real action’ 抓革命 ,促生 產,以 實際行 動支持 港九愛國同胞 反英抗 暴鬥爭 (1967), 53 × 60  cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民 出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

Figure 4.9 ‘We are Going to Win. British Imperialism is Doomed to Fail’ 我們必勝,港英必敗 (1967), 77 × 54  cm. Designer unknown, Guangdong People’s Publishing House 廣東人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  89 of the CCP were connected more closely to a scene of triumph or a battle, rather than defeat and sacrifice. As another component of the propaganda of the Chinese government, pictorials and newspapers are crucial channels of information. One of the famous pictorials issued on a monthly basis was China Pictorial 《人民畫報》.28 In several issues released in 1954, the pictorial reported the poor living conditions of the Taiwanese people, such as the impoverished people living on Da Chen Island (大陳島) after the Nationalist army abandoned it29 and Taiwanese parents selling their children to survive.30 In the 1970s, when the Communist Party’s policy for Taiwan changed from ‘liberate Taiwan (by force)’ to a friendlier gesture, the photographs of Taiwan became views of scenic spots complemented with small pictures of cities. The leftist riot in Hong Kong occupied a prominent place in the eighth and ninth issue under the column ‘international news’ of China Pictorial in that year. The heated atmosphere was revealed though protests and gatherings, various banners stuck on walls of government buildings, confrontations between the leftists and the Hong Kong police, and the arrests of the riot participants. The bravery of the Hong Kong people, and the brutality of the British imperialists, are the emphases of these reports. Alongside these articles, China Pictorial published images showing the support of the mainland Chinese workers, who swore to increase industrial productivity so the army could have more supplies with which to liberate Hong Kong. In the visual sources published in newspapers and the pictorials, there were no cases of meetings between the people of the mainland and their HK/​TW compatriots in the 1950s or the 1960s, nor was there any clear mention about the effects of letters of support. The news and photos showed the support and care from the Chinese people, the indication of ‘separation’ is evident from these reports. Juxtaposing the propaganda posters and news stories of compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan, a new tendency in the posters and reports in the 1960s emerged. The focus of different propaganda channels became separated rather than unified, like the images of victimization of Taiwanese compatriots in propaganda posters and news reports in the 1950s. Compared with news reports showing the fierce protests of Hong Kong leftists and the beautiful scenes of Taiwan Island, propaganda posters focused more on constructing a proud image of mainland Chinese people by illustrating heroic and benevolent deeds. From the brief introduction, it appears that propaganda posters depicting compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan released in the Mao era did more than merely present an ideal image of the Chinese people or the unbreakable blood ties. By inspecting the details found in the posters, the next three sections will discuss whether the posters truly created a tight bond among the Chinese people or tried to differentiate them and place the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan in an inferior position. After 1949, one of the functions of propaganda art was to stimulate and motivate the Chinese people. From the posters, the Chinese people could find a bright future or an improved life. At the same time, the propaganda departments often reminded the people of the precious nature of life in a socialist country. This feeling of

90  Jia Zhen 賈甄 happiness required frequent comparison between the new and old society31 and the less comfortable life of people in ‘Third World’ countries. Among these less fortunate groups, ‘other’ Chinese people were a good addition because such scenes introduced an ‘old’ society into the ‘present’. It was the ongoing suppression of the less fortunate compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan that demonstrated the advantages of socialism and the correctness of Maoist theory. Embedding the ‘old’ society in the present: The images of Taiwanese compatriots in the 1950s Establishing the contrast between the old society and the new society was a popular propaganda strategy in the People’s Republic of China to exhibit the happiness of ‘new China’, which originated from a progressivist view of history. From this viewpoint, the socialist society of New China was more advanced than the capitalist society or the semi-​feudal semi-​colonial society of China in the first half of the twentieth century, also called the ‘old society’ (舊社會), in which three great mountains (三座大山) dominated Chinese society.32 In literary works, the description of the old society is connected to darkness and night,33 which appeared in a great deal of visual art from the 1930s and 1940s. When the propaganda department of the CCP presented the ideal, perfect life of the socialist society in the ‘New China’, images depicting the past were used to provide a contrast and remind the masses of the precious nature of their new society. Together with the instructive images of the old society, HK/​TW compatriots represented the people who were living in a ‘continuing’ old society. After all, Taiwan Island was occupied by American imperialists and the Nationalist Party, the criminals responsible for the suffering of the Chinese people of the mainland before 1949. To visualize the miserable living conditions of the Taiwanese people, the designers of ‘Uncles from the People’s Liberation Army! Quickly Go and Liberate our Little Distressed Friends in Taiwan’《解放軍叔叔!快去解放臺灣受難的小朋友!》 (1955, shown previously in Figure  4.2) adopted imagery of the old society to contrast with the improved lives of the Chinese people of the mainland. The most noticeable contrast created in the poster is the colour scheme: The small photo showing the Taiwanese girl is painted in a dark blue monochrome very much like the poor-​quality prints of the past, when people had less-​advanced print technology and limited materials. Further, the dark colour scheme is a symbol of the ongoing ‘old society’ by implying the darkness of the night, a visualization of the famous saying ‘the darkness before the dawn’. The Taiwanese girl’s face is dark and blurred, as is everything else. When juxtaposed with the little girl living in New China painted in bright and warm colours,34 the contrast functions as a reminder to the liberated Chinese people and could suggest that the gap between the Taiwanese people and the mainland people is so vast that they might as well have lived in different times. The second contrast visualized through the comparison of the two girls, who are about the same age, is the similar hairstyle which forms a mirror image. The Young Pioneer girl is well dressed and decorated. All the ornaments, such as the

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  91 red scarf, the school uniform and the red ribbons, are the symbol of the organisation of young people of New China and a good life. The image of the Taiwanese girl in the small picture is an accumulation of various pictorial details widely used to describe the suffering of people in the old society. Three details are of particular relevance: the broken bowl in the Taiwanese girl’s hand, the abnormally large size of her head and her loneliness. These features have long been used to represent poor children living in the old society, especially in cartoons and woodblock prints. For example, one of the most famous images of poor children living in the old society is San Mao (三毛, Three Hair, Figure 4.10), the protagonist in Zhang Leping’s 張樂平 famous cartoon series San Mao.35 The poor boy San Mao is short and thin, his head is abnormally big due to malnutrition, and he always wears torn, ill-​fitting clothes and has no shoes. Despite all the comic’s humorous plots, the bitterness and hardship of a child living in the ‘old society’ are convincingly communicated through these body characteristics. Woodblock prints made during the Anti-​Japanese war exhibited similar details regardless of the age and gender of the figures suffering from the Japanese invasion. In ‘Hunger’ 《飢餓》 ( , 1937, by Li Hua 李樺, Woodblock print, 20.9 × 23.2 cm, Collection of the National Art Gallery of China), the desperate living conditions of ordinary people are revealed through a queue of starving men and women waiting for food distribution. The main character of this print is a

Figure 4.10 Image of San Mao (Three Hair, 三毛), Zhang Leping 張樂平, The Complete Works of the Adventures of San Mao 《三毛流浪記全集》(Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited, 2000), p. 15.

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Figure 4.11 ‘Loneliness’ 孤獨 (1943), Woodblock print, 21.1 × 17  cm. Huang Xinbo 黃新波, Collection of The National Art Museum of China.

man holding an empty bowl in one hand and his child in the other. In addition to his pained facial expression and the eagerness in his eyes, the empty bowl signifies a life of begging and not only shows his poverty but the limited amount of food he can obtain. The desperate atmosphere is intensified by the presence of the starving child, whose thin body is too weak to support his large head. Considering the spectators’ familiarity with these details, the designers established a direct link between the old society and the poor girl, and the gap between the liberated people of China and the Taiwanese compatriots becomes clear. In addition to the symbolic darkness and the characteristics of starvation, the ‘aloneness’ of the child in the poster suggests a lack of parental and social care, which can easily be connected to the social conditions of the ‘old society’. To reveal the contrast between a girl being well taken care of and a poor orphan, I will use Huang Xinbo’s work ‘Loneliness’ 《孤獨》 (1943, Figure 4.11) as the example. In ‘Uncles from the People’s Liberation Army! Quickly Go and Liberate Our Little Distressed Friends in Taiwan’ (1955, shown previously in Figure  4.2), the proof of a good life of the larger figure, a happy girl of New China, is the clean clothes she wears and her health condition. By contrast, the image of the Taiwanese girl in the small photo has a strong resemblance to the imagery of the little war refugee in ‘Loneliness’. In Huang’s work, the girl stands under the

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  93 night sky in the wilderness. Behind her tiny body, there is a narrow and long path, a small dog looking at the sky and several hills, which illustrate the sentiment that she has nobody to rely on. Although the background scenery of the tiny picture of the Taiwanese girl in the poster is barbed wire and palm trees, the signs of imprisonment in the tropical zone, the helplessness is the same and thus serves as evidence of the existence of the ‘old society’, which turned a lovely girl into a poor orphan. The designers of ‘Resolutely Liberate Taiwan, Save the Taiwanese People from Their Misery!’ 《堅決解放臺灣, ( 拯救苦難中的臺灣人民!》, 1955, Figure  4.1, shown previously) also created a gap between the people of mainland China and their Taiwanese compatriots through objects signifying different periods. First, the main figure, a female revolutionary, wears a traditional women’s coat, a typical dress for revolutionaries ‘before liberation’ but no longer depicted in propaganda posters after 1949. In the new society, the surviving revolutionaries might be ‘comrades’ and the Party’s cadres, whose standard dress is a Mao suit and other uniforms. Other visual elements that connect the scene to the old society include the monstrous profile of the Nationalist soldiers in the background, the environment of a concentration camp and the cool colours of the poster. These all symbolize the oppression of the Nationalist Party’s rule and the atrocities that existed in the ‘past’ to the target audience. Whether true to reality or not, the propaganda units under the leadership of the Communist Party produced compelling images illustrating the suffering of Taiwanese compatriots in order to praise the wise leadership of the Communist Party and the brave Chinese people. Promoting the advantages and happiness of the new socialist China by connecting the suffering of the old society to Taiwan in the present timeframe was a practical approach used to confirm the separation between the mainland region and Taiwan. In the pictorial space, the Taiwanese girl is a silenced image who cannot ask for help or express her feeling but receives sympathy while the Chinese girl voices her wish and conveys her caring. If observing the two children from the viewpoint of rhetoric, compared with the little Chinese girl who is ‘alive’ and ‘active’ in the pictorial space, the Taiwanese girl is merely an image in a flat picture and thus is completely separated in two worlds. Further, images of the children are the ideal personification of physical weakness and dependency, and require the intervention of the invisible ‘uncles of the PLA’ to whom the Chinese girl pleads. The female revolutionary in the poster cannot find help from the Taiwan Island, but passively waits for rescue. Creating helpless victims and the poor relatives among the Chinese people Applying the imagery of the old society to the present life of Taiwanese compatriots is just one way to implicate the separation between HK/​ TW compatriots and the Chinese people, and their superior quality of life. A viable alternative is to visualize the drastic difference and demonstrate the sense of superiority through contrast, such as strength versus weakness, rich versus poor, technologically advanced versus backward. Comparing the two posters released

94  Jia Zhen 賈甄 in the 1950s that were discussed above, I  will now inspect other methods in propaganda posters depicting compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan. First, I will examine images of Hong Kong compatriots, also known as the leftists of Hong Kong, who appeared as incapacitated victims. Second, I  will discuss images of Taiwanese compatriots. The characteristics of HK/​TW compatriots will be highlighted in a series of comparisons concerning ‘other people’ in propaganda art of the Mao era –​that is, the ethnic minorities and foreign friends of the ‘Third World’ countries. The martyr who could not show his face to the audience36 As the only section focusing on the visual representations of compatriots of Hong Kong, the analysis of these images is based on the political environment of the Hong Kong Leftist Riots of 1967 and the importance of class categorization of people in that period. Based on multiple sources, the Hong Kong Leftist Riots had a close connection to the branch of the CCP that existed in Hong Kong (the New China News Agency). Greatly stimulated by the Cultural Revolution on the mainland and the victory of the leftists of Macau in the 12-​3 Incident of 3 December 1966, Hong Kong leftists assumed that another demonstration in Hong Kong would resonate with the Cultural Revolution and expel the British colonists. During the riots, Hong Kong leftists tried to follow the activities of Red Guards, such as weaving the Little Red Book during gatherings and promoting wudou (武鬥, armed struggle). Besides the mobilization of the masses and some support from Guangdong province, the riots were not actually encouraged by the high officials in Beijing and became a brief demonstration, which lasted about seven months.37 The riots did not reach their goal, and it was not only stopped under the direct instruction of the leaders of the CCP in Beijing but attracted firm retaliation from the British colonial government. In a short period, the seemingly imminent victory turned into a bitter defeat, and the leftists who were arrested and persecuted received no recognition from the Party. In the official history of China, there is little mention of the Hong Kong Leftist Riots of 1967. ‘Blood Debts Must Be Repaid with Blood’ (Figure 4.7, shown previously) is a typical example in which the compatriots of Hong Kong are marginalized like a stage prop to reflect the bravery and dedication of the Chinese people of the mainland area. The poster tries to render a dramatic atmosphere by presenting the heroic Chinese worker, the tragic loss of a comrade and the massive support given to the compatriots. The main character of the poster is a middle-​aged Chinese worker, his body and face vividly presented in a three-​quarter profile that dominates the foreground. He has a Little Red Book in the pocket of his worker’s uniform. The figure that symbolizes the people of Hong Kong is of little importance in the poster; indeed, he is placed near the bottom of the poster and the colour used to paint him is dark grey without any highlight to draw attention to it. The face of the worker turns away from the audience, thus eliminating the unique identity this figure should have. Furthermore, the martyr who is a leftist of Hong Kong does not carry any icon of Maoist theory, such as a badge or a Little Red Book.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  95 Other propaganda posters supporting the protests of the Hong Kong compatriots, such as ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United against British Imperialism!’ 《港九愛國同胞動員起來 堅決反擊英帝國主義的挑釁!》(1967, Figure  4.5) and ‘Let the English Imperialists Experience the Chinese Working Class’s Steel Fists!’《讓英帝嘗一嘗中國工人階級的鐵拳頭! 》 (ca. 1967, Figure 4.6) either blurred the differences of Hong Kong compatriots and the mainland Chinese people by mixing them into one team, or omitted the compatriots of Hong Kong and replaced them with a mainland Chinese worker to lead the protest. ‘Grasp Revolution, Promote Production, Supporting Hong Kong’s Comrades with Real Action’《抓革命,促生產,以實際行動支持港九愛國同胞反英抗暴鬥爭》 (1967, Figure  4.8) shared the same theme as ‘Let the English Imperialists experience the Chinese Working class’s Steel Fists!’: the protest of Hong Kong compatriots is at the background; the pale colour used to paint the group and their smaller size allow the figure in the foreground to be the highlight of the poster. As the slogan attached to this image states, the ‘support’ offered by the people of mainland China is the central message, so the only figure requiring attention is the large and colourful image of the Chinese worker. As Lu Xing suggests in her study, these symbol-​using activities such as the use of slogans, wall posters and denunciation rallies had –​ and indeed still have –​powerful influences on people’s lives. This includes inducing polarized thinking based on Mao’s theories regarding class struggle and Communist ideology. Indeed, ‘any use of language, thought, and action that validated communist ideology was correct and revolutionary’ while the ‘opposing views were considered wrong or counterrevolutionary’;38 the presence and absence of political symbols in posters could be perceived in much the same way. Among the limited number of the posters that covered the theme of the Hong Kong Leftist Riots of 1967, many clearly included compatriots of Hong Kong and their deaths. Failure after the sacrifice, symbolically exhibited as the loss of connection to Maoist theory, is the outcome of their isolation from the mainland revolutionary masses and the leadership of the CCP.39 While most posters tell a story of the tragic sacrifice of Hong Kong compatriots or the story of heroic Chinese people of the mainland, the history of the Hong Kong Leftist Riots is recorded otherwise. If seeking reference to news photos published in China Pictorial, most of the photos recorded the brutal confrontation between the leftists and the local authorities. Some witnesses of the Hong Kong Leftist Riots also stated that the workers displayed the Little Red Book and Mao badges during their demonstrations and displayed quite a few banners of the quotations of Mao Zedong on the street.40 This evidence demonstrates the dominant role of local leftists during the riots. The majority of propaganda posters depicting the Hong Kong Leftist Riots therefore suppressed the value of compatriots of Hong Kong in the anti-​imperialist movement in favour of the display of the power of mainland Chinese people. The weakened image of the compatriots of Hong Kong is further revealed when they are compared with another different type of people: ‘foreign friends’, who are also under the sovereignty of the Chinese government. ‘Vigorously Support  the Anti-​imperialist Struggle of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin

96  Jia Zhen 賈甄

Figure 4.12 ‘Vigorously Support the Anti-​imperialist Struggle of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America’ 堅決支持亞洲非洲拉丁美洲人民的反帝鬥爭 (ca. 1964), 77.5 × 107.5 cm. Zhou Ruizhuang 周瑞莊, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, The IISH Collection.

America’ 《堅決支持亞洲非洲拉丁美洲人民的反帝鬥爭》(1965, Figure 4.12) and ‘Chairman Mao is the Great Liberator of the World’s Revolutionary People’ 《毛主席是世界革命人民的大救星》(1968, Figure  4.13) are among many posters representing foreign friends in the late 1960s. These posters were produced chronologically close to the production and circulation of posters supporting the Hong Kong Leftist Riots. In the 1960s, China faced a more difficult international situation because of the split with the Soviet Union. The PRC tried to strengthen its relationships with Asian, African and Latin American countries, inviting guests from these states to visit China and publicizing Mao’s meetings with them.41 The posters, such as ‘Vigorously Support the Anti-​imperialist Struggle of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America’ and ‘Chairman Mao is the Great Liberator of the World’s Revolutionary People’ were a part of the propaganda proving China’s leadership and its close connection to the rest of the world. However, even during the fanatical cult of Mao, the images of foreign friends in these propaganda posters were seldom of powerless victims such as the figures of the HK/​TW compatriots waiting for rescue. In ‘Vigorously Support the Anti-​imperialist Struggle of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  97

Figure 4.13 ‘Chairman Mao is the Great Liberator of the World’s Revolutionary People’ 毛主席是世界革命人民的大救星 (April 1968), 77 × 53  cm. Designer unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, The IISH Collection.

America’, foreign friends are unarguably the main body of their revolution, while the Chinese people share an equal position with them. In ‘Chairman Mao is the Great Liberator of the World’s Revolutionary People’, the demonstration of Chinese aid and the worship of Mao is the eye-​catching white-​covered Mao Zedong Thought that occupies a prominent position on the poster. The African people who received the teaching of Mao are active soldiers rather than passive victims. The weapons held in their hands suggest their dedication to fight against the imperialists. Comparatively, foreign friends had much greater power to control the future of their countries. Depictions of the Hong Kong compatriots as the less capable group, or even an omitted group, are in stark contrast to the relatively stronger image of the Chinese people on the same poster, and the foreign friends on other posters that received more attention from designers. Both from the visual representations of the mainland workers/​students/​peasants and from the slogans attached to the images, we can find plenty of ‘war metaphors’, a powerful factor to evoke an emotional response and radical action.42 By illustrating the martyr of Hong Kong as the victim, the hatred of the Chinese people is directed towards China’s enemies, mainly the British imperialists.

98  Jia Zhen 賈甄 The distant relatives from a different society: Taiwanese compatriot in posters in the 1970s In the 1970s, with improved international relations signified by the PRC’s claiming of seats on the Security Council in the United Nations and the establishment of official diplomatic ties with the United States and Japan, the idea of ‘liberate Taiwan’ (by force) showed a slight sign of retreat and left more space for the idea of ‘peaceful reunification’. In this period, there was increased communication between the Communist Party and Taiwanese people so the benefits of reunification could reach them, especially the overseas elites.43 Being a sensitive form of art, propaganda followed this direction, and thus kinship came to prevail in it, as shown by the appropriation of the title of a song ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ 《臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟》 (Figure  4.4). In Foucauldian discourse analysis, the power relation of the two or multiple parties involved in a specific discourse need not be revealed through literal meaning, but through implications. To understand the true intention of the content, the audience needs to accept a specific set of the view of the world, moral sense and traditions, which can be cultivated by the dominant class. At first glance, the title of the song clearly describes the kinship, yet the lyrics address the separation between the two groups of Chinese people and conclude with hope for reunification in the future. The two posters, like the lyrics of the song, carefully illustrate differences between the Taiwanese compatriots and the people of the motherland. In the two posters, the perceived ‘gap’ that separates the compatriots of Taiwan and the people of mainland China depends on the acceptance of a series of prerequisites:  the Marxist-​Leninist-​Maoist teaching about the evolution of social forms, the importance of technological development in the Communist Party’s policies even during the Cultural Revolution and the emphasis on the responsibilities and obligations between the adults and youth in traditional Chinese society. To Chinese people in the Mao era, the cultivation of these ideas via the Party’s policies, school education, political studies and political movements was all-​pervasive. Backwardness is one of the characteristics assigned to Taiwanese compatriots, reflected by clothing and property. ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Brothers’ 《臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟》 (Figure  4.3, 1976, Shanghai) shows a farewell party taking place in a Chinese harbour city. The departing guests are Taiwanese fishing workers saved by the Chinese people when their steamboat was caught in a natural disaster. The atmosphere of the scene is happiness, visualized through the abundant objects used at the gathering, such as balloons, flowers, instruments and the gifts. Among these elements, the worn and old clothing is painted in bluish and brown colours, revealing the living conditions of these Taiwanese compatriots. The small and rusty fishing steamboat also suggests the limited technology of the Taiwanese people. Unlike the fishing workers of Taiwan, children and adults of the mainland wear colourful clothes and uniforms, all suggesting a better quality of life. In the centre of the image, where a mainland Chinese man delivers a present with arms open showing confidence and generosity, the Taiwanese compatriot receives him humbly bending his body with his arms reaching out. Human

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  99 resources power is another detail showing the prosperous New China. In the poster there are people of all ages, especially energetic children, combining a strong force against the natural disasters. In the other poster using the same title (‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’《臺灣同胞我們的骨肉兄弟》 (1976, Figure 4.4, Shanxi), the differences between Taiwanese compatriots and Chinese people are not revealed through technological development, but rather through the evolution of social forms represented by lifestyle changes. It first creates a sense of closeness by arranging the number of people and the distribution of gender of the main characters of both sides. Further, by introducing an ethnic minority representative among the Taiwanese compatriots, the multi-​ethnic country discourse that prevailed in the CCP’s official discourse is also applied to the visual representation. Thus, those in the audience can easily find a mirror image of themselves. Yet the closeness makes the differences more outstanding in the poster –​for example, the Western suit indicates that the Taiwanese people live in a capitalist society, the skirts worn by the women probably suggest that the Taiwanese compatriots live a less militarized life, and the camera also refers to personal wealth and a different lifestyle. Near the bottom of the poster, the female militia member and the little Taiwanese girl form an uneven pair, which visualizes the child–​mother bond between Taiwan and the mainland China in the official PRC discourse. The girl is still in an earlier stage of her life, and thus is naïve and fragile; in contrast, the female militia member is experienced and strong. The girl’s dash into the arms of the militia and the receiving gesture are the idealized responses of reunification. The visual representations of HK/​TW compatriots in the selected posters reveal two characteristics:  They are either victims of the imperialists’ atrocity or are a distant and less developed ‘relative’. Furthermore, images of HK/​TW compatriots largely focus on the way they have been incapacitated or are infantile. In more than one case, Taiwanese compatriots are depicted as children, relying on other people’s sympathy (Figure  4.1); they rush to the care of a militarized powerful figure (Figure  4.4). At the same time, these depictions symbolize the Chinese people as strong and mature, willing to protect their HK/​TW compatriots. To detail the vast differences between compatriots and the Chinese people, posters released in the mid-​1950s adopted details used in pre-​1949 woodblock prints to create an illusion of a time gap. The details of the ‘old society’ presented in these images create a tension with the Chinese people of the mainland, who are living in an idealized New China that has long since rejected the perceived failings of the past. The depiction of vastly different living standards and lifestyles conveys effective elements that clearly divide the compatriots of Hong Kong and the Chinese people. The variations of the visual representation serve one purpose: to reflect the wisdom of the Party and the privilege of the Chinese people of the mainland. Illustrating distance between China’s centre and her periphery In propaganda posters of the Mao era, the background scenery also carries crucial information. Special sites that were once revolutionary bases or places that hosted

100  Jia Zhen 賈甄 historical events received special attention because they were part of the ruling party’s revolutionary legacy. For example, Tiananmen Square was frequently painted in red and gold colours with auras and floral decorations; sometimes the designers transformed the site into a pattern and placed it in the sky, like the sun or the palaces of deities in religious paintings and murals, symbolizing the Party’s godlike power and warm leadership. Just like the formalized languages used in written texts, the highly stylized images are also formalized and convey a fixed meaning –​for example, in many posters, the designers tried to visualize the words of Mao. The selected posters’ background scenes correspond to the figures in the foreground and their activities, highlighting the role of the mainland Chinese people in these political movements and confirming the authority of the CCP and the power of the Chinese people during political campaigns and protests. In ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United Against British Imperialism’ (1967, Figure  4.5), the background scene shows a modern seaside city with tall buildings. The left part of the background image is formed by a huge wave organized by numerous revolutionary people –​the visualization of ‘the sea of the people’s war’ (人民戰爭的汪洋大海)44 –​while the right side shows a line of modern buildings with banners and slogans attached to them. In the lower right-​hand corner, the British imperialists are crushed by the fists of the Chinese people and expelled from the scene. Considering the subject of the poster, it is easy to assume that the city and the buildings symbolize Hong Kong, the site of the riot. However, in the background is a mixture of the visualized Mao’s quotes and a symbolic Chinese city, having little resemblance to Hong Kong in reality as we can see in many photos taken by Ho Fan 何藩 (1931–​2016) and Chung Man Lurk 鍾文略 (1925–​2018). Rather, it bears a close resemblance to the city view of Shanghai (Figure 4.14), where the capitalists lived a luxurious life before the liberation. The tall buildings that were once their properties are conquered by the revolutionary mass, as shown by the banners and slogans attached to the architecture. Therefore, the anonymous space and people impart one message:  the ultimate victory in the anti-​imperialist war was achieved by the Chinese people. The anonymous characteristic of the city also blurs the boundary between the British colony Hong Kong and the mainland, and the ‘battlefield’ is symbolically moved from a place outside Chinese sovereignty to China. In addition to the anonymous city, many posters related to the Hong Kong Leftist Riots adopted the stylized background of numerous red flags, a symbol of the success of the Cultural Revolution. Like ‘Hong Kong’s Comrades Stand United against British Imperialism’ (1967, Figure  4.5), the symbolic background formed by red flags in ‘Let the English Imperialists Experience the Chinese Working Class’s Steel Fists!’ (Figure  4.6) creates a strong contrast emphasizing the main figure, a monumental image of the Chinese worker that indicates the leading class of the Chinese people: the working class. Considering the volatile atmosphere of wudou in the early months of the Cultural Revolution,45 the protest of the Hong Kong compatriots is just one aspect of the posters. The posters depicting the Hong Kong Leftist Riots could detail two political movements in one design.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  101

Figure 4.14 A view of Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution (1967). Anonymous photographer, China Pictorial, 12 (1967), p. 24.

In other circumstances, the benefit to the HK/​TW compatriots of reunification equals the proudness of the Chinese people because of their achievements in multiple areas of the society. In ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ (1976, Shanghai, Figure  4.4), the designers reveal the strength of new China through the ship, a symbol of industrialization and one of the crucial components of the superiority of the socialist country. Despite the better living standards indicated through the clothing of the Chinese people and other decorations in the poster, it is the silver-​coloured hu yu (Shanghai fishing industry, 滬漁) ship, which reveals the dominant power of the PRC. The Chinese ship is almost twice the size of the Taiwanese steamboat, which demonstrates its capability to defend against natural disasters and feed many more people. The silver colour also suggests its newness and the good level of maintenance it receives. From the size and the technical merits, the hu yu ship has overwhelming power, as if it can push the small boat out of the frame. Upon realizing that the scene is a farewell party, what was once enjoyed by the Taiwanese compatriots becomes their loss. With a direct presence of the authoritative image of Chairman Mao suggested by the banner hanging at the top of the building, the two ships vividly indicate the connection between Mao’s wise leadership and the technological development of the heartland of the Chinese nation. This powerful image provides strong support to the figures in the foreground, who are showing generosity rather than military strength. In brief, the

102  Jia Zhen 賈甄 backwardness of the Taiwanese compatriots indicates a ‘less’ advanced civilization at the periphery of China. Another approach taken by the designers to portray the marginalized position of Taiwanese compatriots concerns the symbolic distance between them and Beijing, the centre of China. After Mao’s declaration of the PRC’s foundation, Tiananmen Square and Beijing had a status superior to that of the other cities of China. In deciding who should be chosen to visit Beijing in an organized activity, class categorization and other means to show loyalty to the Party in the Mao era were the dominant criteria. Thus, being at Tiananmen Square was regarded as a precious opportunity, and reward given by the Party that was worth showing off. Following this reasoning, imitating the decorative elements of Tiananmen Square exhibited the admiration of the Chinese people for the site. The Taiwanese compatriots’ identity might not have been strong enough to have a welcoming ceremony in the centre of China. The poster ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ (1976, Figure 4.4) avoids depicting Beijing; instead, it is a welcoming ceremony taking place in an anonymous town. Taiwanese compatriots receive a warm welcome by the local militia and are stepping on to the stage. Behind the interactions of the Chinese people and the compatriots, the buildings’ decorations appear to be a mixture of details imitating the decoration and architecture related to Tiananmen Square, such as the pitched roof of the distant gate, the railing of the staircase, the street light near the left edge of the poster and the painted basket of flowers on the wall. By painting the architectural details of the buildings in Tiananmen Square on the stage of a small town, the designers put the authentic location in a unique position: it is the ideal version of the celebrations for the reunification of Taiwan. In the ‘present’ time shown in the posters, Taiwanese compatriots are still ‘others’, welcomed by their vigilant host.

Weaving the HK/​TW compatriots into the big family of China in a tianxia system Judging from the details in the selected posters, it seems that a hierarchy existed between the Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots, the Chinese people of the mainland and the CCP. Since the Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots could not be regarded as Chinese citizens at that time, their existence in the hierarchy introduced an element of ‘foreignness’. Considering this characteristic, the posters’ significance is not limited to exhibiting the message of separation through the visual representation of the HK/​TW compatriots, but reveals the miniature tianxia system (天下, literally translated as ‘all under heaven’)46 among different groups of ‘Chinese people’ when foreign affairs and the accompanying propaganda followed modern diplomatic regulations among nation-​states. As already noted, the model of the tianxia system used to describe the world order in imperial China was first raised by Fairbank in the 1960s. In this model, the world surrounding ‘China’ can be grouped into three zones: the ‘Sinic Zone’, the ‘Inner Asian Zone’ and the ‘Outer Zone’; the three zones form concentric circles.47 In contrast to the colonies created under the military conquests of the

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  103 ‘West’, the tianxia system was famous for its emphasis on (Confucian) ideological orthodoxy, and non-​violent and hierarchal characteristics.48 This allowed the Chinese empire (and its various dynasties) to be the centre of the world, including its wealth and cultural accomplishments, having benefited from the teaching of Confucius and the production of the vast land. In the traditional tianxia system, the Chinese world grasped a sense of ‘all-​embracing unity and cultural entity’.49 In its interpretation of Chinese history, the Communist Party emphasized the power of ordinary people, but popular historical knowledge embraced the idea that the Chinese Empire was influential in the ancient world and received tributary from foreign countries. In the Chinese History Museum’s Catalogue of the Exhibition Preview of Ancient China (1960), the only direct introduction sentence about ‘the cultural and economic exchange between China and foreign countries’ is the gifts sent by multiple countries –​Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal, India, United Kingdom and France –​during the Qing dynasty.50 This viewpoint allows for comparison of the tianxia system with the concept of world order that appeared in the CCP’s propaganda during the Mao era. Yet the function of ‘foreign friends’ in propaganda arts in the Mao era is different from them being the submissive party in the hierarchal tianxia system,51 and thus requires another group of people who are foreign to them and still within the Chinese nationalism narrative to make comparisons. With an identity that combines being foreign and Chinese, the Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots are suitable outsiders to reflect the advancement of the New China. We have already inspected the ‘gap’ between the Chinese people and their HK/​ TW compatriots based on their interactions, ornaments and the characteristics of the environment; this section will discuss the possible factors that transformed the differences into indicators of the hierarchy that allocated a fixed position for each party involved in the miniature tianxia system from the Marxist-​Leninist-​Maoist ideological perspective. In the Mao era, the evolution of social forms was a part of the historical materialism teaching that regarded socialist society as a more advanced social form. In the pedagogical texts, the evolution of social forms was considered analogous to Darwin’s theory of evolution, and thus naturalized this process and the superiority of socialism. In the volume Marxist Classic Writers on Science of History, a collection of the classic writings of Marxism-​Leninism, the editors included a section of the Chinese translation of Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In the section in which this article was located, the editors added a few lines, stating the evolution of social form was a scientific discovery, just like Darwin’s discovery of that the theory of evolution; both pointed out the scientific truth, but in two different fields.52 Following this reasoning, the good quality of life of the Chinese people is deemed a tangible benefit of living in socialist ‘New China’ under the leadership of the CCP. In turn, the Chinese people should make more progress in the future and take more responsibilities. Since the quality of life is connected rigidly to different stages of the evolution of social forms, a hierarchy already exists in the discourse. Visually, such a connection became the ‘gap’ between the poor life of the HK/​TW compatriots and the idealized life of the mainland Chinese people. This was represented in the suppression of the

104  Jia Zhen 賈甄 Nationalist government, the defeat of the Hong Kong compatriots in their protest, and the gratitude of the Taiwanese fishing workers. Combining the geographic fact that Hong Kong and Taiwan are close to the border, the shape of the miniature tianxia system embraces the centre–​periphery structure with the following elements: the CCP and Chairman Mao are the centre of the socialist country, and are surrounded by Chinese people, who live a happy and prosperous life and carry on the teachings of the Party. Compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan are on the outskirts of China, eagerly awaiting reunification. Between the HK/​TW compatriots and the Communist Party, the Chinese people are mainly represented by the Han ethnic group, which performs the role of the intermediator for the Party’s policies and are the close relatives of the compatriots. Another source of the miniature tianxia system was the nationalist thought of the Mao era, caused by the unstable diplomatic relation between China and foreign countries. Self-​reliance as one of the key policies of the Mao era was a series of social mobilizations, covering multiple areas of industry, agriculture and continuous struggle on an ideological level. The idea was not about cultural tradition, customs or language, but rather the ideology of the ruling party, and was successfully imbued into people’s minds by a supreme power through political movement, social mobilization and thought work, with the intention of purifying the body of ‘people’.53 Propaganda posters as a part of the political discourse followed the CCP’s direction and provided plenty of details that allowed people to seek ‘others’ from the group within which they belonged. Using Mao badges in the posters related to Hong Kong compatriots, we will examine how the propaganda system placed the ‘compatriots’ at the margin of the socialist country. When the Hong Kong Leftist Riots broke out in mid-​1967, wearing Mao badges was a way to show people’s loyalty to Mao Zedong, and further a sign of the bearer’s class identity –​even the specific working units or the factions people joined. At about the same time, Mao badges spread to Hong Kong.54 Without knowing the exact number of the badges that were sent to Hong Kong, it can be estimated that the circulation of Mao badges was limited to the leftist organizations and personnel who had a connection to the Xinhua News Agency. In posters depicting both the Hong Kong leftists and the Chinese people, as the mainland Chinese workers and students wearing Mao badges strongly supported the revolution in Hong Kong, the sacrificed Hong Kong comrade did not wear this icon. The message of the tragic defeat resulting from the overwhelming brutality of the British imperialists and the isolation from the mainland’s direct support is communicated through this contrast. From the shining icons of the Party and Mao, the wearing of Mao badges by the Chinese people, to the martyr who lost his important symbol, a centre–​periphery relationship is soundly communicated through the placement of this important icon. When fanatical production and wearing of Mao badges faded slowly in the 1970s,55 propaganda posters stopped painting figures wearing them and used different styles of clothing and weapons to indicate class categorization and place of origin. In ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ (Shanghai, Figure 4.4), the local militia who welcome the Taiwanese guests still carry the weapons and the flag to ‘liberate Taiwan’, and thus communicate that

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  105 vigilance must be maintained when facing these ideologically suspicious people –​no matter how thick the blood tie is. Even though all people depicted in these posters are Chinese, the images emphasize the differences between the HK/​ TW compatriots and their mainland counterparts. Consequently, the absence or presence of icons such as Mao badges is almost always ideologically based. The few exceptions, represented by the composition of the Taiwanese compatriots in ‘Taiwanese Compatriots are Our Blood Brothers’ is a gesture to the Chinese people showing the CCP’s increasing confidence in Taiwan’s affairs. These selected posters depicting the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan include the basic components of the miniature tianxia system; from a larger perspective, the peoples involved in the system include another group not visible from these posters:  ethnic minorities, which usually functioned as the inferior ‘others’ living in the remote areas of China. The remoteness and inferiority shared by the ethnic minorities and compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the miniature tianxia system trigger questions about their relationship and function in the system. Posters describing ethnic minorities can be generalized into two groups. The first group’s theme focuses on aid, revealing the responsibility of the Han people, the technological accomplishments of the country and the poor quality of life of ethnic minorities. In ‘Representatives of Brother Nationalities Visit a Textile Machinery Plant’ 《兄弟民族代表參觀紡織廠》 (1973, Figure  4.15), the female worker representing the Han people demonstrates the operation of the

Figure 4.15 ‘Representatives of Brother Nationalities Visit a Textile Machinery Plant’ 兄弟民族代表參觀紡織廠 (1973), size unknown. Designer unknown, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

106  Jia Zhen 賈甄 modern textile machine to surrounding visitors of ethnic minorities, who attentively listen to her words and ask questions. Standing in the centre, she exercises her responsibility confidently. Under the Party’s direction of the Four Modernizations, her knowledge of the textile factory represents the key to a stronger fatherland. From another perspective, the ethnic minorities’ attentive attitude and facial expression also suggest their unfamiliarity with modern technology, which also visualizes the saying ‘a countryman bumps into the city’, a discriminative description of people from remote and backward areas. In front of the neat, silver-​coloured large machines and the bright factory building, the colourful clothing of the ethnic minorities makes them the discordant element and thus a ‘barbarian’ spectacle. The second group shows the class consciousness of ethnic minorities. ‘United to Achieve an Even Greater Victory’  《團結起來,爭取更大的勝利》 (1966?, Figure 4.16) depicts the devotion of ethnic minorities and the Han people, who all hold a book of Marxist-​Leninist-​ Maoist theory of proletarian dictatorship. The same book and facial expression suggest the same thinking and unreserved loyalty to the Party and Chairman Mao. In this highly unified poster, the clothing and ornaments of the ethnic minorities not only symbolize all Chinese people but also function as the decoration of the poster. Comparing ethnic minorities to the compatriots of Hong Kong

Figure 4.16 ‘Unite to Achieve an Even Greater Victory’ 團結起來,爭取更大的勝利 (1966?), 39 × 53  cm. Designer unknown, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House 上海人民出版社, Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collection.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  107 and Taiwan in propaganda posters demonstrates that both groups are at a disadvantage, but in different aspects of society. The ethnic minorities’ disadvantage results from their technological backwardness, while the compatriots’ dilemma is mainly ideological and territory based. Since class struggle was the fundamental conflict of the society of the time, the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan who lived in the capitalist society were more marginalized in the system than ethnic minority people. Altogether, the two groups of people, ethnic minorities and HK/​ TW compatriots, covered the two obstacles that the Chinese people faced in social development: the Four Modernizations and the integrity of Chinese territory. To summarize, by arranging the ruling party and its subjects properly, a miniature tianxia system is discovered from posters depicting Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots. Analogous to the ancient tianxia system, which intended to show the superiority of the Chinese empire, the great happy socialist family of the New China was intended to confirm the authority of the Party and the advantages of the Chinese people. In the pictorial world organized by propaganda posters of different themes, at the centre of the miniature tianxia system are Chairman Mao, the CCP and the capital, represented by the icons. Surrounding them are the Han people, the ethnic minorities and the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan, forming an order maintained by blood ties but separated by ideological construction, in which the Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots are on the outskirts. While the ethnic minorities played the traditional role as less-​ developed barbarians living in the borderlands, who were ideologically a part of ‘us’, the HK/​TW compatriots played the role of ideologically inferior others, longing to reunite with the Chinese people of the mainland, thus concluding the small concentric-​circle order.

Conclusion: The image of the familiar ‘others’ –​the compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan What are the characteristics of compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan in propaganda arts? Put simply, most of them are victimized, infantile figures who rely on the help and support offered by the people of mainland China. Visually, they are depicted in dark-​grey colours and are not the focal point of each image. Their conditions were significantly worse than their mainland counterparts, as detailed by their clothing and facial expressions. More importantly, most compatriots did not wear a Mao badge or have a copy of the Little Red Book. As ideology dominated the social and political lives of the Chinese people, this signified a fundamental difference. Even though the slogans in the posters emphasized reunification and support, the visual representation of HK/​TW compatriots suggests separation and alienation. In the hegemonic discourse, the subjectivity of HK/​TW compatriots gave way to highlight the power of the mainland Chinese people, the leadership of the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong. Further, from the relationship of HK/​TW compatriots and their mainland counterparts, there existed a social hierarchy of different groups of ‘Chinese people’ based on the traditional tianxia system. The ideology that built the new

108  Jia Zhen 賈甄 miniature tianxia system was not based on Confucian values, but rather on the Marxist-​ Leninist-​ Maoist ideology, in which HK/​ TW compatriots were the ideologically inferior ‘others’. In posters, the poor living conditions, the facial expressions that eagerly waited for rescue and the absence of the icons of the Party and Chairman Mao all suggest that their position was very much at the outskirts of the system. Together with ambiguity regarding the compatriots’ identity, the system’s branch reached out, creating an impression that the ideologically more advanced centre received admiration from the periphery of the system and a desire for reunification. Outside the miniature tianxia system, foreigners were either friends/​allies or enemies. The relationship in propaganda posters was still based on ideology, but the relationship between the Chinese people and international friends rejected a hierarchal structure. The practical aspect of Chinese foreign policy did not exist in propaganda posters, such as the multiple forms of aid in exchange for support on international issues. In brief, the arrogance that was indicated secretly in the tianxia system was well contained. Adopting the traditional tianxia system also confirmed that ‘feudalistic dross’, which the violent political movements after 1949 sought to eliminate, not only remained but was a tool of the Party’s propaganda. Although the images of the compatriots strongly depict separation instead of reunification –​the Party’s policy –​the posters did not necessarily contradict the instruction of the authorities. To the contrary, they provided a proper interpretation to the CCP’s direction: whether based on the Maoism or the kinship of the Chinese people, the suffering of the compatriots could not be ignored. In the end, every group or individual would have a rightful position in the invisible hierarchy imposed by the Party and its leaders, and everyone would ultimately be reunited into the happy family of socialist China.

Notes 1 Merriam-​Webster Dictionary (2018). 2 In this chapter, ‘compatriots of Hong Kong and Taiwan’, ‘Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots’ and the abbreviated form ‘HK/​TW compatriots’ are used interchangeably. 3 Before 1949, the Nationalist government and the Portuguese government had reached an agreement that Macau was a Chinese region under the administration of the Portuguese colonial government. When the Communist Party became the ruling party in 1949, there were no immediate negotiations and the Chinese government tolerated the Portuguese government’s authority in Macau. The seemingly peaceful situation did not stop conflicts between the Communist Party supporters (the leftists) and the colonial government in the city until the latter was defeated in the 12-​3 Incident of 1966. Afterwards, the leftists of Macau gained the upper hand, which resulted in Macau’s reputation as ‘a semi-​liberated region’. See Camoes C.K. Tam, Disputes Concerning Macau’s Sovereignty Between China and Portugal (1553–​ 1993) (Taipei:  Yongye Publishing House, 1993), pp. 237–​70; Francisco Gonçalves Pereira, Portugal, China and ‘Question of Macau’ (Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente, 2013), pp. 33–​42. 4 Stefan Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters from Revolution to Modernization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995).

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  109 5 Stefan Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters from the Collection of Michael Wolf (Hong Kong: CR Publication 2006). 6 Shen Kuiyi, Chinese Posters: The IISH-​Landsberger Collections, Munich; (New York: Prestel, 2009). 7 Patricia Powell and Joseph Wong, ‘Propaganda Posters from the Chinese Cultural Revolution’, Historian, 59(4) (1997): pp. 777–​94. 8 Stefan Landsberger, ‘Contextualising Posters’, in Christian Henriot and Yeh Wen-​Hsin, eds, Visualising China, 1845–​1965: Moving and Still Images in Historical Narratives (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 379–​405. 9 Anne-​Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship:  Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). 10 Harriet Evans and Stephanie Donald (eds), Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). 11 Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, with essays by Roderick MacFarquhar et  al., Art and China’s Revolution (New Haven, CT: Asia Society in association with Yale University Press, 2008). 12 Barbara Mittler, ‘Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 152(4) (2008): pp. 466–​89. 13 Gary D. Rawnsley, ‘“The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea”: How Beijing Sold the Korean War’, Media, War & Conflict, 2(3) (2009): 285–​315. 14 Emily Honig, ‘Maoists Mapping of Gender:  Reassessing the Red Guards’, in Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N.  Wasserstrom, eds, Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities:  A Reader (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 2002), pp. 255–​65. 15 Lu Xing. Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution:  The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004). 16 John K. Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). 17 Cheng Yinghong, ‘The Cultural Revolution and the “Chinese Path”’, in Song Yongyi, ed., China and Maoist Legacy (I) (New York: Mirror Books, 2016), 111–​25. 程映紅. ,《文革五十年》（上）, 宋永毅主 編,紐約：明鏡 出版社,2016, 頁pp. 111–​125. 18 Anne-​Marie Brady, Making the Foreign Serve China:  Managing Foreigners in the People’s Republic (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). 19 Kao Su-​lan, ‘The Development of the PRC’s Policy Toward Taiwan (1949–​2000)’, Journal of Academia Historica, 4(9) (2004): 189–​228. 高素蘭, ,《國史館學術集刊》,第四卷第9期,2004年,頁pp. 189–​228. 20 Ran Longbo and Ma Jisen, The Inside Story of Zhou Enlai and ‘Hong Kong Leftist Riot’ (Hong Kong: Ming Pao, 2001). 冉隆勃,馬繼森. 《周恩來與香港 ‘六七暴動’內幕》, 香港：明報出版有限公司, 2001. 21 Cheung Ka-​wai, Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). 22 Lu Yan, ‘Hong Kong Leftist Media in Cold War and Beyond’, in Yangwen Zheng, Liu Szonyi and Song Yiming, eds, The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (Leiden: Brill 2010), pp. 95–​118. 23 Meredith Oyen, ‘Communism, Containment and the Chinese Overseas’, in Yangwen Zheng, Liu Szonyi and Song Yiming, eds, The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (Leiden: Brill 2010), pp. 59–​93.

110  Jia Zhen 賈甄 24 Wooffitt, Robin. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 146–​47. 25 The Chinese government did not give up the possibility of liberating Taiwan ‘by war’. However, Zhou Enlai explained the ‘peaceful means’ more carefully. Summarized from Zhou En-​ lai, On Present International Situation, China’s Foreign Policy, and the Liberation of Taiwan:  Delivered at the Third Session of the First National People’s Congress, June 28, 1956 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), pp. 27–​ 29. However, the ambassadorial talks between the PRC and the United States were suspended for nine months in December 1957. In 1958, the bombardment of Jinmen 金門 and Mazu 馬祖 resumed. 26 The song was composed by Qin Zhaobang 覃釗邦, lyrics by 于宗信. The title of the song initially was ‘Taiwan Island, Fatherland’s Territory’ 《祖國領土臺灣島》. It was changed by Yu following the speech given by Ye Jianying 葉劍英 on PLA Army Day in 1973, which gave a clear signal of the changing attitude towards Taiwan Island. 27 In the official history of the PRC, the Hong Kong Leftist Riots 六七暴動 are named the Anti-​British Protest Movement 反英抗暴運動. 28 China Pictorial 《人民畫報》 is one of the most important pictorials released worldwide. With multilingual editions, it introduces international news to the Chinese people and pictorial news of China to international readers. In contrast to newspapers, China Pictorial focuses on pictures. In some cases, China Pictorial shows high-​quality pictures of global political events, while Renmin Daily releases smaller and less-​clear images. 29 Jin Feng 金鳳, ‘The Cry of the Da Chen Island’ 《大陳島的控訴》, China Pictorial, 9 (1954): pp. 26–​27. 30 The Xinhua News Agency, ‘Taiwan Province (the Popular Science of Geography)’, China Pictorial, 5 (1966): pp. 42–​43. 31 Although posters depicted the life of the ‘old society’ in the 1960s, it was not until the mid-​1960s that the Communist Party officially started the movement ‘to recall the hardship of the old society and appreciate the happy life of the present’ (憶苦思甜). The target audience for this movement was young people born around 1949, who were approaching 18 years of age, and thus becoming adults. 32 The three great mountains were imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and feudalism. 33 ‘Darkness before the dawn’ is an influential phrase; the ‘darkness’ usually refers to the cruel rule of the Nationalist Party, while the victory of the masses led by the Communist Party is symbolized by the ‘dawn’. For example, in Fushan Monthly, a magazine printed in Taishan, Guangdong, a column titled ‘Darkness Before the Dawn’ 黎明前的黑暗 reported the abuse of power by the officials of the Nationalist Party. The editorial board used the phrase to describe the dreadful conditions in China, and the ‘darkness’ referred directly to ‘the bandits of Jiang’ 蔣匪 (Fushan Monthly 《浮山月报》, 65 (1949):  9. This notion was continuously used after 1949. In ‘Red Crag’ 《紅岩》 (1960), a novel about the sacrifice of undercover Communists before liberation, Chapter  21 is titled ‘Darkness Before the Dawn’ 黎明前的黑暗. In 1965, the feature film Breaking the Darkness Before the Dawn 《衝破黎明前的黑暗》, about the Anti-​Japanese War, was also named after the famous phrase. 34 Following the style of traditional New Year’s posters, images of the mainland Chinese people tended to be bright, chubby and happy. The colour red was crucial to illustrate the atmosphere of celebration and happiness, and thus is widely used on posters.

The subtle image of the ‘compatriot’ 同胞  111 35 San Mao is a famous cartoon created by Zhang Leping and first published in 1945 in Shenpao 《申報》, an influential newspaper in Shanghai. In 1949, an exhibition was held in Shanghai that allowed the public to see the original drawings. 36 This section focuses on the majority of posters, which depicted leftists as marginalized victims in the Hong Kong Leftist Riots. Apart from these examples, there are a minimal number of posters showing compatriots of Hong Kong marching towards victory. In these posters, the workers of Hong Kong in the protest wear Mao badges and hold the Little Red Book in their hands, represented by ‘We are Going to Win. British Imperialism is Doomed to Fail’ 《我們必勝,港英必敗》 (1967, Figure 4.9). But such representations of Hong Kong compatriots are few in number. 37 Based on the data from Cheung Ka-​wai, Hong Kong’s Watershed:  The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), pp. 39, 173. 張家偉. 《六七暴動—​ —​香港戰後歷史的分水嶺》（香港：香港大學出版社,2012年）頁 pp. 93, 173. 38 Lu Xing, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, p.41. 39 The Communist Party was active in its undercover operations in Hong Kong after 1949. However, it avoided mentioning its involvement on the diplomatic level and thus created the impression that the riots were the result of social inequality. Summarized from Ran Longbo and Ma Jisen, The Inside Story of Zhou Enlai and ‘Hong Kong Leftist Riot’, p. 13. 40 Summarized from Ran Longbo and Ma Jisen, The Inside Story of Zhou Enlai and ‘Hong Kong Leftist Riot’, p. 13. 41 Brady, Making the foreign Serve China, pp. 125–​26. 42 Lu Xing. Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, p. 66. 43 Kao Su-​lan 高素蘭, ‘The Development of PRC’s Policy Toward Taiwan (1949–​ 2000)’《中共對臺政策的歷史演變(1949–​2000)》, Journal of Academia Historica 《國史館學術集刊》, 4(9) (2004): p. 200. 44 This is part of Mao Zedong’s military theory, which appeared in the article ‘On the Protracted War’ 《論持久戰》, frequently quoted by different factions during the Cultural Revolution. The original words are ‘With the common people of the whole country mobilized, we shall create a vast sea of humanity to get the enemy drowned therein’ (動員了全國的老百姓,就造成了陷敵於滅頂之災的汪洋大海) Mao, Zedong, On the Protracted War (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1954), p. 76. 45 In 1966–​67, the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, armed conflicts among the factions emerged and escalated at a rapid speed. The heated situation and the victory of the 12-​3 Incident encouraged the Leftist Riots in Hong Kong, which stimulated the design of the theme ‘Supporting the Hong Kong Compatriots’ Anti-​ British Protest’. As it was not easy for the posters to infiltrate Hong Kong, the posters were tightly connected to the volatile environment in the mainland area, where different factions fought violently with each other, with the support of Mao Zedong. See Li Xun 李遜, The Revolution Upheaval Era: Movements of the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai《革命造反年代：上海文革運動史稿》, Vol. II (Hong Kong:  Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 853–​56. 46 Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, p. 2. 47 Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, p. 2. 48 The seemingly non-​violent tianxia system still relied on the dominant power of the Chinese empire, such as military activities, trade activities and the establishment of imperial administrative institutions. 49 Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, p. 5.

112  Jia Zhen 賈甄 50 Chinese History Museum, ed., Catalogue of the Exhibition Preview of Ancient China (Beijing:  Cultural Relics Press, 1960), p.  8. 中國歷史博 物館編：《中國通史陳列預展説明》, 北京：文物出版社, 1960 年,頁p. 8; Chinese History Museum, ed., Catalogue of the Exhibition of Ancient China (Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 1976), pp. 35, 41,45, 53, 57, 62, 65, 67 pays special attention to China’s relationship with Asian, African people. 中國歷史博物館編：《中國通史陳列説明》, 北京：文物出版社,1976年. 51 At the beginning of the PRC, the Communist Party issued three directions on foreign affairs: ‘leaning on one side’ 一邊倒; ‘cleaning up the house and then inviting guests’ 打掃乾净屋子再請客; and ‘build up a new kitchen’ 另起爐竈. In the mid-​1950s, the direction was opened up and had a more peaceful perspective, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were one of the signals. The Sino-​Soviet Split in the 1960s forced the Chinese government to turn to Asian, African and Latin American countries. Throughout all these changes and directions, equality was a crucial character and left no space for the tributary system. In practice, as Anne-​Marie Brady’s study analysed, the existence of foreign friends in propaganda was ensuring the Chinese people that the country was not isolated. Also, when China claimed to be the leader of suppressed people by imperialism and colonialism, multiple forms of aid displayed the power of China. 52 People’s Publishing House, ed., Marxist Classic Writers on Science of History, Vol. 2 (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1961), pp. 139, 141–​43. 人民出版社編輯部 編.《馬克思主義經典作家論歷史科學》第二卷, 北京,人民出版社,1961年,頁, pp. 139, 141–​43. 53 Cheng Yinghong, ‘The Cultural Revolution and the “Chinese Path”’, pp.  112–​ 15. 程映紅. ,《文革五十年》（上）, 宋永毅主 編,紐約：明鏡出版社,2016,頁, pp. 112–​15. 54 Helen Wang, ‘Mao Badges of the Cultural Revolution’, in Chairman Mao Badges: Symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution (London:  British Museum, 2008), p. 20. 55 Wang, ‘Mao Badges of the Cultural Revolution’, p. 21.

5  Anatomy of an emulation campaign ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’ Richard King

In Mao-​era China, as in the Soviet Union under Stalin, the promotion of models for study and emulation was a staple feature of state propaganda, part of a strategy to remould the nation’s citizens into socialist subjects. The models introduced included those engaged in resource extraction, such as the Soviet coal-​miner Alexey Stakhanov (1906–​77) and the Daqing oilfield ‘iron-​man’ Wang Jinxi 王进喜 (1923–​70), whose exploits were held up to inspire the industrial proletariat, and pioneering women joining the workforce in hitherto male professions, such as the female tractor drivers Pasha Angelina (1912–​59) and Liang Jun 梁军 (1931–​2020).1 The most enduring of all Chinese models has been the young soldier Lei Feng 雷锋 (1940–​62), enshrined as the model of dedication and obedience for several generations of youth following the release of a handwritten exhortation to ‘Study from Comrade Lei Feng’ by Mao in the year after Lei Feng’s death.2 Those selected for elevation to Model Worker status were both accessible to their target audience in their humble backgrounds, and outstanding in their contributions; emulation held the implicit incentive that, with sufficient study and industry, anyone could be recognized as an ‘iron man’ or ‘iron woman’, or even a ‘living Lei Feng’. The heroes were shown to be endowed with admirable qualities that were achievable by anyone sufficiently motivated, and applicable to the needs of the particular stage of political, economic and social development for which their campaign was launched. Mao-​era Chinese emulation campaigns typically had a visual component for the benefit of the young and less literate, with photographs or paintings mass-​ produced as magazine illustrations or posters, and comic-​strips or illustrated books recounting behaviour to be followed by the viewer; and a written component, comprising quotations from the subject or personal diaries, editorials and articles, memoirs of those who knew and were influenced by the model, and reports on the activities involved in the emulation campaign. Many of the campaigns promoted exertion, frugality and delayed gratification as qualities to be valued, and in these cases the propaganda was not only intended to inspire copying of approved behaviour, but also to elicit an emotional reaction –​a heartfelt enthusiasm for the hardships and privations on the road to future happiness and abundance.3 The world on show in the images and campaigns and the reported exploits of their central figures offered a vision of a glorious future under socialism. In

114  Richard King Evgeny Dobrenko’s stern judgement of the Soviet case, ‘The hoax-​filled “reality” of Soviet life was replete with what Sheila Fitzpatrick called the “preview[s]‌of the coming attractions of socialism”; but Stalin called the same things “the miracles of new accomplishments” ’.4 This chapter explores a single Chinese campaign, featuring the Beijing-​area peasant cadre Wang Guofu 王国福 (1922–​69), which began in January 1970, two months after Wang’s death. The virtues embodied in the mythology built around Wang Guofu were devotion to the person and teachings of Mao, loyalty to Communist Party principles as they unfolded, unstinting labour, self-​denial and endlessly deferred gratification, collectivism, confidence in an ideal future, extreme parsimony and scrupulous honesty, and determination that the village he led should follow the example of the Dazhai Production Brigade, then held up as a model of self-​reliance. While Wang was a peasant, and a model for the Cultural Revolution peasantry, he is frequently praised as a proletarian warrior: his exemplary qualities were those associated with an idealized industrial proletariat, an indication of the Party’s continuing wariness of ‘peasant consciousness’, the traditional desire to own land and look after family first.5 Wang’s much-​quoted dedication to continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat enshrines him as the most proletarian of peasants, and a model for the transformation of the ideology, working practice and social organization of China’s rural population towards the end of the Mao era.

Depicting a model peasant cadre Wang Guofu was born in Shandong in 1922, but lived for most of his life on the southern outskirts of Beijing municipality, where he was for seventeen years a cadre in Daxing County 大兴县, serving as the team-​leader of Dabailou 大白楼 Village, which became the Dabailou Production Team with the creation of the Red Star (Hongxing 红星) People’s Commune. During the Cultural Revolution, he was head of the revolutionary leadership group at Dabailou. He is often referred to in the campaign documents as the ‘old team-​leader’ (lao duizhang 老队长). As conditions in his village improved, he denied himself and his family the benefits of socialism, determined to live in the tumbledown ‘hired hand’s hut’ (changgongwu 长工屋) he had occupied since before 1949 until all his neighbours were properly housed. Unlike some local officials, Wang is said to have participated in farm work on a regular basis, his shovel never leaving his hand. After the death of his wife in 1962, he raised their four children on his own. In addition to practising his beliefs, he also instructed his fellow-​villagers, especially the young, in the blessings of socialism and the need for hard work and frugality, using simple and accessible language.6 In the documents published after his death, he is described as always steadfastly opposed to policies later seen to have strayed from Mao’s stern vision of collectivization, in which all property would be owned collectively and all business conducted with the state. These concerns were carried to his deathbed; Wang died of stomach cancer on 6 November 1969.

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  115 To the best of my knowledge, no photographs exist of Wang Guofu. Viewing the 1970 poster that came to be the definitive image (Figure 5.1),7 we cannot know whether Wang’s own appearance is represented, or if the man before us is simply a composite of ‘typical’ (in its Cultural Revolution meaning of ‘ideal’) features.8 It is at home in Dabailou that we must imagine him, although the large field behind him looks more like the expanses of Beidahuang 北大荒, the Great Northern Wilderness of China’s northeast, than the patchwork of fields in a village in suburban Beijing in the 1960s. Winter is at an end: the field behind him has been ploughed for planting, the elegant evenness of its furrows indicating the work of a tractor rather than of peasants with hoes or ploughs pulled by oxen. To his left, fields have been flooded, and to his right, a line of pylons carries power into the distance. Agricultural mechanization, irrigation and electrification are in place, the modernities to which collective farming aspired already complete. Nature has been tamed; man has overcome Heaven. This is not an accurate picture of Dabailou in Wang’s time, nor is it intended to be. Instead, it is a vison of a future implicitly promised to lie within the grasp of the village’s inhabitants and that of all Chinese peasants: in socialist realism, and its later Chinese variant, the combination of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism, art and propaganda marched quite a few steps ahead of everyday reality. If, as has been suggested in the Soviet context, socialism only ever really existed in socialist realist art, here is Chinese socialism.9 This is the future perfect –​socialist development in ideal form, and a world as it will have been, if the viewer can have faith and join the struggle to bring it to fruition. In the clouds over Wang Guofu’s left shoulder, there is a blush of pink: these are morning clouds (zhaoxia 朝霞), and Wang is gazing towards the sun that is rising in the east, with all the symbolic weight of identification with the Communist Party and its leader that this orientation conveys.10 The dawn glow illuminates his face, creating the ‘red, shining, and luminescent’ (hong, guang, liang 红,光,亮) skin tone more commonly associated with paintings of the Great Leader.11 True likeness or not, it exemplifies heroic physical and facial characteristics from Cultural Revolution literature and art: dignified manner and bearing, unsophisticated features and expression, heavy eyebrows, a steady gaze, even teeth, an effect more striking than handsome.12 As Wang Guofu poses, as if for the camera, in a new padded jacket and a worn cap with a slightly lopsided brim, the sunlight picks out two additional points of redness below his face: a Mao badge and the tip of the red column at the right of the cover of a slim white volume in his pocket. By the time this poster was produced, the Mao badge was not the ubiquitous accessory it had been a couple of years earlier at the height of the Red Guard period, but its presence over his heart is evidence of where his loyalties lie. The booklet, with its red column on which the title would be printed vertically, is readily identifiable as one of an edition of essays by Mao, thus establishing his exemplary choice of reading material.13 We can only guess at its content; it might be the one containing the ‘three constantly read articles’ (laosanpian 老三篇) known to all in the Cultural Revolution and a favourite of Wang Guofu’s, or ‘Get Organized’ (zuzhi qilai 组织起来), the 1943 blueprint for collectivization.14 The badge and

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Figure 5.1 Study from Comrade Wang Guofu, ‘Pull the cart of revolution and don’t relax at the harness, Pull it all the way to communism’. Reproduced by kind permission of the artist, Professor Liu Chunhua.

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  117 book remained intact as components of the iconography even when Wang was proto-​photoshopped later the same year into a summer scene, this time in a light jacket, a bountiful wheat harvest behind him, for the cover of a pictorial biography (Figure 5.2).15 Wang poses with his shovel over his shoulder, as much an emblem of his class standing as a tool poised for work. The arms and hands, the right hefting the shovel and the left hanging by his side, are of normal size, in contrast to the exaggerated forearms and mighty hands of some of the proletarian figures, male and female, depicted in the work of amateur artists of the time. This is not worker-​ peasant art; it is a sophisticated painting in an academic manner –​a face rendered by an artist trained in portraiture, and arable land with furrows angled towards a vanishing point behind its central figure in a style alien to both the classical Chinese landscape and folk traditions, taught by Soviet instructors to Chinese artists and students in elite institutions after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Unusually for the period, the name of the poster’s artist is not provided, nor is there any attribution to a composition group in the metadata at bottom right.16 On

Figure 5.2 Outstanding Proletarian Warrior Wang Guofu.

118  Richard King occasion, an established painter or academy instructor condemned in the early years of the Cultural Revolution might be summoned by the authorities from confinement or ostracism, and commissioned by the authorities to produce a painting in support of state propaganda goals; such artists could not be named as the creators of propaganda, given their questionable political status, but could still be provided with the opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the revolution by their participation in prestige projects.17 In this case, however, the unnamed artist was the most spectacularly successful young painter of the Cultural Revolution, then still only in his mid-​twenties –​Liu Chunhua 刘春华. As a promising young fourth-​year student at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1967, Liu (b. 1944) was selected to portray the young Mao Zedong in 1921, on his way to foment revolution in the Anyuan coalmines. The resulting devotional image of the leader, with its romantic background depicting the nation’s landscape, was brought to the attention of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing shortly after its completion, and she designated the painting in 1968 as a ‘Model’ (yangban 样板) Work, the first painting to be granted this status. More than 900 million copies of Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (Mao Zhuxi qu Anyuan 毛主席去安源) were released, and the original sold for just over six million yuan in 1995, then the highest price paid for a modern Chinese painting.18 In the initial introduction to the painting as a Model Work, it was said to be by ‘a group of Red Guards, shock-​troops of the Cultural Revolution and the vanguard of the revolution in the arts’;19 later in 1968, Liu was acknowledged as the principal artist.20 Shortly after Wang Guofu’s death, Liu Chunhua and two other artists were sent to Dabailou by the Beijing Municipal Committee for a month, to acquaint themselves with the village and hear stories of Wang Guofu from its inhabitants. Their visit resulted in line drawings, which formed the basis for Liu’s painting; the project was completed within three months of Wang Guofu’s death. Liu Chunhua reports that he had not seen a photograph of Wang before executing his portrait.21 Resonances of Liu’s earlier masterpiece can be seen in the glowing face of the central figure and the romanticism of the setting, the background in both paintings distinguished by dramatic pink-​tinged clouds. The final poster, which includes Liu’s painting, succinctly and elegantly summarizes the campaign: the slogan ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’ as the title at the top, reminiscent of earlier works commending the boy-​soldier Lei Feng, the portrait of the man himself against a backdrop of the future of the Chinese village, and a memorable quotation attributed to the subject beneath the picture: ‘Pull the cart of revolution and don’t relax at the harness, Pull it all the way to communism’. Image and text are in harmony.

Building the mythology of Wang Guofu: Beijing ribao (Beijing Daily) 20 January to 5 February 1970 An intensive sixteen-​day campaign to ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’ was launched in the Beijing daily newspaper Beijing ribao on 20 January 1970. The front page of the paper led with an announcement of a resolution by the

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  119

Figure 5.3 ‘I approve of slogans like this one, that says “First don’t fear hardship, second don’t fear death.” ’ Mao Zedong. Opening page of the notebook Study from Comrade Wang Guofu.22

120  Richard King Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee dated 15 January. The five clauses of the resolution declared the sponsors’ determination to:  (1) set in motion a mass movement, using all available means, to promote and study Wang Guofu’s exemplary deeds and advanced ideology; (2) study (where xuexi 学习 ‘study’ can also mean ‘emulate’ or ‘imitate’) Wang’s boundless loyalty and love for Chairman Mao; (3)  study Wang’s participation in political struggle, notably in opposition to the former State Chairman, now ‘traitor, renegade, and scab’ Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇; (4)  study Wang’s vigilance for class struggle and his readiness to sacrifice for the nation; and (5)  study Wang’s selfless spirit of ‘not considering himself at all, only thinking of others’ (haobuliji, zhuanmenliren 毫不利己,专门利人, a quality of the Canadian doctor Norman Bethune eulogized by Mao).23 Also beginning on page  1 of the 20 January Beijing ribao and continuing on the next two pages is a report (tongxun 通讯) published the same day in the national Party daily Renmin ribao.24 The report’s subheading identifies the peasant Wang as an ‘outstanding proletarian warrior [emphasis mine]’, indicating the blurring of the lines between worker and peasant in Cultural Revolution discourse; the report was later anthologized with hagiographies memorializing other outstanding proletarians, including Korean War volunteers, Communist Party officials and industrial workers. The report on Wang Guofu presents the standard biography: poverty-​stricken childhood in Shandong before moving to the Beijing area, pioneering of cooperatives and collectives at Dabailou and resistance to policies associated with Liu Shaoqi that permitted individual or family responsibility for some aspects of agricultural production. Anecdotes are incorporated that exemplify Wang’s dedication to self-​reliance and hard work, his self-​denial and parsimony, his emphasis of the need for those in positions of authority to be scrupulously honest and his passion for studying the works of Mao, even in his final illness. Wang’s dying words are said to have been ‘We must do as Chairman Mao says … struggle arduously …continue the revolution … rectify the Party … take control’.25 A narrative introduced in the 20 January report that recurs constantly in later visual and written materials is that of the ‘hired hand’s hut’: Wang’s insistence to the end that he and his family remain in their hovel is linked to his belief that cadres should look after others’ interests before their own. He is described rescuing an old woman from her house in a storm and fixing leaks in a neighbour’s house with plastic sheeting while his own roof lets in the rain. In his humble home, he is reported to have followed keenly the progress of the revolution in the Chinese nation and the world; thus it was said of him that ‘his body was in the hired hand’s hut, and his eyes on the whole world’.26 Illustrations inserted in the text depict Wang studying Mao’s works at home and on his deathbed, and holding a copy of Mao’s works aloft in front of a group of peasant supporters and a slogan celebrating the model Dazhai Brigade. The 20 January issue of Beijing ribao also featured an editorial (shelun 社论) hailing Wang as ‘A Glorious Model of Continuing the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’27 and including an exhortation from then Party vice-​chairman and Mao’s ‘close comrade-​in-​arms’ Lin Biao on the importance of studying the Chairman’s works.

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  121 The same day the editorial and the report were released, a mass rally was held in Dabailou, attended by cadres and peasants from Daxing County, including a group who had walked 80 li (25 miles, or 40 kilometres) to attend, which featured the collective swearing of an oath; the oath is printed in a front-​page article in the following day’s issue of Beijing ribao, reporting the upsurge (rechao 热潮) of the movement to study Wang Guofu: Wang Guofu was an outstanding proletarian warrior raised under the nurture of Mao Zedong Thought, was a fine Party cadre, was a good son of the poor and lower-​middle peasants, and is a model for us to study. Our [purpose in] studying Wang Guofu is so that we will be as unreservedly loyal, as he was, to the Great Leader Chairman Mao, ‘as long as I have a single breath, I will read Chairman Mao’s books, I will protect Chairman Mao;’ it is so that we will live, as he did, with the benefit of the revolution as the first priority, and ‘pull the cart of revolution and don’t relax at the harness, pull it all the way to communism;’ it is so that we will carry out Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, as he did, and ‘obey Chairman Mao’s words, erect the banner of Dazhai, travel the road of Dazhai’ and ‘wholeheartedly pursue socialism;’ it is so that we will bear constantly in mind, as he did, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, wholeheartedly seize power for the revolution, serve the people with heart and mind, living in the ‘hired hand’s hut’ but concerned for the whole world, ‘struggling arduously one’s whole life.28 The front page of the 21 January issue also features a ‘worker-​peasant soldier roundtable’ (gong-​nong-​bing luntan 工农兵论坛) on Wang, and on page 4 there is a 24-​image pictorial biography, which was subsequently reprinted in full as the opening pages of a notebook graced by the familiar portrait of Wang Guofu on its front cover, with a Mao quotation extolling self-sacrifice on the opening page (Figure 5.3). Pictures featuring the adult Wang post-​1949 follow the image in the poster, and almost all (seventeen of 21) have him wearing the same distinctive cap; two exceptions, in which he appears bare-​headed, are the picture of him carrying the old woman to safety in the rain, and the final image of him studying Mao’s works on his deathbed, Lin Biao’s exhortation to do so from the calligraphic frontispiece of the Little Red Book (Quotations of Chairman Mao) on a sheet of paper pinned to the wall (Figure 5.4). The opening of the campaign, and the first two days of coverage in Beijing ribao, are a demonstration of a highly organized and intensive propaganda drive to introduce a Model and induce mass emulation of him among the target audience, peasant commune members and the local officials in charge of them, through words, images and activities. The qualities to be cultivated by both groups at this point in the Chinese revolution are clearly articulated and frequently repeated, with slogans attributed to Wang and illustrations of heroic acts for those readers who had, like Wang himself, limited literacy. Over the next two weeks, the pressure would be maintained, although somewhat diminished in intensity, with several issues carrying pages devoted exclusively to the campaign under a ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’, or ‘Pull the cart of revolution …’ masthead.

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Figure 5.4  Comrade Wang Guofu used the glorious laosanpian to govern his final moment, putting into practice his vow: I will stand fast with Chairman Mao, make revolution to the end and never turn back! His proletarian spirit of continuing the revolution, ‘pulling the cart of revolution and not …’ will forever inspire us to advance in struggle! (Calligraphic inscription: Study Chairman Mao’s writings, follow his teachings, and act according to his instructions. [signed] Lin Biao).

In Beijing ribao’s 22 January edition, page  4 is devoted to the Wang Guofu campaign. At top left is a section with ten quotations (or ‘noble sayings’ haoyan zhuangyu 豪言壮语) from Wang; below it and to the right are an open letter to the Dabailou team members from a fellow villager now serving in the army and a memoir from a local official, both recalling Wang’s mentorship; and in a section at the foot of the pages entitled ‘stories of Wang Guofu’, two anecdotes appear. The first of these concerns Wang’s use of the ‘three constantly read articles’ to understand his own past and instruct the young on the evils of the old society and the blessings of the present. The writing exhibits a reverence for the image of the leader and the text of his works that verges on fetish:

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  123 As Wang Guofu gazed at the radiant portrait (guanghui huaxiang 光辉画像) and held the gold-​ sparkling (jinguang-​shanshan de 金光闪闪的) ‘three constantly-​read articles’, events from the past flooded his mind.29 The second story reprises Wang’s exploits in saving neighbours from flooded houses; when they say they depend on him, he corrects them –​they are dependent on Chairman Mao, Wang insists –​leading to shouts of ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’.30 In the issue from the next day, 23 January, the ‘Study from Comrade Wang Guofu’ page in Beijing ribao (page 3) contains reports by writers from counties in the Beijing suburbs on practical applications of their emulation of Wang, by basing their behaviour on his, by selecting models among their peasants, by further studying Mao’s works and by using Wang’s exemplary deeds as teaching materials. In other articles, workers from a transportation company bear witness to the effects of their study of Wang’s selflessness, and a report on Model Workers at the Beijing Railway Station demonstrates that even those in humble service positions can win praise as worthy followers of Wang’s example. Both reports end with Wang’s familiar maxim about pulling the cart of revolution, which previews the masthead for the next day’s front page, with the first of three pages in the 24 January issue dedicated to the campaign. This issue leads with articles on the importance of appropriating [living local] exemplars (zhua dianxing 抓典型) for the movement; page 2 contains another selection of ‘noble sayings’ (fifteen this time), mostly Wang’s own resolutions for work and study. These are accompanied by three more stories: the first shows Wang’s alertness in rooting out class enemies opposed to Mao and his policies, while the second reveals his sacrifice of his own village’s harvest by flooding Dabailou’s fields so that neighbouring villages’ crops can be saved, a story whose plot closely resembles that of the Cultural Revolution Model Theatrical Work Song of the Dragon River (Longjiangsong 龙江颂).31 The third story prefigures his own death and bears out the fifth of that day’s ‘noble sayings’:  ‘We’re not afraid of exhaustion, not afraid of losing some weight for [the sake of] the revolution’. In the story, set in the late summer of 1969, Wang collapses in agony from his stomach cancer on his way back from attending a meeting; a doctor is called, but by the time he arrives Wang is at work and refusing treatment, earning him praise as an ‘iron-​man’, a title he modestly declines.32 Wang Guofu’s willingness to work himself to death, and his similarity to the industrial working-​class iron-​man Wang Jinxi of Daqing, add to his aura as the most self-​sacrificing and most proletarian of peasants. Page 4 of the 24 January issue breaks new ground with a spread of photographs of objects and places associated with Wang Guofu and the campaign to study him in motion; these include a group standing outside the famous ‘hired hand’s hut’ being lectured by a guide and an interior view of that building, and a session of class education in the ‘earthen den’ (tu wowo 土窝窝) repurposed by Wang as a schoolroom. Also on display are Wang’s own copies of two of Mao’s works, the Little Red Book of quotations and Five Works by Chairman Mao, which appears in a very grainy image to be open at ‘Serve the People’, complete with the cloth used by him to wrap his copies of

124  Richard King the ‘sacred red books’ (hongbaoshu 红宝书). Less than a week into the campaign, Dabailou has become a place of pilgrimage. Over the next four days, 25–​28 January, the emulation campaign continued vigorously in the pages of Beijing ribao. While heart-​warming reminiscences and reports about Wang continued, the focus moved away from his person, turning to the application of the virtues promoted in the campaign by members of rural communities in the Beijing suburbs, with those considered worthy models held up for praise. A new emphasis was on the stringent demands placed on rural leadership, with some articles noting that many cadres did not work hard enough and were insufficiently protective of local resources, or felt unappreciated and unrewarded for their labours and wished to step aside from their responsibilities. The campaign required those in leadership positions to make sacrifices willingly, as Wang had done, and to expect no reward for their efforts. The 28 January issue includes a clapper-​tale (kuaiban 快板) about Wang Guofu summarizing the qualities presented in the campaign, as one of two ‘materials for revolutionary arts performance’, complete with an image derived from the poster.33 After this, the pace of the campaign slackened, with only two more pages of articles dedicated to it, on 31 January and 5 February. On 31 January, rural cadres write of their determination to follow the example of Wang Guofu and not ‘relax at the harness’, and on 5 February, the campaign is seen to have moved into the city, with the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee publishing a resolution to promote Wang as an object of study suitable for Party members, cadres, workers, peasants and intellectuals. Thereafter, while Beijing ribao continued to concern itself with issues of agricultural leadership and the importance of studying Mao’s works, Wang Guofu played no part. For the time being at least, the emulation campaign was over.

The return of Wang Guofu (1972–​77) The movement that had begun so vigorously was thus abruptly cut short after a bare three weeks, apparently falling victim to new imperatives in cultural policy. According to the novelist Hao Ran, who had been assigned to gather material on Wang Guofu for a biography, the Wang campaign transgressed the injunction to avoid ‘real people and real things’ (zhenren zhenshi 真人真事) articulated by Jiang Qing in her February 1966 address to cultural workers in the military under Lin Biao, and increasingly enforced as the Cultural Revolution developed.34 Hao Ran begins the chapter in his ‘oral autobiography’ (koushu zizhuan 口述自传), which describes the creation of his novel The Golden Road (Jinguang dadao 金光大道), by recalling the way his investigation of Wang Guofu’s life led to his return to writing and inspired the work of which he was most proud. After five years of political struggle and village re-​education between 1966 and 1970, Hao Ran writes (or dictated to his amanuensis): In 1970, a chance opportunity brought me back to Beijing. Wang Guofu, the late team leader from Dabailou Village in Daxing County, had been

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  125 established as a model, and I  was selected to write his biography. Though I had never met the man himself, I was greatly moved after I got to know of his story … Thereupon I swiftly composed ‘The Story of Wang Guofu’ … However People’s Daily published an essay that said it was not permitted to write about real people and real things (zhenren zhenshi). Wu De 吴德, the Party Secretary of the [Beijing] Municipal Committee, was afraid of getting into trouble and blocked publication [of the Wang biography]. I was naturally very disappointed. But then I thought, that’s okay, wasn’t I always thinking of writing another novel [following the success of Bright Sunny Skies (Yanyangtian 艳阳天)]? I could use the newly gathered materials for that.35 The materials assembled by Hao Ran certainly did not go to waste:  much of both the biography and the mythology of Wang Guofu is reprised in The Golden Road, the first volumes of which were published in 1972 and 1974. The novel’s hero Gao Daquan 高达泉, like Wang Guofu, is born in Shandong, and suffers oppression, injustice and deprivation there before moving to the Beijing region and becoming a village Party secretary –​in Gao’s case, in the fictional village of Fangcaodi 芳草地 (Sweet Meadow). Gao follows Wang’s activism in developing cooperatives and collectives, although as the story of The Golden Road finishes in 1955, Gao has no opportunity to be involved in the final stage of collectivization, the creation of the People’s Communes. Gao displays the virtues of Wang Guofu promoted in the emulation campaign  –​frugality, sacrifice, inspirational leadership, devotion to Mao’s writings (in Gao’s case the talisman is the essay ‘Get Organized’), and opposition to the agricultural policies associated with Liu Shaoqi (though Liu himself is not mentioned in the novel). Gao Daquan is also a peasant with idealized proletarian characteristics, learned by observation while on a stint of casual labour in Beijing loading trains with supplies for Chinese soldiers in the Korean War. There, he is profoundly moved as Chen shifu 师傅, a ‘worker elder brother,’ replicates a feat of heroism from the mythology of ‘iron-​ man’ Wang Jinxi, leaping into a vat of liquid cement and stirring it with his own body to prevent it from hardening after the failure of mixing equipment; as he does so, Chen pronounces that, ‘In making revolution, you have to give your all! … I  can keep going. With the nation in my heart, my body has inexhaustible strength’.36 Gao Daquan’s self-​denial, like Wang Guofu’s, extends to his living arrangements: when his younger brother demands the division of family assets, Gao Daquan takes the smaller part of their shared house and possessions for himself and his family, joking that they are now truly the ‘unpropertied class/​proletariat’ (wuchanjieji 无产阶级).37 In his fictional alter ego Gao Daquan, Wang Guofu –​himself a mythic figure as well as a historical personality –​remained a prominent feature of Chinese culture: The Golden Road was the major Cultural Revolution novel, by that decade’s leading writer. Wang Guofu was to return under his own name at the end of 1975, however, and briefly continue his service as an exemplary peasant cadre, though no longer as the central figure of an emulation campaign. Wang’s reappearance was in three stories presented in comic-​strip form, first over three issues of the

126  Richard King journal Lianhuan huabao 连环画报 (Serial Pictures Gazette) between November 1975 and January 1976, and then as a comic book titled Stories of Wang Guofu (Wang Guofu de gushi 王国福 的故事) in 1977. The first episode to appear in Lianhuan huabao begins with a very brief introduction to the central figure; his saying about pulling the cart of revolution is included, but there is no exhortation to study from him. ‘The story of the Melon Patch’ (Guayuan de gushi 瓜园的故事) is a tale of frugality with state property and high standards set for local officials.38 Wang is seen tending the communal plot but denying himself and his colleagues the taste of melons. In a flashback, the reader is reminded that even when taking some hay to his home, Wang had it weighed and charged to his account.39 Wang uses Mao’s praise of Norman Bethune’s unselfishness as a lesson for anyone in a position of responsibility. When a peasant presents Wang with the gift of a melon, he and his son take it to a needier neighbour. The following month’s episode, ‘The Water is Clear and the Rice-​shoots are Green’ (Shui qing dao lü 水清稻绿), set in 1965, is the only one of the three concerned with political struggle.40 A visiting official tries to force Wang Guofu to adopt Liu Shaoqi’s policy of personal incentives to increase agricultural production. Wang angrily refuses, upholding the Dazhai model of self-​reliance, and wins the visitor over. The final fantasy image of a bountiful harvest in a mechanized village is set the following year, 1966, as the Cultural Revolution begins; Wang extols Dazhai and denounces Liu Shaoqi (Figure 5.5). The final episode, inevitably, is the ‘Hired Hand’s Hut’.41 The caption to the first frame mentions his ‘pull the cart of revolution’ slogan and his devotion to Dazhai, and subsequent frames feature his refusal to move out of his hovel and the rescue of neighbours from their own houses in a storm (Figure 5.6). A final image has a robust Wang marching to work with his fellow commune members, a banner behind them encouraging the study of Dazhai (Figure 5.7)

Figure 5.5 Not long after, the grand and dynamic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began. Wang Guofu led the poor and lower-​middle peasants of Dabailou village in criticizing the counter-​revolutionary revisionist line pushed by Liu Shaoqi, and continuing to implement Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and stir up a high tide of studying Dazhai in agriculture, so that they would reap bumper grain harvests year after year, and continue to change the face of Dabailou.

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  127

Figure 5.6 Late in the night, Wang Guofu waded door to door through deep and shallow water to see how things were. Aunty Zhang, who was in her sixties, was prostrate on her kang [brick bed] with illness, and her house was muddy everywhere. Wang Guofu ran inside and grasped the old woman’s hand: ‘You can’t stay here, come with me right now!’

The return of Wang Guofu, notwithstanding the ‘real person’ that he had been, and the ‘real events’ embellished in the stories, can be seen to show that the Communist Party leadership in the last months of the Mao era had become aware of the continuing need to cultivate the qualities of loyalty and sacrifice that Wang embodied, and to assure the peasantry of the prosperous future that socialist collectivism would bring them. The artwork of the Lianhuan huabao series is more refined and detailed than the drawings that had been rushed to press almost six years earlier in Beijing ribao, but the image of Wang Guofu remains largely unchanged. The face and physique are still those of the poster that launched the campaign, the cap remains present whenever possible, and the shovel appears –​frequently over Wang’s shoulder –​in many of the frames. However, in a series created as the Cultural Revolution drew to an end, the Mao badge and the booklet in Wang’s pocket are no longer to be seen. These three stories, with the same images and few changes to the accompanying texts, fill the comic book Tales of Wang Guofu, published in February 1977 with a

128  Richard King

Figure 5.7 The outstanding proletarian warrior and Communist Party member Wang Guofu worked arduously at the task of building from inside his ‘hired hand’s hut’, decades passing as a single day. This resplendent ‘hired hand’s hut’ was like a wall a hundred thousand feet tall opposing and protecting against revisionism. Comrade Wang Guofu’s revolutionary spirit encourages others to advance in struggle along the highway of continuing revolution! (slogan at lower left: In Agriculture, Study Dazhai).

print run of half a million copies.42 For this final version of the Wang Guofu story in pictures, the order of episodes is changed, with ‘Hired Hand’s Hut’ leading, followed by ‘The Story of the Melon Patch’, with ‘The Water is Clear …’, now more explicitly titled ‘Walking the Road of Dazhai’ (Zou Dazhai lu 走大寨路), concluding the book. No introduction to Wang Guofu is provided at the beginning: readers are assumed to know the outline of his biography, even as they are to be reminded, and to make the younger generation aware, of his heroic exploits. The comic book appeared during the brief tenure of Hua Guofeng 华国锋 as both Party chairman and state premier following the death of Mao and the arrest of his closest associates in September and October of the previous year. Hua’s claim to legitimacy was based on his being Mao’s personally selected successor, and he had pledged to follow whatever Mao said; thus the condemnation of Liu Shaoqi,

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  129 the collectivization of agriculture, and model status of Dazhai remained in place. The foundation of Hua’s power would crumble by the end of the following year, with the Central Committee plenum of November 1978 that saw him replaced as leader by Deng Xiaoping; Liu Shaoqi’s reputation was restored, the People’s Communes formed under Mao were disbanded in favour of a system of private farming beyond anything Liu Shaoqi could have conceived, and Dazhai Brigade was denounced as a fraud, its successes the result of state investment in a prestige project rather than its vaunted self-​sufficiency. This last shift was perhaps particularly damaging to Hua, who had risen to prominence as a rural leader and booster of Dazhai, and had given the keynote speech at a major conference on Dazhai in 1975 before his elevation to the position of Premier.43 With Mao’s aura dented, although not destroyed, and his agricultural policies abandoned, Wang Guofu’s posthumous Model status was unsustainable as the age of reform and opening began.

Frozen in time: A socialist model peasant Wang Guofu, the exemplary peasant cadre, remains frozen in time, best remembered as the proud figure painted by Liu Chunhua for the 1970 poster, standing in an idealized scene of socialist abundance and looking ahead to the rosy future of communism. The campaign to promote him as a worthy model for China’s peasantry serves as a case study for Mao-​era emulation campaigns. It featured a multi-​pronged approach over the visual and printed media accessible to the target population, supported by elite gatherings, public events and directives from above. Perhaps the most distinctive feature was the repeated designation of Wang as proletarian, with the proletariat being seen as a more advanced and politically aware class than the peasantry, and a class more readily involved in promoting the economic and political ambitions of the nation’s leaders, both at home and abroad. In line with the normative virtues attributed to the proletariat, Wang Guofu was presented as a model of loyalty to the state, its property, its leader and his policies; inexhaustible in his labour, denying himself, his family and his colleagues among the local cadres the current benefits of socialism. Reading the simple and much repeated quotations attributed to Wang, some of them included in the ‘noble sayings’ panels in the flurry of materials in the pages of Beijing ribao in January 1970, it is hard not to think of the carthorse Boxer in George Orwell’s savage allegory of Stalin’s Soviet Union, Animal Farm. In Orwell’s ‘fairy tale’, written several years before the establishment of the PRC and published in 1945, Boxer plays the part of the proletariat (though he is, of course, an agricultural worker), on whom the success of nation-​building (or farm-​ building) depends: Nothing could have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength seemed equal to that of all of the rest of the animals put together … His two slogans ‘I will work harder’ and ‘Napoleon is always right’, seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems.44

130  Richard King Boxer’s twin mantras are echoed in two of Wang’s ‘noble sayings’: ‘If you put up with a little more hardship, you won’t turn revisionist’45 and ‘As long as I have breath, I will study Chairman Mao’s works’.46 The principal workforce of the new society in Animal Farm, Boxer is underfed, exploited and exhausted on an ill-​ conceived construction project that ends in disaster, and finally consigned to the slaughterhouse. Like Wang Guofu, Boxer ignores all suggestions that he should look after his health, and is willing –​even keen –​to work himself to death for the leader (the pig Napoleon, representing Stalin) and his great cause. After Boxer’s death, his friends are reminded of this devotion and public-​spiritedness in the leader’s own words: Napoleon ended his speech with a reminder of Boxer’s two favourite maxims, ‘I will work harder’ and ‘Comrade Napoleon is always right’ –​maxims, he said, which every animal would do well to adopt as his own.47 The untranslatable quality ascribed by their admirers to China’s peasants –​that they are laoshi 老实 (honest, long-​suffering, docile, obedient, naïve)  –​did not work to their advantage in the Mao era. Depended upon to finance the nation’s industrialization through increases in agricultural production, and required to do so without asking for state assistance, they suffered disproportionately during the Great Leap Forward and the famines that followed it (a horror absent from the tales of Wang Guofu, as it was from other Cultural Revolution writings), but were still enjoined to wait for the promised benefits that socialism would bring. The Wang Guofu of the campaign to promote him as a Model, for all his rhetoric of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, is profoundly laoshi in his trust in and dedication to the leader. Wang is the embodiment of the three texts of his beloved laosanpian: like Zhang Side, the humble subject of ‘Serve the People’, he laboured and died in an unglamorous role but was eulogized after his death; and, like Bethune, he was ‘utterly without self-​interest and dedicated to the benefit of others’. Of the three models held up for study and emulation in the laosanpian, however, it is the Foolish Old Man that Wang resembles most: each of them was prepared to dedicate his life and those of his descendants to the pursuit of a distant, even unattainable, dream to transform the world around them.48 Wang was not a suitable model for the years of reform and opening, nor is he appropriate for the China Dream of the Xi Jinping era, and he has disappeared from Communist Party mythology. The creation of wealth has replaced abstemiousness and self-​denial as the goal to be pursued, and when the virtues of honesty, respect and obedience are extolled, state propagandists tend to favour the rhetoric of Confucianism over that of socialism. Post-​socialist China has no place for Wang Guofu.

Notes 1 For Stakhanov and the campaign to nurture Stakhanovites, see Victoria E.  Bonnell, Iconography of Power:  Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 36–​37 and Figure 1.17. Bonnell writes

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  131 (p.  37):  ‘The shock worker and Stakhanovite campaigns were designed, at least in part, to provide a blueprint for becoming an exemplary worker and a new Soviet man’; an image of Wang Jinxi, and a brief introduction to him, can be found in Stefan Landsberger’s online archive at https://​chineseposters.net/​themes/​wangjinxi.php. For female tractor drivers, see the section on ‘Picturing Socialism: A Case Study’ in Richard King, ‘Cultural Revolution’, in S.A. Smith, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 541–​56, esp. 549–​51, and Melanie Ilič, ‘Traktoristka: Representations and Realities’, in Melanie Ilič, ed., Women in the Stalin Era (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 110–​30; and for an image of Liang Jun with a tractor and her model worker rosette, see the Landsberger archive at https://​ chineseposters.net/​themes/​tractor-​girls.php. 2 For an introduction to Lei Feng, and a selection of images, see the Landsberger archive at https://​chineseposters.net/​themes/​leifeng.php. 3 For the place of sentiment in the narrative of socialist realism, see Li Yang 李扬, Kangzheng suming zhi lu  –​ ’shehuizhuyi xianshizhuyi’ (1942–​ 1976) yanjiu 抗争宿命之路:  ‘社会主义现实主义研究’ (1942–​ 76) (The path of resisting fatalism:  research on ‘Socialist Realism’ (1942–​ 76) (Changchun:  Shidai wenyi chubanshe, 1993), p. 45. 4 Evgeny Dobrenko, Political Economy of Socialist Realism, trans. Jesse M.  Savage. (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2007), p.  19. Dobrenko references Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants, 262, and Stalin, Problems of Leninism. 5 I have explored the denigration of peasant consciousness elsewhere; see the sections ‘How to transform a heroic archetype’ and ‘How to transform a peasant archetype’ from the chapter on Hao Ran’s 浩然 The Golden Road (Jinguang dadao 金光大道) in Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road: Writing for Chinese Socialism 1945–​80 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press), pp.120–​32; and Richard King, ‘Great Changes in Critical Reception:  Red Classic Authenticity and the Eight Black Theories’, in Rosemary Roberts and Li Li, eds, The Making and Remaking of China’s ‘Red Classics’: Politics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture (Hong Kong:  Hong Kong University Press, 2017), pp. 22–​41. In the Soviet context, peasants were more likely to be eulogized after they had left the village and joined the industrial proletariat, although there were peasant Stakhanovites under Stalin, most of them women who collected record harvests. For this insight, I am grateful to my colleague Serhy Yekelchyk (personal correspondence, 26 January 2017). 6 For example, quotations from Wang invariably use Beijing-​area dialect an 俺and anmen 俺们 for ‘I’ and ‘we’ respectively. 7 The poster, and a brief introduction to Wang Guofu, can be found in Stefan Landsberger’s online archive at https://​chineseposters.net/​themes/​wangguofu.php. 8 For the range of the ‘typical’ (dianxing 典型) in Chinese socialist rhetoric, see Richard King, ‘Typical People in Typical Circumstances’, in Ban Wang, ed., Words and Their Stories:  Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution (Leiden:  Brill, 2011), pp. 185–​204. 9 Dobrenko describes the reality of Socialist Realism as a ‘mimesis of ideology’ in Political Economy of Socialist Realism, p.  13. He continues:  ‘Socialist Realism describes a world to the existence of which only it bears witness.’ (italics in original). 10 Compare with ‘The East is red,/​The sun rises,/​China has produced a Mao Zedong …’, the opening lines of the anthem The East is Red (Dongfang hong 东方红). 11 For Cultural Revolution Mao portraiture, see Wang Mingxian 王明贤 and Yan Shanchun 严善錞, Xin Zhongguo Meishu tu shi 新中国美术图史 (History of the Fine

132  Richard King Arts in New China; English subtitle The Art History of the People’s Republic of China) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 2000). 12 For the physical attributes of the Cultural Revolution hero (including those cited here), see Lan Yang, Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), pp. 49–​59. 13 In the poster image cited in note 1, Iron-​man Wang Jinxi shares Wang Guofu’s choice of reading matter and placement of the booklet. 14 The three constantly read articles (laosanpian) were ‘Serve the People’ (Wei renmin fuwu 为人民服务), Mao Zedong xuanji 毛泽东选集(Selected Works of Mao Zedong, 4 vols.). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1969, 3: 905–​7; ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune’ (Jinian Baiqiu’en 纪念白求恩), Mao Zedong xuanji 2:620–​2; and ‘The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains’ (Yugong yishan 愚公移山), Mao Zedong xuanji 3: 1001–​04. ‘Get Organized’ (Zuzhi qilai), Mao Zedong xuanji 3: 882–​90 is the essay that serves as the subtext for Hao Ran’s novel Jinguang dadao, the hero of which was based on Wang Guofu (of which more below). 15 Front cover image for the pictorial biography Wuchanjieji youxiu zhanshi Wang Guofu 无产阶级优秀战士王国福 (Outstanding Proletarian Warrior Wang Guofu) (Beijing: no publishing house, 1970), https://​wx.abbao.cn/​a/​1269-​60df804ea2ee72bf. html. 16 In cases where the individual artist is unnamed, composition is often ascribed to creation groups or collectives. Also missing from the metadata are the publication details and print-​run numbers almost invariably included on each poster; the only information is the date, 1970, and the place, Beijing. 17 The process whereby a young academy faculty member participated anonymously in a purportedly collective portrait of Mao is described by the artist in Shengtian Zheng, ‘Brushes are Weapons:  An Art School and its Artists’, in Richard King, ed., Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966–​1976 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2010), pp. 93–​106. For more on the treatment of artists in the early years of the Cultural Revolution, see Julia F. Andrews, ‘The Art of the Cultural Revolution’ in King, Art in Turmoil, pp. 27–​57. 18 Julia F. Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 338–​9; Wang Mingxian and Yan Shanchun, Xin Zhongguo Meishu tu shi, pp.  62–​8. See also Zheng Shengtian, ‘Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan:  A Conversation with the Artist Liu Chunhua’, in Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, eds, Art and China’s Revolution (New York: Asia Society, 2008), pp. 119–​31. 19 Wang Mingxian and Yan Shanchun, Xin Zhongguo Meishu tu shi, p. 65. 20 Zheng Shengtian, ‘Interview’, p. 128. 21 On 21 May 2019, Liu Chunhua provided answers to questions posed to him on 16 May concerning his preparation of the Wang poster. I am grateful to Liu Zengyue for facilitating this exchange. 22 Xiang Wang Guofu tongzhi xuexi, n.d. 23 ‘Beijing shi geming weiyuanhui guanyu xuexi Wang Guofu tonggzhi de jueding 北京市革命委员会关于学习王国福德决定’ (Resolution of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee concerning the study of Comrade Wang Guofu), Beijing ribao, 20 January 1970. 24 ‘La geming che bu song tao, yizhi la dao gongchanzhuyi  –​ji wuchanjieji youxiu zhanshi Wang Guofu 拉革命车不松套,一直拉到共产主义 (Pull the cart of revolution and don’t relax at the harness, Pull it all the way to communism –​remembering

Anatomy of an emulation campaign  133 the outstanding proletarian warrior Wang Guofu)’, Beijing ribao and Renmin ribao, 20 January 1970; reprinted in Xiandai wenzhang xuandu 现代文章选读 (Collected Modern Essays) (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 1976), pp. 76–​93, with an additional ‘brief analysis’ jianxi 简析 appended, pp. 94–​100; translated as ‘ “Pull the Cart of Revolution All the Way to Communism and Never Slacken” –​story of Wang Guofu, a Fine Proletarian Fighter’, in Outstanding Proletarian Fighters (Beijing:  Foreign Languages Press, 1971), pp. 1–​21. Both collections also feature an essay on iron-​man Wang Jinxi of Daqing. This translated volume has a monochrome version of the Wang Guofu poster on the front cover. 25 Beijing ribao, 20 January 1970: 3 (ellipses in the original). 26 Beijing ribao, 20 January 1970, section subhead on p.  2. A  lesson featuring Wang Guofu in textbooks prepared for foreign students at Beijing Languages Institute (now Beijing University of Language and Culture) was titled ‘Changgongwu’ (Hired Hand’s Hut) and focused on this aspect of Wang’s biography. I studied the text in 1975; sadly, I no longer have my copies of these textbooks. 27 ‘Wuchanjieji-​ zhuanzheng xia jixu geming de guanghui bangyang 无产阶级专政下继续革命的光辉榜样’, Beijing ribao, 20 January 1970, p. 2. 28 ‘Daxing xian xianqi xiang Wang Guofu tongzhi xuexi rechao’ 大兴县掀起向王 国福同志学习的热潮 (Daxing County Mounts an Upsurge for Studying Comrade Wang Guofu), Beijing ribao, 21 January 1970, p. 1. 29 ‘Xin honghong sihuo’ 心红红似火 (Heart Red as Flame), Beijing ribao, 22 January 1970, 4. In a critical moment in the film of the novel Jinguang dadao, a work indebted to the Wang Guofu campaign, similar reverence is shown to a Mao work, this time Zuzhuqilai, as a copy of the booklet is brought out in its cloth wrapper and opened up for public adoration to the strains of ‘The East is Red’. See King, Milestones, p. 134; Sun Yu, dir., Jinguang dadao: shang (The Golden Road: Part 1) (Changchun: Changchun dianying zhipianchang, 1975). 30 ‘Quan kao Mao-​zhuxi de hao lingdao’ 全靠毛主席的好领导 ([We] Depend Totally on Chairman Mao’s Fine Leadership), Beijing ribao, 22 January 1970, p. 4. 31 In that opera (not yet filmed at the time of the Wang Guofu emulation campaign), purportedly based on a real incident in Fujian Province, villagers agree to flood their own lands after group study of Mao’s eulogy of Bethune. 32 ‘Wei shehuizhuyi huochu ming gan’ 为社会主义豁出命干 (Work for Socialism at Any Cost), Beijing ribao, 24 January 1970, p. 2. 33 Xianghongnong 向红农 (a pen-​name meaning ‘towards a red peasantry’), ‘Wannianlao 万年劳’ (Labouring for ten thousand years [reportedly a nickname given to Wang for his unstinting work]), Beijing ribao, 28 January 1970, p. 4. 34 I first learned of this in an interview with Hao Ran in May 1981. For Jiang Qing’s February 1966 speech on the arts, see ‘Lin Biao tongzhi weituo Jiang Qing tongzhi zhaokai de budui wenyi gongzuo zuotanhui baogao’ 林彪同志委托江青同 志召开的部队里文艺工作座谈会报告 in Jiang Qing tongzhi jianghua xuanbian 江青同志讲话选编 (Selected Speeches of Comrade Jiang Qing). (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1969), pp.  1–​17; translated as ‘Summary of the Forum on the Work in Literature and Art in the Armed Forces with which Comrade Lin Piao [Lin Biao] Entrusted Comrade Chiang Ching [Jiang Qing]’, Peking Review, 2 June 1967, pp. 10–​16. 35 Hao Ran, Wode rensheng: Hao Ran koushu zizhuan 我的人生：浩然口述自传 (My Life: Hao Ran’s Oral Autobiography) (Beijing: Huayi chubanshe, 2000), pp. 273–​4, ellipsis mine. The story of Hao Ran’s biography of Wang is the subject of Yang Xiao

134  Richard King 杨啸, ‘Wang Guofu de gushi houji’ 王国福的故事后记’ (Epilogue to The Story of Wang Guofu), http://​blog.sina.com.cn/​s/​blog_​a6a6a4cf01016dab.html, dated 19 June 2012. Yang reports that after Hao Ran’s ‘biographical literature’ piece ‘Wang Guofu’ was rejected by People’s Daily, he gave the manuscript to Yang to write up as a book for young readers. That manuscript was among Hao Ran’s papers at the time of his death, and was only returned to Yang by Hao Ran’s son in 2012. 36 Hao Ran, Jinguang dadao, 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1972), pp. 156–​8 (ellipsis mine). Both Chen and Wang are additionally injured at the time of their heroic acts. For the iron-​man story, see ‘Zhongguo gongren jieji de xianfeng zhanshi –​tieren Wang Jinxi’ 中国工人阶级的先锋战士  –​ 铁人王近喜 (Vanguard Warrior of the Chinese Industrial Working Class  –​Ironman Wang Jinxi), Renmin ribao, 28 January 1972, reprinted in Xiandai wenzhang xuandu, 1–​29, esp. p. 7. See also: King, Milestones, p. 129. 37 Hao Ran, Jinguang dadao, 1, 574; King, Milestones, p. 129. 38 Spare-​time Composition Group of Red Star Commune, Daxing County, Beijing, and Our Paper’s (Lianhuan huabao) Reporters, ‘Guayuan de gushi’, Lianhuan huabao, 11 (1975), 23–​26 (23 frames). 39 The story of weighing grass is cited in the ‘worker-​ peasant-​ soldier forum’ of 24 January, titled ‘Yiba cao ye dei jianjian jin 一把草也得见见斤’ ([Even If We Take] a Handful of Hay We Must Check the Weight)’, Beijing ribao, 24 January 1970, p. 1. The full quotation, ‘Those of us who are cadres, even if we take a handful of hay we must check the weight’, is included in Wang’s ‘noble sayings’, Beijing ribao, 26 January 1970, p. 2. 40 The Political Division of the 51118 [Military] Brigade, and Our Paper’s (Lianhuan huabao) Reporters, ‘Shui qing dao lü’, Lianhuan huabao, 12 (1975), 2–​7 (33 frames). 41 Spare-​time Composition Group of Red Star Commune, Daxing County, Beijing, and Our Paper’s (Lianhuan huabao) Reporters, ‘Changgongwu’, Lianhuan huabao, 1 (1976), 12–​16 and 21–​22 (41 frames). 42 Spare-​time Composition Group of Red Star Commune, Daxing County, Beijing, Political Division of the 51118 [Military] Brigade and Our Paper’s [Lianhuan huabao] Reporters, Wang Guofu de gushi 王国福 的故事 (Stories of Wang Guofu) (Beijjing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1977). 43 Posters of Hua Guofeng at Dazhai, and an introduction to his relationship with the Dazhai Brigade and its leader Chen Yonggui, can be found in Stefan Landsberger’s archive at https://​chineseposters.net/​themes/​huaguofeng-​dazhai.php. 44 George Orwell, Animal Farm:  A Fairy Story (London:  Secker and Warburg, 1962), pp. 49–​50, ellipsis mine. 45 Beijing ribao, 26 January 1970, p. 2. 46 Beijing ribao, 21 January 1970, p. 2. 47 Orwell, Animal Farm, p. 97; see also the Mao quotation cited above and presented as Figure 5.3, which was used to open the Wang Guofu notebook. 48 For the role of the Foolish Old Man in Cultural Revolution propaganda, see Barbara Mittler, A Continuous Revolution:  Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 2018–​30, esp. 216–​17, where Wang Guofu’s dying words are quoted, and 217–​23, concerning the use of the Foolish Old Man in promoting the myth of Dazhai.

Part III

Reception and affect

6  Developing patriotic anti-​Americanism Chinese propaganda and the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign, 1949–​53 Andrew Kuech By the 1 October inauguration of Chinese Communist rule in 1949, Mao Zedong’s anti-​imperialist credo and his derision of an American enemy were well established within Communist Party discourse. The failed US support for Chiang Kai-​shek’s Nationalist forces during the years of Chinese Civil War and Mao’s ideological antipathies for ‘imperialists’ and ‘capitalist roaders’ had increasingly brought a singular focus upon a specifically American threat. As Mao explained in an 18 August 1949 address: The war to turn China into a US colony, a war in which the United States of America supplies the money and guns and Chiang Kai-​shek the men to fight for the United States and slaughter the Chinese people, has been an important component of the US imperialist policy of world-​wide aggression since World War II … by seizing China, the United States would possess all of Asia.1 In this vision, American imperialism not only threatened China but menaced the whole world with the spectre of invasion. As a nationalized propaganda effort, confronting the many ideological and physical forms of American imperialism was to be understood as a fundamental aim of the nascent Chinese Communist state. Fomenting collective Chinese antipathy for the United States would help to propel many of the Communist Party’s efforts to shape the social and political landscape of the ‘new’ Chinese nation. Evidenced in the profusion of imagery, explanations and denunciations of ‘America’ to fill the Communist presses after 1949, promoting Mao’s derision of the United States was a prioritized objective for Chinese propaganda officials in the first years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As many scholars have shown, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often used fears of ‘American imperialists’ to advance or promote its political and developmental goals throughout Mao’s tenure. Mao regularly rallied his Communist forces during the Chinese Civil War by railing against an American-​backed foe.2 Purges of Nationalist collaborators during the early Anti-​Rightist Campaigns often used sympathy for or collaboration with ‘Americans’ as evidence of subversive wrongdoing.3 The entirety of the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign covered in this chapter followed a similar

138  Andrew Kuech anti-​American premise.4 Elements of propaganda from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution also drew heavily upon anti-​American rhetoric.5 As a matter of deliberate or agitational propaganda, the deployment of a purposeful anti-​Americanism became a constitutive element of Chinese official discourse and policy. The cultivation of such anti-​American attitudes and the ubiquitous publication of anti-​American imagery fits within a larger and patterned propagandistic, political and developmental project of the nascent Chinese Communist state during its early years of post-​1949 rule. Seeking to maintain a perpetual revolutionary and wartime mobilization of the Chinese public, Chinese officials worked to frame virtually all domestic and international political projects within the language, performance and imagery of total war. Both before and especially during the years of the Korean conflict, Chinese propagandists routinized the idea that China was under imminent threat from its external enemies. Efforts to galvanize the public to support and participate in the Communist Party’s many dramatic political, social and economic reforms relied upon the invocation that these transformations, and their requisite sacrifices, were necessary for a militarized protection of the Chinese homeland. Convincing Chinese society that it was locked within an epochal struggle against its capitalist and American rivals required a total propagandistic mobilization in its own right. As this chapter will show, the Communist regime confronted widespread lingering positive and ambivalent opinions of the United States as it came to power in 1949. Seeking to remould these popular attitudes, Chinese officials embarked on a nationwide mission to reshape the political beliefs of the Chinese public. Through an array of visual, discursive and performative imaginings of the American enemy, Chinese propagandists flooded virtually all sectors of Chinese social and political life with pointed and catered messaging that demonized the United States and rallied the country for war. Decisively persuading the Chinese citizenry that the American threat was both real and imminent remained a concern for Chinese officials throughout the early 1950s. There was perhaps no greater propagandistic opportunity for such an effort than the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. The entrance of US troops into Korea in June 1950 and their eventual confrontation with Chinese forces four months later epitomized Mao’s central claims against the United States as a Chinese and global imperialist aggressor. Yet this was more than an opportune moment for piqued propagandistic antipathy:  Chinese propagandists purposefully honed and developed the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign to promote new notions of Chinese patriotism, civic duty and Party devotion. Propaganda handbooks, departmental memos and the various different propaganda materials and activities developed during the war mobilization all point to a concerted attempt to utilize a range of anti-​American tropes as pedagogical and agitational tools to shape popular political attitudes towards the ideological and developmental goals of the state. While Chinese propagandists sought to cater anti-​ American imagery and ideas to specific and localized demographics across China throughout the Resist

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  139 America, Aid Korea Campaign, the uncertain extent to which the Chinese public ultimately embraced these concepts illuminates a larger problematic of propaganda production and reception faced by Chinese (and all) propaganda officials. Despite the enthusiasm and considerable effort devoted by Chinese propagandists to craft convincing and affectively charged anti-​American propaganda, evidence of the actual adoption of these political ideas by the general public proved elusive. This chapter documents how Chinese propaganda officials labouriously sought to find new and effective means of persuasion that would resonate with a Chinese public that was often indifferent or uninspired by their messages. Concerns about the ebbs and flows of popular opinion, however, were outmatched by the steadfast commitment of Chinese propaganda officials to ceaselessly ‘deepen and popularize’ their propaganda methods and messages. The constant and overt production of new ideas about the Chinese Communist Party, the New China and the threat of China’s decidedly American adversary was in many ways understood by Chinese authorities as more important for the political development of the Chinese state than the total acceptance of these ideas by the Chinese citizenry.

Imagining an American enemy Following public denunciations launched by Mao Zedong in 1949 against what he decried as ‘the smug calculations of US aggressors’ revealed within the recently released American White Paper Report, the post-​war Chinese presses introduced one of the first waves of anti-​American ideas and imagery to the Chinese public. Notably, these efforts predated the outbreak of war in Korea. Treatment of the United States was largely ambivalent in the Communist presses before and during the 1949 transition. Mao’s declarations against the White Paper Report, however, prompted Chinese propagandists across the mainland to produce editorials, propaganda booklets, newspaper articles and political cartoons that would paint the United States as the distinct enemy of the Chinese people.6 Mirroring Mao’s heightened accusations against American imperialism, this propaganda worked to demonstrate in simplified imagery and didactic prose the plotting ambitions of the United States. As one booklet explained, ‘Our first lesson is that the American imperialist government is deeply antagonistic towards Chinese national interests and the rights of the Chinese people’.7 An enemy defined by its desire to invade and control the Chinese mainland, the United States was to be understood as a looming and imminent threat. The propagandistic exercise to spread these ideas across the young Communist nation catered to all audiences. Even within children’s magazines, young readers were introduced to the details of the report and the plans of ‘American imperialists’. As one ‘White Paper Report Song’ asked and answered, ‘What does the White Paper Report Say? It says it wants to make China a stubborn baby!’8 Such introductions to a vague and rather abstruse American threat translated the musings of Mao into decipherable and straightforwardly denunciatory ideas. The outbreak of the Korean War in July 1950 marked a turning point in what would become a mass amplification of anti-​American propaganda to fill the

140  Andrew Kuech Communist presses (covered below). However, as Party rhetoric increasingly lambasted the United States in the early 1950s as part of a concerted war effort, attempts to bring pointed ideas about the United States to the Chinese public confronted a stubborn reality for Chinese officials. Despite the wave of popular enthusiasm for the new Communist regime, the Chinese public remained largely apathetic to Party proclamations against an American enemy. Anger towards American military support of the Chinese Nationalists and against US foreign policies had spiked in some urban areas by the end of the 1940s, yet many Chinese people still held favourable attitudes towards the United States.9 Chinese students frequently sought American educational exchange, urban Chinese residents enjoyed American popular culture and Hollywood films proved immensely popular. Such positive views stymied the efforts of the Mao government, which was actively intent upon remoulding public sentiment towards the orthodoxies of an anti-​imperialist Chinese Communism. Internal CCP memos both nationally and locally reveal a dogged concern of these persistently ambivalent and favourable attitudes of the United States held by portions of the Chinese population. In Zhejiang Province, for instance, Chinese officials fretted that ‘many industrial workers still revere American weapons, fear American diseases, and think American military strength is still great’ and noted that, ‘Shopkeepers still regularly listen to Voice of America radio broadcasts as a reliable source of information’.10 Propaganda officials in Shanghai likewise expressed frequent concerns over prevailing ‘incorrect attitudes’ about the United States held by segments of the local public.11 To counter these positive or ambivalent attitudes, Chinese officials launched a massive propaganda effort to reimagine the United States in the Chinese Communist image. Within all forms of state and local propaganda, ‘American imperialists’ were to be defined and castigated as the clear ideological foils to the nascent Chinese Communist state. Streamlining these ideas, Chinese propagandists of all stripes were called upon to invert the prevailing three ‘incorrect’ or ambivalent ideas about the United States –​praise (qinmei 亲美); esteem (chongmei 崇美); and fear (kongmei 恐美) –​and substitute them with the three ‘correct’ attitudes –​hatred (choushi 仇视); spite (bishi 鄙视); and scorn (mieshi 蔑视). As one 1951 propaganda handbook explained: Hate America because it is the deadly enemy of the Chinese people. Despise America because it is a corrupt imperialist country, producer of the world’s counter-​revolutionaries. Scorn America because it is a paper tiger that can be completely destroyed.12 Propaganda Department memos and instruction booklets of the 1950s consistently promoted these ‘Three Hates’ objectives and asked local propagandists to integrate them into their daily efforts. Inspiring negative attitudes about the United States, however, required more than popularized policy denunciations like that of the White Paper report. This

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  141 effort began with the total purge of any visible traces of American culture from the Chinese social landscape. After 1949, Chinese officials censored all instances of American ‘influence’ in magazines and newspapers.13 Signs and posters of American products or Hollywood actors were taken off the streets and American films were systematically eliminated from Chinese theatres.14 The institutionalized erasure of all things American from Chinese urban and rural life complemented the veritable explosion of propagandistic imagery of and about the United States produced within the Chinese presses. As a total propagandistic effort, the saturation of the Chinese social, discursive and visual landscape with imagery of the United States before, during and after the Korean War is difficult to over-​emphasize. Headlines, editorials and political cartoons decrying, denouncing or otherwise depicting the United States became wholly ubiquitous within daily newspapers and magazines across China. Thousands of publications specifically focused upon the United States were produced by the Communist presses during the early years of the 1950s.15 Two hundred were published within the first three months of 1951 alone.16 These publications often came in the form of books, booklets or pictorials that rearticulated CCP policy denouncements of the United States or republished editorials from leading Chinese Communist newspapers. In visual, graphic and rhetorical form, imagery of the United States to appear in the Chinese presses retranslated grandiose and illusory denunciations against American imperialism made by CCP officials into more tangible and easily understandable concepts for a national audience. Much of this effort remained trained upon imagining or otherwise defining the United States as a real and specific danger to the Chinese nation. Following Mao’s pronouncements that the United States had ‘taken the place of fascist Germany, Italy and Japan’, Chinese propagandists reimagined the United States as the new face of global totalitarianism.17 Comic books repainted Chinese history as dominated by American imperialist interests with images of Uncle Sam signing unequal treaties, arming the Japanese, tyrannizing Chinese cities and raping Chinese women.18 The neofascist features of the United States were exemplified in the symbolic fusion of Nazi swastikas with American symbols and were reiterated within propaganda booklets that warned of a new American rearmament of Japanese and German forces.19 Emphasizing the plotting calculations of the United States, political cartoons and maps envisioned an American invasion across the Pacific and into East Asia. Various versions of the United States as an evil cephalopod appeared in the Chinese presses with tentacles that reached across the globe and into Asian countries (Figure 6.1). These ideas were entrenched within Communist communicative orthodoxy tacitly demanding that the United States only be referred to as Meidi (美帝), or ‘American imperialists’, rather than the more neutral Meiguo (美国), meaning ‘the United States’. There was a particular emphasis on linking imagery of the United States with still-​recent fears of Japanese imperialism. In concert with Mao’s public rebukes of postwar American interests in Japan, cartoons and editorials envisioned a US power literally rebuilding Hideki Tojo’s army and raising him from the dead

142  Andrew Kuech

Figure 6.1 Li Binghong 黎冰鸿, ‘Zhunbei bazhan quanshijie’ 准备霸占全世界 [Preparing to Occupy the Whole World]. Comic, Jeifang Ribao 解放日报, 4 January 1951, p. 8.

(Figure  6.2). Similar imagery posited General MacArthur as ‘The Japanese Emperor’s American Nanny’ who encouraged the Japanese ‘to continue down the war path and invade the liberated and peace-​loving new Chinese Communist nation’.20 More dramatically, visual amalgamations of Japanese and American imagery were personified and performed during the many mass political rallies routinized under Mao’s tenure. One 1951 ‘Oppose the Armament of Japan’ rally in Shanghai, for instance, witnessed Chinese actors dressed as Japanese soldiers parading through the streets with props of bayonetted women and children. These faux soldiers strode alongside puppets of American generals and other actors posing as American troops or atom bomb-​toting American scientists, some of whom were chained to their Japanese counterparts.21 Such symbolic re-​enactments purposefully drew upon the legacies of Japanese invasion as well as lingering anti-​American sentiments to offer persuasively performative and affectively charged transmutations of Japanese imperialism onto a new, American face. The project to pinpoint a contemporary American imperialism as both an existential and real challenge to the new Chinese nation was complemented by concurrent efforts to vilify, trivialize and admonish the United States and its capitalist way of life. The production of what can be seen as an ‘evil America’ trope appeared across the Chinese presses and within comics, books, street plays, films and posters that emphasized the horrors and absurdities of American capitalism. Chinese propagandists often drew from classic Cold War themes and retranslated

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  143

Figure 6.2 ‘Zhongxin Zhuangbei’ 重新装备 [Re-​Outfitting]. Manhua 漫画, 1  January 1951, p. 13.

works of popular anti-​American Soviet propaganda to craft these ideas, remodelling them for a Chinese audience.22 A travelling low-​brow This is America theatre series, for example, brought live-​action parodies of the United States to Chinese streets. After narrators set scenes of the United States as a ‘very dark, cruel and corrupt place, filled with cheaters, hoodlums, spies, fascist scum, poverty and starvation’,23 audiences watched as performers acted out scenes of extortion by American churches and the Ku Klux Klan or collusions by the US military and American mafia to assassinate politicians.24 Similar themes reappeared repetitively across what was a highly centralized and closed system of Chinese media production. The Chinese presses presented a picture of the United States run by ‘Wall Street fat cats’ who operated American politics and economics with an oligarchic hand. Men in white Ku Klux Klan robes frequently appeared lynching or harassing African Americans. American workers were regularly shown downtrodden, behind prison bars or beaten by police. The pampered lives of American dogs also became a familiar reference to the excesses of an imbalanced US social system.

144  Andrew Kuech Within these renderings, racially charged images of Americans often included long red and hooked snouts that complemented sharp clawed hands or devil horns. Colour was used to connote evilness, with Americans commonly tinged with green or blue skin. Placing the heads of Americans on animal bodies was also commonplace, where one might easily spot a frog-​bodied President Truman, a winged President Eisenhower or a serpentine American officer. The consolidation of all of these different ideas was perhaps best captured within a 1951 poster titled ‘America is a Corrupt Imperialist Country, the Headquarters of the World’s Degenerate Reactionaries’. In this rendering, an American landscape sits under the shadows of the US Capitol, ruled by a Wall Street fat cat. Centaurian President Harry S.  Truman and General Douglas MacArthur beg for dollars while morally depraved, socially unjust and sexually deviant licentiousness prevails beneath them (Figure 6.3).25 Such racialized and sensationalized imagery sat neatly within the orthodoxies of the Cold War-​era anti-​capitalist propaganda of the Communist bloc. These images also grew from and drew upon similar stylistic and illustrative tropes of the Chinese presses that had demonized Japanese leaders and soldiers during the War of Resistance.26 These visual and rhetorical conventions collectively worked to devalue and sow scepticism about a decidedly American ‘other’ whose qualities were as depraved as its imperial ambitions. The development of purposeful and direct renderings of life in the United States under American capitalism also allowed the CCP to portray ‘America’ to its Chinese citizenry in ways that supported a concurrent wave of utopian visions of life under Communism and the munificence of the Soviet Union. It was against the constructed backdrop of an American capitalist system marred by injustice, social unrest and fundamental inequality that visions of the new Chinese Communist state were made self-​evidently appealing. The Chinese presses were often dotted with idyllic or harmonious envisionings of life under new Communist rule. As a nationalized effort meant to galvanize public antipathies and render the United States the idealized and actual threat to the Chinese nation, anti-​American propaganda of the early 1950s did well in providing the visual and discursive materials needed to imagine the United States within the paradigm of Mao’s anti-​ imperialist doctrine. Hyperbolic constructions of the United States in both discursive and visual forms offered critical epistemological mappings of what the new Chinese state was and against whom it was defined. The new PRC was seen to sit both geographically and ideologically within the trained sights of an encroaching American invasion, in need of constant vigilance and mobilization against the danger. More than just an esoteric threat, the visualization of the American enemy in images, words and performances worked to make these dangers real to the average Chinese citizen. While the efficacy of this propaganda is difficult to measure, the integration of these ideas into the fabric of Chinese media and politics marks the desire of Chinese officials to entrench these ideas as a banal part of daily life.

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  145

Figure 6.3 America is a corrupt imperialist country, the base camp of the world reactionaries and degenerates.

Cultivating a patriotic and productive anti-​American citizenry For CCP officials of the early 1950s, there was perhaps no greater fuel for anti-​ American propaganda or ‘proof’ of a conspiring American effort to attack the Chinese mainland than the outbreak of the Korean War. Kim Il-​Sung’s North Korean invasion across the 38th parallel into South Korea, the subsequent entrance of US forces (under the auspices of a UN command) onto the Korean Peninsula, and the deployment of the US Seventh Naval Fleet off Chinese shores in the Taiwan Strait were veritable schadenfreude moments for the Chinese press. Daily

146  Andrew Kuech headlines decrying the ‘Shameful Crimes of American Invaders’27 and in support of ‘the Struggle of the Korean People to Vanquish American Imperialists’28 were plastered across Chinese newspapers, denouncing the actions of an American military aggressor in physical form. Regular documentations of American incursions in Korea and the US blockade of Nationalist-​held Taiwan quickly became evidence of an imminent invasion of the Chinese mainland. With the mobilization of Chinese forces and the eruption of open warfare between China and the United States by October 1950, all the fomented fear and allegorical framing of an evil American invader was shown to be true in actual, albeit sensationalized, circumstances. Far from the surprise invasion of American forces dramatized in the Chinese presses, Chinese officials were well aware of the war’s beginnings and the possibilities of US involvement.29 As Chen Jian has convincingly shown, the mobilization for war in Korea was as much about CCP efforts to solidify Communist rule at home as it was about China’s nascent international ambitions or its desire to defeat American forces.30 The confrontation against an already imaginatively inflated American enemy provided a trove of symbolic capital to vindicate Mao’s anti-​imperialist credo and an impetus for the mass mobilization needed to supply the war effort. Now American imperialism had symbolically and physically arrived on the Chinese doorstep, the young Communist nation needed to confront it militarily. To promote these ideas to a war-​weary Chinese public, the Chinese presses worked assiduously to document ‘American incursions’ on the Korean Peninsula. Drawing upon much of the ‘evil America’ imagery outlined above, Chinese Korean War propaganda centred upon demonized and racialized imaginings of the American enemy pillaging the Korean countryside, dropping bombs on Korean cities or stabbing innocent women and children (Figure 6.4).31 These renderings imagined the American military mobilization as one of wide-​ scale destruction emblematic of imperialist occupation. Still remaining within the stylistic conventions of socialist-​realism propaganda art, the many depravities of American imperialists were at the same time frequently countered with imagery of strong, brave, masculine Chinese and Korean soldiers battling feeble, sickly and emasculated American invaders (Figure 6.5).32 To symbolically and militarily rebuke the perceived, constructed and imagined provocations by ‘American imperialists’, the Chinese government launched one of the most significant political movements to define the first decade of Chinese Communist rule, the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign (Kangmei Yuanchao 抗美援朝). This nationwide campaign saw the total mobilization of Chinese society against its ostensible American foe. From mass rallies to elementary school classrooms, the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign represented a consolidated and far-​reaching attempt by the Chinese government to simultaneously mobilize the country for war and groom a ‘new’ Chinese society in its own image. On a grand scale, the early 1950s saw streets, restaurants, buildings, schools and squares draped in slogans and posters denouncing the United States and spurring on the fight against it. Thousands of books and pamphlets were created and propagated

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  147

Figure 6.4 The Chinese people absolutely cannot condone the encroachment of other countries.

Figure 6.5 Long live the victory of the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers Army!

148  Andrew Kuech throughout the country, outlining the aims and aspirations of the Resist America, Aid Korea movement. Films and theatrical productions were produced en masse and devoted to the struggle of defeating China’s American enemy. These mass productions dominated both urban and rural social spaces with images of war against the United States. While the Chinese government broadly worked to boost popular support for the war, increase economic production and grow its volunteer forces, the Resist America, Aid Korea campaign was principally construed among propaganda officials as both an opportunity to educate the Chinese people and a means to instil them with proper political attitudes and beliefs.33 It was during the Korean War that Chinese propaganda officials consistently reiterated the campaign’s aims of ‘increasing the patriotic and internationalist education’ of the Chinese people.34 The Resist America, Aid Korea mobilization remained one of the top three propagandistic priorities of the Central Propaganda Department for the first half of the 1950s, becoming intertwined with the government’s massive Land Reform and Anti-​Rightist Movements. Central Propaganda Department circulars emphasized the tremendous weight Chinese officials attached to ‘raising the tide’ of this new ‘great propaganda movement critical to the political life of the people’.35 Within a campaign integral to the tutelage of the Chinese public about the aims, qualities and characteristics of what was billed as the New China, depictions of the United States proved a critical component. Far more than just popularized war promotions, Chinese propaganda officials used the pretences of the Resist America, Aid Korea campaign and its focused anti-​Americanism to develop and expand a burgeoning propaganda system that would simultaneously nationalize and localize CCP doctrine and civic education across the mainland. Propaganda handbooks from around the country and Municipal Propaganda Department records from Beijing and Shanghai reveal the concerted efforts of Chinese officials to tailor Resist America, Aid Korea education for specific and local populations. During this time, official party doctrine was commonly conveyed through the rearticulation and explanation of CCP policies within articles and editorials of official Party newspapers, such as the People’s Daily or China Youth. Local municipal, village and neighbourhood propaganda officials as well as students sent from cities down to the countryside were then charged with spreading these ideas to the general public. This ‘two-​stage’ formalized and hierarchical media and propaganda distribution system, commonly referred to among propaganda officials as the ‘propaganda network’, or xuanchuan wang (宣传网), brought standardized messaging from Party headquarters in Beijing to remote villages across China.36 Within this system, ideas of and about the United States were carefully crafted and articulated to specific and local audiences that would more meaningfully understand and digest them. Complementary to the public articulations of CCP policy distributed within the popular presses, the Chinese government produced a variety of instruction manuals that provided more detailed direction for propaganda officials to teach and spread Resist America, Aid Korea ideas. Guidebooks such as the Resist America Aid Korea Propaganda Handbook (抗美援朝宣传手册), the Propaganda Handbook

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  149 (宣传手册) and the Resist America, Aid Korea Propaganda Work Series (抗美 援朝宣传工作丛刊) all contained guidelines on both what and how to teach to particular Chinese demographics. While instructions could likewise be found in widely available magazines such as World Affairs (世界知识) or the Current Affairs Handbook (时事手册), propaganda manuals were often collated for more specific audiences, drawing from regional newspapers and discussions of localized propaganda efforts.37 A brief examination of these directed propaganda tactics sheds light on the both the intentions and manifestations of the CCP effort to bring patriotic anti-​American knowledge to the Chinese people. As an overall strategy to focus heavily upon the village, neighbourhood and work spaces of Chinese social and political life, propaganda officials promoted plans that could directly introduce Resist America, Aid Korea propaganda to the local public. Guidebooks for propaganda artists called for them to ‘draw upon their artistic weapons to smash the enemy’ and cater their artwork to the ‘everyday interests and experiences of the people’.38 Important propaganda points were provided for officials to sketch upon blackboards in local communities for easy perusal, drawing upon a traditional medium for rural residents to get information from the state.39 The principal tactic of state education, however, centred upon the utilization of ‘current events study sessions’ (shishixuexi 时事学习) or ‘newspaper reading’ sessions. In small groups gathered together at the behest of local propaganda leaders, Chinese workers and residents read newspapers and readings found in propaganda handbooks, listened to local leaders and were asked to discuss current events. Attendees would spend hours hearing updates on recent Chinese victories on the front lines, commentaries on the hypocrisies of American leaders and instructions on the ways in which each individual could contribute to the war effort. A study group in Heilongjiang, for example, might spend a few hours covering an article from the Beijing People’s Daily asking ‘Why Can’t We Brush Aside the American Invasion of Korea?’ then ruminate over its elucidations of ‘American warplanes dropping bombs just across China’s northeastern borders and the shadow of invasion looming over the Chinese mainland’ and finally debate the call for ‘all nation-​loving people to support the demands and requests of the new Resist America, Aid Korea campaign’.40 Likewise, a small gathering in Jiangxi might ponder how to enact the requests of a People’s Daily editorial asking for an ‘increase in Resist America, Aid Korea propaganda to reach all corners of Chinese society in order to quell the American imperialist threat’.41 Such study groups worked to ensure that nationalized and massified anti-​American propaganda ideas were dutifully considered, heard and absorbed in relatable ways. More purposefully, the Chinese government painstakingly worked to ensure that Resist America propaganda study sessions were targeted at specific demographics. Varying educational strategies were drafted for urban audiences, factory workers and school children. Religious and minority groups were also singled out for focused outreach, as were more specific groups such as sanitation workers, women’s committees or local Sino-​Soviet Friendship Councils.42 In rhythm with Mao Zedong’s political and ideological predilections for China’s populist and

150  Andrew Kuech agricultural revolution, much careful planning was devoted to fashioning this Resist America propaganda for rural audiences. Local propagandists in the countryside were instructed to allow farmers to sow their fields and wait until the post-​harvest months of winter to begin long study sessions.43 Because the ‘cultural levels of rural residents were very low’, leaders were encouraged to use simple maps, pictures, cartoons and plays to teach about the perils of the United States. Instructions were supplied for low-​budget ways to make projectors out of cardboard boxes and recruitment strategies to organize radio listening sessions that would generate popular interest.44 Propaganda manuals also suggested allowing methods ‘more natural to the rural environment’, such as asking women to facilitate propaganda meetings –​local matriarchs were more likely to receive respectful audiences. Other methods called for senior citizens to share memories about the collective and personal hardships endured at the hands of the Japanese, Nationalists and Americans during the years of war in order to stoke more tangible fear and hatred of the United States.45 These different teaching methods, it was argued, proved extremely effective within their target audiences by introducing the threat of American imperialism in familiar and relatable ways. One How to Develop Resist America, Aid Korea Propaganda handbook extolled the virtues of these rural study sessions as ‘one of the greatest tools for spreading Resist America teachings to rural residents’ who ‘no longer fear the United States’ but instead ‘appreciate that the US is a paper tiger and understand the proper principles of the Resist America, Aid Korea movement’.46 Critically, once filled with proper enthusiasm, farmers were asked to increase their production, to work harder and to produce more for the war. As the conflict in Korea became more and more entrenched, Chinese officials drew upon these propaganda lessons in patriotism to ask Chinese farmers to donate their produce and earnings as well. While Chinese propagandists designed a more basic, homespun and visceral approach to Resist America, Aid Korea education in agricultural areas, manuals for urban education took on a different bent. For a more cosmopolitan community, propaganda leaders were trained to post cartoons, slogans and maps of current events across the cityscape, covering ‘parks, intersections, train stations, factories, public squares, shops, theatres, buildings entrances, alleyways, parks, tea houses, and restaurants’.47 Propaganda offices in Shanghai and Beijing planned neighbourhood Resist America film screenings as well as communal propaganda poster-​painting sessions that could energize patriotic sentiments within local neighbourhoods.48 Officials in Shanghai, for example, were asked to fuse Resist America teachings with the daily tasks and organization of the local lilong housing communities. Study sessions were to be added to lilong community task groups overseeing water, sanitation or security responsibilities. The leaders of these groups were to be trained as new propaganda teachers and commissioned to organize local meetings that both criticized ‘American imperialists’ and ‘Japanese fascists’, and explained clearly the direct relationships between daily communal chores and support for the war. Meetings were known to whip up heightened emotions and

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  151 ‘raise great enthusiasm for the Resist America, Aid Korea campaign’, drawing necessary and clear connections between civic duty, personal obligation and Chinese patriotism.49 Specialized outreach to meet with and promote anti-​American ideas with urban religious and minority communities was also emphasized. Records from Beijing detail the deliberate planning by propaganda officials to organize meetings in the Catholic community in order to teach about the perils of the American armament of Japan and to eliminate the ‘three positive’ attitudes of the United States that remained within the community. All these efforts were meant to increase enthusiasm for the Resist American campaign.50 City children and students were also a major target of focused Resist America propaganda education. The Communist Youth League called upon its members to integrate the campaign into the practices of daily life.51 Teachers were guided to wholly incorporate anti-​Americanism into their curriculum. Guidebooks offered specific details for transforming every subject into an overt or tacit lesson on the evils of American imperialism. Economics lessons outlined the workings of American global capitalist exploitation. Geography lessons emphasized the great wealth of American natural resources and their quick rates of extraction that came at the expense of American workers. Mathematics lessons calculated numbers of American soldiers killed in Korea or determined percentages of starving people in the United States. Language and literature teachers were encouraged to find opportunities to substitute ‘American imperialists’ or ‘American paper tigers’ for characters from traditional Chinese stories.52 Elementary school students sang about defeating the American enemy with tunes that chanted ‘overthrow, overthrow the American bandits’53 and made matching American paper tiger costumes to perform them.54 Even schoolyard games were invented for children to ‘find the spy’, ‘rescue the Korean soldiers’ or ‘capture the American wolf’.55 The effort to integrate anti-​American propaganda into the daily lives of Chinese citizens marks the deliberate and calculated ways in which Chinese authorities sought to translate didactic Party prose into ideas that could more meaningfully resonate with the Chinese people. The fusion of CCP propaganda teachings with distinctly anti-​American sentiments embedded the ‘evil America’ trope within new projected understandings of Chinese politics and international relations. Whether within propaganda sessions or inside student classrooms, Chinese propaganda officials continually sought new ways to ‘deepen and popularize (puji shenru 普及深入)’ anti-​American ideas during the Resist America Campaign.56 Channeling localized or educational Resist America teachings into large-​scale and more mass efforts was a constant aspiration. One major approach was the use of travelling exhibitions with large viewing halls that would be filled with material objects, paintings, propaganda posters and photographs from the front lines of the war. Propaganda departments were devoted to the careful planning of the selection and placement of particular images to be used within these mass exhibits. Exhibitions would then travel between major Chinese cities and welcome hundreds of thousands of attendees. Officials often cited these exhibitions as extremely effective means of developing and shaping popular patriotic and

152  Andrew Kuech anti-​American sentiments in rather straightforward ways.57 A  Shanghai propaganda department memo reviewing one such exhibition, for instance, self-​affirmed that after ‘passing through a series of exhibits, our comrades received a direct education of internationalism and patriotism’. Exhibition attendants, officials stated, were able to ‘properly clarify any incorrect interpretations of Resist America, Aid Korea images and increase the standard of these ideas’.58 The notion that properly viewed images of American evilness and Chinese benevolence would and did mould ‘correct’ political attitudes became a familiar refrain in the planning efforts of Chinese propaganda officials throughout the early 1950s. This idea was taken up most visibly within the local and national rallies that typified the movement. For propaganda officials, mass gatherings represented lived, performed and visualized manifestations of anti-​American teachings. Such rallies provided opportunities to prove the patriotic zeal and civic commitment of its participants. Demonstrations were encouraged across all levels of society, and were organized by a variety of national and local groups, from neighbourhood associations to universities to national days of protest. Students often became the most enthusiastic promoters of these events. In Shanghai and Beijing, walls of character posters were raised in universities chastising American imperialist ventures across Asia. Complementary mass activities like group exercises to ‘train your body, protect the homeland’, letter writing workshops for soldiers on the front lines, sign-​up campaigns for military volunteers and parades that snaked through city streets directed anti-​American and patriotic zeal into participatory action.59 Large city-​wide demonstrations were more carefully organized by propaganda officials as well. An ‘Oppose the American Invasion of Taiwan and Korea Week’ was created in July 1951; it saw the total mobilization of all propaganda efforts to spread the Resist America message. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators were gathered to march through the streets and were encouraged to wave banners that denounced American imperialists or to carry posters that depicted wicked American soldiers invading Korea or occupying Japan.60 Within instructional explanations for these mass rallies, Chinese propagandists often related the twofold purpose of organizing mass demonstrations against the United States. In the simplest terms, mass rallies served to educate the Chinese public on the professed aims of the state. Chants of ‘Oppose the American Imperialist Invasion of Korea!’ and ‘People of the World Unite to Oppose the American Imperialism’ offered the direct communication of state attitudes to the Chinese public. Propaganda officials often cited demonstrations as rather straightforward educational events.61 On a more purposeful level, though, propaganda officials also identified these mass events as important sites that fused together the multifold aims of increasing national solidarity and enmity against the United States, which would spur on increased production among Chinese workers. Especially in the lead-​up to the nationwide 1 May Labour Day rallies that were often conflated with the Resist America campaign, propaganda planners doubled their efforts to emphasize these important interconnections. In the weeks before these events, propaganda leaders increased radio broadcasts, preparation

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  153 meetings, study sessions and school teachings to contextualize for the Chinese public the political importance of upcoming demonstrations.62

Signing devotion to the Anti-​American cause Mass rallies and events also provided Chinese officials with opportunities to advance perhaps their most deliberate and focused attempt to connect patriotic ideas with new notions of civic duty and party devotion:  the gathering of signatures that would signify a commitment to the Resist America, Aid Korea cause. During the early years of the 1950s, collecting signatures for a variety of different pledge campaigns was a particular emphasis for Chinese leaders and the propaganda officials that promoted them. While mass protests and study sessions offered important sites for the teaching of new ideas about the Chinese state, signatory campaigns promised –​at least in theory –​the devotion to those ideas by those who penned their names. Within the Resist America movement, the CCP launched a number of these different signature drives, such as the Preserve World Peace Movement (保卫世界和平), the Oppose the Use of Nuclear Weapons Campaign (反对使用原子武装器签名运动) and, most significantly, the Patriotic Pledge Campaign (爱国公约运动). Within these sub-​campaigns, Chinese propagandists worked to link the personal and lived experiences of Chinese citizens with new notions about the Chinese nation and its American adversary. The largest and most deliberate of these campaigns, the Patriotic Pledge Campaign, represented a mass effort by Chinese propaganda officials to reach virtually every member of Chinese society and present them with a document that plainly outlined each individual’s commitment to the Communist Party and national cause. Designed for homes, villages, schools, factories, work units and neighbourhoods, Patriotic Pledges were meant to synthesize local interests with ideas of national unity and patriotic duty. Workers, students and local residents were called upon to sign pledges that were said to increase their enthusiasm for and knowledge of the war effort. Chinese propaganda officials went to great lengths to ensure that these pacts were crafted and signed by each Chinese citizen and provided detailed instructions for local officials to carry out communal pledge-​ making sessions. According to Party guidelines, Patriotic Pledges were to remain ‘feasible, concrete, and concise and not too abstract or varied’. In addition, pledges were to cover three main themes:  politics and the support for anti-​American resistance and national defence; production and the demand for increases of all kinds; and education and the need for all citizens to increase their knowledge of science, culture and the Party.63 Families, local work units, classrooms, neighbourhoods, factories and all other various arrangements of Chinese social life were meant to convene, discuss the important values of Chinese nationalism and patriotism, identify the enemy that threatened these values, and decide the specific ways each pledge-​maker could help the national cause. Pledges of all kinds were then crafted according to the specific interests of local groups. While these pledges varied across space and time, all remained anchored to the core tenets of dedicating

154  Andrew Kuech support to Chairman Mao, defending Chinese national security and opposing the American invasion of Korea. Almost every event within the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign become an important locus for the gathering of more and more signatures. Local propaganda departments became transfixed upon the signing of these pledges. Running calculations and tabulations of the numbers of Chinese citizens who signed the pledge became an important measure of propagandistic success.64 Propaganda departments collected and archived signature-​covered pages to document the efficacy of the campaign. One propaganda manual outlined the importance of these signatures for Chinese officials succinctly: Within the Resist America, Aid Korea campaign, signing the Patriotic Pledge is an important method for increasing and producing patriotic feelings and action. This pioneering work deepens the significance of revolution and speeds forward the patriotic unification of the classes and promotes our revolutionary struggle and development. The Patriotic Pledge is voluntarily signed by the people. It focuses the enthusiasm and determination for the patriotic and anti-​imperial struggle into the consolidated form of a pledge and transforms those sentiments into patriotic revolutionary action.65 In many ways, the Patriotic Pledge was seen as the ultimate solution to increasing sentiments of patriotism and civic duty that could centre upon a dialectical love of country and enmity for the United States. Within newspapers and handbooks, evidence of the successes of signing the pledge were reported in near-​mythic proportions. Mothers were told their children would obey them, husbands would help them and money would appear after they signed their names.66 Factories noted massive increases in their production outputs after worker pledge-​making sessions. The enthusiasm expressed by propaganda officials for the Patriotic Pledge Campaign was also immense. One Beijing municipal propaganda department memo noted ‘the widespread increase in worker efficiency and labour discipline’ after government administrators had signed the pledge. Labourers in the telegraph and radio departments of the government had notably ‘decreased their mistakes’ and begun to work longer hours. One drunkard known for his insults, it was noted, had even promised his sobriety after pledging his support.67 The extent to which propaganda officials found satisfactory causal connections between pledged signatures, the instilling of genuine patriotic sentiments and decisive increases in worker production is certainly grounds for suspicion. Yet the construction of these Patriotic Pledges reveals the extent to which ideas of the United States had become fused with CCP efforts to teach core ideas about the meaning and significance of Chinese patriotism and political responsibility. Within Patriotic Pledges, Chinese citizens were to signify their support for the Chinese state in both the affirmative and the negative. Affirmatively, Chinese patriotism was linked to the development, preservation and betterment of a Chinese state of which each citizen was a fundamental part. But within the context of the Resist

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  155 America, Aid Korea campaign, these ideas of Chinese patriotism were overtly defined in relation to the American enemy. To be Chinese and to love the Chinese nation meant harbouring enmity for the United States. This dialectical positing of Chinese patriotism fundamentally entrenched notions of American invasion and imperialism into the central concepts of Chinese national self-​definition. More significantly for the Chinese people, these ideas of Chinese patriotism required increasingly larger amounts personal and financial sacrifice. CCP officials utilized the commitments required of patriotic enmity of the United States to mobilize the Chinese public towards the aims of state –​to adopt Communist political ideals, to increase industrial production, and to subsidize Chinese military efforts. Rather than remaining an ideological or esoteric threat, the United States as an image and an idea was routinized into the daily tasks of Chinese labour and social participation, residing within the menial tasks of Chinese daily life. The American invader necessitated the Chinese public to work harder, study more intensely and protest more frequently. ‘American colonizers’ figuratively reached into the pockets of Chinese labourers and demanded financial sacrifice. The visceral fears of a looming American invasion of Japanese fascistic form demanded perpetual wariness and vigilance against imminent struggle and violence.

Popular reactions to and enduring legacies of the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign Overall, the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign marked an intense and vitriolic period of Chinese propaganda production. Chinese propagandists drew upon the real and imagined conflict with the United States to advance an aggressive and nationally expansive effort to cultivate popular political attitudes that aligned with the advancement of the Communist state. At times, these propaganda efforts appeared to be working with great success. Chinese propaganda officials documented with considerable delight the enthusiasm of many Chinese citizens to take part in the Resist America Campaign, especially among the younger generation.68 One Propaganda Department report from Beijing highlighted the spread of Resist America patriotic sentiment by activists (jiji fenzi 积极分子) who carried their passion and propaganda messaging around the city of their own volition. These activists spent private funds to print Resist America posters and pictures, created their own propaganda exhibitions that garnered sometimes thousands of visitors, distributed materials that were hung in homes and restaurants, and brought their excitement to local meetings large and small. Activists were so enthusiastic that Propaganda Department officials pondered whether they perhaps needed to be reeled in.69 Other reports documented the swayed opinions of many Chinese residents who now reviled the United States. One Beijing grandmother vowed to ‘starve until the American imperialists are eliminated’.70 Yet, despite many instances of broad support for the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign, lingering ambivalence towards the United States and the Korean War itself also remained. The concerted efforts of the CCP to remould Chinese sentiments against the United States were frequently confronted with what the

156  Andrew Kuech Central government noted were ‘incorrect’ or insufficient attitudes across all parts of China. It is certainly the case that large numbers of Chinese citizens simply did not care, did not understand or were not inspired by propaganda measures meant to evoke patriotic national sentiments vis-​à-​vis the United States or the war.71 Throughout the Resist America campaign, reports of rural residents asking whether ‘Korea was a man or a woman’72 or complaining that the ‘Resist America Campaign doesn’t grow anything’73 drew concern from the Central Government. Other urban residents baulked at the idea that China could defeat a nuclear armed American military or were stressed about the negative impact the Resist America Campaign would have on businesses, professing their wishes for China to disengage from the Korean conflict rather than ‘provoking World War III’.74 These recorded doubts by the Chinese public point, on the one hand, to the fraught equivalency that might be (and often is) drawn between propaganda methods and general public sentiment. Gauging the levels to which the Chinese people embraced, digested or otherwise accepted the CCP’s many efforts to mould public opinion about the United States is exceedingly difficult. On the other hand, the persistence with which the CCP stuck to promoting the anti-​American line in its efforts to shape public attitudes towards the Chinese state and the war in Korea points to the significance of these ideas as critical ideological and political constructs in early Communist China. In response to reports about insufficient understandings of the Resist America Campaign, Chinese propaganda officials constantly reiterated that these ideas had simply not been taught enough. Redoubled efforts were needed to ensure everyone received more and proper political schooling about ‘correct’ attitudes towards the United States and the war in Korea. This insistence that Chinese citizens needed to accurately reproduce or profess the tenets of CCP dogma was a constitutive element of the CCP’s aspirations for national re-​education. The promotion of Resist America, Aid Korea propaganda, then, was more critical to the visual, discursive, and epistemological construction of the Chinese Communist state than the total embrace of these ideas by the general public.

Notes 1 Mao Zedong, ‘Farewell, Leighton Stuart’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​tung Volume 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1969), pp. 433–​40. 2 One of Mao’s most direct addresses against ‘American imperialism’ was delivered in his 1948 ‘Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite!’ speech, in which he outlines the nature and scope of ‘US imperialism and its running dogs’ as a threat to ‘revolutionary forces of the world’. See Mao Zedong, ‘Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite Against Imperialist Aggression!’ in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​tung Volume 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1969), pp. 283–​86. 3 See Bill Brugger, China: Liberation and Transformation 1942–​1962 (London: Croom Helm, 1981); Gary Rawnsley, “The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea”:  How Beijing Sold the Korean War’, Media, War & Conflict, 2(3) (2009): 285–​315.

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  157 4 Different aspects of the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign are covered by Jing Li, China’s America:  The Chinese View of the United States, 1900–​2000 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2011); Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-​American Confrontation (New  York:  Columbia University Press, 1994); and Alan Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu:  The Decision to Enter the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960). 5 Sources on these two movements are vast; however, specific treatment of anti-​ Americanism during the Great Leap Forward is covered in Thomas Christiansen, Useful Adversaries:  Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-​ American Conflict, 1947–​1958 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). Anti-​American imagery of the Cultural Revolution is captured vividly in a number of collections of Chinese propaganda art, such as Stefan Landsberger, Anchee Min and Duo Duo, Chinese Propaganda Posters, (Cologne: TASCHEN, 2015). 6 During the 1940s, imagery of the United States appeared as both notably derisive and neutral. Jing Li, China’s America, pp. 52–​53; Hong Zhang, America Perceived: The Making of Chinese Images of the United States, 1945–​1953 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002). 7 Ping Baipishu 评白皮书 [Criticism of the White Paper Report] (Beijing:  Xinhua Shudian Yuandong Fendian, 1949), p. 1. 8 ‘Baipishu de ge 白皮书的歌 [White Paper Report Song]’, Xiao Pengyou 小朋友, 6 October 1949, p. 14. 9 Chi Meng, Chinese American Understanding: A Sixty-​Year Search (New York: Chin Institute in America, 1981). 10 ‘Kangmei yuanchao gaochao:  zhejiang moxie qunzhong de sixiang qingkuang he yaoyan’ 抗美援朝高潮：浙江某些群众的思想情况和谣言 [Resist America Aid Korea Movement:  Selected Opinions, Situation, and Rumors in Zhejiang], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 14 November 1950. 11 Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA) C36-​2-​10-​1, Shanghaishi kangmeiyuanchaofenhui guanyu jininan zhiyuanjun chuguozuozhan yizhounian bingjiaqiang kangmeiyuanchao gongzuo de xuanchuanyaodian 上海市抗美援朝分会关于纪念志愿军出国作战一 周年并加强抗美援朝工作的宣传要点(草稿)), 1951. 12 Zhou Ren 周任. Meidi shizhi beijiechuanle de zhilauhu 美帝是只被揭穿了的纸老虎 [The American Paper Tiger Exposed] (Beijing: Xinchao shudian Press, 1951). 13 SMA B1-​2-​3622-​187 Huadongjunzhengweiyuanhui xinwenchubanju guanyu ‘zhonghua jiankang zazhi’ neirong butuobingkai xuanchuan guanyu meiguosheng huofangshi quanling tingkandehan (华东军政委员会新闻出版局关于 ‘中华健 康杂志’ 内容不妥并开宣传美国生活方式劝令停刊的函), 1952. 14 Zhang Jishun, ‘Cultural Consumption and Popular Reception of the West in Shanghai, 1950–​65’, The Chinese Historical Review, 12(1) (2005): 97–​126. 15 Kangmeiyuanchao cailiaomulu 抗美援朝材料目录 [Catalogue of Resist America, Aid Korea Reference Materials] (Beijing: Zhonghua Renmin Zhengfu Wenhuabu Wenwuju Bianyin Press, 1950). 16 Jing Li, China’s America, p. 67. 17 Mao Zedong, ‘Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite Against Imperialist Aggression!’ in Selected Works of Mao Tse-​tung Volume 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1969), pp. 283–​86. 18 Renmin Qianzike-​Kangmeiyuanchao-​Baojiaweiguo 人民千字课–​抗美援朝-​ 保家卫国 [Lessons for the People in 1000 Words  –​Protect the Home and Nation] (Shanghai: Tonglian Shudian Faxing Chubanshe, 1951), pp. 4–​5.

158  Andrew Kuech 19 Wang Bishi 王弼时, Meidi Wuzhuang Deri detoushi 美帝武装德日的透视 [Perspectives on the US Armament of Germany and Japan] (Shanghai:  Chaofeng Chubanshe Press, 1951). 20 ‘Meiguo Baomu’ 美国保姆 [American Nanny], Xiao Pengyou 小朋友, 25 February 1949. 21 SMA, C36-​2-​10-​1. 22 Many anti-​American propaganda publications grew from the Chinese-​translated Soviet work, Suowei Meiguo Shenghuo Fangshi 所谓美国生活方式 [So-​Called American Way of Life] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishishe Press, 1950). 23 Zi Lin 字林, Fengren de Shijie—​Ruci ‘Meiguo shenghuo fangshi’ (疯人的世界–​如此 ‘美国生活方式’) [Mad World –​This is ‘The American Way of Life’] (Shanghai: Huoxing Chubanshe, 1951). 24 Zi Lin 字林, Gou de Tiantang—​ Ruci ‘Meiguo shenghuo fangshi’ 狗的天堂–​ 如此 ‘美国生活方式’ [Doggie Paradise  –​This is ‘The American Way of Life’] (Shanghai: Huoxing Chubanshe, 1951). 25 From the personal collection of Mr Yang Pei Ming and the Shanghai Propaganda Art Museum. 26 Chungtai Hung, War and Popular Culture:  Resistance in Modern China, 1937–​45 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). 27 ‘Meiguo qinluezhe zai chaoxian de kechi zuixing’ 美国侵略者在朝鲜的可耻罪行 [The Shameful Crimes of American Invaders in Korea], Renmin Ribao 人民日报, 28 July 1950, p. 4. 28 ‘Chaoxian renmin wei jibai meiguo qinluezhe er fendou’ 朝鲜人民为击 败美国侵略者而奋斗 [The Struggle of the Korean People to Defeat American Invaders], Renmin Ribao 人民日报, 22 July 1950, p. 5. 29 For insight into Chinese official perceptions and strategy during the Korean War, see Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-​American Confrontation; Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu; Max Hastings, The Korean War (New  York:  Simon & Schuster, 1987); Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War Volume II:  The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–​1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). 30 Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, p. 14. 31 Xu Ling 徐灵, ‘Zhongguo renmin juebuneng rongren waiguo de qinlue, ye buneng ting rendiguozhuyizhe de ziji linrensixing qinlue erzhi zhi buli’ 中国人民绝不能容忍外国的侵略, 也不能听人帝国主义者对自己 邻人肆行侵 略而置之不理 [The Chinese people absolutely cannot condone the encroachment of other countries], Chineseposters.net, https://​chineseposters.net/​gallery/​e27-​169.php. 32 Zhang Ding 张仃, Dong Xiwen 董希文, Li Ruinian 李瑞年, Hua Tianyou 滑间友, Li Keran 李可染, Li Kushan 李苦禅, Tian Shiguang 田世光, Huang Jun 黄均, Zou Peizhu 邹佩珠 and Wu Guanzhong 吴冠中, ‘Chaoxian renmin jun zhongguo renmin zhiyuanjun shengli wansui!’ 朝鲜人民军中国人民志愿军胜利万岁! [Long live the victory of the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers Army!], Chineseposters.net, http://​chineseposters.net/​gallery/​pc-​1952-​ 002.php. 33 See Rawnsley, “The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea” (2009), Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu and Brugger, China: Liberation and Transformation 1942–​1962. These authors all offer excellent analyses on the deliberate efforts of Chinese officials to use Resist America, Aid Korea propaganda to increase popular support, economic production and military participation for the war effort.

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  159 34 SMA, C36-​2-​10-​1. 35 Central Propaganda Department, Zhongyang xuanchuanbu bangongting 中央宣传部办公厅, ‘Guanyu dangdexuanchuan jiaoyugongzuo de jigewenti’ 关于党的宣传教育工作的几个问题 [Regarding Issues in Party Propaganda Education Work] in Dang de xuanchuagongzuo huiyi gaikuanghezhangxian 党的宣传工作会议概况和文献–​1951–​92 年, p. 17. 36 For a full elaboration of the institutions of the Chinese propaganda system, see Franz Shurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968). 37 Kangmeiyuanchao xuexicailiao 抗美援朝学习材料 [Resist America, Aid Korea Study Materials] (Jiangxi: Jiangxisheng kangmeiyuanchao fenhui bianyin, 1951). 38 Huang Meideng 荒煤等, Kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao de chuangzuoyundong 开展抗美 援朝的创作运动 [Carrying Out the Creative Work of the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign] (Beijing: Zhongnan Zongfendian Chubanshe, 1950), p. 6. 39 Resist America, Aid Korea ‘Blackboard Talking Points’ were provided frequently throughout the 1950s in magazines such as Shishi Shouce 时事手册 [Contemporary Affairs]. On blackboards and newspaper reading sessions, see Lynn T. White III, ‘Local Newspapers and Community Change, 1949–​1969’, in Godwin C.  Chu and Francis L.K. Hsu, eds., Moving a Mountain: Cultural Change in China (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai’i, 1979), p. 97. 40 Shishi xuanchuan shouce—​ 4 Heilongjiang 时事宣传手册-​4-​黑龙江 [Current Affairs Propaganda Handbook  –​4 Heilongjiang] (Heilongjiang:  Zhonggong Heilongjiangsheng Xuanchuanbu Bianyin, 1950), p. 5. 41 Kangmeiyuanchao xuexicailiao 抗美援朝学习材料 [Resist America, Aid Korea Study Materials] (1951). 42 Beijing Municipal Archive (BMA) 001-​ 012-​ 00080 Shiweixuanchuanbu guanyu beijingshi jixu pujishenru kangmeiyuanchaoyundong de qingkuangbaogao (市委宣传 部关于北京市继续普及深入抗美援朝运动的情况报告), 1951. 43 Zenyang zainongcunzhong kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao yundong? 怎样在农村 中开展抗美援朝运动? [How to Develop the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in Rural Areas?] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1951); image from Renmin Huabao 人民画报, February 1951. 44 ‘Jieshao jizhong dui nongmin xuanchuan de fangshi’ 介绍几种对农民宣传的方式 [Introduction to Rural Propaganda Methods], Shishi Shouce 时事手册, 20 May 1951, pp. 23–​35. 45 Zenyang zainongcunzhong kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao yundong? 怎样在农村 中开展抗美援朝运动? [How to Develop the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in Rural Areas?], pp. 6–​12. 46 Zenyang zainongcunzhong kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao yundong?, pp. 6–​12. 47 Zenyang zaichengshizhong kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao yundong? 怎样在城市中开 展抗美援朝运动? [How to Develop the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in the City?], (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1951), p. 23. 48 BMA 101-​001-​00314 Benhui guanyu kangmeiyuanchao aiguozengchanjuanxiany undong de jihua, baogao, zongjie (本会关于抗美援朝爱 国增产捐献运动的计划, 报告总结), 1951; SMA A22-​2–​20 Zhonggongshanghaishi gequweiqunzhongtuanti benxuanchuanbu guanyu dangqianshishi xuanchuanjiaoyu gongzuo de baogao(中共 上海市各区委群众团体宣传部关于当前时事宣传教育工作报告), 1950. 49 Zenyang zaichengshizhong kaizhan kangmeiyuanchao yundong? 怎样在城市中开 展抗美援朝运动? [How to Develop the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in the City?], p. 6.

160  Andrew Kuech 50 BMA 127-​001-​00193 Gehedazhihui huodongqingkuang (各和大支会活动情况), 1951. 51 SMA C21-​ 1–​ 108 Qingniantuan Shanghaishiwei guanyu kangmeiyuanchao yundongzhong debaogao tongzhiji chenkoubintongzhi yousanshurenmin kangmeiyuanchaodaibiaohuishang defayanjilu (青年团上海市委关于抗美援朝运动 中的报告通知及陈口彬同志有三属人民抗美援朝代表会上的发言记录), 1951. 52 Zenyang jinxing kangmeiyuanchao shishijiaoyou 怎样进行抗美援朝时事教育 [How to Carry out Resist America, Aid Korea Current Events Education], (Shanghai: Zhongguo Ertong Shudian Chubanshe, 1951), pp. 9–​22. 53 Gu Lindeng 谷林等, Kuaiban, geju, jietou juxuan—​ kangmeiyuanchao xuanchuancailiao 快板, 歌剧, 街头剧选–​抗美援朝宣传材料 [Selected Poems, Songs and Street Plays—​Resist America, Aid Korea Propaganda Reference Materials] (Beijing: Guangming Ribao Sheyinxing, 1951), p. 28. 54 Fang Fengmin 房风敏, Qiao Dongjun 乔东君 and Guan Minqing 闗敏卿, Baoweiheping—​ertong gewu 保卫和平–​儿童歌舞 [Protect Peace –​Children’s Songs and Dance] (Beijing: Beijing Xinzhongguo Shudian Chubanshe, 1951). 55 Zhu Bingxu 朱炳煦, Kangmeiyuanchao xinyouju 抗美援朝新游戏 [New Resist America, Aid Korea Games], (Shanghai: Beixin Shuju, 1951). 56 BMA 001-​012-​00080. 57 SMA C36-​2-​2-​1 Zhonggongrenmin baoweishijiehepingweiyuanhui shanghaishifenhui guanyu 1951nian chaoxianrenminjiefangtouzheng tupianzhanlanhui de zongjiebaogao (中共人民保卫世界和平委员会上海市分会关于1951年朝鲜人民解放头争图片展 览会的总结报告), 1951. 58 SMA C36-​2-​2-​15 Zhongguoremin baoweishijieheping weiyuanhui shanghaishifenhui guanyu zhongguorenmin disan jiefuchao weiwentuan disi zongfentuan zai chaoshou dao jinian liwu zhanlan gongzuo de zongjiebaogao (中国人民保卫世界和平委员会 上海市分会关于中国人民第三届赴朝慰问团第四总分团在朝收到纪念礼物展 览工作的总结报告), 1954. 59 Shanghai Xuesheng Lianhehui 上海市学生联合会, Shanghaixuesheng kangmeiyuanchao baojiaweiguoyundong huaji 上海学生抗美援朝保家卫国运动画集 [Shanghai Students Resist America, Aid Korea, Protect the Homeland Campaign in Pictures] (Shanghai: Huadong Renmin Chubanshe, 1951). 60 SMA C36-​2-​10-​1 Kangmeiyuanchao + Fanwuzhuangriben (抗美援朝+反 武装日本), 1951. 61 SMA C3-​1–​25. 62 Kangmeiyuanchao xuexicailiao 抗美援朝学习材料 [Resist America, Aid Korea Study Materials] (1951), pp. 19–​23. 63 Tuxing aiguo gongyue kaizhan juanxian yundong–​ ganbu xuexi cailiao 推行爱国公约开展捐献运动–​干部学习材料 [Carry Out the Patriotic Pledge, Develop the Contribution Campaign  –​Cadre Reference Materials] (Liaodong:  Zhonggong Liaodongsheng Weixuanchuanbu Yin, 1951), p. 3. 64 SMA C36-​2-​10-​1. 65 Tuxing aiguo gongyue kaizhan juanxian yundong–​ ganbu xuexi cailiao 推行爱国公约开展捐献运动–​干部学习材料 [Carry Out the Patriotic Pledge, Develop the Contribution Campaign –​Cadre Reference Materials] (1951), p. 2. 66 A Model Patriotic Pledge for Families (典型家庭爱国公约介绍), (Huanan Renmin Chubanshe, 1951), p. 7. 67 BMA 001-​012-​00082 Shiweixuanchuanbu guanyu beijingshi kaizhanaiguogongyueyundong de qingkuangbaogao (市委宣传部关于北京市开展爱 国公约运动的情况报告), 1951.

Developing patriotic anti-Americanism  161 68 ‘Kangmeiyuanhao baojiaweiguo’ yundongzhong Beijing shi da zhong xuexiaoshisheng sixiang wenti shangduo’ 抗美援朝保家卫国-​北京市大中学校师生思想问题尚多 [Resist America, Aid Korea Protect the Home and Nation: Beijing University Professors and Students: Opinions, Issues, and More], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 14 November 1950; ‘Kangmeiyuanchao yundong fazhanhou zai guangxi nanning de fanying’ 抗美援朝运动发展后 在广西西宁的反映 [Reflections on Post-​Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign Development in Guangxi Nanning], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 24 November 1950. 69 BMA 001-​012-​00080. 70 BMA 001-​012-​00080. 71 This is the argumentative thrust of Masuda Hajimu’s article ‘The Korean War Through the Prism of Chinese Society: Public Reactions and the Shaping of “Reality” in the Communist State, October–​ December 1950’, Journal of Cold War Studies 14(3) (2012): 3–​38. 72 ‘Guiyang da duoshu shimin renwei hetan shi meidi yinmou fenren buganxin tingzhan huo mangmu huanying tingzhan’ 贵阳大多数市民认为和 谈是美帝阴谋部分人不甘心停战或盲目欢迎停战 [Most citizens in Guiyang think that peace talks are part of the US imperialist plot-​People don’t believe the ceasefire or support the truce], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 24 July 1951. 73 ‘Chuandong guangdong xiannongcunzhong kangmeiyuanchao yundong fasheng yanzhong de xingshizhuyi pianxiang’ 川东广东县农村中抗美援朝运动 发生严重 的形式主义偏向 [Deep Anti-​bureaucratic Views in Guangdong Rural Areas After the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 25 June 1951. 74 ‘Shaanxi kangmeiyuanchao yundong zhankai yilai gejieceng sixiang dongtai’山西抗美援朝运动展开以来各阶层思想动态 [Thoughts and Attitudes from Shaanxi After the State of the Resist America Aid Korea campaign], Neibu Cankao 内部参考, 8 December 1950.

7  One more time, with feeling Revolutionary repetition and the Cultural Revolution Red Guard rally documentaries, 1966–​67 Eldon Pei

Mao and zombies Between late summer and early winter of 1966, the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) bore witness to a succession of monumental political rallies presided over by Mao Zedong, the country’s paramount leader and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These demonstrations, which would become known as Chairman Mao’s eight inspections of the Red Guards, offered an unprecedented opportunity for millions upon millions of Chinese youths to assemble and be recognized as successors to the revolutionary project their parents’ generation had fought to usher into existence. Vying to proclaim themselves Mao’s most loyal ‘little generals’, prospective martyrs ready to defy ‘seas of flame and mountains of swords’ in order to defend their ‘great teacher, great leader, great commander, and great helmsman’ throngs of ecstatic teenagers in second-​hand combat fatigues packed Tiananmen Square waving Mao portraits and mass organization banners.1 With screams of excitement ringing in the air for hours on end and all the heat and raw energy of the dark-​eyed press of young devotees, their attention was riveted upon a charismatic figure who was fast becoming a worldwide icon; atmospherically, it was like James Brown playing the Hollywood Bowl, only with more assigned readings. Half a century later, the Red Guard rallies have come to signify the absolute high water mark of ideological fanaticism in Mao’s China. As Daniel Leese writes, ‘The image that in public memory is most closely associated with the Cultural Revolutionary Mao cult is probably the image of Mao Zedong standing on top of Tiananmen reviewing millions of enthusiastic Red Guards’.2 Although the historian’s observation does not specify any image in particular, one can hardly fail to note how well it coincides with an iconic half-​length portrait of Chairman Mao captured by China News Service photographer Lü Xiangyou during the first of the Beijing rallies on 18 August 1966. The black-​and-​white picture shows the Chinese leader in a three-​quarter view looking frame left over the balcony of the Tiananmen gatehouse. Dressed in a rumpled military tunic, Mao gazes unflappably into the distance, his right arm raised in a casual, open-​palmed gesture of salutation, the sleeve closest to the camera decorated with a cloth armband on which the viewer can read a single, suggestively self-​effacing character: bing (‘soldier’).3

One more time, with feeling  163 After appearing the next day on newspaper front pages all over China, Lü’s photograph instantly went viral, to use the internet-​age expression, appearing on periodical covers, book frontispieces, demonstration placards and even roadside billboards. Surviving relics of the period’s visual and material culture, including postage stamps and the coveted memorabilia pins known as Mao badges, attest to its thorough absorption into the iconography of Mao-​era media production. Yet none of this could do more than the inexorable forces of globalization to secure the longevity of the likeness in question. Examples of the numerous parodies that have surfaced around the world in the wake of the Cultural Revolution include not only works by Chinese global art market superstars, such as Wang Guangyi, Zhang Hongtu and Feng Mengbo, whose sardonic arcade-​game pieces recast Mao’s salute to the Red Guards as a mundane taxi-​hailing gesture.4 Cameroonian ‘autoportraitist’ Samuel Fosso has also photographed himself re-​enacting Lü’s and other visual hagiographers’ depictions of Mao Zedong in order to draw critical attention to twenty-​first century Chinese capital’s asymmetrical dealings with the African continent.5 Meanwhile, one also finds Lü’s portrait serving as the basis for a plethora of internet memes, including chimeric pictorial mashups that superimpose the heads of political leaders as different as Barack Obama and Japanese ethnonationalist Shintaro Ishihara over that of the Chairman. Deriving scandalous appeal from their attempts to conjure, to ridicule, and to exorcise the schwärmerei of what Leese crisply terms the ‘Mao Cult’, many of these more recent citations not only demonstrate the ways in which images of the Red Guard rallies have become floating signifiers for ideological extremism; they also take a hard turn toward the ‘imitation of dead styles’ that Fredric Jameson identifies with the necromancy of postmodern pastiche.6 Indeed, when it comes to embodying speech through ‘all the masks and voices stored up in the imaginary museum of a now global culture’, as Jameson glosses it, one could hardly hope to do better than a mock Chairman Mao Yu-​Gi-​Oh! trading card that –​again capitalizing on the reviviscence if Lü’s icon –​enables all a player’s other cards to acquire the same power as their most potent monster.7 It is, then, specifically with teratology in mind that I offer the present study. The word ‘teratology’ has two meanings, one dealing with non-​physionormative biological development and the other with storybook monsters. In The Afterlife of Images: Translating the Pathological Body Between China and the West, Ari Larissa Heinrich delineates the flightpaths of colonial-​era medical representations of disease disfigured Chinese bodies that helped to foster racializing perceptions of Chinese people as physically and spiritually grotesque.8 The posthumous circulation of propaganda images depicting Mao-​era mass politics is analogous to this. A  morbid fascination with them on the part of Western and post-​socialist Chinese viewers has often been undergirded by prejudicial frames that tend to regard Chinese mass political subjectivity from a deficiency perspective, playing  –​whether consciously or not  –​to toxic stereotypes of ‘Orientals’, and indeed of developing nations peoples generally, as menacing zombie-​like hordes manipulated by savage and tyrannical rulers.

164  Eldon Pei Examples of what I mean predictably date to the Cold War era. Piecing together found photographs and film footage, much of the more contemporary portion of which had originally been produced by the PRC’s own propaganda organs, the 1967 Emmy-​Award winning American TV documentary China:  The Roots of Madness (dir. Mel Stuart) exploits tropes of Asiatic inscrutability in order to arrive at the stunning conclusion that a century of foreign bullying, civil war and material privation had simply driven 700 million Chinese insane. America’s most reliable wartime ally in Asia is thus transformed into an enemy whose ‘growing power is the world’s greatest threat to peace and light’. Two years later, J. Lee Thompson’s The Chairman, a Twentieth Century Fox spy thriller, has Gregory Peck matching wits with Japanese-​American actor Conrad Yama’s Mao Zedong, ‘The Most Dangerous Man in the World’ according to the movie’s marketing.9 In the film’s opening credits sequence, views of the Ming Great Wall, ancient temples and stone door guardians segue into propaganda images of Communist political mobilization, soldiers patrolling in the jungles of Southeast Asia and public squares jammed with demonstrators, crimson banners and Mao signage. Hardly innocent, the selection and sequencing of these fragments rehearses a familiar narrative that traces a path from winsome exoticism to Yellow Peril. In order to supply a counter-​ framing to such unmistakably xenophobic understandings of Chinese mass politics, I wish for us to consider more closely the ways in which propaganda images originally circulated in Mao’s China. In particular, I  am interested in the ritualistic quotation and recitation practices around which the repetition of words, images and sounds seems frequently to have revolved. It may be that we take too much for granted an inherited tendency to denigrate rhetorical moves that involve copying and imitation, automatically perceiving them as mindless, inauthentic and dishonest. In a classic essay, for example, Michael Schoenhals once drew attention to the rote formulations (tifa) that permeate PRC political discourse, describing them as an ‘impoverished code’.10 Schoenhals argued that this code has served as a more efficacious means of social control than even censorship, since standardized politico-​speak colonizes people’s very thoughts, whereas censorship only manages to discipline their utterances. This point of view, however, seems to reflect a deep-​seated cultural bias. As James Snead argued in an equally classic essay, hegemonic EuroAmerican culture has long had difficulty accepting forms of repetition that cannot be assimilated to a mythology of rational progress.11 It is my contention, in contrast, that repetition in late 1960s China lay at the heart of a lively rebel vernacular. It was the idiom corresponding to a genuine demystification of cultural production, a dialect of leader worship metamorphosed into forms of anti-​elitism too provocatively inversionary to be dismissed simply as ‘speech in a dead language’.12

‘A revenge of singularity on representation’ At the same moment that Lü Xiangyou was shooting portraits of Mao at the Red Guard rallies, motion picture crews from the state-​run Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio (CNDF) and the August First Film Studio of

One more time, with feeling  165 the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were also on hand producing recordings for what would eventually turn out to be a series of seven documentary motion pictures.13 Running between 20 and 50 minutes each, these full-​colour prestige projects were released separately between September 1966 and the autumn of 1967, thus spanning an exceptionally turbulent and paradoxical period in modern Chinese history. In fact, well before their last instalment appeared, the Red Guard movement itself had already begun to be regarded by the Party Centre as more of a tendency to curtail than a force to command.14 Yet moving images of the young rebels’ historic assemblies in Beijing continued to be screened, playing on and on in the capital and elsewhere like a disembodied echo. In historical hindsight, these cinematic works seem oddly out of step with contemporaneous events, transmitting the same one-​dimensional message by rote despite that message’s fading topicality and maintaining an unperturbed consistency of form and content even as the off-​screen world plunged into uncertainty and chaos. This divergence did not manifest itself all at once; the first three Red Guard rally films were indeed true reflections of their historical moment. Completed with astonishing speed, each took only a few weeks to begin screening, which means that they were introduced to the public while Mao’s inspections of the Red Guards were still going on. Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army premiered on 7 September 1966 and was the first motion picture in the PRC to have its exhibition designated a ‘political mission’ (zhengzhi renwu) by order of the Central Ministry of Culture and the cultural bureau of the PLA’s General Political Department.15 The second and third works in the series were also accorded top political billing. Like the first film, Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards and Revolutionary Teachers and Students, which came out on 30 September, and Chairman Mao’s Third Reception of the Million Revolutionary Little Generals, which was specially timed for release on 1 October –​National Day –​were actually shown free of charge throughout China, despite the significant financial strain this put on a state cinema distribution monopoly that was already contending with a shortage of revenue-​generating films to present.16 Local cadres were commanded to arrange for every member of the population to see the motion pictures, and authorities made sure that a full array of propaganda affordances got conscripted to the cause of furnishing them with correct ideological interpretations. Accordingly, we find press articles from late 1966 lavishly praising the documentaries and their public reception. Story after story described how audiences cheered, sang and wept as if they themselves were amassed for Mao’s review alongside the Red Guards onscreen.17 Emphasizing how faithfully the films transmitted the sights and sounds of the demonstrations to viewers across the country, journalists took pains to explain how they simultaneously proved to younger audiences the Chairman’s unwavering solidarity with the masses and caused older spectators to reminisce about their own days of youthful revolutionary engagement. Appearing as they did at a juncture when there remained lingering confusion about the eruption and suppression of student uprisings in Beijing the previous June and July, the initial Red Guard rally documentaries’ celebration of the growing youth movement were intended to leave viewers with little doubt about Mao’s wholehearted support for rebellion from below.

166  Eldon Pei The full context of even these first films’ release was complicated though.18 In the capital, the documentaries debuted in the wake of a surge in Red Guard violence and destruction in late August and the formation of student groups organized to oppose this tendency with force. The films coincided as well with the political ascendance of Red Guard ‘rebel factions’ (zaofan pai), led by university students who had formerly been punished for resisting the work teams sent to Beida, Qinghua and other campuses in June to quell unrest. Indeed, Mao and the Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG) –​since May the de facto body in charge of guiding the Cultural Revolution –​had chosen this precise moment to raise the stakes of the youth uprising by openly backing its most radical elements, students who had dared to attack even national-​level ministries and were vocal supporters of a purge of the senior party apparatus itself. Thus, while the Red Guard rally documentaries might have appeared to portray undifferentiated young people united in their shared devotion to Mao and the CCP, the reality was that fierce antagonisms between these very teens were evolving inexorably into wider and more devastating conflagrations of violence that would soon envelop all of China. This underlying tension only increased during the months that followed, but it effectively remained suppressed in the Red Guard rally documentaries. Each instalment conveyed the same minimal story in the same cinematic style. Although the actual demonstrations the documentaries memorialized varied in format as their official organizers sought to accommodate the wishes of millions of young visitors to Beijing while simultaneously maintaining civic order and striving to lessen the physical strain of these lengthy public appearances on a 73-​year-​old Mao, the mass spectacles looked and sounded virtually identical on screen.19 Narratively, little more than ordinary newsreels, the Red Guard rally documentaries consisted mostly of scenes of students and soldiers reading aloud from Mao’s works, performing ritualized songs and dances, and chanting ‘Long live Chairman Mao! Long live the Communist Party!’ as they waved copies of Mao’s Little Red Book overhead. Long cinematic refrains splicing together shots of the Chairman on the Tiananmen rostrum with shots of jostling teenagers in the square below were accompanied by shrill voiceover commentary extolling Mao and the Red Guards over the fanfare of ‘The East is Red’ and ‘Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman’. Yet neither this commentary, nor the droning speeches by Premier Zhou Enlai and Minister of Defense Lin Biao that were also featured in the films, contained any reference to the discord that was splintering Chinese society. Indeed, Mao himself seemed correspondingly mute and disengaged. In all seven documentaries, there would turn out to be only a single fleeting instance where he could be seen and heard addressing the crowd.20 Notwithstanding brief vignettes in which the Chairman was shown interacting with throngs of his admirers, he more frequently appeared as an aloof figure waving from the Tiananmen gatehouse’s towering crimson ramparts or passing the time in idle conversation with Lin, his designated successor. For us, the turmoil that we know spread through China in the first half of 1967 throws into stark relief the Red Guard rally documentaries’ silences and their

One more time, with feeling  167 reluctance to engage in more substantive argumentation and thematic development. Surely there was much more that the unfolding of historical events might have compelled these cinematic works to say. For one thing, Mao and the CCRG were evidently growing more and more disillusioned with the Red Guard movement’s prospects for cultivation by the start of 1967. As intensifying factionalism made it clear that the students were unlikely to evolve into a dependable political force, the Party Centre increasingly promoted the formation of military-​led revolutionary committees as a means of, among other things, winding down the youth rebellion.21 Meanwhile, party-​state authorities, with Mao’s blessing, began telegraphing to young people that unfettered rebellion would no longer be tolerated: those who had responded to the prior year’s call to travel the country exchanging revolutionary experiences should go home; classes were to resume; extra-​legal ‘draggings-​out’ of Party officials would henceforth be deemed unacceptable; ditto designs to form nationwide Red Guard networks.22 These indications that the students’ hour of political relevance had passed –​not to mention the wave of bloody clashes between non-​student rebel and ‘conservative’ factions that overtook the PRC during the summer of 1967 –​make it seem curious that the four Red Guard rally films that were subsequently released would continue glorifying the Beijing demonstrations exactly as before. One might even wonder why these projects were not simply called off. In fact, the fourth and fifth documentaries failed to appear until April 1967, nearly seven months after the preceding instalment, and there occurred another lengthy delay –​until late August –​before the release of the final two documentaries, each of which was only about half as long as the initial films in the series. Evidence suggests that these production delays were at least partially a result of power struggles between Jiang Qing and leaders at the Ministry of Culture and CNDF.23 In the meantime, the media buzz lauding the public’s enthusiasm for the Red Guard rally documentaries had all but died out after November 1966. There was not even an announcement of the seventh and final film’s release in Renmin Ribao. Probably, audience acclaim had never been as univocal as the press had alleged in the first place. An account of a December 1966 film screening describes high-​school Red Guards who had come into conflict with the CCRG booing as members of that body appeared on screen but going on to cheer images of PLA officials, Zhou Enlai and Mao.24 Such responses to the Red Guard rally films attest to their openness to interpretation along the lines of a viewer’s individual interests and circumstances. In a chapter-​length analysis of what she calls ‘MaoArt’, Barbara Mittler explains the apparent popularity of the images of Mao Zedong that were to be found endlessly repeated throughout the visual landscape of 1960s and 1970s China. While the creators of MaoArt reproduced the Chairman’s likeness with obsessive fervour, Mittler argues, they also took care to introduce a significant degree of variation into their work, fashioning ‘a different Mao for every taste and audience’.25 Looked at from this perspective, the Red Guard rally documentaries seem to represent a precise inversion of the dominant tendency in propaganda production. Instead of a single meaning strategically re-​represented through a multitude of

168  Eldon Pei images, here we have just one image fragmented despite itself into a multitude of meanings. Presenting an aesthetically unvarying and unidimensional depiction of the Chairman, the seven films together generated a representation of Mao that could be twisted to suit as many purposes as there were factions in an increasingly disintegrated Chinese mass-​political landscape. If its goal was to promote the formation of a cohesive revolutionary army assembled under Mao Zedong’s command, then the discourse of the Red Guard rally documentaries wound up undermining itself through the very image that it took part in fashioning. As more than one scholar has noted, the leader worship that Cultural Revolution propaganda fostered, together with the indeterminacy of the militant ‘leftist’ language that it helped to popularize, played a key role in firing factional antagonisms in 1966–​67, supplying mutually opposed groups with the imagery and symbolic ammunition that they cited to authorize their own positions and denounce their adversaries.26 Continual reproduction of this propaganda, moreover, engendered a phenomenon that Alain Badiou has referred to as ‘the revenge of singularity on representation’:  simultaneously underwriting the historical legitimacy of the party-​state bureaucracy and inciting rebellion against it in hopes of breaking free from its formal conditions, Mao became ‘less the guarantee of the really existing party than the incarnation, all by himself, of a proletarian party that is still to come’.27

Where have all the film editors gone? In his monograph on the history of Chinese documentary cinema, PRC film scholar Shan Wanli points to the Red Guard rally documentaries as evidence of the decline of non-​fiction filmmaking during the Cultural Revolution. These motion pictures, Shan remarks with a note of regret, had no real content other than simply Mao and his little generals.28 It is indeed undeniable that the films’ most characteristic passages are prolonged montages consisting of only shots of Chairman Mao intercut with shots of screaming Red Guards. Surfacing again and again throughout the seven motion pictures, such sequences strike the viewer as accounting for a much larger proportion of each film’s running time than their apparent informational value would seem to warrant. Nevertheless, it is also possible to regard this departure from previous filmmaking norms as generative and meaningful, a stylistic choice that invites us to consider the politics of Cultural Revolution cinema in a way that goes beyond just remarking, as I have already done, on the unintended consequences of its polysemy. Rejecting compositional conventions employed in other times and places to imply the continuity of referential space, time and action, the cinematographic and film editing decisions that one can make out in these Mao/​Red Guard montages convey a feeling of disjuncture and aesthetic subversion that resonates provocatively with some of the early Cultural Revolution’s most radical tendencies. The general model for the cinematic approach I  am describing is immediately established at the beginning of the first Red Guard rally film, Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army. Depicting the

One more time, with feeling  169 abrupt, unannounced appearance of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square around daybreak on 18 August 1966, the sequence consists of 32 shots of Chairman Mao and his retinue making their way with difficulty through a heavy crush of people before re-​crossing Jinshui Bridge to vanish again inside the Tiananmen gatehouse. The motion picture’s representation of this important moment  –​Mao’s grand entrance  –​is notable, first, for its lack of aplomb. Filmed entirely from within the crowd, the images that appear onscreen are slightly canted, unsteady and under-​exposed, with stray figures and limbs often intruding into the frame. They present the Chairman from a great many angles, moving the film spectator nearer and farther without any discernible rationale. Just as unmotivated and disorienting are the individual shots of Red Guards that have been joined together with these haphazard pieces of footage. Indeed, it frequently appears as though the camera operators did not know what they were trying to film and the editor was never clued in on what the passage was supposed to communicate. Notably absent are visual cues that might enable the viewer to reconstruct Mao’s path through space, the length of time that he spends in the square and the location of different subjects in relation to one another. Ultimately, the entire sequence can only be described as a minimally structured compilation of views, a string of binary elements –​Mao, Red Guards, Red Guards, Red Guards, Mao, Red Guards, Red Guards, Mao, Red Guards –​that one might randomly reshuffle without disturbing logic of their arrangement. To see how this passage differed from previous Chinese documentary cinema, it is useful to consider a film made by CNDF seven years earlier to mark the PRC’s tenth anniversary, Celebrating Ten Years. Summarizing Chinese socialism’s achievements in the arenas of economic production, technology development and national defence, the motion picture conveys its narrative in an orderly sequence of stages, transporting viewers to the sites of various model communes and state-​ run factories. After impressing upon its audience all the ways in which Chinese citizens have prospered since the CCP assumed power in 1949, the documentary concludes with a spectacular parade held in Tiananmen Square. Magically transformed into colourful models gliding down Chang’an Avenue, the wheat fields, coal mines, oil plants and computing labs featured at the start of the motion picture now resurface in the guise of parade floats. Approaching the climax of the celebration, the scene abruptly cuts away from the capital to show a montage of other National Day celebrations taking place in different parts of the country. Here, in contrast to the spatial-​temporal indeterminacy of the later Red Guard rally documentaries, Celebrating Ten Years employs precise cross-​cutting to convey an impression of all the onscreen locations’ coexistence in a single place and time. Reinforcing this idea, the subsequent transition back to Beijing utilizes a clever eyeline match that symbolically articulates a shot of a saluting peasant in the mountains of Shaanxi Province with a shot of Chairman Mao waving from the Tiananmen rostrum. Additional match cuts then link the greetings of various other party-​state officials to individual parade participants waving from the square below, producing a vivid illusion of action and reaction.

170  Eldon Pei Through such flourishes of montage production, Celebrating Ten Years did not just manage to manifest an intelligible onscreen space for its audience; expressing the solidarity of the leaders and the masses with virtuosity, the capital and the localities, the film played with the very idea of such space in way that was at once artful and ideologically significant. Overall, the production values observed in this earlier cinematic work and those of the Red Guard rally films could not have differed more from one another. The former’s narrative construction, for example, illustrated a kind of classical symmetry, with an ending that symbolically recapitulated its opening. Each individual shot was lucid and minutely choreographed, often featuring intricately blocked screen actions that must have required painstaking planning and numerous retakes in order to perform faultlessly on camera. Ultimately, the film’s level of technical achievement attests to aesthetic and professional sensibilities that in turn make it obvious that the Red Guard rally documentaries produced several years later correspond to a wholly distinct industrial and creative order.

Multiplicity Indebted to a model of mass indoctrination that had been introduced into Chinese Communist practice at Yan’an, the CCP’s main headquarters during the 1930s and 1940s, the Red Guard rally films did not seek merely to spoon-​feed information and arguments to viewers; their larger purpose was to transmit an idiom for encoding the past, present and future, a shared language that carried within itself an absolute moral interpretation of historical change and that was created to sustain concerted action towards millenarian social transformation. In their generative account of this type of quasi-​religious political discourse creation, David Apter and Tony Saich describe how the factious mass of revolutionaries at Yan’an were forged into a unified collective and induced to espouse common frames for conceptualizing and enunciating events and experiences through the study of curated texts. After the PRC’s establishment, the cinema and other party-​state propaganda organs continued to support such functions, which Apter and Saich term ‘exegetical bonding’, on a society-​wide scale, continually assembling and refreshing the corpus of documents used by the Party Centre to propagate a standardized means of theorizing and interpreting lived social reality. As a process grounded in guided group reading and recitation, exegetical bonding operated through hermeneutic performances that Apter and Saich liken to the communal spectacles that anthropologist Clifford Geertz once characterized as ‘deep play’.29 Situated beyond rational considerations of economic gain or loss, the class of phenomena identified by Geertz revolved around congregations of community members, ritualized interactions and stories that a group of people ‘tell themselves about themselves’.30 By ‘coloring experience with the light they cast it in’, the assimilation procedures of exegetical bonding created a specular image of the world that brought to ‘imaginative realization’ fundamental yet ineffable elements of social life and identity, allowing collectivized individuals to investigate and reproduce those elements in fellowship with one another.31

One more time, with feeling  171 The films we have been discussing throw interesting light on how aesthetic expressions can modulate abstract political notions into concrete representations in the context of deep play. The presentation of the Tiananmen Square parade at the finale of Celebrating Ten Years, for example, had remained steeped in conventions drawn from narrative fiction filmmaking, privileging the representation of coherent referential spaces and of continuous screen actions related to one another through a logic of cause and effect. The inter-​articulation of these spaces and actions was often only figurative, producing moments of virtuosic artifice that in turn provided visual analogues for the theme of national unity on which the motion picture focused. In contrast, the mass meetings covered in the Red Guard rally documentaries of 1966 and 1967 were portrayed through a miscellany of shots that defied unifying synthesis and resisted observational distancing –​formal features that we find suggestively reflected in contemporary press accounts of how the films held different types of appeal for different types of spectators, and seemed to transport audiences directly into Chairman Mao’s presence. Particularly in the motion pictures’ repetitious Mao/​Red Guard montages, space and time were subjected to ecstatic fragmentation, with the avoidance of narrativizing film-​ editing tropes in these segments working against the elaboration of even elementary spatial-​temporal and causal relations. Thus, while the Cultural Revolution films’ overt theme of mass political participation under the leadership of the Party Centre initially may not seem far removed from that of Celebrating Ten Years, its refraction through a clearly distinct cinematic idiom resulted in an acutely felt absence of a single synoptic vantage point, thus mirroring the rupturing politics of the day. Essential to this politics, meanwhile, was the substitution of the solitary figure of Chairman Mao for a national or party-​state frame of reference for making revolution. The Red Guard rally documentaries’ anarchic style enabled viewers to visually explore the consequences of that substitution while at the same time instilling in film audiences a new discourse of rebellion. The stylistic and compositional deviations that set the Red Guard rally documentaries apart from Celebrating Ten Years can be characterized further in terms of a contrast observed by Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein between spoken and written language’s measured, grammatically regulated structures and the diffuse, pre-​ logical organization of ‘sensual and imagist thinking’, which Eisenstein associated with the mind’s private discourse, its ‘inner speech’, and identified as the source of art’s affective intensity.32 In Celebrating Ten Years, the editors’ selection and combination of footage had operated through intricate and highly polished figures of recursion and reflexivity that engaged with elements of a preexisting cinematic grammar to give the work formal complexity and nuance. When important early settings, such as the Daqing oil refinery, return towards the end of the film as scaled-​down models, for instance, this draws our attention to how the National Day spectacle has transformation the real means of production into a pageant of mobile symbols that are redolent of a film montage. Just as playfully, a shot of Nikita Khrushchev surveilling the Tiananmen Square celebration through a pair of binoculars is succeeded first by a shot of jubilant processionists

172  Eldon Pei captured from the Soviet leader’s vantage point and then by a closer shot of the group that puns on the telescoping of distances achieved through the binoculars. It is this baroque interplay of sameness and difference, above all, that the Red Guard rally films seem to forsake. In contrast to Celebrating Ten Years, the aim of the Cultural Revolution films’ montage technique is no longer to depict subjects that seem to occupy some kind of integral, reconstitutable space-​ time. Shot transitions, compositional features and proxemic patterns –​precisely those elements coordinated with such deliberate precision in Celebrating Ten Years  –​seem more or less superfluous in the face of the Red Guard rally films’ long asyntactic series of single-​image descriptions. Their discrete ‘large-​scale’ shots, to employ Eisenstein’s terminology, signify rather than merely presenting things from closer vantage points, conveying the ‘value of what is seen’ as opposed to just indicating different points of view. Monumentalizing the individual facial expressions, gestures and body movements of the Red Guards and rendering them so many times larger than life on the cinema screen, the films put these disintegrated fragments on par with the mass movement as a whole. Shots of people crying out slogans, jumping up and down in excitement and shedding tears of joy, of a young boy borne aloft on a sea of Little Red Books, and of tightly compressed tangles of torsos, limbs and faces cascade into a copious accumulation of possible physiognomies and kinesic displays, exceeding the limits of the projected image literally and representationally, and coalescing into a unified ‘montage idea’ that reveals the fundamental ideological conception of the rallies: their demonstration of the masses’ capacity to liberate themselves. The compositional logic underlying this transition from the accretion of single shots to an encompassing gestalt meaning is also found in the films’ commentaries. Reproduced in Renmin Ribao on 10 September 1966, the script of Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army, for instance, commences with a short quotation from a 12 August report issued by the CCP Central Committee’s eleventh plenum. This is followed by intertitles reproducing a flattering string of epithets for Chairman Mao that CCRG head Chen Boda had introduced in his mass meeting address and then a line of spoken commentary incorporating lyrics from ‘Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman’, a revolutionary song written by composer Wang Shuangyin in 1964 and given prominence in more recent speeches by Minister of Defence Lin Biao. Throughout the rest of the script, descriptions of the mass meeting copied verbatim from press accounts mingle with language lifted out of recent mass organization publications and Lin’s own rally address, which had freely plagiarized the 8 August ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’ drafted under Mao’s personal direction. Elsewhere, lively metaphors culled from press interviews with Red Guard leaders and watchwords popularized through People’s Daily and Hong Qi magazine editorials frame allusions to the Chairman’s works, which are in turn woven into lines of narration that the films’ Red Guard narrators now passionately address back to their beloved leader.

One more time, with feeling  173 Hardly a single sentence of the script is an original invention of its writers. Indeed, the document presents itself as an intensely intertextual composition, an authorially over-​determined montage of pre-​existing verbal patterns. Most of the commentary’s allusions and quotations appear without explicit attribution, borrowing from sources that plundered other texts and purloined language from one another just as shamelessly. The citational practice shows a concern neither for individual authorship nor for reconciling original and present circumstances of enunciation. Its process of meaning-​making seems to depend less on what is actually being stated than on the act of dialogically consolidating, appropriating and reflecting back to the Party Centre months of accumulated language and ideas. Reflective of its roots in exegetical bonding, discourse production in post-​ revolutionary China was characterized by a traffic in citations whose exuberance attained spectacular proportions during the latter part of the 1960s. Most emblematic of this phenomenon was, of course, the notorious pocket-​sized book of quotations from Chairman Mao that the Red Guard rally films show demonstrators waving about during their cheers and reading aloud from in impromptu group study gatherings. Printed in over a billion copies between 1966 and 1971, the Little Red Book played a decisive role in making the memorization and repetition of Mao’s utterances an obligatory component of public rhetoric –​becoming, in Daniel Leese’s words, a ‘symbol of imposed worship to discipline the masses’.33 As Leese himself concedes, however, during the first years of the Cultural Revolution, the appearance of Quotations from Chairman Mao also led to a brief moment of popular empowerment and spontaneous invention.34 Local mass organizations took it upon themselves to compile unsanctioned editions that supplemented the corpus of official quotations with additional ‘found’ materials, and the incongruous citing of Mao by contending rebel factions all over the country unmoored Mao Zedong Thought from hierarchically directed interpretations, challenging the Party’s monopoly over the production of ideology. Indeed, the exaltation of Mao’s discourse to the status of supreme truth and its simultaneous shattering into ambulatory, repurposable fragments facilitated the adaptation of Maoist aphorisms to diverse modes of composition and paved the way for their diffusion through a mass media network that the Party Centre found increasingly difficult to control amidst the power seizures of late 1966 and early 1967.35 Truly, then, the most notable aspect of the citational practices that climaxed during the Cultural Revolution was not that they eventually became tools used to constrain intellectual and communicative freedom. Ideological conformity, after all, seems to have been the very point of issuing publications like the Little Red Book. More illuminating of the character of Maoist mass politics was the manner in which the elevation of Mao’s words above those of all others resulted in, for however brief a period, a politically impactful democratizing of doctrinal exegesis: the freedom acquired by ordinary Chinese citizens to interpret authoritative texts in 1966 and 1967 emerged not through some sudden zeal for individual meaning-​making and self-​expression, but paradoxically through the recycling of standardized, evacuated patterns of language that, although originating from a single authorial source, were treated as communal property –​stuff to be collectively worked and reworked. This restored

174  Eldon Pei to visibility both the socially situated nature of all languaging and the fact that discourse production is always open-​ended, rather than finished and frozen at the time of enunciation or publication.

Deluge At the beginning of the rolling credits that open Celebrating Ten Years are the names of directors Wu Benli (b. 1916) and Zhang Jianzhen (b. 1920) and cinematographer Shi Yimin (b. 1926). The three were senior figures at CNDF, veterans of Yan’an who had helped to establish the CCP’s earliest cinema enterprises during the late 1930s and 1940s, and gone on after the PRC’s founding to regularly assume positions of administrative and creative responsibility in the specialized sphere of newsreel and documentary film production.36 The head of CNDF at the time, film editor and director Qian Xiaozhang (b. 1918), possessed similar revolutionary and professional credentials, as did August First Film Studio head Chen Bo (b. 1920) and the director of the Ministry of Culture’s Film Bureau, writer and arts critic Chen Huangmei (b. 1913). Others in the upper echelons of the party-​ state’s cinema bureaucracy, such as CNDF’s deputy head and editor-​in-​chief Ding Qiao (b. 1924), did not belong to the Yan’an cohort of filmmakers. Beginning with their work in pre-​revolutionary Shanghai’s underground Communist resistance, however, they had distinguished themselves through decades of committed service as CCP propaganda cadres. In the two years leading up to the formal launch of the Cultural Revolution, a new purge of China’s cultural elite culminated in the criticism and removal from office of Vice Minister of Culture Xia Yan (b. 1900).37 The event drove home the reality that the allegiances of artists and arts officials with backgrounds like those of the individuals named above were again to be severely scrutinized, as they had been before the early 1950s nationalization of China’s private film sector and in the wake of the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956. A prolific journalist, dramatist and screenwriter, Xia (b. 1900) had been a central figure in Shanghai’s leftist intellectual circles throughout the period of resistance against Japanese invasion, and it was unsurprising given his stature that he would come to occupy a succession of high offices in the cultural bureaucracy after 1949. As they did during previous rectification campaigns, the fresh political attacks that struck the film sector to which Xia was closely connected in 1964 initially focused upon people associated with Shanghai as the former epicentre of bourgeois, intelligentsia-​led culture in Republican China. The net quickly widened, though, revealing a broader aim of at last dissolving the strained marriage of convenience that had existed for decades between Party leaders and an entire class of experienced film professionals who, although suspected of ideological unreliability due to their pre-​revolutionary pedigrees and elevated status, had been seen as essential for maintaining the level of production expertise called for by a medium as technically and financially demanding as the cinema.38 Notably, what caused Party seniors to cease regarding their alliance with these supposedly compromised professionals as acceptable for the sake of achieving loftier objectives was not, as is commonly believed, simply

One more time, with feeling  175 the recrudescence of Mao’s authority in the early 1960s or the unchecked pique of Jiang Qing and her allies. As the Red Guard rally films illustrate, these radicalizing factors needed to be accompanied by a concomitant shift in norms of aesthetic and rhetorical competence. What changed at some stage during the middle years of the 1960s was the very notion of what good propaganda should look like and what it should do. New forms and literacies surfaced, destabilizing long-​standing conventions of art-​and meaning-​making and displacing the ideals of mastery –​and, ultimately, the foundations of class privilege  –​that such conventions at once rested upon and reproduced. We have seen above that these forms and literacies possessed a number of distinctive attributes. Serial repetition and the recycling of quotations superseded elaborate lines of argument and narrative. Creators of the new discourse abandoned illusions of self-​contained space, time, action and signification, instead exploiting decontextualized fragments of imagery and language for their capacity to project monolithic ideas on a scale that overwhelmed the senses. The proliferation of incompatible meanings threw interpretative unity into disarray, and a new combinatory aesthetics arose to contest the authority of original authorship and the finality of the published work. Unsanctioned recirculation spontaneously rewrote and remixed prescribed canons of knowledge, engendering new notions of what might count as speech, writing, thought and composition. Connecting these things was a stunning inversion of vocational status grades and seniority ladders at the film studios and other sites of knowledge and cultural production. In contrast to Celebrating Ten Years, the Red Guard rally documentaries eliminated the practice of showing detailed production credits, identifying by name only the studios responsible for making them. Not only did this reflect the Cultural Revolution’s emphasis on collective rather than individual achievement; it can also be regarded as symbolically negating the division of labour that previous film credits had propagated when they listed directors, writers and cinematographers at the top of the credit roll, while shunting the heads of other artistic and technical departments to the end and rendering completely unseen the labour of junior crew members and workers such as electricians, builders and teamsters. These formerly invisible contributors had unsurprisingly formed the mainstay of the revolts launched at the individual motion picture studios in late 1966 to oust senior bureaucratic and creative elites, and their activism ultimately caused PRC cinema production to come under the direct control of rebel groups led by props handlers, lighting technicians and script supervisors in their mere twenties and thirties.39 Nowhere were the effects of such a profound change in power dynamics more evident than in Shanghai. There the frequently ruthless intimidation and expulsion of film industry veterans coincided with a repudiation of the scripted scenarios, professional acting and artificial sets whose deployment had relied upon those veterans’ intellectual and creative specializations. Under rebel control, institutions with narrative filmmaking roots going back to the golden age of Shanghai silent and early sound cinema turned their attention instead to recording live documentary footage of the revolution taking place in the streets, dispatching crews to major centres of factional conflict and even initiating

176  Eldon Pei insurrections against officials in the city’s powerful cultural establishment. Along with the hierarchized division between mental and manual labour, the barrier separating art from life was also demolished. Such had long been the dream of the West’s Modernist avant-​gardes, but it was achieved in a far more sweeping manner in China at the start of the Cultural Revolution. For artists in Europe and the Americas, ‘deskilling’ as a programmatic devaluation of inherited artistic technique was a strategy for negotiating losses resulting from the expansion of capitalism, and the rejection of expressive, autographic authorship in favour of a notion of the artist-​as-​technician was supposed to help recuperate, or at least stay the decline of, artistic subjectivity.40 So-​called anti-​art was intended not to destroy art as an autonomous field of social production, but rather to rescue it by adjusting and broadening its parameters. Deskilling was really reskilling, and the function of the artist was never meant to be ceded to the factory worker to the degree that artists themselves would be left without a role. In China, on the other hand, the relativizing of elite skills and knowledge that reached an apex during the early Cultural Revolution was of a piece with a massification (qunzhong hua) of art that connected the popular accessibility of art as something to be sensually consumed to its demystification as a domain of narrowly defined technical mastery. Beginning with an injunction for artists to assimilate the aesthetic forms and sensibilities of the peasantry in order simply to better conscientize and indoctrinate the latter, this path culminated in amateur and Red Guard art-​making movements that, relying on the propagation of simplified forms, standardized iconographies and techniques of copying from models and templates, ultimately seemed to make room for anyone to be an artist except the professionals whose training and vocation had been in art.41 Preparing the way for this shift, the consolidation of collective production (jiti chuangzuo) paradigms during the late 1950s had already given rise to an aesthetic where the vulgarized, ‘unfinished’ and disjointed look of completed artworks actually attested favourably to their collaborative creation by artists with different skill and experience levels and to the way in which consultations with non-​artists had been made an integral part of aesthetic production.42 In the fourth Red Guard rally documentary, a panoramic shot has us looking down upon Tiananmen Square as a flood of dark heads and bodies in white shirts begins all at once to surge from the middle of the square towards the massive red and gold gatehouse from which Mao himself might be surveying the same scene. Rolling over the concrete pavers with the speed of a tide washing against the shore, hundreds of thousands of dynamic figures diffuse across the unoccupied areas of the square until they run up against a settled mass of people milling about up ahead of them. The formationless movement of this crowd, the roar of its vitality, the way its restless, anonymous parts seem to advance at different velocities and along different vectors, spontaneously forming fluid channels and knots of swarming congestion that dissolve like phantoms as instantly as we are able to make them out, is breathtaking to behold as it lays claim to a space that for centuries had been the site where centralized power displayed to its supplicants the

One more time, with feeling  177 stultifying symbols of its authority. This shot should be a reminder not to allow popular memory of the Cultural Revolution to be defined by Mao’s image alone. We must instead strive to keep that image in contact with the immense and intractable swathe of Brownian motion moiling beyond its frame, with the subversive energy of hitherto mute masses whose political subjectivity found expression in the aesthetic and epistemological potential of repetition, quotation, re-​authoring and recombination.

Notes 1 It was at the initial Red Guard rally on 18 August 1966 that the famous string of epithets, ‘great teacher, great leader, great commander, and great helmsman’ was first introduced. See Daniel Leese, Mao Cult:  Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 132. 2 Leese, Mao Cult, p. 128. 3 This lone visible character concluded the complete three-​character inscription ‘hongwei bing’, or Red Guard. The armband itself was initially donned by Chairman Mao at the first Red Guard rally. 4 Wang Guangyi has made a number of paintings based on Lü’s photograph, including Waving Mao (1989) and Waving Mao B (1988). For illustrations, see the webpage ‘Wang Guangyi’, Francesca Dal Lago Archive, Asia Art Archive, https://​aaa.org.hk/​ en/​collection/​search/​archive/​francesca-​dal-​lago-​archive-​wang-​guangyi. Painter Zhang Hongtu, too, has engaged with Lü’s image on several occasions. See Barbara Mittler, A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2012), p.  300. Details from Feng Mengbo’s video-​ game artwork Game Over –​Long March (1994) and his painting Taxi! Taxi! –​ Mao Zedong III (1994) are reproduced on the webpage ‘Feng Mengbo’, Hans van Dijk Archive, Asia Art Archive, https://​aaa.org.hk/​en/​collection/​search/​archive/​hans-​van-​ dijk-​archive-​feng-​mengbo/​sort/​title-​asc. 5 Olu Oguibe, ‘Samuel Fosso: Emperor of Africa’, Aperture, 221 (2015): 90. 6 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), p. 18. 7 See JJjustforpr, ‘Mao Zedong’, DeviantArt, 5 December 2008, www.deviantart.com/​ jjjustforpr/​art/​Mao-​Zedong-​105532205. 8 Heinrich, Ari Larissa, The Afterlife of Images:  Translating the Pathological Body Between China and the West (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). 9 The meeting between Peck’s character and Mao involves a game of ping pong that fascinatingly prefigures the Nixon administration’s actual 1971–​72 strategy of ‘ping pong diplomacy’. Yama would reprise his table tennis-​playing Chairman Mao in a Van Heusen shirt commercial from the early 1970s. See Stanley Schulman, ‘Van Huesen Shirt Commercial Chairman Mao.avi’, YouTube, 27 January 2013, www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=4u9AjEBpcLE&feature =share. 10 Michael Schoenhals, ‘Formalized Language as a Form of Power’, in Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics:  Five Studies (Berkeley, CA:  Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1992), p. 22. 11 James A. Snead, ‘On Repetition in Black Culture’, Black American Literature Forum 15(4) (1981): 146–​54. 12 Jameson, Postmodernism, p. 17.

178  Eldon Pei 13 Established in 1953, Beijing-​ based CNDF [Zhongyang xinwen jilu dianying zhipianchang] was formed through a merger of the news departments of the first motion picture institutions that Communist forces managed to take over at the end of the Second Sino-​Japanese War. For the duration of the Mao era, it would be the PRC’s main studio for newsreel and documentary film production. Founded in 1952, the PLA’s August First Film Studio was the Mao era’s most versatile motion picture producer, releasing fiction, documentary and educational films in significant numbers. 14 See Andrew Walder, Fractured Rebellion:  The Beijing Red Guard Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 215. 15 Beijing Municipal People’s Committee, ‘Beijing Shi Renmin Weiyuanhui zhuanfa Wenhua Bu guanyu zuo hao jilupian Mao Zhuxi he baiwan wenhua geming dajun zai yiqi de fangying he xuanchuan gongzuo de tongzhi’ [Beijing Municipal People’s Committee transmits the Ministry of Culture’s notice concerning the need to effectively perform exhibition and propaganda work for the documentary Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army], 26 September 1966, Beijing Municipal Archive, 2-​ 18-​ 175; ‘Jiefangjun zongzheng wenhuabu tongzhi ge budui zuzhi hao fangying he xuanchuan gongzuo, rang quan jun jinkuai kan dao jilupian Mao Zhuxi he baiwan wenhua geming dajun zai yiqi’ [PLA General Political Department Cultural Division Notifies Military Units to Make Good Arrangements for Exhibition and Propaganda Work, Let the Entire Army See the Documentary Film Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army], Jiefang junbao, 9 September 1966. 16 Liu Yang, ‘Wenge shiqi de dianyingye shulue [A brief account of the Cultural Revolution period’s motion picture industry]’, Dianying pingjie, 20 (2011): p. 3. 17 Representative examples include ‘Women kewang jiandao Mao Zhuxi de xinyuan shixian le’ [Our Heart’s Desire to See Chairman Mao has Been Realized], Guangming Ribao, 22 September 1966; and ‘Kangkai hua dangnian, xingfen kan jinzhao: Liang dai ren zongqing changtan dianying Mao Zhuxi he baiwan wenhua geming dajun zai yiqi’ [Effusively Speaking of Yesteryear, Excitedly Regarding Today’s Order:  Two Generations Rave About the Film Chairman Mao with a Million Members of the Cultural Revolution Army], Renmin Ribao, 14 September 1966. 18 The interpretation of historical developments that I offer in this paragraph paraphrases Walder, Fractured Rebellion, pp.142–​45, 156, 160–​69. 19 The task of organizing the Red Guard rallies predictably received the highest level of attention from municipal administrative staff in Beijing, as well as from the military garrison in charge of protecting the capital. Zhou Enlai himself supervised the planning and coordination of the mass meetings. A number of retrospective accounts have been published by people who took part in this work. See Ni Tianzuo, ‘Mao Zhuxi baci jiejian hongweibing de zuzhi gongzuo’ [Organizational Work for Chairman Mao’s Eight Receptions with the Red Guards], Bainianchao, 11 (2010): 46–​50; Zhang Huican and Mu An, ‘Mao Zhuxi baci jiejian hongweibing neiqing’ [Behind the Scenes of Chairman Mao’s Eight Receptions with the Red Guards], Yanyuang chunqiu, 4 (2006): 17–​23; Kang Pengcheng, ‘Yu hongweibing dajiaodao de riri yeye: 1966 nian shoudu jiedai hongweibing zongzhan yishi’ [Days and Nights of Interacting with Red Guards: Recollections from the 1966 Capital Red Guard Reception Station], Dangshi zongheng, 6 (2001):  39–​42; and Chen Changjiang and Zhao Guilai, ‘Mao Zhuxi baci jiejian hongweibing’ [Chairman Mao’s Eight Receptions with the Red Guards], Zongheng, 1 (1999): 14–​19.

One more time, with feeling  179 20 At the 10 November rally, Mao spontaneously approached the microphone bank on the Tiananmen rostrum and uttered the unremarkable words, ‘Comrades, long life to you!’ The Chairman’s silence at the Red Guard rallies might be contrasted with his historic oral proclamation of the establishment of the PRC in October 1949, an event that took place at the exact same location and that had been cinematically recorded through footage appearing in the 1949 documentary film Birth of New China (dir. Gao Weijin). 21 Walder, Fractured Rebellion, p. 223. 22 Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 173. 23 A transcript from a 1 February 1967 meeting between senior CCRG members Jiang Qing and Qi Benyu, and representatives from the dominant rebel factions at CNDF and August First suggests that the fourth and fifth Red Guard rally films were held up due to internal power struggles at CNDF and Jiang’s hostility towards Ministry of Culture leaders Xiao Wangdong and Zhao Xinchu. See Li Song, ed., Yangbanxi biannianshi [Chronicle of the Model Opera], Vol. 2 (Taipei: Showwe, 2012), pp. 29–​35. 24 Walder, Fractured Rebellion, p. 191. 25 Mittler, Continuous Revolution, p. 280. 26 See, for example, Leese, Mao Cult; Guobin Yang, ‘Mao Quotations in Factional Battles and Their Afterlives: Episodes from Chongqing’, in Cook, ed., Mao’s Little Red Book, pp. 61–​75; and Alain Badiou and Bruno Bosteels, ‘The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?’ Positions 13(3) (2005): 481–​514. 27 Badiou and Bosteels, ‘The Cultural Revolution’, p. 506. 28 Shan Wanli, Zhongguo jilu dianying shi [History of Chinese Documentary Cinema] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2005), p. 235. 29 David E.  Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 293. 30 Clifford Geertz, ‘Deep Play:  Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’, Daedalus 134(4) (2005): 82. 31 Geertz, ‘Deep Play’: 80, 85. 32 See the essays ‘Film Form: New Problems’ [1935] and ‘Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today’ [1944], both in Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, ed. and trans. Jay Leyda (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977). 33 Daniel Leese, ‘A Single Spark: Origins and Spread of the Little Red Book in China’, in Alexander C.  Cook, ed., Mao’s Little Red Book:  A Global History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p.39. 34 Leese, ‘A Single Spark’, p. 38. 35 Andrew Jones, ‘Quotation Songs: Portable Media and the Maoist Pop Song’, in Cook, ed., The Little Red Book, pp. 43–​60. 36 Among the most important women filmmakers of the Maoist period, Zhang Jianzhen would serve as the lead producer and editor-​in-​chief for several national newsreel series, including Xinwen Jianbao (News Bulletin), whose title became virtually synonymous with Mao-​era non-​fiction film production. 37 The fall of others of Xia’s generation and pedigree, including Tian Han (b. 1898), Yang Hansheng (b. 1902) and, above all, the CCP Central Committee’s Minister and Vice Minister of Propaganda, Lu Dingyi (b. 1906) and Zhou Yang (b. 1908), would follow shortly. 38 Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution:  A History (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2008).

180  Eldon Pei 39 Liang Youzhi, ‘Dianying jie zaofan pai chutan’ [An Initial Investigation of Rebel Factions in the Film Sector], Jiyi, 65 (2010), xujuneberlein.com/​rem65.html. 40 John Roberts, ‘Art After Deskilling’, Historical Materialism 18 (2010): 77–​96. 41 Joshua J.H. Jiang, ‘The Extermination of the Prosperity of Artists? Mass Art in Mid-​ Twentieth Century China’, Third Text 18(2) (2004): 169–​82. 42 Christine I. Ho, ‘The People Eat for Free and the Art of Collective Production in Maoist China’, Art Bulletin 98(3) (2016): 348–​72.

Part IV

Transitions

8  Breaking with the past Party propaganda and state crimes Puck Engman

The death of Mao Zedong in September 1976 and the detention of the Gang of Four the following month appear today as a watershed in the history of contemporary China. At the outset, however, the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took care to stage these events so as to convey a sense of continuity rather than change. Hua Guofeng, the new CCP chairman, demanded the building of a memorial hall on Tiananmen Square to display his predecessor’s remains and fast-​tracked the long-​delayed publication of the fifth volume of Mao’s selected works. In a companion text to the new volume, Hua called on the masses to ‘carry out the continuous revolution to the end’ by criticizing the Gang of Four’s revisionist take on Mao’s thought and testament.1 However, a month before the first anniversary of Mao’s death, Hua declared that the continuous revolution would, for the time being, be discontinued. At the Eleventh Party Congress, he stated that the ‘smashing’ of the Gang of Four marked the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of a new and more orderly era.2 Although Hua’s competitors would accuse him of failing to address the ideological sources of past errors, he led the party away from revolutionary politics.3 Under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, the Communist Party continued its transformation into becoming a custodian of Mao’s heritage –​which had become inextricably bound up with that of the revolution –​as it became clear that the revolutionary mode of governance belonged to a completed juncture in the country’s history.4 To close the book on the revolution, the political leadership set out to ‘deal with historical issues’, ‘fix policy’ and ‘reverse unjust, false, and mistaken cases’ –​euphemisms describing a series of measures to selectively address legacies of political violence and state terror. Two complementary judgements on the past have come to dominate the official memory of the Mao era. One is the verdict against the Gang of Four and the Lin Biao clique in the show trial that concluded in January 1981; the other is the ‘Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China’ adopted by the Communist Party in the summer that year.5 The trial, writes Alexander Cook, was an occasion for the state to deploy television, print, and radio ‘to shape personal testimony into public experience, and if possible into a fully shared narrative’.6 The resolution, proposes Susanne Weigelin-​Schwiedrzik, was a coalition paper legitimizing ‘the agreed upon genesis of the [Deng Xiaoping era] hierarchy of the CCP’s Central

184  Puck Engman Committee’.7 Today, the twin judgements have taken the shape of monuments dominating the memorial landscape of the Mao era in general and the Cultural Revolution in particular. As with all monuments, the two tend to overshadow their surroundings, in this case eclipsing myriad less spectacular events that were no less important for the formation of a shared narrative on the recent past. ‘In the Cultural Revolution, due to the interference [and] sabotage of the ultra-​ leftist line of Lin Biao and the “Gang of Four”, false cases of so-​called counterrevolutionary organization were manufactured in our mountains; you were made out to be a counterrevolutionary [despite your] innocence’. With this line, the local government in Jinggangshan –​the proverbial cradle of the Chinese revolution –​ motivated its decision to rehabilitate a party member on New Year’s Day 1980. Issued before both trial and resolution, the certificate of rehabilitation nevertheless provided three key elements to relate personal experience of wrongdoing to the official verdict on the past. It identified the guilty party (the Gang of Four), the historical moment (the Cultural Revolution) and the ideological cause (ultra-​ leftism). This was just one of millions of contextualizing acts in a period of a few years from the late 1970s to the mid-​1980s, when the Party opened up to testimonies of past injustice and settled a vast number of related claims. Each court verdict and exoneration document, each directive on rehabilitation, each meeting between a cadre and a petitioner to ‘clarify’ the meaning of personal experience contained a fragment of historical explanation consistent with the Party’s rules of representation. Where previous studies of these politics of the past have contrasted orthodox and heterodox historiography or opposed popular commemoration and state rituals, this chapter shifts focus to the Party’s work to stage events and frame experiences so as to reconcile personal experience and party historiography.8 By linking storytelling to political practice, it argues that criticism and rehabilitation made the official narrative relevant, in concrete ways, in people’s everyday context. Although the great majority of cases never appeared in print or broadcasts, they invariably fell within the domain of propaganda.

The return of the propaganda state One of Hua Guofeng’s very first acts as party chairman, only days after the detention of the Gang of Four, was to secure the Politburo’s approval to set up an interim body that would coordinate propaganda work around the country.9 The CCP Central Propaganda Kou, as it was called, was a modest organization with few staff and resources.10 Still, its establishment was a step towards consolidating authority over propaganda work by reinforcing an institutional hierarchy that had been disrupted ten years earlier when the CCP Central Propaganda Department –​ or the ‘Palace of the King of Hell’, as it was dubbed 1966 –​became one of the first Party institutions to shut down in the Cultural Revolution. The frontal assault on the propaganda system came at the back of a gradual involution that can be traced back to organizational and fiscal problems in the wake of the gross miscalculations of the Great Leap Forward.11 In 1966, the breakdown of party censorship furthered

Breaking with the past  185 the proliferation of unofficial cultural production and consumption, reaching a high point when red guards set up independent structures for communication and publication on university campuses, followed by informal and illicit distribution of reading materials when the students were sent down to the countryside.12 The space left open by the propaganda state’s retreat was dominated above all by the Mao cult: a path to political enlightenment that replaced political indoctrination with a culture of mass participation and absolute belief in the leader as a means to achieve what scholars have termed ‘emancipation by proxy’.13 The establishment of the Central Propaganda Kou restored the propaganda state to its pre-​1966 form.14 Later accusations that Hua Guofeng sought to foster his own personality cult, with the alleged goal of strengthening his own authority independently of the Party organization, have drawn attention from the prompt move to restore the functioning and authority of propaganda institutions. On 15 November, the new head of propaganda, veteran diplomat Geng Biao, opened the first national propaganda conference in a decade, a session dominated by the question of how to criticize the Gang of Four.15 By New Year’s Eve, the official chosen by the Politburo to take over propaganda work in Shanghai –​the Gang of Four’s former power base –​announced that the Party had finally seized back ‘power over public opinion’.16 What the new heads of propaganda celebrated was an institutionalization of party communication in the wake of a struggle for semiotic power that had divided and incapacitated the political leadership as Mao fell quiet in the final years of his life. The propaganda state distinguishes itself by its activist use of mass media, cultural production and educational institutions to mobilize society as if for war.17 This trait betrays an origin in the total mobilization of society for industrial warfare before it went on to become a durable feature of governance in the Soviet Union and other socialist states. As such, the methods and scope of state intervention in the public space also constitute a salient feature of the socialist engagement with legacies of violence and persecution. In the wake of Mao’s death, Chinese leaders recognized a connection between their own circumstances and those of other state socialist countries. Above all, they were acutely aware of the parallels to the situation in the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death. Some of them had been personally involved in countering Khrushchev’s agenda of destalinization and were convinced of the need to identify and avoid the same errors that had disrupted the socialist world in 1956.18 The main lesson they drew from the Soviet precedent was that there could be no separation of Maoism –​‘the great system of Mao Zedong Thought’ in the words of the 1981 Resolution  –​from the history of the revolution. In February 1979, shortly after the pivotal Third Plenum of the Eleventh Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, Hu Yaobang, head of propaganda at the time, proposed that Mao was one of the elements that kept the nation together, together with the Party and socialism, before concluding that, ‘Indeed, the creation of our New China cannot be separated from Chairman Mao’.19 Nevertheless, this was a historical Mao whose fallibility  –​especially towards the end of his life  –​the Party was prepared to acknowledge.

186  Puck Engman A second distinguishing feature of the Chinese official response to Mao’s death was the activist use of propaganda. Where Soviet authorities had been cautious about the implications of state responsibility, the Chinese leadership relied on propaganda work to selectively augment and contextualize testimonies.20 This work began as propaganda institutions were still in the midst of reorganization; the temporary Central Propaganda Kou lacked the resources to directly supervise local propaganda work.21 As a result, the Campaign to Expose, Criticize, and Investigate the Gang of Four (henceforth the Exposure Campaign), which came to dominate all public communication from late 1976 through most of 1977, closely resembled the campaigns of mass criticism familiar from the last years of Maoist rule. While writers drew on language used to attack disgraced leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Lin Biao, caricaturists found a numerically appropriate model in the Four Pests Campaign, drawing the members of the Gang as a rat, a fly, a mosquito and a bed bug.

Community through accusation The Exposure Campaign, as the full name indicates, consisted of three interrelated parts: the exposure of the Gang of Four’s ‘anti-​party’ activities through the circulation of testimonies and evidence; criticism voiced at rallies or in print; and investigation. Only the investigation proceeded outside the public eye. The Wang-​ Zhang-​Jiang-​Yao Case Examination Group  –​which was nothing less than the infamous Central Examination Group set up under the Cultural Revolution to examine anti-​party activities, now under the new leadership of Mao’s former head of security, Wang Dongxing –​supervised raids of offices and homes, interrogations and the collection of incriminating materials.22 As for exposure and criticism, these were collective activities that required the audience not only to passively consume propaganda but participate themselves by framing their own experiences of wrongdoing into accusations against the Gang. Hua Guofeng and his ally Ye Jianying, the decorated marshal, considered the situation in Shanghai, where three-​quarters of the Gang of Four had held top positions, to be especially volatile. To make sure that the city would submit to the new leadership, they dispatched a 220-​cadre Central Work Team led by the political commissioner of the PLA Navy and answering directly to the Politburo.23 Within weeks of the Gang of Four’s arrest, this task force had stationed its own party and army officials at the top of various party and state organs in Shanghai, including local party newspapers and the state broadcasting bureau. In addition, it summoned local cadres for a series of large assemblies at which subordinate officials testified to how they had suffered from ‘fascist control’, ‘bourgeois’ methods and ‘anti-​party sabotage’ under the reign of the Gang of Four and listened to their former superiors in the municipal party committee present self-​criticisms. The compilation of self-​ criticisms and testimonies that came out of the Shanghai meetings was one of the first collection of accusations against the Gang of Four to circulate among party officials.24 Less-​detailed testimonies and

Breaking with the past  187 revelations appeared daily in the Party press during the high tide of the Exposure Campaign, from late 1976 through the summer of 1977. These local testimonies presented the same formalized accusations established by central directives, but they made a positive contribution by filling empty accusations with actual content, thus grounding the political verdict in local experience. The efficiency of this type of communication should be assessed on the basis of its capacity to quickly isolate a small group of accused from a community of accusers, irrespectively of whether or not the exaggerated charges were persuasive. The Exposure Campaign, like other movements of mass criticism, aimed not to win hearts and minds but rather to draw a clear line between us and them, thereby establishing the basis of a community in which the price of membership was performing the role of the accuser. Although the accusers did not have to believe in the charges, they were motivated by belief of another kind, namely in the repressive force of the Hua Guofeng–​Ye Jianying alliance. In no place was the Exposure Campaign’s basis in the threat of violence more readily apparent than in Shanghai. On 27 October 1976, the CCP Central Committee formally appointed Su Zhenhua, the navy general leading the Central Work Team, to the position of First Party Secretary of Shanghai. In his new capacity, Su spoke to a meeting of local cadres about ‘further strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat’ by mobilizing public security organs and the militia to stop ‘sabotage and disturbances from class enemies both domestic and foreign’, as well as to suppress counter-​revolutionaries and others involved in ‘beating, smashing, and looting’.25 This internal speech was followed by a People’s Daily commentary that praised the proletarian indignation of Shanghai’s inhabitants and likened the Gang of Four to rats scurrying across the street with people chanting ‘Kill them! Kill Them!’26 This was no empty slogan but a declaration of intent. In early 1977, some one hundred thousand people gathered to watch a series of public sentencing rallies in the city, at the end of which 223 people had been convicted for various crimes and 26  executed.27 Separately, each city districts organized struggle sessions against some six hundred evildoers.28 By implicating themselves in the project of criticism, cadres were able to cast themselves as victims of a conspiracy rather than collaborators in a criminal enterprise. Because the Gang of Four’s conduct was presented as completely and invariably hostile to the Party, it followed that anyone punished for opposing its members had in fact been loyal to the Party and suffered an injustice. By this logic, total condemnation cleared a path not just to redemption but also to rehabilitation. A short directive from the Party Centre called for the reversal of all cases of ‘exclusively opposing’ the Gang of Four.29 The awkward formulation served to underline that cases involving more general opposition to the Party and its leadership were not up for review. Nevertheless, the directive opened up for the rehabilitation of those who could show that they had been victims of the Gang’s crimes. In the following months, Deng Xiaoping and other party veterans returned to positions of influence. But even at this early stage, the scope of rehabilitation reached far beyond the Party elite. In Shanghai alone, a first round of case reviews in late 1976 revealed 3,662 instances of undue punishment meted out to

188  Puck Engman persons who had ‘exclusively’ or ‘primarily’ opposed the Gang of Four.30 Just over a year later, Xinhua reported that the city had exonerated over ten thousand people persecuted for opposition to the group.31

The asymmetry of representation If the Exposure Campaign drew a line between accusers and accused, it also featured a second separation between two interdependent spheres of communication: one internal to the Party, the other public.32 This distinction, which was an essential feature of the propaganda state, had been disrupted temporarily by the attacks on the Party bureaucracy in 1966, and moves to restore the norms and institutions of propaganda over the following years had stopped short of fully restoring the Party’s information order. The first order of business on the new propaganda leadership’s agenda in those critical months in late 1976 was therefore to enforce the distinction between the two spheres. Geng Biao opened the November conference with a speech calling for an end to non-​authorized circulation of information and chastised cadres who ‘stayed up all night’ to transcribe documents.33 In Shanghai, the Central Work Team ordered the suppression of ‘political rumours and reactionary slogans’, and banned the use of propaganda trucks  –​the favoured communication tool of student and worker rebels.34 By ensuring that ‘the inner differed from the outer’ (内外有别 neiwai youbie), the propaganda state separated the vanguard party from the masses. In this environment, any narrative of the illegitimate past had to pass through the restricted sphere of the Party before it could legitimately be evoked in public. The asymmetrical exchange of information between the two spheres was mediated by the propaganda institutions. The internal circulation of language rules and set formulations ensured the univocality of mass media, mass education and mass culture. In the opposite direction, the propaganda bureaucracy was fundamental to shaping the Party’s understanding of the masses through the sharing of internal news bulletins and surveillance reports that conveyed, and by necessity filtered, public sentiment. The Central Propaganda Department, which replaced the Kou in late October 1977, coordinated the production of all criticism materials intended for the public and oversaw the extension of the Exposure Campaign into the fields of cinema, literature and theatre.35 The Party considered the world of culture to have suffered particular hardship under the Gang of Four’s influence. Artists and writers who could claim they had been victims of the Gang were eligible for rehabilitation and so were the works they had produced. One of the first tasks given to the propaganda staff in Beijing was to watch films that had been banned during the Cultural Revolution, review the criticism against them, and give their opinion on which ones should be reapproved for public screening.36 By February 1979, the Ministry of Culture reported that it had already reviewed and approved some 540 of the over 600 fictional films produced before the Cultural Revolution –​including some, like City Without Night (Jiangnan Film Studio, 1957) and Jiangnan in the North (Haiyan Film Studio, 1963), that had been subjected to intense and public

Breaking with the past  189 criticism.37 Conversely, a separate canon of cultural products associated with the Gang of Four was dubbed ‘conspiratorial art’ and immediately withdrawn from circulation.38 During the initial period of criticism, the operational principle was simply to discard all culture sponsored by the Gang and reconsider all the works it had opposed. Beyond this, the only guidance to cultural workers was to ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’.39 By 1978, an atmosphere of relative relaxation had set in following the strict censorship of the months following the Gang of Four’s arrest. Now criticism developed into something akin to a literary and artistic genre. In August 1978, Liu Xinhua’s short story ‘The Scar’ first appeared in Wenhui bao. With the publication, this Shanghai daily, which had received sharp criticism and gained a new editorial board due to its past support of the Gang of Four, positioned itself at the forefront of an emerging literature recounting tragedies from the past.40 This retrospective genre enjoyed backing from Party leaders, who conceived of it as an artistic outgrowth of the Exposure Campaign. Official support by no means made such works impervious to censorship. In March 1979, the 32nd issue of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Department’s Ideological Trends, an internal bulletin, noted a worrying trend.41 The department had received information from Shanghai Literature that the dominant theme among the three thousand novels, essays and poems that the literary magazine received each month was ‘criticism and exposure’ directed at the Gang of Four. While the propaganda officials felt that the increase in the genre’s popularity was to be expected following the public endorsement of ‘The Scar’  –​the extraordinary output was ultimately, they acknowledged, a positive sign of the ‘deep social foundation’ of anti-​Gang of Four sentiment –​ they nevertheless opined that some writers had gone too far in their tragic representation of the past. Some authors appeared obsessed by themes like ‘suicide, intellectuals and old cadres being persecuted to death, families broken up and people killed [and] mental trauma’. Some pieces included passages described as ‘absurd’, while others were deemed inappropriate due to sexually explicit content. The concern was that such works suffered from a ‘lack of a revolutionary, high-​spirited force capable of encouraging people to vigorous action and forward movement’. Good art, in the eyes of the censors, would do away with the past in a single conclusive stroke, thus freeing people to engage in more productive activities. The period of relative relaxation ended around the time the verdict against the Gang of Four was announced and the Communist Party passed its historical resolution.42 Some works that the authorities deemed unsuitable for the general public could nevertheless circulate within the restricted sphere of party-​internal communication. Here, state secrets appeared together with books and documents that were marked ‘internal’ but lacked formal classification. Such materials included what one CIA analyst has praised as ‘China’s most sensitive, controversial, and high-​ quality investigative journalism’, but during the Exposure Campaign many were so-​called black materials providing evidence of the Gang of Four’s criminal or immoral actions.43 Indeed, the public sphere and the Party-​internal sphere differed

190  Puck Engman not only in terms of what information could legitimately be circulated within each one, but also with regard to what form such information would take. In the case of criticism materials, it is hard to say that party insiders were better informed than members of the public, but the fact that they were differently informed is significant in its own right. Beyond keeping party leaders with accurate information, internal communication served to perpetuate the collective identity of the vanguard party. And when it came to fostering a sense of elite membership, form was at least as important as content. In terms of content, the great variety of party-​internal communication defies easy classification, but the documents from the Exposure Campaign can be divided stylistically into two major types. One was the impoverished bureaucratese typical of party decrees and reports, a language heavy with standardized formulation, statistics and quotes from Marx to Mao. The other was a sort of forensic realism full of seemingly unedited quotes and testimonies as well as facsimile reproductions of evidence. The rawness of this particular style underscored the privilege and responsibility that came with elite membership: the leaders of the Party were privy to information that would corrupt the masses. Historically, this style was a remnant of the underground origins of the Party organization and an expression of a culture of distrust with regard to the own channels of communication. Mao himself had nurtured a fetishism for the unadulterated and unmediated through his partiality to local experience and on-​the-​ground investigation over more systematic forms of knowledge production. The most important party-​ internal documents of the Exposure Campaign were produced in the second style, but it had no place in public. Throughout the Exposure Campaign, the difference between what was permissible in public and within the Party remained sharp. In the weeks after the Gang of Four’s detention, the CCP Centre approved and transmitted instructions to retract all cultural and literary products somehow associated with the Gang’s members.44 In practice, this meant that bookstores had to pulp books, photographs and posters, and that films and television reels were called back. In cases where a certain cultural product was too important to be destroyed or retracted, it had to be altered to remove any trace of the ‘anti-​party clique’. The single most famous example is a photograph from Mao’s funeral that depicts a row of party leaders bowing their heads in reverence. In the version published after the October coup, there were two conspicuous gaps where the Gang’s four members had been standing. No attempts were made to cover up the deletion, which only served to emphasize their absence in a photograph that had been widely publicized in its original version just one month earlier. From the start of the campaign until the trial, when images of the accused appeared on television and in the press, the only depictions of the Gang permitted in public were caricatures that ridiculed, demonized and dehumanized the four members. The caricatures relied on familiar tropes, often in reference to the ‘revisionist’ or ‘fascist’ line of the Gang. The latter is illustrated here by Cai Zhenhua’s caricature of Yao Wenyuan, the notorious polemicist, as the prodigal son of a zombie-​like Joseph Goebbels (Figure 8.1). In his left hand, Yao

Breaking with the past  191

Figure 8.1 Cai Zhenhua’s Varieties of Nazism. From a selection of caricatures produced for an exhibition criticizing the Gang of Four that opened in Beijing on 18 February 1977.

192  Puck Engman is holding a dripping brush and in the right a paper where he has distorted parts of the title, an allusion to the charge that the Gang of Four had sought to misrepresent Mao’s instructions to the Party from his deathbed. By contrast, party-​internal communication featured photographs of the Gang of Four, together with pictures of weapons, leaflets and broadcasting equipment, as well as facsimile reproductions of manuscripts, letters, poems and confessions by their purported co-​conspirators. A copy of a recorded telephone conversation between Yao Wenyuan and the Xinhua News Agency (Figure 8.2) was presented as proof of the same allegation that Cai Zhenhua’s caricature illustrated, namely that the Gang of Four had attempted to distort Mao’s final command. It appeared in the most authoritative set of evidence against the Gang, put together by the Wang-​Zhang-​Jiang-​Yao Case Examination  Group. Between December 1976 and September 1977, this group issued three collections, each in millions of copies, which juxtaposed elements of forensic realism with formalized accusations against the ‘anti-​Party clique’.45 The controlled circulation of purported evidence reinforced the Party’s elite identity. Its members were brought closer together by a privileged access to illicit material and expected to have the discipline necessary to denounce the targets of the Exposure Campaign, regardless of individual beliefs. In April 1977, the Central Work Team began to disband, following what had turned out to be a smooth transition of power in Shanghai. Around the same time, the number of articles criticizing the Gang of Four in the Party press was beginning to decline. These were both tell-​tale signs that the critical phase of the Exposure Campaign was over. Confirmation came at the final session of the tenth CCP Central Committee in July 1977, when a resolution was adopted to formally remove Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan from all positions. A month later, at the Eleventh CCP National Congress, Hua Guofeng announced victory in the struggle against the Gang of Four, which he said marked the ending of the Cultural Revolution.46 This was the first public occasion at which a Party leader made the connection between the fall of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution. This periodization not only shaped Party historiography but also the ensuing programme for rehabilitation.

The recognition of official wrongdoing In 1978, the scope of rehabilitation began to extend from acts of opposition against the Gang of Four to the reversal of a vast number of ‘unjust, false and mistaken cases’ whose only connection to the Gang was that they had occurred during the Cultural Revolution. The shift towards a new temporal understanding of past injustice stood in stark contrast to the model of responsibility that had dominated the Exposure Campaign in the previous year, when accusations had been focused on a period beginning in August 1973 with the formal appointment of Wang Hongwen and the others to top positions in the Communist Party. As more and more people were rehabilitated, attempts to demonstrate the direct responsibility of the Gang of Four gave way to a broader acknowledgement of administrative wrongdoing.

Breaking with the past  193

Figure 8.2 Facsimile of a recorded telephone conversation between Yao Wenyuan and the Xinhua News Agency. From the first set of materials with evidence against the Wang-​Zhang-​Jiang-​Yao Anti-​Party Clique, circulated by the CCP Center (Zhongfa [1976] 24), 10 December 1976.

194  Puck Engman Two national conferences in early 1978 prepared the way for the expansion of rehabilitation and, in particular, a greater involvement of public security and courts in the process: the Seventeenth National Public Security Conference in January and the Eight National People’s Judicial Work Conference in April and May. At the later meeting, the president of the Supreme People’s Court remarked:  ‘Not to reverse unjust cases and not to correct wrongfully decided cases equals continuing the illegal practice of infringing on citizens’ rights. This is something that our Party statutes and state laws cannot tolerate’.47 In a speech that otherwise contained much of the familiar language of conspiracy and class struggle, this comment signalled a new line on rehabilitation, which not only involved the judiciary to a greater degree but effectively amounted to a qualified recognition of systemic misconduct during the Cultural Revolution. Also in 1978, a series of articles in the People’s Daily made rehabilitation a topic for public discussion. Articles on this subject appeared with increased frequency in the second half of the year, following the Party-​internal circulation of the meeting minutes from the judicial conference.48 The reversal of verdicts featured most heavily in the press in the months following the Third Plenum when the People’s Daily publicized party decisions to reverse historical verdicts of nationwide importance, while the Guangming Ribao ran articles on the rehabilitation of high-​profile party intellectuals, and the local press reported on exonerations in the provinces. One month before the plenum, on 16 November 1978, the first page of the People’s Daily featured one of the first announcements of this kind: a notice on the long-​anticipated reversal of the verdict on the so-​called Tiananmen Incident, the gatherings to honour the memory of recently deceased Premier Zhou Enlai that had turned into political protest in April 1976.49 The CCP Beijing Municipal Committee’s assessment that the protests had in fact been ‘completely revolutionary’ was followed by the full rehabilitation of those arrested for their participation. Photographs that had been censored for depicting the people gathered at Tiananmen in a heroic light were now upheld as outstanding examples of vivid photography (Figure 8.3). The active deployment of the press allowed individual acts of wrongdoing to be woven into a segmented story of the past 30 years. Although discreet ‘liberation’ of party officials who had fallen from grace and even administrative-​judicial rehabilitation had been ongoing since the early 1970s, there was now a concerted propaganda effort to frame rehabilitation as if it marked a break with the past and the beginning of a ‘new era’  –​to use Hua Guofeng’s term from August 1977, which went on to become the mantra of reform over the following years.50 This approach also differed from the one pursued in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, where the press had avoided any implication of judicial wrongdoing by referring to ‘pardons’ and ‘amnesties’ rather than ‘rehabilitation’.51 Even on the rare occasion when the Soviet press would use the term reabilitatsiia, readers had a hard time understanding what was meant by this ‘foreign technical term’.52 By contrast, when Chinese journalists wrote of reversing injustices, they used an expression familiar to their readers, one that had been part of imperial legal practice for thousands of years: 平反 pingfan. This verb can take as object

Breaking with the past  195 either cases, verdicts, and events, and is best translated as ‘to reverse’ or the convicted or accused person, making ‘to rehabilitate’ or ‘to exonerate’ more suitable translations. The Party press featured only a tiny fraction of the millions of rehabilitated cases. The great majority of rehabilitations never reached a circle extending beyond the person in question, their family and their work unit and residential committee. But even in this everyday context, party directives stressed the need for propaganda work and political education. In September 1978, Hu Yaobang –​who would take over as head of propaganda three months later –​spoke on the handling of letters and visits, stressing the need for careful ‘ideological work’ in encounters with petitioners. He instructed cadres to wait patiently to hear even the most outrageous demands and only then try to reason with the petitioners to educate them on ideology and policy.53 The speech came on the back of a sudden upshot in the number of petitions, with the Party’s organization department reporting eight thousand letters per month, an eightfold increase from the previous year, and about one hundred personal calls per day. An estimated 70 percent of these letters and visits were related to ‘unjust and mistaken cases’.54 In some places, the flood of letters created such a strain on local offices that the Central Organization Department approved measures to increase staff to manage the workload.55 The trend continued into the following year, when some 180,000 petitioners bypassed over-​burdened local offices and took their complaints directly to the CCP Central Committee’s office in Beijing.56 Petitioners were not confined to institutionalized forms of protests, but also took their grievances into the streets, most importantly through writing big-​character posters. The big-​character posters plastered onto the brick wall stretching along the Xidan street in Beijing became famous when the US press wrote of it as the ‘democracy wall’. Foreign media coverage focused on political criticism and calls for reform, but the initial motivation for putting up posters had been to publicize personal experiences of injustice and call for redress.57 Calls for political reform not only shared the same space as the personal grievances but represented a radical reframing of the stories they told. For the Party leadership, the reversal of unjust cases and crackdown against democracy activists were complementary tasks with the same goal: political stability and social reconciliation.58 Stability and reconciliation were the goals of the ‘ideological work’ that Hu Yaobang felt was so important in the encounter with petitioners. This term refers to the combination of narrative framing and soft intimidation used by local cadres to guide grievances away from questions of compensation or retribution –​issues on which the policy was far more restrictive than on the recognition of victimhood. New directives for the judiciary explained that cadres should patiently guide injured parties and their families to ‘focus their hatred on Lin Biao and the “Gang of Four” ’ and to give the Communist Party due credit for their rehabilitation.59 At times, such framing operations would evolve into outright mediation. This was the case, to take just one example, when the Shanghai Bureau of Culture dispatched an investigation group to resolve lingering issues and conflicts at the city’s Beijing

196  Puck Engman

Figure 8.3 Photograph from the Qingming Day protests, in Xinwen yewu [News Profession], 1621, 26 March 1979.

Breaking with the past  197 opera troupe in the second half of 1978. A report tells of a bitter conflict between three actors that had originated when one actor had denounced the two others, which had led to the other two being imprisoned for four years.60 By explaining that the first actor had acted under duress, the investigators were reportedly able to convince the two others that they had all been victims of the Gang of Four. For its account of how to promote notions of superior responsibility and shared trauma, Shanghai’s propaganda department selected the report as a model for successful ideological work. The level of publicity given to an act of rehabilitation, together with the status of the institution taking the decision, determined its prestige or ‘standard’ (规格 guige). Having experienced repeated shifts from repression to redress and back to repression under Mao, many members of the public were keen to have a public and authoritative confirmation of their rehabilitation. This was not only to satisfy their own sense of justice, but also to lessen the risk of becoming a target once again. A  famous example is the so-​called Li Yizhe Counterrevolutionary Clique of Guangdong Province. The three members of this group circulated the manifesto ‘On Socialist Democracy and the Legal System’ in 1974 and their harsh punishment drew attention from scholars and human rights organizations overseas. At the time when Xi Zhongxun took over as head of the province’s party committee, in connection to his own rehabilitation in late 1978, the trio initially refused the authorities’ offer of a discreet exoneration and even threatened a hunger strike if the ‘standard’ was not raised. After some negotiation, Xi personally agreed to grant them rehabilitation in the name of the CCP Guangdong Provincial Committee, which was confirmed at a meeting attended by over one thousand people.61 Although the group was atypical due to its high profile, the same logic applied in more mundane cases: a proclamation of innocence before an assembly was preferable to an exoneration in private and a rehabilitation certificate from a public security office weighed more heavily than one from the work unit.

History told through a few million reversed cases Propaganda work was how the Party acknowledged and contextualized illegitimate experiences to make sure people drew the right lessons from the past. It involved a great number of state and party officials from the editors of major newspapers to the local cadres meeting with petitioners. The Exposure Campaign weaponized tales of personal suffering and administrative dysfunction in a focused attack on the Gang of Four. At this critical juncture, shortly after the death of a leader who had grown to embody Chinese socialism, the path to a new political consensus passed via the separation of us from them, victims from perpetrators. The familiar image of a conspiracy of internal enemies who had deceived both the Party and the people served to delineate a community of victim-​accusers. The expansion of rehabilitation in 1978 represented a turn towards social reconciliation and an end to the systemic use of judicial and other institutions of state violence to sustain mass mobilization. In order to save the legacy of the revolution and the basis for

198  Puck Engman its own rule, the Party framed this move away from the revolutionary mode of politics as a return of the institutions and principles that had been set up during the first seventeen years of the People’s Republic. For the political leadership, then, the ten-​year Cultural Revolution was a convenient fiction that made it possible to terminate the revolution without having to abandon the institutions that had emerged from it. And for the millions of people who were rehabilitated or pursued rehabilitation in the years after Mao’s death, the Cultural Revolution attained a concrete reality as an administrative-​legal category inscribed into the policies of redress. A key principle in the review of cases was the sharp distinction between accusations and punishment that had occurred during the Cultural Revolution and ‘lingering historical issues’ from earlier years. At a conference in June 1979, the heads of the CCP Central Organization Department stressed this distinction and instructed cadres to carefully inspect older cases through the lens of dialectical and historical materialism62 –​or, in the words of the directive that followed upon the meeting: Among the cases handled during these [pre-​1966] campaigns and as part of routine work, there are indeed some that were dealt with erroneously or treated too leniently or too severely, but the great majority were correct or basically correct according to the historical circumstances of the time. They differ in principle from the large number of unjust, false, and mistaken cases brought about during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ under Lin Biao’s and the Gang of Four’s severe interference and sabotage.63 Likewise, the judiciary received notice that the nature of older cases was different from those from the Cultural Revolution and thus had to be handled with great discernment.64 Although the Party organization and the judiciary reversed millions of older cases, going back as far as the 1930s, these did not resonate in the official narration of the past.65 In public, as in Party-​internal communication, these appeared as no more than occasional errors, notwithstanding the impressive sum of individual mistakes, which had come to pass despite of historical circumstances rather than because of them. This logic applied, notably, to the half a million people who had suffered criticism and humiliation, lost employment and welfare, or even ended up in labour camps for being ‘rightists’. In late summer 1979, Deng Xiaoping voiced a qualified defence of this 1950s campaign, in which he had been instrumental as head of the Central Secretariat, when he stated that it had been necessary, if excessive.66 As it turned out, the scope of the excess was such that, over the following two years, the authorities ‘corrected’ the labels of over 98 percent of the rightists and reinstated 270,000 people who had been demoted or discharged as a consequence of mistaken designations.67 According to the political leadership, the errors from this and other earlier campaigns held no lessons for the present. As Deng put it on a separate occasion, ‘Historical issues can only be dealt with broadly, they cannot be dealt with in detail. As soon as they are dealt with in detail there will be delays, which is disadvantageous. The overall situation must take precedence’.68 Chinese authorities would continue their broad-​stroke

Breaking with the past  199 approach to redressing historical injustice for years to come, and each person who was rehabilitated or compensated became a stakeholder in the official story of the past. They all participated in the selective remembrance and forgetfulness through which a national community no longer defined by its revolutionary origins could take shape.

Acknowledgement The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/​2007–​2013)/​ERC grant agreement no. 336202.

Notes 1 Hua Guofeng, Ba wuchanjieji zhuanzheng xia de jixu geming jinxing daodi [Carry out the Continuous Revolution under the Proletarian Dictatorship to the End] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1977). 2 Hua Guofeng, ‘Zai Zhongguo gongchandang di shiyi ci quanguo daibiao dahui shang de zhengzhi baogao’ [Political Report at the Eleventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party], 12 August 1977, in Liaoning ribao bianjibu, Hua zhuxi zhongyao zhishi (yi) (Liaoning: Liaoning ribao bianjibu, 1977), pp. 52–​55, see item 4746, Maoist Legacy Database (MLD), https://​maoistlegacy.de/​db. 3 On the frequently misrepresented role of Hua Guofeng in the post-​Mao transition, see Han Gang, ‘Guanyu Hua Guofeng de ruogan shishi’ [A Few Historical Facts About Hua Guofeng], Yanhuang chunqiu, 2 (2011): 9–​18 and 3 (2011): 9–​16. 4 Yves Chevrier, ‘La Chine aujourd’hui: la nation sans la démocratie’, in Jean-​Vincent Holeindre and Benoît Richard, eds, La démocratie. histoire, théories, pratiques (Auxerre: Editions Sciences Humaines, 2010), pp. 275–​85. 5 Daniel Leese, ‘The Politics of Historical Justice after the Cultural Revolution’, 27 August 2018, https://​maoistlegacy.de/​db/​politics-​of-​historical-​justice-​after-​the-​ cultural-​revolution. 6 Alexander Cook, The Cultural Revolution on Trial:  Mao and the Gang of Four (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 105. 7 Susanne Weigelin-​Schwiedrzik, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, Chinese Law and Government, 3(19) (1986): 4. 8 Most recently, Sebastian Veg, ed., Popular Memories of the Mao Era: From Critical Debate to Reassessing History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2019). In the long list of earlier publications on the topic, some notable examples include Geremie Barmé, ‘Using the Past to Save the Present:  Dai Qing’s Historiographical Dissent’, East Asian History, 1 (1991): 141–​81; Mobo Gao, The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, (London:  Pluto Press, 2008); Michael Schoenhals, ‘Unofficial and Official Histories of the Cultural Revolution: A Review Article’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 48(3) (1989): 563–​72; Susanne Weigelin-​Schwiedrzik, ‘In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-​Century Chinese History’, The China Quarterly, 188 (2006): 1070–​91. 9 Geng Biao, Geng Biao huiyilu [Memoirs of Geng Biao] (Nanjing:  Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1998), pp. 296–​97.

200  Puck Engman 10 According to a report transmitted by the CCP Centre (Zhongfa [1977] no. 3), reprinted in Zhongyang xuanchuanbu bangongting, ed., Dang de xuanchuan gongzuo wenjian xuanbian (1976–​1982) (Bejing: Zhongggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1994), pp. 513–​15. 11 Matthew Johnson, ‘Beneath the Propaganda State:  Official and Unofficial Cultural Landscapes in Shanghai, 1949–​1965’, in Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson, eds, Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp. 199–​229. 12 Lena Henningsen, ‘What is a Reader? Participation and Intertextuality in Hand-​ Copied Entertainment Fiction from the Chinese Cultural Revolution’, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 29(2) (2017):  109–​58; Barbara Mittler, ‘ “Enjoying the Four Olds!” Oral Histories from a “Cultural Desert” ’, Transcultural Studies, 1 (2013):  177–​ 214; Michael Schoenhals, ‘China’s “Great Proletarian Information Revolution” of 1966–​1967’, in Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson, eds, Maoism at the Grassroots:  Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2015), pp.  230–​58; Song Yongyi, ‘A Glance at the Underground Reading Movement During the Cultural Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary China, 16(51) (2007): 325–​33. 13 Daniel Leese, Mao Cult:  Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 72. 14 It should be noted that the move toward institutionalization at the national level had local precedent: propaganda departments had been set up across the country since the reinstatement of regular party organs in the provinces in the early 1970s. According to CCP organizational histories, propaganda departments were established on a provincial level in Jilin, Sichuan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Beijing, and Liaoning in the second half of 1972. Other provinces followed suit. Shanghai did not formally establish an organ for propaganda until March 1977, but the powerful Writing Group together with the Culture and Education Group had performed comparable functions. 15 ‘Quanguo xuanchuan gongzuo zuotanhui (gaikuang)’ [National Symposium on Propaganda Work (Summary)], 15 November 1976, in Zhonggong zhongyang xuanchuanbu bangongting, Dang de xuanchuan gongzuo huiyi gaikuang he wenxian (1951—​1992) (Beijing:  Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1994), p.  195, see item 1581, MLD. 16 ‘Che Wenyi zai Zhonggong Shanghai shiwei xuanchuan gongzuo huiyi bimuhui de jianghuagao’ [Outline of Che Wenyi’s Speech at the Closing of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee Conference for Propaganda Work], 31 December 1976, B285-​ 2-​740-​29, Shanghai Municipal Archives (SHMA). 17 Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–​1929 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp.  8–​ 12; David Brandenberger, Propaganda State in Crisis:  Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination, and Terror under Stalin, 1927–​1941 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 5. 18 Leese, ‘The Politics of Historical Justice’. 19 Hu Yaobang, ‘Dangqian xuanchuan gongzuo yao zhuyi de ji ge wenti’ [Some Issues to Pay Attention to in Current Propaganda Work], Zhonggong zhongyang xuanchuanbu, Xuanchuan dongtai:  1979 (xuanbian) (Beijing:  Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1979), 7–​18 see item 1142, MLD. 20 Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, eds, De-​Stalinising Eastern Europe:  The Rehabilitation of Stalin’s Victims After 1953 (London:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 11,  17–​18.

Breaking with the past  201 21 Zhongyang xuanchuanbu bangongting, Dang de xuanchuan gongzuo wenjian xuanbian (1976–​1982), pp. 513–​15. 22 Michael Schoenhals, ‘The Central Case Examination Group, 1966–​79’, The China Quarterly, 145 (1996): 87–​111. 23 The figure provided here is from when the Central Work Team was at its strongest. The number of members varied over time and sources differ slightly regarding who exactly was part of the team. Party historian Li Haiwen and former work team member Wang Shoujia provide what is probably the most reliable list, in Li Haiwen and Wang Shoujia, ‘Sirenbang’ Shanghai yudang fumieji [Record of the Destruction of the ‘Gang of Four’ Acolytes in Shanghai] (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 2015), p. 143. The Central Work Team grew out of an eight-​man group dispatched to Shanghai at a time when the arrest of the Gang of Four was still a secret, on the pretext of inspecting the implementation of the latest five-​year plan: see Gu Mu, Gu Mu huiyilu [Memoirs of Gu Mu], (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2009), pp. 283–​85. 24 Shanghai shi qu, xian, ju dangyuan fuze ganbu huiyi mishuzu, ‘Qu-​xian-​ju dangyuan fuze ganbu huiyi da hui fayan ‘[Speeches at the Meeting for Leading Cadres at the District, County and Bureau Level] (November 1976), https://​maoistlegacy.de/​db/​ collections/​show/​3. 25 ‘Su Zhenhua, Peng Chong tongzhi zai Shanghai shi qu xian ju yishang fuze ganbu huiyi shang de jianghua’ [Speeches by Comrades Su Zhenhua and Peng Chong at the Meetings for Leading Shanghai Cadres Above the District, County and Bureau Level], November 1976, B123-​8-​1536, SHMA. 26 Translated as ‘Renmin Ribao’ Commentator, ‘The Situation in Shanghai is Excellent and Inspiring’, Peking Review, 11 May 1976, pp. 13–​14. The original version appeared on the frontpage of People’s Daily on 30 October 1976. 27 Li Haiwen and Wang Shoujia, ‘Sirenbang’ Shanghai yudang fumieji, p. 252. 28 Li and Wang, ‘Sirenbang’, p. 252. 29 Zhonggong zhongyang, ‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu chongxin chuli chunshu fandui “sirenbang” anjian de tongzhi’ [CCP Center Notice on Handling Anew Cases of Exclusive Opposition against the ‘Gang of Four’], 12 May 1976, see item 1998, MLD. 30 ‘Shiwei guanche Zhongyang 23 hao wenjian bangongshi wenjian’ [Document from the Municipal Committee Office for Implementing Central Document No. 23], March 1977, A83-​2–​30,  SHMA. 31 Xinhua Domestic Service, ‘Shanghai CCP committee exonerates over 10,000 people’, 12 March 1978, FBIS-​CHI-​78, Foreign Broadcast Information Service. 32 In his study of literary circulation in Mao’s China, Nicolai Volland proposes a heuristic division between three spheres: the open public sphere, the restricted public sphere of internal publications and the private sphere: see ‘Clandestine Cosmopolitanism: Foreign Literature in the People’s Republic of China, 1957–​1977’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 76(1) (2017): 185–​210. 33 ‘Geng Biao tongzhi zai quanguo xuanchuan gongzuo zuotanhui shang de jianghua’ [Geng Biao’s Speech at the National Forum for Propaganda Work], 15 November 1976, B285-​2-​740-​1,  SHMA. 34 ‘Su Zhenhua, Peng Chong tongzhi zai Shanghai shi qu xian ju yishang fuze ganbu huiyi shang de jianghua’. 35 ‘Guanyu chengli zhongyang xuanchuanbu de tongzhi’ [Notice on the Establishment of a Central Propaganda Department], 31 October 1977, in Zhongyang xuanchuanbu bangongting, Dang de xuanchuan gongzuo wenjian xuanbian (1976–​1982).

202  Puck Engman 36 Jiang Chunze, ‘Zai Geng Biao lingdao xia de Zhongyang xuanchuankou de rizi’ [The Central Propaganda Kou in the Days of Geng Biao’s Leadership], Yanhuang chunqiu, 4 (2010): 18. 37 Wenhuabu dangzu, ‘Wenhuabu dangzu guanyu huifu shangying “Beiguo Jiangnan” deng yi pi yingpian xiang Zhongyang xuanchuanbu de baogao’ [Report from the Ministry of Culture Party Group to the Central Propaganda Department on Resuming Screenings of Jiangnan in the North and Other Films], see item 1665, MLD. 38 Laurence Coderre, ‘Counterattack: (Re)Contextualizing Propaganda’, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 4(3) (2010): 223–​24. 39 ‘Dui dangqian wenyi chuangzao de shexiang’ [Envisioning Literary and Artistic Production Today], n.d., B285-​2-​750-​14,  SHMA. 40 Criticism to this effect was part of Su Zhenhua’s comment on ‘Wenhui bao guanyu zuijin xuanchuan qingkuang de baogao’ [Report from Wenhui Bao on the Recent Propaganda Situation], December 1976, G20-​2-​233-​2, SHMA. 41 Zhongggong Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu bangongshi, ‘Sixiang dongxiang’ [Ideological Trends], 16 March 1979, A22-​4-​115-​29, SHMA. 42 Perry Link, The Uses of Literature:  Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 68–​96; Chris Berry, Postsocialist Cinema in Post-​Mao China:  The Cultural Revolution After the Cultural Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 67–​72. 43 See ‘Appendix C’ in Todd Hazelbarth, ‘The Chinese Media:  More Autonomous and Diverse  –​Within Limits’, 1997, www.cia.gov/​library/​center-​for-​the-​study-​ of-​intelligence/​csi-​publications/​books-​and-​monographs/​the-​chinese-​media-​more-​ autonomous-​and-​diverse-​within-​limits/​copy_​of_​1.htm. 44 Zhonggong zhongyang, ‘Pizhuan Zhonglianbu deng danwei “guanyu dui sheji sirenbang” fandang jituan de yingpian, dianshipian, xiju, huapian he shukan deng wenti de chuli yijian’ [Commenting and Transmitting ‘Opinion on How to Handle Films, Television Programmes, Stage Plays, Depictions and Print Material and Other Issues’ from the Liaison Department and Other Units], 23 October 1976, see item 1586, MLD. 45 Wang Zhang Jiang Yao zhuan’anzu, ‘Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan fandang jituanzuizheng’ [Criminal Evidence of the Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan Anti-​Party Clique], issued in three parts with Zhongfa, 24, 10 December 1976; Zhongfa, 10, 7 March 1977; Zhongfa, 37, 23 September 1977. 46 Hua, ‘Zai Zhongguo gongchandang di shiyi ci quanguo daibiao dahui shang de zhengzhi baogao’. 47 Leese, ‘The Politics of Historical Justice’. 48 For example, ‘Gong’an sifa gongzuozhe de zhongyao zhize’ [An Important Task for Public Security and Judicial Workers], Renmin ribao, 19 May 1978; ‘Shishi xin xianfa –​jiaqiang shehui zhuyi fazhi’ [Put the New Constitution in Effect –​Strengthen the Socialist Legal System], Renmin ribao, 28 May 1978; ‘Shi shi qiu shi you cuo bi jiu’ [Seek Truth from Facts, Rectify Mistakes Whenever Discovered], Renmin ribao, 15 November 1978; ‘Pingfan yuan’an de lishi jiejian’ [Historical Lessons of the Reversal of Unjust Cases], Renmin ribao, 15 November 1978. 49 ‘Zhonggong Beijing shiwei xuanbu Tiananmen shijian wanquan shi geming xingdong’ [The CCP Beijing Municipal Committee Proclaims the Tiananmen Incident to Be a Completely Revolutionary Act], Renmin ribao, 16 November 1978. 50 Hua, ‘Zai Zhongguo gongchandang di shiyi ci quanguo daibiao dahui shang de zhengzhi baogao’.

Breaking with the past  203 51 McDermott and Stibbe, De-​Stalinising Eastern Europe, p. 11. 52 Marc Elie, ‘Rehabilitation in the Soviet Union, 1953–​1964: A Policy Unachieved’, in McDermott and Stibbe, De-​Stalinising Eastern Europe, p. 28. 53 ‘Hu Yaobang tongzhi de jianghua’ [Comrade Hu Yaobang’s Speech], 25  September 1978, in Zhonggong zhongyang bangongting xinfangju, Guowuyuan bangongting xinfangju, Quanguo xinfang gongzuo huiyi ziliao huibian (Beijing:  Zhonggong zhongyang bangongting xinfangju, Guowuyuan bangongting xinfangju, 1989), pp. 173–​185, see item 4829, MLD. 54 ‘Hu Yaobang tongzhi de jianghua’. 55 Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhibu, ‘Yinfa “guanyu jiaqiang xinfang gongzuo de yijian” de tongzhi’ [Notice Distributing ‘Opinion on Strengthening the Letters and Visits Work’], 17 May 1978, in Zhongyang zuzhibu ganbuju, Ganbu gongzuo zhengce wenjian xuanbian (xia) (Beijing: Dangjian duwu chubanshe, 1993), see item 614, MLD. 56 Isabelle Thireau and Linshan Hua, Les ruses de la démocratie :  protester en Chine (Paris: Seuil, 2010), pp. 192, 194. 57 Hu Jiwei, ‘Hu Yaobang yu Xidan minzhu qiang’ [Hu Yaobang and the Xidan Democracy Wall], http://​hx.cnd.org/​?p=81695. 58 ‘Quandang dou lai weihu anding tuanjie’ [The Entire Party Protects Stability and Unity], in Zhonggong zhongyang xuanchuanbu, Xuanchuan dongtai: 1979 (xuanbian) (Beijing : Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1981), pp. 249–​55, see item 1314, MLD. 59 Zhongyang, ‘Pizhuan zhonggong zuigao renmin fayuan dangzu “guanyu zhuajin fucha jiuzheng yuan, jia, cuo an renzhen luoshi dang de zhengce de qingshi baogao” ’ [Comments on and Transmission of the CCP Supreme People’s Court Party Group’s “Request for Instructions on Paying Close Attention to the Review and Correction of Unjust, False, and Mistaken Cases and Conscientiously Implementing Party Policy”], 29 December 1978, in Zhongyang zuzhibu ganbuju, Ganbu gongzuo zhengce wenjian xuanbian (shang) (Beijing: Dangjian duwu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 799–​804, see item 73, MLD; Zhongyang bangongting, ‘Zhuanfa gong, jian, fa san dangzu “Guanyu jin yi bu fucha pingfan zhengfa xitong jingshou banli de yuan, jia, cuo an de yijian baogao” ’ [Transmitting the Three Public Security, Procuratorate, and Court Party Groups’ ‘Report with Opinion on Pushing Forward with the Review and Reversal of Unjust, False, and Mistaken Cases Handled by the Political-​Legal System’], 25 January 1983, in Zhongyang zuzhibu ganbuju, Ganbu gongzuo zhengce wenjian xuanbian (shang) (Beijing: Dangjian duwu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 810–​16, see item 839, MLD. 60 Zhonggong Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu yundong bangongshi, ‘Qingcha jianshou jianbao’ [Investigation and Verification Report], 21 October 1978, A22-​4-​406-​24,  SHMA. 61 Li Zhengtian, ‘Xi Zhongxun wei wo pingfan yuan’an’ [Xi Zhongxun Reversed My Unjust Case], in Nanfang dushibao, ed., Jianzheng: Zhongguo gaige kaifang sanshi nian koushushi (Guangzhou:  Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008), pp.  88–​91; Xi Zhongxun zhuan weiyuanhui, ed., Xi Zhongxun zhuan, vol. 2 (Beijing:  Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2008), pp. 390–​95. 62 Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi yanjiushi keyan guanli, Boluan fanzheng (zhongyang juan), p. 225. 63 Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhibu, ‘Guanyu “wenhua dageming” qian yi xie anjian chuli yijian de tongzhi’ [Notice with Opinion on the Handling of Cases from before the “Cultural Revolution”], 8 April 1979, in Zhongyang zuzhibu ganbuju, Ganbu gongzuo zhengce wenjian xuanbian (xia) (Beijing: Dangjian duwu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 1008–​ 10, see item 35, MLD.

204  Puck Engman 64 Zhongyang bangongting, ‘Zhuanfa gong, jian, fa san dangzu “guanyu jin yi bu fucha pingfan zhengfa xitong jingshou banli de yuan, jia, cuo an de yijian baogao” ’. 65 A summary from the CCP Central Organization Department citing ‘incomplete statistics’ places the number of reviewed historical cases at almost two million: see Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi yanjiushi keyan guanli, Boluan fanzheng (zhongyang juan), p. 248 However, this likely refers exclusively to cases within the party organization and does not include the Anti-​Rightist Campaign. 66 ‘Guanyu quanguo tongzhan gongzuo huiyi jingshen de chuanda he Shanghai shi guanche zhixing de yijian’ [On Disseminating the Spirit of the National United Front Work Conference and Shanghai’s Opinion on Implementation], November 1979, A33-​6–​33,  SHMA. 67 Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi yanjiushi keyan guanli, Boluan fanzheng (zhongyang juan), p. 230. 68 Leng Rong and Wang Zuoling, eds, Deng Xiaoping nianpu [Chronological Biography of Deng Xiaoping], Vol. I (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2004), p. 445.

9  From text(s) to image(s) Maoist-​era texts and their influences on six oil paintings (1957–​79) Christopher A. Reed

Publicity, public relations and propaganda –​all three were hallmarks of twentieth-​ century corporate-​and state-​sponsored communications.1 Visual imagery was a central part of the message. In China, vivid graphic images of the ideal society and future communist state depicted through Socialist Realist idioms were engraved on the minds and hearts of the millions who lived between 1949, when Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and 1976, when Mao died. Visual propaganda, whether originally presented in Chinese ink painting (guohua 国画), serial-​ picture format (lianhuanhua 连环画 or oil painting (youhua 油画), the medium discussed here, was a particularly potent component of Maoist China’s indoctrination efforts. Frequently, and successfully, it modified, transformed or simply reinforced the belief systems and modes of behaviour of China’s citizenry by imprinting its message onto both their conscious and subconscious minds. But where did these images come from? As this chapter will show, major propaganda images were sometimes derived from or inspired by printed and published texts, some directly and others less obviously ideological.2 Having been patronized by hegemonic party-​state propaganda authorities and cultural work units (danwei 单位) of all sorts from civilian to military, and then endorsed by a complex system of judges, both artistic and political, many of these images were then re-​disseminated in printed form, either as posters or in reproductions in the ubiquitous propaganda magazines.3 Some were also later recreated by hand as painted billboards or even parade displays. Until recently, existing scholarship on Maoist visual culture has tended to take one of two approaches: (1) a statist view, looking at what one might call the ‘Maoist visual culture propaganda system’4 from the perspective of the Chinese Communist party-​state; or (2) an iconographical perspective, which studies images themselves in search of propaganda and other messages. Julia F. Andrews’ Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China5 may be said to have initiated the former approach. It focuses on the establishment or remaking by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of art educational institutions (especially the Central Academy of Fine Arts [Zhongyang meishu xueyuan 中央美术学院, or CAFA] and the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts [Zhejiang meishu xueyuan 浙江美术学院, or

206  Christopher A. Reed ZAFA], today, the China Academy of Art) and artists organizations (the Chinese Artists Association [Zhongguo meishu xiehui 中国美术协会], or CAA in particular), all of which figure in this present study. The second, or iconographical, approach is epitomized by Stefan Landsberger’s Chinese Propaganda Posters, From Revolution to Modernization.6 This book brought to the scholarly world’s attention the rich printed collections that Landsberger and others have assembled in The Netherlands. Like Andrews’ study, Landsberger’s perspective has been augmented by other methodologically similar collections and studies. One such example is Chinese Propaganda Posters, which introduces selections from Michael Wolf’s propaganda poster collection that Wolf paired with relevant chapters from Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong.7 Something similar is done here. A third, more recent study by Barbara Mittler sets out to examine ‘the relationship between artistic production on the one hand and aesthetic experience on the other’8 during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–​76). In making her case, Mittler observes that ‘politics is not [my emphasis] all there is in explaining the Cultural Revolution’. Indeed: Politics often works very differently from the logic of cultural production during the CR [Cultural Revolution], which may sometimes be inert, lethargic, and thus resistant against, or simply oblivious to, policy changes that occur too quickly. Accordingly, CR Culture [should] not be read exclusively as derivative or even correlative of Party politics.9 As an analytical strategy, adopting Mittler’s perspective provides the advantage of opening up new vistas beyond political struggle for evaluation. This chapter builds on all three of these approaches to Maoist China’s visual culture propaganda history chiefly to analyse what roles printed and published texts played in inspiring but also constraining visual memory, cultural production and official oil paintings. By texts, I mean explicit, intentional and publicly available printed works specifically designed to inspire, persuade or indoctrinate, sometimes by invoking historical memory. The inclusion of one historical film inspired by written texts that in turn aided creation of a painting discussed here adds a sense of what Alexander Des Forges has called ‘convertibility of media’.10 Two subjects –​CCP history (particularly that associated with Jinggangshan, the Anti-​Japanese War, and Beidahuang) and revolutionary heroism (including its mirror image, martyrdom), both before and after 1949 –​seen through the post-​ 1949 lens of six of Maoist China’s most iconic oil paintings figure in this discussion of the relationship between both official and non-​official propaganda texts and the official images based on them. In this chapter, the term ‘propaganda’ refers to what Jacques Ellul (1912–​94), the great sociological theorist of modernity, termed ‘integration propaganda’. In contrast to Ellul’s other major category, agitation propaganda,11 integration propaganda ‘is a propaganda of conformity’. According to Ellul:

From text(s) to image(s)  207 Propaganda of integration … aims at making the individual participate in his [existing] society in every way. It is a long-​term propaganda, a self-​ reproducing propaganda that seeks to obtain stable behaviour, to adapt the individual to his everyday life, to reshape his thoughts and behaviour in terms of the permanent social setting … This propaganda is more extensive and complex than propaganda of agitation … Integration propaganda aims at stabilising the social body, at unifying and reinforcing it. It is thus the preferred instrument of government, though properly speaking it is not exclusively political propaganda … Once the revolutionary party has taken power, it must begin immediately to operate with integration propaganda.12 Not surprisingly, Ellul maintains that intellectuals –​including artists –​are most susceptible to integration propaganda.13 The interpretation and conversion of texts (mostly explicitly Maoist but also others) to visual images marks the starting point for understanding the propaganda of integration in this study. The artwork discussed here exhibited and even reinforced the social and political messages the artists gained from reading by rendering those texts into visual imagery. In most cases, the party-​state then collected the artworks discussed here to promote visual learning among Party members and later the wider public. This chapter complements my previously published analysis of cultural agency and entrepreneurship in PRC propaganda art-​making between 1959 and 1975.14 For my data here, however, I draw on interviews with a different group of leading Chinese ‘oil painters’ (youhuajia 油画家)15 of the 1949–​79 period. Here, three artists discuss six paintings they created between 1957 and 1979 under the influence of Maoist-​era texts. One of the informants –​Quan Shanshi (全山石 1930–​) –​was interviewed in Hangzhou and two –​Wen Lipeng (闻立鹏 1931–​) and Zhan Jianjun (詹建俊 1931–​) –​were interviewed in Beijing. All spoke separately from one another in the summer of 2009. Maoist-​ era Chinese artists worked for the Communist party-​ state. They produced their work on an administrative timeline, often anonymously and collaboratively for judges and exhibitions that were also part of some unit of the party-​state. Yet their work was not art, or propaganda, for the masses. From 1949 to the 1980s, painting exhibitions were tightly controlled, by-invitation-only, Communist Party affairs to which only Party elites were invited and from which non-​CCP people were generally excluded. This chapter thus reveals a little-​known aspect of China’s Maoist visual culture system: integrative propaganda aimed initially at party elites, whether political or educational. What made this integrative propaganda effective was the ways in which it invoked texts known to all who viewed these images. Years and sometimes decades after the events, painters dependent on party and government support advanced a certain kind of party-​inflected historical memory. Thanks to an evolving system of learned aesthetics promoted since 1949 in art schools, municipal and/​or provincial art academies (meishuyuan 美术院), other danwei,

208  Christopher A. Reed and by study in the Soviet Union, a significant measure of artistic success in this era was inevitably political. It was related especially to how well an artist’s creativity agreed with the expectations (not necessarily actual memories) of the CCP cultural administrators selecting works for exhibitions and of the Party members attending the exhibitions. Drawing on interviews with Chinese artists conducted in the summer of 2009, I  will discuss Maoist-​era artwork and its production as a primary source for understanding two major themes of modern world history:  (1) the diurnal operations of state-​ sponsored artists in a Stalinist-​ style one-​ party political economy; and (2) the textually inspired visual reconstruction of party-​led memory, an essential part of integrative propaganda. By examining the former, I will shed light on our understanding of the explicit and acknowledged relationship between text and image in the state-​dominated, nation-​building, revolution-​making political economy of Maoist China. Analysis of the latter will confirm Mittler’s view that ‘culture may not be read exclusively [my emphasis] as derivative … of Party politics’. Indeed, the painter’s training, talent, interests and ambitions all mattered immensely. In fact, these artists sought through their individual and collective efforts to achieve what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu terms ‘symbolic capital’. Bourdieu describes symbolic capital as ‘the accumulation of a particular form of capital, honour in the sense of reputation and prestige, and … there is, therefore, a specific logic behind the accumulation of symbolic capital, as capital founded on cognition [connaissance] and recognition [reconnaissance]’.16 Based on this account, one might argue that in fact cultural workers (wenhua gongzuozhe 文化工作者) in a command economy potentially (not all achieve it, of course) epitomize ‘symbolic capitalists’. They operate under conditions of pure cultural entrepreneurship undeterred by actual marketplace distortions. Certainly, this is the way our informants viewed their activities in retrospect, especially in contrast with the way China’s art market functions today. Evaluating these three elite cultural workers through Bourdieu’s framework will, in fact, facilitate our understanding of the integrative role served by elite visual propaganda. Now for further comment on my sources and the larger context from which they are drawn. Starting in 2008, Ohio State’s modern China art historian Julia F. Andrews and I, assisted by our graduate students and my ZAFA-​graduate wife Leah Lihua Wong (王丽华),17 initiated a social and art historical project that we termed ‘Picturing Utopia: The Visual Iconography of Chinese Socialist Realism’.18 I used to think that, for me as a social historian, this meant ‘practising art history without a licence’, but I now see the issues more in terms of what a social historian might do with these sources that an art historian might not do. How might a historian’s interrogation, influenced by interest, training and competence, differ from that of an art historian operating under the same conditions? Essentially, our project involved interviewing Chinese painters active from 1949 to 1979 about their educations, work practices and paintings. Andrews, Kuiyi Shen from UCSD, several PhD students and Wong interviewed artists, mostly male but with a sprinkling of females –​the latter mostly married to male

From text(s) to image(s)  209 painters –​about paintings completed in that three-​decade period. The interviewers all relied on their personal contacts with the people they interviewed, which is why I did no interviews; I had no relevant personal contacts (guanxi 关系). Instead, my job was to organize the materials at the end, again in collaboration with selected doctoral students. Part of the importance of this research lies in the fact that, despite the artists having benefited from retrospective art exhibitions in the lead-​up to the 60-​year celebrations of the PRC in 2009 and the 90-​year commemorations of the founding of the CCP in 2011, almost no official Literary and Historical Source Materials (Wenshi ziliao 文史资料)-​type interviews of these elderly people have been conducted in the PRC.19 Further, only a tiny fraction of our informants published even brief autobiographies. When they die (and, in fact, one did pass away in 2009 even as Wong was on her way to interview him), they take their knowledge and memory of Maoist-​era art education, production, distribution and patronage with them. The focus of this collaborative project was, from the standpoint of 2009, to record and elucidate the artists’ motivations, inspirations, work habits and understandings of the Socialist Realist iconography found in their works of art. Many of these paintings were or have become nationally and even internationally familiar aesthetic and ideological statements of the early PRC. Our plan was to document the ideological foundations of the new communist culture as represented in the most widely disseminated printed images of their paintings. Establishing links between texts and paintings was not our intention, and not all interviewees volunteered such information. Memory is, of course, notoriously selective and incomplete –​with elderly memories particularly so. Thus, even when the aged artists in our pool stated they had considerable latitude regarding approach, composition, size, colour and medium, it is important to remember that they made such choices within a context. That context was an all-​encompassing system of privileged access to education, texts, painting supplies, studios, planned production, political tutelage and dependency, lists of themes or topics, and so on, all under the influence of a coercive state-​run system of incentives, rewards and penalties. At the same time, their painted works helped to illustrate a verifiable collective memory of the CCP and the PRC that is still referenced today in national museums, libraries and publications of all sorts. Artists who met the demands of the exhibitions and campaigns with which they were associated generally did not earn greater income, monetary or otherwise.20 Rather, their rewards were those of the political/​moral economy. Rewards were symbolic in Bourdieu’s meaning  –​those of ‘honour in the sense of reputation and prestige’. In turn, through the accumulation of honour, reputation and prestige, the artists advanced their own ‘knowledge and recognition’ as well as state propaganda agendas. They all lost their accumulated capital during the Cultural Revolution, when the specialized system of education and sponsorship that had educated and supported them was turned on its head. Nonetheless, after the lost decade, they did manage to reclaim and reinvest their pre-​Cultural Revolution symbolic capital, in part through published reproductions of their works.

210  Christopher A. Reed

Art in context: Three elite visual artists The remainder of this chapter focuses on the works and careers of the three artists. In this discussion, nationally recognized and published texts (poems, essays, etc.) are privileged in presentation sequence over newspapers or unspecified other texts. Based on this organizing principle, discussion of two painted works by Quan Shanshi of Hangzhou’s ZAFA, one inspired by a Maoist poem and the second by a published Maoist essay, comes first. The Quan discussion is followed by one of works by Wen Lipeng, a professor at Beijing’s CAFA. Wen Lipeng states that one of his paintings was inspired by a poem - composed by his father, the famed Republican-era writer and martyr Wen Yiduo (闻一多 1899–1946) - but also by a published comment on his father by Mao Zedong. Wen Lipeng says a second painting by Wen, on a related theme, was prompted by a newspaper article published in the immediate post-​Mao, post-​1976 period. Discussion of Quan and Wen and their works is then followed by analysis of CAFA’s Zhan Jianjun and two of his paintings. One of Zhan’s compositions was inspired not only by published texts and archival historical materials, but also by a feature film. That celluloid text itself drew on yet other published writings. In fact, Zhan himself participated in the final stages of the film’s production while he was painting one particularly well-​known picture.21 Zhan’s second work, like Wen’s, was inspired by newspaper reports. These three artists were part of the tiny privileged world of early PRC oil painters. Each painter and his two text-​inspired paintings discussed, in their turn, contributed substantially to the visual propaganda milieu of Maoist (and post-​ Maoist) China. The three attended and taught at either ZAFA or CAFA; each was honoured (often more than once) by having his paintings commissioned and/​or collected by national museums. Indeed, the paintings discussed here are all ranked among China’s generally recognized artistic masterpieces of the period, which is part of what makes them and their creators important. Certain projects were chosen from pre-​established lists, another directly commissioned, and one was a prize-​winning art school graduation thesis. China’s visual arts, like the field of creative writing, have been governed since 1949 by two parallel national bureaucracies, one stemming from the CCP and the other from the unitary national government, itself dominated by the party. Directly under the CCP and its Department of Propaganda has been the Federation of Literary and Arts Circles, responsible for both fields. Below the Federation, however, literary and visual arts have parted company administratively, with writers being governed by the Writers Association (Wenxue zuojia xiehui 文学作家协会, est. 1954). It has had both national and lower-​level entities. Similarly, visual artists have been administered by the Chinese Artists Association, also formed in 1954. Its distribution of national/​regional organizations has resembled those of the Writers Association. The CAA secretariat controlled the national art journal Meishu (美术, est. 1954, and preceded by Renmin meishu, est. 1950). Both CAA and Meishu were long located in the Chinese National Art Gallery (Zhongguo

From text(s) to image(s)  211 meishuguan 中国美术馆), which opened in 196222 and was itself under the Arts Bureau of the Ministry of Culture.23 On the government side, responsibilities for leadership and administration in the arts fell under the State Council’s Ministry of Culture, which, prior to 1979, supervised an Arts Education Office and an Arts Bureau. The national art academies in Beijing (CAFA) and Hangzhou (ZAFA), at which our informants taught, were part of the Arts Education Office’s bailiwick. Each of the two People’s Fine Arts Publishing Houses (Renmin meishu chubanshe 人民美术出版社), one in Beijing and the other in Shanghai, was managed by the publishing bureau in its respective municipal government. The two publishing houses were of equal stature.24 Regardless of their actual individual party status, all three painters were members of the Chinese Artists Association. Further, as art professors in the two most prestigious national art academies, the careers and work lives of the three would have been influenced by the highly politicized Maoist-​era Ministry of Culture through the Arts Education Office and Arts Bureau. In short, all institutions and all individuals felt the presence of parallel and overlapping party and state hierarchies.25

Quan Shanshi on two Mao text-​inspired paintings With relevance to all of the paintings discussed in this ­chapter –​and bearing in mind that he was speaking, not writing –​in his interview, Quan Shanshi presented a theory about historical paintings. According to Quan, ‘There are two kinds of historical paintings. One is to represent concrete historical events [such as the 1937] Nanjing Massacre’. But the second kind of historical painting lacks a specific incident or location. This kind of painting ‘is imagined (xude 虚的)’.26 It gives the artist ‘a relatively larger space for his imagination. It does not need a concrete date in history … Therefore, there is expansive room for you to give free rein [to your creativity]’.27 The painting to which Quan referred in this statement, with emphasis on the imagined kind of historical painting, was his famous Revisiting Jinggangshan (Chongshang Jinggangshan 重上井冈山) from 1975, which he created together with the legendary Luo Gongliu (罗工柳 1916–​2004). Like numerous early PRC artworks, this painting exists in multiple (three) versions. It followed by thirteen years the equally well-​known large work On Top of Jinggangshang (Jinggangshan shang 井冈山上, 1962) on which Quan had also collaborated with Luo.28 On Top of Jinggangshan was shown in the 1962 National Fine Arts Exhibition (Quanguo meizhan 全国美展). Fifteen years later, Revisiting Jinggangshan was selected for the 1977 exhibition. Revisiting Jinggangshan is now in China’s National Museum (Zhongguo guojia bowuguan 中国国家博物馆). The title Revisiting Jinggangshan, claimed Quan –​perhaps somewhat fancifully  –​‘was chosen by Mao Zedong himself’.29 Collected Poetry of Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong shici quanbian 毛泽东诗词全编), he said, contains the poem ‘Revisiting Jinggangshan (Chongshang Jinggangshan 重上井冈山)’, which

212  Christopher A. Reed commemorated Mao’s immediately pre-​Cultural Revolution visit in 1965. In the poem, in Quan’s reading, Mao affirmed that he returned to the legendary 1930s revolutionary base ‘to oppose the Soviet Union and revisionism’. Mao wrote that, on Jinggangshan, he felt he ‘could ascend to the highest of heavens to embrace the moon; could descend into the five oceans to catch soft-​shelled turtles (keshang jiutian lan yue, kexia wuyang zhuo bie 可上九天揽月,可下五洋捉鳖’.30 Further, ‘Nothing is difficult for the man who will mount an effort (shishang wu nan shi, zhi yao ken deng pan 世上无难事,只要肯登攀’. Quan explained that he painted the picture ‘according to this poem (genju zhege shici) 根据这个诗词’:31 After I read this poem along with the historical background of the time, [I felt] we should not be depressed, even if the Soviet Union had changed [with the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchevian revisionism]. We should still be very optimistic … Our country was still just fine … Although the [Soviet] experts had [long since] been withdrawn, we were not scared, our world was still very spacious, and we were still able to go to the highest of heavens to reach the moon and to go to the five oceans to catch turtles. Our universe was still very broad.32 Expanding on his interpretation of the poem, Quan continued: During the most difficult time for China’s revolution [circa 1927], after the failure of the Autumn Harvest and Nanchang uprisings, Mao Zedong had pointed out a road for China’s revolution. What should we do? Go to the mountains, establish revolutionary bases, and adopt a policy of encircling the cities from the rural areas, this was the road for China’s revolution. The path for the Soviet Union’s revolution was to attack the city [from within]. They captured the Winter Palace and overthrew the [tsar], and then the whole [old ruling system] collapsed. [But] what was the road for China’s revolution? China’s revolutionary road was to be encircling the cities from the rural areas. Since China was an agricultural country, the revolutionary road initiated by Mao Zedong was to encircle the cities from rural areas after mobilizing the peasants. Hence, [Luo Gongliu and I] had painted On Top of Jinggangshang … The reason Mao went up to Jinggangshan [first in 1927, again in 1965] was to create a brilliant history so that our Chinese revolution could win victory.33 In turn, understanding Mao’s 1965 poem and its relationship to the earlier 1962 painting sheds light on the later work produced in 1975: So, how should we understand the meaning (yiwei 意味) of Revisiting Jinggangshan? [Jinggangshan symbolizes] the nation [and] global revolution. [However,] the socialist revolution had run into a big problem; the Soviet Union had brought on a problem [in 1956–​60], and so [Mao] again came out with ‘Nothing is difficult for the man [Mao] who will mount an

From text(s) to image(s)  213 effort.’ [In 1965, Mao] stood on the top of Jinggangshan [again], reviewing this history. This [then] is the meaning [of the 1975 painting].34 Despite stating that this painting belonged to the second or ‘imagined’ category of historical painting, Quan notes that Jinggangshan did indeed have five topographically and historically verifiable main points of defence. Huangyangjie 黄洋界, which is actually mentioned in Mao’s 1965 poem, was the most important of the five, thanks to its special firing position; it allowed the CCP to defend the heights with machine guns. In Quan’s painting, Mao is shown visiting this former redoubt, where he meets with a number of co-​provincials, cadres, militiamen, PLA men and so on. Quan described the painting, speaking as if the scene he had created on canvas were a photograph of an actual meeting: These figures are all very simple. Of course, there is the local party secretary, the local cadres. There is probably the head of the village party committee, a representative of the poor lower-​middle peasants, an old farmer, right? [There are also] old comrades who participated in the revolution before. [One person’s] teeth have almost dropped out … [and among the young people] are a young chap (huozi 伙子), a female, a pupil, and a PLA soldier. The painting also includes workers, a female cadre and an old woman from the Red Army, all necessitated by the visual propaganda lexicon of the mid-​1970s and earlier. The old woman was a singer, says Quan, a kind of military propagandist in her day (Hongjun shiqi de xuanchuanyuan 红军时期的宣传员). Those standing at the sides were militiamen: It was like this:  [Chairman Mao] talks to the militiamen rather than to the army … The most outstanding characteristic of Mao Zedong was the Mass Line, to mobilize the masses … So, when [Mao] arrived in Jinggangshan, some old, some young people all [would have] surrounded him.35 In 1965, all these figures would have been recalling the events from 40  years earlier. That was when Mao would have said ‘Look, on this mountain, we were [once] able “to ascend to the highest of heavens to embrace the moon; and to descend into the five oceans to catch soft-​shelled turtles” ’. Mao’s gesture in the painting is that of catching turtles, says its creator, which helps to explain why everyone else is laughing foolishly (shaxiao 傻笑). Responding to interviewer Wong’s comment, ‘No one knows this, this is really hard to grasp unless we communicate with the painter’, Quan revealed: This idea (gousi 构思) is what we call a hint (qiantaici 潜台词) left to the understanding of the [knowledgeable] viewer. This is the unspoken word in historical paintings, depending on which the painting [helps to] compose the [viewers’] sentiments.36

214  Christopher A. Reed Thus, after explaining that his painting was inspired by Mao’s poem, Quan’s comment shows how he believed he in turn could have influenced viewers of his painting. Knowledge of both the original text and the painting’s visual lexicon was needed, however. When asked about the painting’s actual composition process, Quan replied: It follows Mao Zedong’s poem [with a] kind of spirit –​being able to go to the highest of heavens to reach the moon –​so the sky must be blue. Being able to descend into the five oceans to catch turtles, so this place too must be spacious. It must be bright and clear … not a narrow, depressing space … the whole hue is very bright, looks very bright. Everything follows the theme, that is, Chairman Mao’s poem ….37 Asked whether Chinese painters of that era painted according to a formula set by others, Quan insisted, ‘No, this was completely according to the [poem’s] theme’,38 pointing again to the impact of Mao’s text on him and his work but also hinting at what Ellul would describe as the ‘self-​reproducing’ nature of integrative propaganda. Nonetheless, museums could demand that artists revise according to the needs of a particular exhibition. Quan commented that ‘such situations did exist … In museum exhibitions, [paintings] had to follow [guidelines] that demanded this way one moment, that way the next, and then [later] another different way’.39 Sometimes, due to the needs of a particular museum exhibition, painters even produced multiple versions of the same paintings.40 In Quan’s oeuvre, spanning more than half a century, Revisiting Jinggangshan was not the only work inspired by one of Mao Zedong’s writings. Nor was it the only one of Quan’s paintings to exist in multiple copies. Unyielding Heroism (Yingyong bu qu 英勇不屈, original 1960?, 1961, repainted 1975),41 a depiction of revolutionary martyrdom, was also painted in three versions. Unyielding Heroism illustrates a passage in Mao Zedong’s well-​known 1945 essay, ‘On Coalition Government’ (Lun lianhe zhengfu 论联合政府).42 In that section of the essay, Mao wrote that, despite Sun Yat-​sen’s efforts to strengthen China’s revolution through an alliance of the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) and the Communists from 1924, in the spring of 1927, the Nationalists had purged the Communists and tried to crush the revolution. To clarify the link between the text and the painting to interviewer Wong, Quan now read aloud from Mao’s original text. Mao had written that, despite the temporary reversal, ‘the Chinese Communists and the people of China were not intimidated, conquered, or exterminated. They rose to their feet again, wiped off the bloodstains on their way, buried their fallen comrades and carried on the fight’.43 Quan concluded that, although the times then were dark, and although many were killed, in the end they did stand up again, and the painting presents this theme.44 In Quan’s explanation of Unyielding Heroism’s composition, the figure in the centre ‘is a leader of peasants, an awakened (juewu 觉悟) leader of peasants’. Behind

From text(s) to image(s)  215 him are his peasant comrades-​in-​arms and a female who ‘represents the force of women in the countryside. From her clothes, she [appears] still quite feudal …’.45 Facing the peasant leader is a worker, symbolizing the future. On the ground, ‘This person who sacrificed, covered with a red banner, must be a member of the [CCP]’.46 The youth with his back to the viewer ‘might be’ the dead man’s son, ‘clenching his fist to express his resolution … to present his heroic mettle … he has the power to continue fighting, a kind of spiritual power’.47 The goal was to communicate a sense of ‘wave upon wave advancing … to present the idea that fresh forces continually came forward … Although one person was killed, he had successors’.48 And they came from all of the progressive strata of society.49 In planning the painting, Quan assigned props such as the pistol, rifles, spears and so on ‘according to the needs of the picture’s composition’,50 but without bureaucratic pressure, he says. At this point, interviewer Wong asked why, with the rural setting and the numerous peasants in this painting, there was any industrial worker at all. Now, in contrast to what he had just said, Quan replied at length with words that seemed to echo received party history more than artistic volition: Because among this generation, in our revolutionary ranks, workers were also very important [even if] peasants were the main force. In Hunan, there were many mines, such as the Pingxiang mining area, and everyday life was also like this, composed of peasants and workers. Therefore, workers and peasants united. Aren’t there many songs [that sing of] the coalition of peasants and workers? … The number of workers was not as numerous as that of peasants, because our country was an agricultural country. But there were also workers. There had to be workers. [So the painting] must have a worker, [the revolution] was [after all] led by workers.51 Indeed, in Quan’s words, Unyielding Heroism itself ‘is a concluding comment on China’s First Revolutionary Civil War [1927–​37], the summary of which was written up by Mao Zedong in “On Coalition Government”. This painting follows that summary’.52 Although an ‘imagined’ scene like Unyielding Heroism may have offered the painter more room to manoeuvre than a painting of a well-​known and particular historical event, Quan was very clear that these paintings too had to meet shifting political requirements. Acknowledging the gravity of the selection process, and the artist’s responsibilities when presenting history, he stated: [For example,] Historical paintings that are placed among the Museum of Revolutionary History’s (Geming bowuguan 革命博物馆) history paintings, are an illustration of history … So, depending on the historical exhibition that requires this painting, there will be different requirements for different historical periods.53 In the end, Quan and the exhibition organizing committee chose the title Unyielding Heroism ‘to show that the Chinese Communists could not all be killed’.

216  Christopher A. Reed The saga of Unyielding Heroism had actually begun with an earlier version of the theme. What is now regarded as the definitive version of the painting was preceded by another that had been rejected for being insufficiently revolutionary and optimistic.54 In the early 1960s, upon seeing the earlier painting, Culture Minister Zhou Yang (周扬 1908–​89) had observed: You can’t paint like that. It should be sad but stirring. That is, not all of our people were killed. [We] stood up again, right? One person fell down, [but] hundreds and thousands stood up, inheriting the revolutionary work left by the martyrs. It should look like that.55 Quan’s response to Zhou Yang’s critique was the current 1961 version, ‘which was approved by everyone’,56 at least until the Cultural Revolution began. Then its prospects darkened considerably: Why? … how could a martyr lie on the ground? … Okay, [so] I was transferred to Beijing to make the change … However, if this person was removed, there would be no drama (wo zhege xi jiu mei you le 我这个戏就没有了) … There would be no composition (goucheng 构成), no plot (qingjie 情节). My [original] plot was that this person fell, we mourned him, and, in the mourning process, everyone took the oath to continue fighting. This is a relatively reasonable plot. [But] if there was no [martyr visible] … it would not compose a scene. And there would be no composed plot … The red banner was on the ground, which also was not right [said the leadership] … . Later, towards the end of the Cultural Revolution, Quan created his third painting on the same theme. Again, Quan turned to Mao’s essay, ‘On Coalition Government’, for artistic guidance. In the interview, to explain to Wong how he recomposed the painting, he again read from the text: Isn’t there a sentence by Chairman Mao [that says] ‘we buried our companions’ corpses and continued to fight’ (an maihao tongban de shishou, ranhou jixu douzheng 俺埋好同伴的户首,然后继续战斗57)? [So, in 1975, I  painted a picture with] a small mound, on which a small pine tree is planted. Beside the mound, there [are just visible the handles of] a stretcher, explaining this person has already been moved from the stretcher. [Now], after burying him, his companions make a vow in front of the grave. Thus, this plot is also reasonable, isn’t it?58 Hence, in the end, Quan deemed even the third plot artistically quite plausible. In this way, by the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were three versions of the theme underlying Unyielding Heroism, all inspired by Mao’s 1945 essay, ‘On Coalition Government’. All three were ultimately acquired by China’s National Museum, but only the two later ones (1961 and 1975) are ever exhibited. Since it no longer mattered in 2009 for propaganda or other purposes that the red banner

From text(s) to image(s)  217 lay on the ground, Quan concluded, ‘Sometimes they hang this one, sometimes they hang that one’, but never both at the same time!59

Wen Lipeng and two text-​inspired martyr paintings We turn now to Wen Lipeng. Wen is well known for his artwork, but also for being the son of the famous ROC-​era (1912–​49) intellectual and political activist Wen Yiduo. The latter Wen’s life ended in political assassination in 1946. Wen Lipeng acknowledged at the outset of his interview that he had long been drawn to martyrs as painting subjects.60 After all, he had come by this interest naturally: Wasn’t my father assassinated by the KMT? … In 1947, one year after my father was killed, I went to the Beijing Liberated District … I began to study painting at that time … Since beginning to study painting, I  had always respected martyrs, and thought, in the future, when I complete my studies, I must paint my father.61 Wen recalled an intense relationship with Wen Yiduo when his father was a young professor, writing articles and teaching every day, having … time for family life, and taking more care of us … He had this notion of poet-​ izing family –​he emphasized using art to change life, so he wanted to poet-​ ize his family, and he required all of his children to recite poems. Reciting poems … left a deep impression on me. I could recite many poems …62 Even during the war, then, Wen Lipeng grew up in an environment steeped in the arts. Nonetheless, starting in 1943, Wen Yiduo began to participate in wartime Kunming’s democracy movement, becoming known as a ‘democracy warrior’ (minzhu doushi 民主斗士).63 For the next three years, he had less time for young Wen Lipeng and other members of his family. Then, after the elder Wen’s death in 1946, Wen Lipeng’s mother suffered a heart attack and his elder brother was injured.64 As much as Wen Lipeng wanted to commemorate his father in a painting, due to political,65 educational and personal disruptions in his own life, it would be 30 years before Wen created his iconic Red Candle Eulogy (红烛颂, 1978).66 By that time, the younger Wen’s ideas of what constituted suitable treatment of historical topics had changed significantly, as had the visual propaganda environment. However, ‘Didn’t I  always want to paint it?’ he asked rhetorically. In fact, while still a student, Wen Lipeng had ‘painted [Wen Yiduo] in the [historically verifiable] act of striking the table during his final lecture’67 prior to his assassination. Afterwards, Wen Lipeng began to sense that a narrative composition might not be the best way of presenting the significance of his father’s sacrifice.68 To explain why, he said, ‘I have to begin by telling my experiences during the Cultural Revolution’.69 In 1963 and 1964, following two sets of instructions from Chairman Mao, the Socialist Education Movement had started. The first set of instructions, dated 1963, ‘said intellectuals belonged to the “Beethoven Club”

218  Christopher A. Reed because they only painted city life, making them feudal, capitalist and revisionist … Saying “if you intellectuals do not go to the countryside, you will fall into the Beethoven Club” ’.70 The following year, a stricter document was issued, in which institutions like the opera, music, and artists associations were specified and disparaged, saying that all intellectuals in them were like officials and masters, and revisionists, and so on … [Mao] thought that all the art and cultural circles were rotten and had become revisionist.71 The timing of Mao’s dicta was most unfortunate for Wen. He had just graduated and had been hired to teach at CAFA. Further, China at large was still recovering from the Great Leap Forward (1958–​62) and other challenges: At that time, we were at the top of our game, with good health, full of energy, and [we had] mature styles. If we had been able to paint during those ten years … then we would have been able to do something [special]. But we lost a decade … During the [next] ten years, no one was allowed to paint, not even for [one’s] own pleasure.72 It was at that point that Wen was arrested and imprisoned for 75 days for criticizing Kang Sheng (康生 1898–​1975), head of the CCP’s Propaganda Department, in a drafted but unsent letter to Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing.73 Forced again to put his martyr-​father’s portrait on hold, this time for the duration of the Cultural Revolution, ‘the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee [December 1978] signalled the beginning of a good situation … it freed thinking’. Older, more experienced and with his thinking more mature, Wen now discovered that he was not alone in turning to Wen Yiduo as a model hero for the post-​Third Plenary world. For example, ‘Huang Zongying and Zhao Dan were preparing to put Wen Yiduo’s life into a play. Zhao Dan wanted to write the script and have [Wen Lipeng] act as Wen Yiduo’.74 Zhao also organized a symposium ‘presenting [Wen Yiduo’s] ideas and listening to people’s opinions’. Wen Lipeng attended and informed Zhao that ‘there had [already] been several screenplays about Wen Yiduo. One … was called Table-​Striking Eulogy (Pai’an song 拍案颂)’.75 Wen Lipeng said he had learned about this one ‘because, when I  prepared for the painting, I  read research on Wen Yiduo and his writings, [especially on] his poems’.76 Finding the research materials was apparently not difficult. In fact, Wen Yiduo’s first poetry collection had appeared in the 1920s and was called The Red Candle (Hongzhu 红烛).77 The book took for its title the first poem in the collection. ‘I read the poem over and over again’, said Wen Lipeng, ‘and loved it very much. The basic idea was that [Wen Yiduo] wanted to light himself on fire to illuminate society’.78 Wen Lipeng now resolved to paint his own eulogy according to that idea.

From text(s) to image(s)  219 Having studied at CAFA in the late 1950s under Luo Gongliu just after Luo had returned from the Soviet Union, Wen Lipeng put his famous teacher’s ideas into action in 1978: I further developed Luo’s idea … namely, getting away from the narrative painting mode [popular under Soviet influence in the 1950s, and] not emphasizing the moment when [Wen Yiduo] was striking the table. It had something to do with my gradual understanding of Wen Yiduo.79 In explaining his meaning, Wen pointed to Mao Zedong’s writings: ‘Everyone knows that Chairman Mao wanted people to write eulogies for Wen Yiduo’.80 Given that Mao rarely lauded anyone, says Wen: It was an honour just to be praised by him. [But] why did he want Wen [Yiduo] eulogized? Most people would say it was because Wen Yiduo supported the Communist Party, thought progressively, opposed the Nationalist Party and Chiang Kai-​shek, so he was [the CCP’s] friend, and [thus] he needed to be approved. Mao’s view was actually more profound than that. He stressed Wen’s courageous spirit and heroic character … [Wen’s] greatness did not lie in his going against the Nationalists, but rather [in the fact] that he insisted on his [own] ideals, his [own] beliefs. He carried out those beliefs in his life. Actually, he opposed the CCP as well … he was not always [pro-​Communist].81 Sometime later, said Wen, an account based on Mao’s reading of the New Tang History (Xin Tangshu 新唐书)82 emerged. In it, Mao was said to have praised bygone heroes, listing Yue Fei (1103–​42) and Wen Tianxiang (1236–​83) from history and Fang Zhimin (1899–​1935), Qu Qiubai (1899–​1935) and Wen Yiduo from recent politics. Concluding with a flourish, Mao exclaimed, ‘Isn’t it great that they sacrificed themselves for their ideals (yi shen xun zhi, bu yi weihu 以身 殉志,不亦伟乎)’83 Of course, another person’s comments on Wen Yiduo might have been forgotten, but Mao’s printed words kept Wen alive for millions, including Wen Lipeng. Thus, Wen Lipeng finally resolved to paint his father’s personality and spirit by using the red candle as an emblem: ‘The red candle is an emblem of Chinese tradition and also, according to our current understanding [of Wen Yiduo’s poem], it represents the self-​sacrificial spirit of the candle burning to light up the [greater] whole’.84 A new problem then arose, however: ‘I had some compositions, but I could not find a pictorial image. Those [others] were all literary and poetic symbols’.85 So how did Wen transform them into a pictorial motif? ‘The inspiration came [after the Cultural Revolution] when we went to the Northwest, to Dunhuang, to make some drawings’86 and to paint again after ten years of prohibition. While in the Northwest, Wen visited a Qinghai-​based classmate from the late 1950s oil painting class Wen had taken with Luo Gongliu at CAFA. The

220  Christopher A. Reed classmate’s ‘painting studio was quite big –​it was Qinghai, after all; fewer people and more land. The studio was large but … there was no light, as the electricity was mostly out’. To solve the problem of frequent power outages, ‘he used candles, bad quality candles made in Qinghai … the wax melted very quickly and flowed down to form good shapes’.87 With these candles, Wen found his pictorial motif. He thought of using the candles in my painting as a visual emblem. I  had the poetic emblem already and, once I found [the visual one], everything could be integrated. So, after coming back, I combined the two. One is [Wen Yiduo’s] image, actually one of his photographs, the one he liked best … I felt that image could best represent his spirit, and [so I] combined it with the red candles … The more they burn, the more flames there are … and the fires become red flags in the end.88 Mao’s printed references to Wen Yiduo now served as an endorsement of Wen Lipeng’s painting. All of Wen Lipeng’s emotions about Wen Yiduo, ‘as a son feels for his father, but also considering him a great cultural giant’, were invested in Red Candle Eulogy. Paint was applied thickly, with spatulas. When completed, the painting was included in the 1979 National Art Exhibition, at which it garnered a prize. Afterwards, it was sent abroad to Paris, Taiwan, the Soviet Union and other places before finally being acquired by the Chinese National Art Gallery. Wen concluded his discussion of Red Candle Eulogy by commenting that, ‘Everyone says … whenever [it] is mentioned, they will think of me, and then think of my father, all connected’.89 To review: Quan Shanshi found artistic inspiration in the published Mao poem ‘Revisiting Jinggangshan’ and in the Mao essay ‘On Coalition Government’. For Red Candle Eulogy, Wen Lipeng likely found partial inspiration in Mao’s essay Farewell, Leighton Stuart (and also possibly in accounts of Mao’s New Tang History marginalia).90 It was newspaper reading, just after Mao’s death in 1976, that inspired another famous Wen Lipeng painting, Daughter of the Earth (Dadi de nü’er 大地的女儿, 1979).91 According to Wen, ‘newspapers introduced Zhang Zhixin (张志新 1930–​75)’s situation,92 and how she had died tragically … I had had the experience of being arrested [during the Cultural Revolution] and put into gaol. So, I especially understood her situation’.93 Further, at the People’s University in the early 1950s, Zhang Zhixin had shared a major with Wen Lipeng’s younger sister, something that made Wen feel even closer to Zhang. Like him, ‘She also came from an intellectual family, and was about my age. We all supported the Communist Party’. Later, Zhang went to work for the Liaoning Provincial Propaganda Department. During the Cultural Revolution, she sympathized with tormented senior party officials and came around to opposing Chairman Mao’s policies openly. Unlike Wen, who was a non-​ political prisoner during the early Cultural Revolution, Zhang Zhixin had been classified as a major political criminal. In high dudgeon, Wen observed, both she and he were

From text(s) to image(s)  221 imprisoned in [so-​ called] proletarian gaols … not arrested by the Nationalists. It was our own people who arrested us! … they considered me an enemy who opposed the proletarian dictatorship and Chairman Mao … What I could not tolerate was that, when she was about to be killed [by impaling and decapitation], they feared she would shout out slogans, so they cut out her tongue.94 Thinking more about Zhang’s fate, Wen decided he wanted to represent this martyr’s sacrifice in a painting. But I did not want to delineate the scene as it was in a realistic approach –​ I couldn’t do that. So I wanted to represent her beautiful nature with a symbolic approach, letting her lie on the earth with her blood flowing.95 At this point in the interview, Wong broke in to ask, ‘What kind of research did you do on Zhang Zhixin? She is painted so beautiful and so pure’.96 Wen confessed that he ‘had seen a few of her photographs, but none was a profile view, so I basically imagined it … I used a model but did not draw the model carefully; instead I  sketched very quickly’.97 Regarding the painting’s composition, Wen acknowledged that: I was not totally satisfied with the painting … some places needed to be painted more thickly; the texture is too thin … It was because the painting was finished in a hurry, in two weeks, to meet the deadline of an official exhibition. I finished it full of excitement but also in a hurry. The composition was not thought out thoroughly.98 Perfect or not, Daughter of the Earth was shown first in the special 1979 rehabilitation exhibition at the Chinese National Art Gallery to commemorate Zhang Zhixin and other victims of the Cultural Revolution. ‘This painting of mine was one of the two that were placed in the centre of the round hall’, said Wen.99 Later, like Red Candle Eulogy, it was acquired by the gallery and has been shown several times since. Inspired not by a Maoist text, but by a post-​Mao newspaper article, the painting reflected the official re-​evaluation of Cultural Revolution martyrs, an important element in the party-​ state’s reintegration propaganda project. Just as Quan Shanshi’s Revisiting Jinggangshan and Unyielding Heroism imaginatively depicted historical moments, Wen Lipeng creatively eulogized his  father based on his reading of Mao’s writing and his own expanded understanding of his father’s poem. He also avoided memorializing Zhang Zhixin as she had actually appeared following her execution in favour of his imagination of her as she should have been. As with both of Quan’s paintings, though, only the authorities could endorse Wen’s two paintings by including them in national exhibitions and museum collections, thereby making them part of China’s official visual culture.

222  Christopher A. Reed

Zhan Jianjun and two paintings on heroism In 1958 and 1959, according to Zhan Jianjun, artists from all over China were organized to produce paintings for the soon-​to-​open Museum of Revolutionary History (Geming bowuguan 革命博物馆). Although the museum’s opening was in fact delayed until 1961, it was intended to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.100 Among those invited to contribute paintings was Zhan, who created the widely known Five Warriors of Mount Langya (Langyashan wu zhuangshi 狼牙山五壮士, 1959), based on a spectacular instance of Communist military valour said to have occurred in September 1941 during the Anti-​Japanese War (1937–​45).101 According to Zhan, the exhibition’s organizers assigned various topics to CAFA artists as a group.102 ‘Those [presumably CCP historians] who did research on modern history selected 100 artistic themes … Then, they invited 100 painters to produce paintings on those themes’.103 Although ‘tasks were assigned from above … you were not given a specific theme. You selected the theme you liked from among those that were distributed’,104 and then artists created their own interpretations of it. Zhan says he chose the theme of the Five Warriors for a number of reasons. He found the story, then already familiar to PRC audiences from official histories, propaganda and textbooks, personally moving, a motivation that echoes the private reasons disclosed by Quan and Wen for selecting their paintings’ topics. Unlike a typical battle scene, however, the main event of the incident, as Zhan understood it, involved the soldiers’ heroic spirits: The warriors would rather die than surrender, right? When they were out of bullets and food, they would rather die than surrender [and so] they jumped from the cliff … I was very moved by this story … I felt it was very fresh (huatou 花头) and would be interesting [to paint].105 Adding to the appeal, at the same time that Zhan was producing his painting, a feature film with propagandistic overtones and the same title as his topic was being produced in Beijing: One thing I remember is that the army leader, Yang Chengwu (杨成武 1914–​ 2004), who was the general commander in the Mount Langya area during the war, was invited to [pre]view the movie. Since I was tasked officially with completing the painting, I, too, joined them in [pre]viewing the film.106 That initial film showing took place in the Military Committee’s club, located next door to the Palace Museum. Zhan sat at the edge of the club’s auditorium. Two of the soldiers who had leapt from the cliff were then still alive; one of them attended the film showing. Zhan both interviewed him and painted his portrait, using it later to guide his depiction of the same man, painted to look 20 years younger.107

From text(s) to image(s)  223 Meeting one of the original warriors was only part of Zhan’s research into the historical setting that he was expected to make pictorial, however. After the interview, Zhan ‘read related materials’. He explains his research method as follows: I mainly read related historical materials … When you paint historical scenes, you need to do research in related materials. After the research, [like me,] you might have a chance to interview the person [in your painting] … I was very lucky that he was still alive [when I started my painting].108 Zhan also visited the Mount Langya area, located in Yi County, Hebei Province, about 180 miles (290 kilometres) southwest of Beijing. Furthermore, he interviewed a company commander still living nearby: That was a tough period [1959] … There was already a serious lack of food. There happened to be a construction area there where a monument in memory of the five Mount Langya warriors was being constructed. A  memorial pavilion was being built on top of a hill … I  happened to have an opportunity to stay on top of the hill, so I occupied the construction shed … I drew sketches of the environment, such as the mountain, etc. I was painting from life.109 In sum, personal feelings, textual sources and site-​specific research all played a part in the creation of the painting. From start to finish, Zhan recalls production of this painting took him about a year. Several months were devoted to preparing the canvas, conceptualizing the scene, sketching it, then creating the painting. Despite the good fortune he encountered in his interview, textual research and site visit, he says the major challenge was to get his sketches, early drafts and painting approved by the organizing committee. That was when obstacles arose. ‘I was very stressed out … I almost couldn’t finish the painting because it was being rejected even while I was working on it’.110 Almost immediately, Zhan encountered opposition from the exhibition leaders: It had to do with the guidelines for art and literature in that special period,111 especially the way the leaders understood [them] … When I  first started drawing … my composition focused on the moment when they were just about to jump off the cliff. [My intention] was to create this moment and make the painting look like a monument.112 Seeking to depict this ideological moment according to his own artistic lights, however, Zhan found his judgement constrained by the concept’s requirements. When the exhibition leadership saw it, he says, some disapproved. They felt that the artistic representation of real war heroes should focus on their unyielding fighting spirit. [Painters] should not draw heroes who were not fighting [and,

224  Christopher A. Reed instead, were] about to die. [Doing that] meant you were making paintings with a negative tone, distorting the image of the heroes … Therefore, the leaders asked me to revise my draft. So I did … In that historical period … art and literature had to represent struggle and important themes … [But] Just because I was drawing according to my own composition, I was treated like a person who had thought problems in art and literature. It was called revisionism (xiuzheng zhuyi 修正主义) … At that time, I was under great pressure. In those days, if the leadership identified problems in a painter’s artistic thought, says Zhan, ‘your future would be destroyed’.113 Zhan now had to argue for his own point of view. He did gradually win some leaders over to his side, however. These converts, in the end, said they would not disapprove my painting draft because in the Soviet Union, at that time, many paintings and monuments were drawn and built the same way as my painting’s drafts … I felt this theme itself provided a very dramatic conflict and advocated the patriotic spirit … That painting was the only one of mine that was ever opposed … So I did not say anything about the [1959] exhibition afterwards.114 In the end, Zhan’s painting, inspired by Chinese historical texts, but constrained by official artistic policy, was saved by reference to Soviet artistic authority and was then collected by the Museum of Revolutionary History, a sign of ultimate approval. For Zhan himself, however, the struggle did not end there. After completing Five Heroes, he began a new work, Chairman Mao Lectures at the Peasant Movement Institute (Mao zhuxi zai nongmin yundong jiangxi suo 毛主席在农 民运动讲习所, 1960).115 When asked to submit a brief artist’s write-​up (xiaojie 小结),Zhan actually wrote the story of the Five Heroes painting and titled it ‘My Thoughts after Taking a Wrong Path’ (Zou wanlu ganjue 走弯路感觉).116 The title meant when you are creating a painting, you need to be aware that others will raise all sorts of opinions, and so you need to know what you’ll do [about them]. I wrote that ‘even though I followed others’ opinions and revised my painting, it did not end up working.’ So, I suggested that painters should always stick to their own path.117 Zhan was careful to obscure precisely which painting experience he was discussing even though, in his own mind, the summary aimed at his experience with Five Heroes (and not Chairman Mao Lectures). As with Wen Lipeng’s Daughter of the Earth, newspaper reading is what inspired Zhan’s second painting to be discussed here, Raising a Home (Qijia 起家, 1957–​58).118 This dramatic and atmospheric painting shows two land reclamation

From text(s) to image(s)  225 teams in Beidahuang setting up big white tents that are being blown around by the wind. In 1956, idealistic young people had been called upon to open up the border region for agriculture and boost food production. Like Zhan, who followed them with his sketch pads and easels in 1957, many were students. They had been organized by the Communist Youth League (CYL): ‘Youths at that time were fairly idealistic … they were very enthusiastic about the nation. Thus, many young people volunteered … most were students’.119 When he started Raising a Home, Zhan was enrolled in CAFA’s two-​year oil painting course known as Maxunban (马训班). The name referred to the visiting instructor, the celebrated Soviet artist Konstantin Maksimov (1913–​ 93).120 Preparing to graduate, Zhan needed a final project. At that time, art students searched for their own graduation themes, he recalls. Some chose the then-​ new Wuhan Yangzi River Bridge (Wuhan Changjiang daqiao 武汉长江大桥, 1957)  and others opted for the Sino-​ Russian mountain-​ climbing team, both themes they would have learned about via the media. Still others selected village paintings or images of industry. Some depicted their own previous CCP work. ‘We all tried our best to find themes that were meaningful or … valuable for society [but] we selected themes according to our interests and there was no limit … except one: paint something that had social value’.121 Asked how he had identified his theme, Zhan replied that he had attended a conference in Beijing. Afterwards, but even before going to Beidahuang, ‘I came up with [it] by reading newspapers [my emphasis]. I  noticed this story while reading newspapers’122 in an era when they were tightly controlled and reflected a strict party line. Then, armed with letters of introduction arranged in advance through CAFA, Zhan and painting department classmate Wang Chengyi (汪诚意 1930–​) travelled from Beijing to Luobei County 萝北县 in eastern Heilongjiang Province, first by train and then by truck.123 In advance, they had contacted the county through [CAFA], and then the school wrote to the local cultural bureau. Then, the representative in the local cultural bureau [wrote a letter] to the lower level. They were … official letters. [By that, I mean] the … letters were available in printed versions and just needed to be filled out. Then, [when you got there], you told the cultural bureau where you came from, and they would make the arrangement for you, including accommodation and diet … Then they contacted the villages … We went to the land reclamation team directly … We just stayed with the team.124 Once Zhan and his classmate settled in, they were free to do as they wished. The [land-​reclamation youths] went to the fields every day, while we were free and could go anywhere we wanted. If you wanted to watch them do farm work, you could; if you wanted go somewhere else and paint, you [could do that], too.125

226  Christopher A. Reed Still, the hard life was shared by all. In fact, there were people who could not stand the life because it was [just] too tough … and there were people who slacked off (kai xiao cha’er de 开小差儿的) … Some people got a kind of illness because the food they ate was limited; some, because they lacked some nutrition and vitamins, got night blindness.126 But Zhan and others like him were able to put up with it all ‘because of [our] passion’, something that is reflected in Raising a Home. Zhan cautioned that the painting’s theme ‘would be impossible nowadays [2009]’,127 presumably due to evolving historical experience, political and market constraints, painters’ ambitions, and viewers’ expectations, all reflecting broader changes in media content and propaganda. When the CYL students had first arrived in Beidahuang, they had lived in temporary tent shelters. By the time Zhan arrived in 1957, however, the volunteers had already built earthen houses (tu fangzi 土房子) for themselves. The tents had become storehouses, meaning that Zhan had to envision for himself the setting of a year or more earlier.128 Echoing the content of the newspaper texts that had first drawn him to this theme, he commented that, ‘After I came up with my theme, I [now] felt I was composing a novel (wo shi zai bian xiaoshuo le 我是在编小说了)’. To do so, drawing on his initial encounter with the vastness of Beidahuang, he had to invent both the environment and the narrative the students had encountered: I was imagining that these young people, when they arrived in the vast, barren wasteland that almost nobody had ever visited before, were confronted with Nature. This meant that their fate, their future lives, were both very harsh, full of uncertain issues. But after the storms and clouds passed, the sky would clear up again … Their future was still bright, but not smooth. This is how I imagined it in my head.129 But Zhan still needed a focus: ‘For visual arts, the key is the artist, how the artist feels about the theme, and what the artist chooses as the focus’,130 regardless of the project: So, I  thought that, under that objective situation, they just went there and started setting up the tents. There must have been wind in the wasteland. It would not have been calm. So, setting up the tents would constitute the plot [of his novel]. When the storm came, the tent would expand, so people would pull the tent [down] … I had never seen this situation, nor had I read such reports or heard about this situation from others … Actually, I myself imagined many things, but they fitted the reality very well.131 After Zhan created the painting’s motion in his head, ‘I found models to pose … Back then, we painters did not have cameras [which were] very expensive’. Only a painter, with a painter’s imagination, could recreate the situation:

From text(s) to image(s)  227 Nobody [actually] saw them put up the tent. I just imagined how they [would have] put up the tent … My creation was based on my imagination … How an individual artist felt and chose mattered. The personality of the artist mattered.132 In short, as with the paintings by Quan Shanshi and Wen Lipeng, although the painter’s image was textually inspired, it was also shaped by his own experience, imagination and talent. To duplicate the broad expanse of the steppe, Zhan had to paint it as long and broad, not high and vertical. For this reason, the tents also had to be long. The tents themselves, says Zhan, would have been supplied by the institutions that had sent the youths to Beidahuang. Items such as the tractor (tuolaji 拖拉机) at the bottom of the painting would have come from the local people. The painting needed to show these elements along with the youths, their luggage and the tents, which were key to their survival: When they first got there, they would have started putting up the tents. Some people [would have erected the tents] as soon as they put away their luggage, while others [might have] looked around after they put away their luggage since they were interested in everything in the new place.133 Once he put the finishing touches on Raising a Home, Zhan submitted it as his 1957 CAFA graduation thesis. That summer, after graduation, it was entered for public exhibition at the 6th World Festival of Youth & Students (Qingnian lianhuan jie 青年联欢节, also Shijie qingnian lianhuan jie 世界青年联欢节) in Moscow. This event attracted some 34,000 participants from 131 countries.134 There, it won the third-​place prize, the first medal won after 1949 by a Chinese oil painting. Once the painting was returned to China, CAFA held its own formal award ceremony for it.135 In a crowning honour for the recent graduate, Raising a Home was also shown in the tenth anniversary exhibition (1959) celebrating the founding of the PRC. Further, an enormous copy, 8 or 9 metres long, created by a whole team of painters, was then carried past Tian’anmen in the celebration parade as a symbol of New China’s international cultural achievement.136

Conclusion After analysing interview materials based on the memories of three now quite elderly (all were born in 1930 or 1931)  party-​, state-​and academy-​supported Chinese oil painters, we can observe that all three –​Quan Shanshi, Wen Lipeng and Zhan Jianjun –​drew on texts, politics, personal interests, feelings, ambitions, experiences and technical skills to compose collaborative but mostly individually inspired paintings largely dependent on state agendas, directly or indirectly, from 1957 to 1979. Having benefited from the CCP’s and the PRC’s systems of educational, cultural, and political selections and rewards, they generally complied with the systems’ and their superiors’ expectations of them to produce various

228  Christopher A. Reed paintings in the official Socialist Realist style. Of the six paintings, two (Quan’s) were collected by the National Museum, two (Wen’s) by the National Art Gallery and one (Zhan’s) by the Museum of Revolutionary History, a clear endorsement of their importance as official PRC art.137 Indeed, as intellectuals, and following Ellul’s analysis, one should expect the three to have advanced an agenda of conformity. In return, though, they were compensated with what were at the time outstanding working conditions in one of the two national art academies. By the broad standards of Bourdieu’s formulation of symbolic capital, they all traded on their knowledge, talent and party-​state dependency to achieve what turned out to be lasting symbolic capital –​prestige, celebrity and honour –​even if it was compromised terribly during the Cultural Revolution. Lessons once mastered, however, are not easily abandoned. Although Quan Shanshi does not say so, one might argue that invoking a Mao poem and a Mao text as artistic inspiration could well have served him as talismanic protection in 1975, with Mao still alive, when he finished Revisiting Jinggangshan and the third version of Unyielding Heroism. In addition, in pursuit of the recognition that came with success in national painting exhibitions and commissions and/​or acquisition by national museums and published reprints, several of the works discussed here exhibit characteristics of Ellul’s notion of integrative propaganda. According to Ellul, ‘this propaganda [of integration] is more extensive and complex than propaganda of agitation. [It] aims at stabilizing the social body, at unifying and reinforcing it’. Zhan Jianjun, for example, says explicitly that he complied with the protocols requiring him to choose a painting topic from a pre-​established list in 1958–​59; the result was Five Warriors, which in his own mind was ‘not exclusively political propaganda’, to echo Ellul, even if it accorded with a state agenda. Wen Lipeng’s Red Candle Eulogy and Daughter of the Earth both contributed new images of heroism and martyrdom intended to aid the CCP in reintegrating state and society after Mao’s death. Red Candle Eulogy also gave new meaning to the notion of filial devotion.138 At the same time, all three painters also insist that they frequently exercised their own powers of judgement and choice in the inspiration, research, composition and execution of their paintings, even when the paintings were collaborative.139 As Mittler has argued, culture in the final decade of Maoist China was not directly derivative of CCP politics. This observation is even more true of pre-​1966 and post-​1976 culture, hence the appeal of what Quan Shanshi termed ‘imagined (xude 虚的)’ historical scenes. With the exception of Zhan Jianjun’s 1959 Five Warriors –​recall his comment that ‘that painting was the only one of mine that was ever opposed’ –​artistic censorship was not stated to have been a primary concern of any one of the three painters prior to 1966. Cultural Revolution politics, of course, changed the rules, as when Wen Lipeng was imprisoned –​not for artistic licence, but for having merely drafted a letter critical of Kang Sheng. Oil painting in general now ground to a halt for a decade. Still, new windows of opportunity opened for thought and Wen’s artistic practice after 1978. It is clear that the diurnal work habits of these three elite Chinese artists of the Mao era –​Quan, Wen, and Zhan –​included reading, research and educated

From text(s) to image(s)  229 familiarity with available authoritative texts. These texts included selections from Mao Zedong Thought, Maoist and non-​Maoist poetry, party-​led newspapers and, in the case of Five Warriors, a surviving war hero and a full-​length propaganda film then in production. In one sense, this finding is not surprising. Maoist China was a highly charged world ideologically, in which familiarity with the right texts could deflect misinterpretation or accusations. Texts served as their touchstones. More than likely, all three painters had long practised the fine art of ideological textual invocation to justify their aesthetic choices during the Maoist era. What is more noteworthy is that, decades after their paintings were completed, each of the three individually and separately still remembered and spontaneously commented, unselfconsciously and without direct probing by the interviewers, on this aspect of his artistic practice. In this way, we can gauge the impact of their textual authorities on their pictures and on the texture of their daily work lives. At the same time, all three also remembered having creatively interpreted and independently ‘pictured’ the texts they read. This avowal reminds us that texts –​even canonical works standardized by editorial committees, not to mention newspapers and other ephemera –​remain unstable and vulnerable to multiple readings. Quite apart from this latter issue, the fact remains that not all texts converted easily to canvas and oil. We saw as much in Wen Lipeng’s struggles to find the right visual language to present the martyrs Wen Yiduo and Zhang Zhixing, and again in Zhan Jianjun’s effort to pictorialize Beidahuang in what became Raising a Home. In these cases, personal history, skill and ambition all mattered to how each executed his artwork. But so too, as we have also seen, did the collective personality of an organizing committee on Zhan Jianjun’s artistic choices in Five Warriors in 1959; Minister of Culture Zhou Yang’s criticism of Quan Shanshi’s first version of what became Unyielding Heroism in the early 1960s; and Maoist politics in general on Wen Lipeng, who was forced to wait decades before completing his Red Candle Eulogy in 1979. In the mid-​1980s, however, Quan, Wen and Zhan, along with many others, found that the command economy of schooling, production, and exhibition was unexpectedly relaxed. Moreover, the former symbolic coin of the realm was replaced by the pursuit of actual money. By that time, those discussed here were unable or unwilling to respond artistically. They remained ensconced in the command system as an increasingly marketized art industry less directly linked to authoritative published ideological texts swirled around them. While others, including their students, commoditized artistic skills to pursue the rewards of the new, non-​governmental cultural marketplace, the group discussed here retained their honour, reputation and prestige as modestly paid painting professors in prestigious art schools linked to the Party and the government. Ultimately, this chapter adds to our understanding of PRC text-​based visual propaganda not by focusing on anonymous graphic artists labouring in publishing houses for equally unknown audiences in the street, but rather by revealing the intellectual and aesthetic choices made by elites articulate in both words and images. Their comments reveal long-​hidden creative processes and forgotten codes of interpretation developed under conditions of party-​state dependency and

230  Christopher A. Reed text-​to-​image conversions. It seems highly unlikely that general-​production artists associated with specific mass campaigns of the Maoist era would claim the relative autonomy that Quan, Wen and Zhan recall for themselves in that same period. In that way, the singularity of their careers, rather than their typicality, and their voluntary statements about what they recall having been the contingent relationship between published texts and oil-​painted images add to our understanding of Maoist-​era integration propaganda.

Acknowledgement In October 2017, a somewhat shorter version of this chapter was delivered at the Center for Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin. I am grateful to Huaiyin Li for having invited me and to that large audience for its encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge comments by Julia F.  Andrews of The Ohio State University on an earlier draft of this chapter. Finally, thanks to then-​Ohio State PhD students and research assistants Lara Di Luo, Yanfei Zhu and Yan Xu for their interview transcriptions and initial translations of them.

Notes 1 See J. Ellul, ‘The Characteristics of Propaganda,’ in Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, trans. K.  Kellen and J.  Lerner (New  York:  Knopf, 1969 [1962 in French]), pp. 1–​6. 2 Thus, this chapter contributes to scholarly efforts to assess the impact of texts on their readers. For insight into the ways in which texts were read and studied during the 1950s and 1960s, when the painters here were educated, see M.K. Whyte. Small Groups and Political Rituals in China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975), esp. pp. 3, 37–​51, 59–​63, 88–​90, 121–​22. Thank you to Lara Yuyu Yang of the University of Freiburg for this reference. More recent publications shedding light on this topic include D.  Leese, Mao Cult:  Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), esp. pp. 94–​97, 99–​100, 104–​07, 110–​ 12; D. Leese, ‘A Single Spark: Origins and Spread of the Little Red Book in China’, in A.C. Cook (ed.), Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp.  23–​42, esp. pp.  31, 34–​35, 37–​38; F.  Ji, Linguistic Engineering: Language and Politics in Mao’s China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), esp. pp. 47–​62. Thank you to Kirk Denton of The Ohio State University for this last reference. 3 On ‘oil or ink painting reproductions’ (huapian), see J.F. Andrews and K. Shen, The Art of Modern China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), Ch. 7, esp. p. 151. 4 With this phrase, I  have adapted Nicolai Volland’s term ‘socialist media system’, introduced in ‘The Control of the Media in the People’s Republic of China’, PhD thesis, Heidelberg University, 2003, to the context discussed here. 5 J.F. Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). 6 S. Landsberger, ed., Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization (Armonk, NY:  M.E. Sharpe, 1995). For a website introduction to the Landsberger/​

From text(s) to image(s)  231 International Institute of Social History collections in the University of Amsterdam, see https://​chineseposters.net. 7 B. Taschen, ed., Chinese Propaganda Posters (Cologne: Taschen, 2011[2003]), p. 320. 8 B. Mittler, A Continuous Revolution:  Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012), p. 7. 9 Mittler, Continuous Revolution, p. 7. 10 With accommodation for changed political and material circumstances, the intertextuality of image and text in Maoist China discussed here shares some elements with what Alexander Des Forges terms late Qing and Republican Shanghai’s ‘mediasphere’, particularly ‘the simultaneous and regular appearance of the wide range of cultural products that make up this field … and … frequent connections and references between these cultural products across boundaries between different texts, genres, and media’. See A.  Des Forges, Mediasphere Shanghai:  The Aesthetics of Cultural Production (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), p. 16. Such cross-​referencing can be found at other times and places in Chinese history, including the late Ming, when scenes from well-​known novels sometimes appeared on export porcelain, as well as in Maoist China, as we will see here. 11 Ellul himself generally associated Maoist propaganda with the agitational rather than the integrative category. However, given the nature of my primary sources (interviews), I  maintain that all three artist informants presented here speak in an ‘integrative’ idiom. 12 J. Ellul, Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, trans. K. Kellen and J. Lerner (New York: Knopf, 1969 [1962 in French]), pp. 75, 76. Italics added. 13 Ellul, Propaganda, p. 76. 14 See Part II of C.A. Reed and N.  Volland, ‘Epilogue:  Beyond the Age of Cultural Entrepreneurship, 1949–​present’, in C.A. Rea and N.  Volland, eds, The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and SEA, 1900–​65 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2015), esp. pp. 261–​69. My specific line of inquiry in this chapter was suggested by a 2009 interview with painter Song Ren (宋韧 1932–​), who does not figure in this present chapter. In that interview, Song discussed Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution-​ era ‘Three Standard Articles’, one of which is titled ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune’, and its role in inspiring the painting Bethune (Baiqiu’en 白求恩, 1975), jointly painted by Song and her husband Xiao Feng (肖峰 1932–​). See Reed and Volland, ‘Epilogue’, pp. 265–​66. 15 Designation of ‘oil’ or ‘Western’ painting is common in the Chinese cultural environment, and is needed to distinguish that technique from Chinese ink painting (known today as guohua 国画). 16 P. Bourdieu, In Other Words, trans. M. Adamson (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 22. See also R. Johnson, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in P. Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), p. 7, which states that In Other Words is the best explanation of symbolic capital by Bourdieu himself. 17 Graduated in 1985, Leah Lihua Wong 王丽华 was one of only a handful of female graduates in oil painting of Hangzhou’s ZAFA (now the China Academy of Art) in the first decade after it, along with China’s other universities and art schools, reopened in 1977. In 1981, the year she entered with nine other oil painting majors (including just one other woman), the students were told that 10,000 applicants had been rejected for each one granted admission (Leah Lihua Wong, personal communication). Today, Wong is a professional artist based in Columbus, Ohio, USA. An extended interview with Wong herself is available online at the Asian Art Archive, Hong Kong,

232  Christopher A. Reed at www.aaa.org.hk. Wong’s interviews of her former professors were supported financially by a US National Endowment for the Humanities grant. 18 This project was supported by a grant from The Ohio State University’s Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities program. 19 But see Hung. C-​t, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), which draws on interviews with artists and cites both Quan Shanshi, ‘Seeing the light after adversities’ (Cong cuozhe zhong jian guangming 从挫折中见光明), Art (Meishu 美术), 1, 6 February 1962, pp. 48–​ 50; Zhan Jianjun, ‘Reflections on Taking a Roundabout Route’ (Zou wanlu yougan 走弯路有感), Art (Meishu 美术), 6 December 1961, pp. 30–​31. Quan and Zhan also figure here. 20 Contrary to this view, see Qin Dahu’s comments in Reed and Volland, ‘Epilogue’, in Rea and Volland, Business of Culture, p. 268, ‘about how artists could supplement their modest 60-​yuan monthly income in the 1960s by selling their paintings’. 21 Zhan also discusses the role of music in inspiring his work, but that theme is not analysed here. 22 See Andrews, Painters and Politics, p. 451, n. 110. 23 This summary is drawn from Andrews, Painters and Politics, pp. 5–​7. In addition, see Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, Ch. 7. Thank you to Julia F. Andrews for further clarifying these relationships (private communication, 13 June 2019). 24 This summary is drawn from Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, pp. 4–​8, 34–​38, 120–​28. Thank you to Kuiyi Shen for explaining the relationship between the Beijing and Shanghai fine arts publishers and their municipal publishing bureaux (private communication, 13 June 2019). 25 Despite this heavy bureaucratic burden, few of the artists interviewed complained about bureaucracy per se. Instead, they emphasized their willingness to work with the system; in return they hoped for, in Bourdieu’s phrasing, the symbolic capital of honour, reputation and prestige. Oddly, Shanghai did not support a nationally ranked art school (although efforts were made in the 1950s to create one). For this reason, Shanghai does not figure in the interviews cited in this chapter. 26 Thank you to Julia F.  Andrews and Leah Lihua Wong for their clarification of this concept. 27 Quan Shanshi, 22 June 2009, Hangzhou. Interview by Leah Lihua Wong, pp. 29–​30. The first example Quan mentioned of this kind of ‘imagined’ historical painting was his 2009 work March of the Volunteers (Yiyongjun jinxing qu 义勇军进行曲), co-​ painted with Weng Danxian 翁诞宪, which clearly alludes to China’s national anthem. Available at www.cpa-​net.cn/​news_​detail101/​newsId=7190.html. In his interview with Wong, however, Quan said no more about March of the Volunteers and went quickly on to discuss in depth the paintings discussed here. 28 To view both paintings, see http://​jsl641124.blog.163.com/​blog/​static/​ 17702514320151295922558. For On Top of Jinggangshan, see also S.S. Quan, Quan Shanshi bianhui 全山石编绘 (Jinan:  Shandong meishu chubanshe and Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chubanshe, 2009), p. 159. Unlike Revisiting Jinggangshan, On Top of Jinggangshang was not a response to a text. Instead, it was painted in reply to Vladimir Serov’s V.I. Lenin Proclaiming Soviet Power (1947), which was donated to Beijing’s Museum of Revolutionary History (Geming bowuguan革命博物馆). ‘At the time, they needed to hang a painting of the Chinese revolutionary road opposite this [Serov] painting, and we were asked to paint it … Luo Gongliu and

From text(s) to image(s)  233 I thought hard for a while … finally, we came to a very simple solution, that is, the revolutionary road of encircling the cities from rural areas. How should we present this revolutionary road? [The painting] used the event of Mao Zedong leading the army to go to Jinggangshan.’ Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 39 29 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 20. 30 Mao Zedong, ‘Revisiting Jinggangshan’ (Chongshang Jinggangshan 重上井冈山),’ in Xu Tao 徐涛 (ed.), Complete Poems of Mao Zedong (Mao Zedong shici quanbian 毛泽东诗词全编), (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), p. 281. 31 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 20. 32 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 28. 33 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 21. 34 Quan, 22 June 2009, p.  21. Note Quan’s pedagogical phrasing aimed at his former student. 35 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 26. 36 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 23. 37 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 28. 38 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 29. 39 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 29. 40 Producing multiple versions could also have helped artists avoid complete rejection of their work intended for a particular exhibition. However, see Hung, Mao’s New World, pp.  134–​35 on prominent painters whose contributions to the Museum of Revolutionary History were completely rejected. 41 It can be viewed at: www.yododo.com/​area/​guide/​01407587A3952774402881D34075 7B3B. See also Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, p. 154; Quan, Quan Shanshi bianhui, p. 153. 42 Quan, 22 June 2009, p.  1. For another perspective on the same painting, see Hung, Mao’s New World, pp. 137–​39. 43 Here I cite the English translation in Mao Zedong, ‘On Coalition Government’, p. 250, in Mao, Selected Works, Vol. 4 (New York: International Publishers, 1956), p. 250. For the original Chinese passage from which Quan read, see Mao Zedong, ‘On Coalition Government Lun lianhe zhengfu 論聯合政府 [1945],’ in Mao, Selected Works of Mao Zedong/​Mao Zedong xuanji 毛澤東選集, Vol. 3 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1964), p. 1036. 44 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 37. 45 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 33. 46 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 36. 47 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 35. 48 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 33. 49 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 36. 50 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 34. 51 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 36. 52 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 37. Quan observes (p. 30) that paintings for an exhibition illustrating events of the First Revolutionary Civil War (1927–​37), which began after the 12 April 1927 Counter-​Revolutionary Incident, did limit what painters could depict. For the basic nomenclature and periodization invoked by Quan, see Hu Qiaomu, Zhongguo Gongchandang de sanshi nian 中國共產黨的三十年 (Thirty Years of the Communist Party of China) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1951). According to Hung, Mao’s New

234  Christopher A. Reed World, pp. 12, 120–​21, 132–​133, Hu expanded on Mao’s essay ‘On New Democracy’ (1940) to lay out the official basic periodization of China’s revolutionary history. 53 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 2. 54 The name of the first painting was Rather Die than Yield (Ningsi buqu 宁死不屈). 55 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 2. 56 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 4. 57 Citing Mao Zedong, ‘On Coalition Government’, p. 1036. 58 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 4. For the 1975 version of the painting, see http://​baijiahao. baidu.com/​s?id=1630326965403798677. 59 Quan, 22 June 2009, p. 5. 60 On martyrology in the PRC, see Hung, Mao’s New World, pp. 137–​39 and Ch. 9. 61 Wen Lipeng, 15 July 2009, pp. 2–​3. Beijing. Interview by Leah Lihua Wong. 62 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 15. 63 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 35. 64 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 2. 65 Having been assigned to ideological administration for the Communist Youth League at the start of the Korean War forced Wen to leave art school early. When he returned in 1954, CAFA had shifted to a five-​year program for painters. In 1958, as part of the Great Leap Forward, Wen was sent away again. In around 1961, he reentered CAFA and finally graduated in 1963. Wen, 15 July 2009, pp. 4–​8. 66 Red Candle Eulogy can be viewed at http://​wenlipeng.artron.net/​works_​detail_​ brt000774300339. The painting was begun and finished in 1978 and exhibited in 1979: Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 27). 67 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 31. 68 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 31. Comparing the two paintings, Wen stated the later one ‘was done when I was more self-​conscious, and [the earlier one when] I was still exploring. By the time I did [the later one], I had sorted out my ideas on art’: Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 38). 69 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 27. 70 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 28. 71 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 28. 72 Wen, 15 July 2009, pp. 28–​29. 73 Wen had outlined a letter to Jiang Qing criticizing Kang Sheng for banning the use of models in art schools and also for his amassing of expensive antiques, including ink stones; when the letter was discovered in Wen’s home, it led to his arrest and incarceration. 74 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 30. 75 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 30. 76 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 30. ‘Historical Research and Documentary Material on the Third Revolutionary Civil War (1945–​49)’, Chinese Sociology and Anthropology (1990) 22(3–​4): 88, in a survey of pertinent published works, lists Shi Jing (Wang Kang) as the author of Wen Yiduo song 闻一多颂 (Wen Yiduo eulogy) (Wuhan: Hubei Renmin chubanshe, 1978 [1958]), but identifies it as a biography. 77 Wen Yiduo first published The Red Candle (Hongzhu 红烛) between 1922 and 1925 while attending the Art Institute of Chicago. For a recent bilingual (trans. Gladys Yang) reprint, see Wen Yiduo, Wen Yiduo shiwen xuan 闻一多诗文选／Selected Poems and Essays by Wen Yiduo (Beijing: Zhongguo wenxue chubanshe, 1999), pp. 2–​7. For Wen Yiduo’s intellectual biography, see K.Y. Hsu, Wen I-​To (Boston: Twayne, 1980). 78 Wen, 15 July 2009, pp. 30–​31.

From text(s) to image(s)  235 79 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 31. 80 Here, Wen probably refers to the passage in Mao Zedong’s 1949 essay ‘Farewell, Leighton Stuart’ (Bie le, Si-​tu-​lei-​deng 別了,司徒雷登), in which Mao actually said, ‘Wen [Yiduo] rose to his full height and smote the table, angrily faced the Kuomintang pistols, and died rather than submit … We should [my emphasis] write eulogies of Wen [Yiduo] … who demonstrated the heroic spirit of our nation 聞一多拍案而起,橫眉 怒對國民黨的手槍,寧可倒下去,不願屈服。。。我們應當寫聞一多頌,【他】表 現了我們民族的英雄氣概.’ See Mao Tse-​tung, Selected Works. Vol. 5 (1945–​1949) (New York: International Publishers, 1954), pp. 437–​38; and Mao, Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Mao Zedong xuanji 毛澤東選集), Vol. 4 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1964), pp. 1499–​1500. 81 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 31. 82 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 31. In the interview, Wen first said ‘New Tang Poetry (Xin Tangshi 新唐诗)’ but then corrected himself to mean New Tang History (Xin Tangshu 新唐书), the eleventh-​century work by Ouyang Xiu. See E. Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, 4th ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), p. 737 for the work’s naming history. 83 Wen, 15 July 2009, p.  31. In 2016, Lu Zhidan published Mao Zedong Critiques Historical Figures (Mao Zedong dianping lishi renwu 毛泽东点评历史人物) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe). In Chapter 7, Lu discusses the marginalia Mao wrote in his copy of New Tang History. The near-​verbatim similarity of Wen’s and Lu’s accounts suggests that accounts of the marginalia were the likely source of Wen’s story when he spoke to Wong in 2009. See https://​books.google.com/​books?id=qzB6 DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT219&lpg=PT219&dq=%E4%BB%A5%E8%BA%AB%E6%A E%89%E5%BF%97%EF%BC%8C%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%A6%E4%BC%9F%E 4%B9%8E&source=bl&ots=g5dW-​Dyi2G&sig=ACfU3U2_​kU3CJAgjLDoHIJoBY heHb6a8jA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_​waCumJfjAhXniVQKHdulB5YQ6AE wCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E4%BB%A5%E8%BA%AB%E6%AE%89%E 5%BF%97%EF%BC%8C%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%A6%E4%BC%9F%E4%B9%8 E&f=false. Thanks to John M. Knight of the Rhode Island School of Design for this reference. 84 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 32. 85 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 32. 86 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 32. 87 All quotations in this paragraph can be found in Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 33. 88 All quotations in Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 33. 89 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 38. 90 For clarification, see notes 80–83 above. 91 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 39. To view Daughter of the Earth, sometimes titled Daughter of the Land, see https://​ bit.ly/​ 2XzorZQ; also www.namoc.org/​xwzx/​zt/​wlpyhz/​ wenlipeng0614_​2. Wen’s 1963 CAFA graduation piece, an oil painting titled Guojige 国际歌, also clearly inspired by a text, the song L’Internationale, can be viewed at:  www.cafa.com.cn/​c/​?t=837052. Finally, take note that Wen’s classmate Luo Guangbin (罗广斌), with Yang Yiyan (杨益言) one of the authors of the 1961 novel Red Crag (Hongyan 红岩), asked Wen to illustrate the memoir that preceded the novel. The memoir was titled Living Forever in the Fire (Zai liehuo zhong yongsheng 在烈火中永生). Luo ‘wrote me a letter –​he knew I could paint … –​asking me to paint illustrations for their book … I stopped in Chongqing on my way to Kunming and he came to see me. We talked through the night at a little inn, and he told me the story of

236  Christopher A. Reed Red Crag … since we were old classmates, the atmosphere was very touching’. In the end, politics interfered and Wen was not able to illustrate the book (Wen, 15 July 2009, pp. 4–​5). 92 Zhang Zhixin was a CCP member who criticized the Cultural Revolution-​era Mao Cult. Imprisoned in an all-​male Liaoning prison from 1969–​75, on the orders of the Liaoning provincial government, she was tortured for years. In 1979, she was rehabilitated. In 2008, Guangzhou ribao reported that she is commemorated with the statue A Brave Warrior (Mengshi 猛士) in Guangzhou’s People’s Park:  see www.360doc.com/​content/​09/​0811/​21/​161879_​4849611.shtml. The statue is dedicated ‘to all those who struggle for truth’ (xian gei wei zhenli er douzheng de ren 献给为真理而斗争的人). 93 Wen, 15 July 2009, pp. 30, 39. 94 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 39. 95 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 39. 96 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 40. 97 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 40. 98 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 40. 99 Wen, 15 July 2009, p. 41. 100 The Museum of Revolutionary History was one of the Ten Big National Projects (Shida jianzhu 十大建筑). On the Ten Big Projects, see Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, p.  153. On the early history of the museum and its collection, see Hung, Mao’s New World, Ch. 5 and pp. 132–​48. 101 The ‘Five Warriors of Mount Langya’ is an essential part of the CCP’s official memory of the Anti-​Japanese War (1937–​45). According to Hung, Mao’s New World, p. 157, the incident formed the basis of a serial-​picture book (lianhuanhua 连环画) as early as 1944. The historical accuracy of the CCP account, in which the five Chinese fighters killed dozens of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers before hurling themselves to their likely deaths, has recently come under scholarly criticism in China. The case was discussed in two New York Times articles in Summer 2016. See Kiki Zhao, ‘Chinese Court Orders Apology Over Challenge to Tale of Wartime Heroes’, New York Times, 28 June 2016 and ‘Chinese Court Upholds Ruling Against Historian Who Questioned Tale of Wartime Heroes’, New York Times, 15 August 2016. See also Network of Concerned Historians 2017 Report: China (MCLC Resource Center, July 2017), pp. 19–​20. For a view of Zhan’s painting itself, see http://​news.ifeng.com/​a/​ 20160627/​49251003_​0.shtml. 102 Similar projects continue today; at the time of his 2009 interview, Zhan was completing a painting called Yellow River (Huanghe 黄河), also part of a national historical paintings project. For more on Five Warriors and Zhan Jianjun, see Hung, Mao’s New World, esp. pp. 132–​41. 103 Zhan Jianjun, 10 July 2009, Beijing. Interview by Leah Lihua Wong, Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, p.37. 104 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 39. 105 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 39. 106 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 40. 107 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 41. 108 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 41; author’s emphasis. 109 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 49–​50. 110 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 42.

From text(s) to image(s)  237 111 An apparent reference to enforcement of the arts policies spelled out in Mao’s 1942 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. 112 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 42. 113 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 42–​43. 114 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 44–​45. 115 To view Chairman Mao Lectures at the Peasant Movement Institute, see www. sanwen8.com/​p/​1nauqmdo.html. 116 Under a slightly different title, Zhan Jianjun published ‘Reflections on Taking a Roundabout Route’ (Zou wanlu yougan 走弯路有感) in Art (Meishu 美术), 6, 6 December 1961, pp. 30–​31. 117 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 46. 118 To view Raising a Home, see http://​zhanjianjun.artron.net/​works_​detail_​ brt000025300098. See also Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, p. 149. 119 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 4. 120 For more on Maksimov’s stay at CAFA, see Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, pp. 148–​51 and Hung, Mao’s New World, pp. 131–​32. 121 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 6, 7. 122 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 4. 123 Interestingly, when interviewed separately about this experience, Wang Chengyi did not mention textual inspiration. Zhan himself says that in fact Wang ‘did not find his theme [until he actually got to Luobei County] … his theme was more realistic and specific than mine. My theme had more imagination in it, while he found his theme from real life. My theme was thought out in my head, in my imagination, based on [the land reclamation team’s] affairs’ (Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 10). 124 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 8–​9. 125 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 10. 126 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 11. 127 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 11. 128 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 4. 129 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 33. 130 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 33. 131 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 33. 132 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 35. 133 Zhan, 10 July 2009, p. 32. 134 On the World Festivals, see J. Kotek, Students and the Cold War, trans. R. Blumenau (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 212. 135 Zhan’s prize was awarded by CAFA president Wu Zuoren (吴作人 1908–​97), later known for his ink paintings 国画 of pandas and yaks reproduced for postage stamp series in 1963, 1973 and 1985. 136 Zhan, 10 July 2009, pp. 28–​29. 137 According to Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, p. 149, Zhan Jianjun’s Raising a Home is in the CAFA Art Museum collection. 138 Thanks to Julia F. Andrews for this observation. 139 As with Quan Shanshi’s (and Luo Gongliu’s) 1962 On Top of Jinggangshang and 1975 Revisiting Jinggangshan.

Part V

Legacies

10  Propaganda and security from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping Struggling to defend China’s socialist system Matthew D. Johnson Propaganda refers to the large-​scale dissemination of ideas and information intended to induce recipients to act in predictable ways. As the chapters in this volume describe, leaders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have relied on propaganda to change the mentalities of recipients, and linked these efforts to specific goals:  wartime mobilization, the transformation of behavioural norms, moulding international opinion or legitimizing new political initiatives and leaders. This chapter focuses on how the Communist Party’s approach to propaganda is deployed through the field of ‘culture’ (文化), defined here as institutions of meaning-​making that serve to preserve and promote a specific predefined view of reality, particularly as related to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, the Party), the PRC party-​state and pan-​Chinese ethnos (中华民族). In particular, it examines the origins of the CCP’s present-​day concept of cultural security (文化安全), and the process through which culture has become an object of security –​in other words, become securitized. The significance of this process for the topic of propaganda is that it highlights how, in the context of a modern international system, propaganda can also be thought of as a defensive political strategy with goals that also include pre-​emptive ‘inoculation’ of the national body against worldviews and patterns of cultural influence established by rival states. Most studies of CCP propaganda focus on state–​society relations, media control and the opportunity for political legitimization afforded by communication technology. To a large degree, these studies take as their implicit baseline the CCP’s successful revolution against the Nationalist Party in 1949 to take control of the Chinese state, in which propaganda served to discredit enemy leader Chiang Kai-​shek and mobilize the masses; propaganda thus serves as a means by which the CCP renews and strengthens power within a domestic frame.1 By contrast, this chapter builds on a parallel strain of research, one which locates the external dimensions of China’s propaganda activity within a broader context of global ideological competition.2 Its baseline is not China’s civil war, but rather the Cold War. Across successive eras, from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, the CCP leadership has experienced keen pressure to adapt to an international system defined by post-​1945 geopolitical rivalries and globalization. This struggle for national

242  Matthew D. Johnson strength has taken place in the domain of culture as well as the economic and military realms. To highlight a few examples from the present political era: •

•

•

In a 19 August 2013 speech to the CCP’s National Conference on Propaganda and Ideology, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping described the Party as being engaged in a ‘great struggle with many new historical characteristics’ and facing ‘unprecedented’ challenges and difficulties in keeping society united under CCP rule.3 A complete version of the same speech, released in unauthorized versions across the internet, indicated that Xi had further asserted that ‘mixing and clashing between all sorts of ideologies and cultures on a global scale is increasing in frequency, [and] the struggle in the international ideological realm is profound and complex’.4 The revised PRC National Security Law, passed in 2015, focuses on defending ‘advanced socialist culture’ against ‘the influence of harmful culture, while safeguarding the position of the state as the ‘leading authority in the ideological field’.5

The progression from inner-​ Party warnings to national security rule-​ making highlights the extent to which insecurities concerning international cultural and ideological ‘struggle’ continue to haunt CCP leaders, even at a moment of unprecedented economic and military growth. The concern of Xi and the CCP Politburo Standing Committee over culture, and its security, is far from unprecedented in the history of the PRC since its founding. As this chapter also shows, the West  –​and particularly the United States  –​has routinely been depicted as the main source of cultural threat.6 Even during the Mao Zedong era (1949–​76), China’s leaders were confronted by the specter of United States-​led ‘peaceful evolution’ cultural-​change strategies directed against socialist countries. Vivid concerns about the impact of American economic, military and technological dominance on the CCP’s legitimacy thus first appeared during the Cold War, setting into motion the longer struggle for cultural securitization spanning decades of the post-​Mao ‘Reform Era’. However, it was primarily during the post-​Mao period that the securitization of culture began. The significance of this securitization process is manifold, but at minimum it represents one of the key drivers behind the CCP’s tightening of domestic media control and intensification of ‘thought work’ as competition with the United States in seemingly unrelated areas such as Asia-​Pacific military primacy and global trade has increased.7 Beginning with the Mao Zedong Era (1949–​ 76), each of the chapter’s sections narrates a distinct stage in cultural securitization’s extensive history. The overarching argument is that the elevation of culture as a policy issue to the status of a vital element of China’s national security originally began in the mid-​1950s, when vivid concerns over the impact of the Cold War and US economic, military and technological dominance on CCP regime legitimacy and PRC national interests first emerged, and has gained momentum along with globalization

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  243 and renewed United States–​China rivalry. The topic of securitization has not been widely addressed in studies of PRC cultural policy and propaganda. As described by noted security studies theorist Barry Buzan, the concept of ‘security’ expanded widely following the Cold War, focusing on non-​military issues (e.g. the economy, the environment) and moving beyond the state, and issues of state survival, to look at how other aspects of society have been securitized by states or other international, transnational and subnational actors.8 This transformation of the meaning of security was due in part to the range of significant threats to state security having increased, in relative terms, as the possibility of military conflict seemingly receded. Thus, as the chapter shows, the first discussions of culture in terms of security (安全) proper took place as leading CCP intellectuals and policy-​makers began to survey the implications of US dominance within the post-​Cold War global system, and did so with specific reference to theories of ‘non-​traditional’ power –​for example, soft power –​and images of non-​traditional threats to internal stability and international interests. Securing national culture and, by extension, ‘socialist core values’ against perceived threats of external cultural invasion and internal cultural fragmentation represents the wider political context in which subordinate activities such as propaganda, opinion guidance and ideological indoctrination take place. As a contribution to the existing scholarship, the main goal of this study is to restore to the field of propaganda studies, and particular the study of propaganda with respect to China, a sense of what is at stake for political leaders beyond more familiar and vaguely defined outcomes such as ‘legitimacy’ and ‘control’. For decades, scholars have tended to focus on mid-​level activities related to persuasion and popular legitimacy, assessing how these have, or have not, bolstered the legitimacy of the PRC’s post-​Mao CCP leadership. Some acknowledgement has been made of the role in internal security forces, such as local public security bureaus and the Ministry of Public Security, in ensuring media compliance with Central Propaganda Department directives and monitoring the overall state of public opinion, but there have been few attempts to draw connections at the policy-​making level between propaganda and security as interdependent concerns.9 At the same time, academics and analysts writing prior to 2007 have also noted the more pronounced significance ascribed to discourse and media in PRC foreign policy, but did not often draw clear connections between these developments and prior changes in national security paradigms and policies.10 While the literature on China’s cultural security published outside of China has gradually, if fitfully, increased, its authors largely exclude longer historical continuities from their analysis.11 This chapter makes use of an eclectic range of archives and source collections in linking propaganda and culture to China’s broader security concerns; these include: (1) insider accounts of Mao Zedong’s strategic thinking during the 1950s and 1960s; (2)  foreign affairs-​focused analysis and reports from both the PRC and United States; (3) official PRC media sources such as the People’s Daily (人民日报); (4)  documents and official speeches compiled by the offices of the CCP Central Committee Propaganda Department; and (5)  policy-​relevant academic journal articles openly available

244  Matthew D. Johnson in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database (http://​oversea. cnki.net/​kns55/​default.aspx). Many of these materials were gathered by the author between 2009 and 2010, when writing about cultural security began to appear in a small number of English-​language publications.12 At the time of writing, few of these sources have previously been analyzed or compared.

Combating ‘peaceful evolution’: Propaganda, culture and education as weapons against revisionism, 1953–​64 During the mid-​1950s, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles issued a series of statements concerning the desirability and inevitability of socialism’s collapse, an outlook later described in Chinese documents as a ‘peaceful evolution’ (和平演变) or ‘peaceful victory’ (和平取胜) strategy. Dulles was a closely watched figure in the PRC. His brother, Allen Foster Douglas, served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961. During his 15 January 1953 confirmation hearing, John Foster Dulles painted a picture of the ‘liberation of captive peoples living under communism’, which could be achieved not necessarily through ‘war of liberation’, but by ‘processes short of war’.13 CCP high political official Bo Yibo, who until 1953 held the title of Minister of Finance, recalled Dulles’ words as signaling the intention of the United States to destroy socialism through a combination of mental pressure (meaning, in this context, triggering a crisis of ideological conviction) and propaganda.14 Dulles’ main example was Soviet Russia, which he described as having used political warfare, psychological warfare and propaganda alongside the force of the Red Army to spread the Soviet Union’s scope of political control from 200 million people to 800 million. His statement to Congress concerning moral and psychological force was blunt: ‘Surely what they can accomplish, we can accomplish’. Liberation was contrasted with George F.  Kennan’s earlier containment-​based approach to US–​Soviet relations, and had already been articulated in this regard by Dulles during the 1952 presidential campaign that brought Dwight D. Eisenhower to the White House.15 Dulles’ commitment to psychological warfare tallied with a more hawkish US foreign policy that was at the same time based on restrained military spending, and he remained an advocate for robust and active alternatives to armed conflict throughout his tenure as Secretary of State.16 By the mid-​1950s, then, it appears –​at least retrospectively –​that CCP leaders were at least tangentially aware of a new strategic approach being taken by their US  counterparts. Liberation of ‘captive’ peoples was not yet peaceful liberation, but it possessed the same basic elements in terms of making explicit that conflict with the socialist world was to be fought in the spheres of ideology, popular consciousness and information. In this sense, it represented peaceful evolution’s formative first stage.17 Later, in 1956, Eisenhower’s National Security Council began to debate whether ‘peaceful evolution’ itself was taking place within the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc following Joseph Stalin’s death.18 Promoting peaceful evolution away from socialism became part of American policy toward Eastern Europe during the years 1957–​58. The goals of this policy were political and economic stability,

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  245 democratic order and new international arrangements, which would replace alliances based on Soviet control. Its methods included popular pressure on communist party-​ led regimes via exploitation of anti-​communist and anti-​Russian attitudes; more active relations with members of existing regimes; encouraging dominated people to seek political transition gradually; impairing and weakening Soviet domination by exploiting divisive forces such as nationalist pride and aspirations; the use of information to expose unequal treatment of other nations by the Soviet Union and to point out the evils and defects of Soviet-​communist system; bringing dominated nations into international technical and social organizations to encourage independence from the Soviet Union and create US advantage; and the promotion of US information and exchange activities in Eastern Europe generally.19 Belief that the Soviet hold over Eastern Europe was weakening, and could be weakened further by ‘measures short of war’, underlay the shift away from liberation and towards peaceful evolution as a strategy by which the United States would erode and transform Communist systems. It was given further reinforcement by signs of disunity within the international Communist movement. Dulles spoke publicly of the role of the United States in promoting liberalization within the Soviet Union and privately, in letters to Eisenhower, of ‘definite evolution’ and ‘changes of peace’.20 PRC leaders were aware of threats to socialism as well. Mao was becoming aware of Dulles’ comments, which began to appear in the international media with some regularity from 1957 onwards.21 Mao was, of course, also aware of what were perceived as internal threats to socialism, both in the Soviet bloc and at home. Dulles’ words suggested that Communist parties were in real danger, and that the United States and its allies sought to accelerate socialism’s disappearance. Mao may have seen these assessments reflected in Nikita Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ and attack on Stalin’s legacy at the 20th Congress of the CPSU held in 1956; in anti-​Communist uprisings in Poland and Hungary; and in internal attacks on the CCP by rightists, including figures within the party, again during 1957. Warnings against internal ‘enemies without guns’ were not new in Maoist politics after 1949. However, Mao’s concerns with rightism and infiltration of the CCP, contradictions between the CCP and the rest of PRC society and ‘erosion’ of values by degenerate capitalist thought (‘sugar-​coated bullets’) had already begun to reach new heights in 1956. In his speech to the Second Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee, Mao noted that, in losing the ‘two knives’ of Lenin and Stalin, European Communist parties were making themselves vulnerable to the forces of imperialism, and mentioned Dulles by name.22 Mao may also have believed that Eisenhower and Dulles were right to see pressure for ‘bourgeois’ freedom and liberalization increasing significantly within the Soviet bloc by the time that the third and fourth generations of those who had directly experienced socialism reached maturity –​hence his preoccupation with the passing of the Soviet Union’s original revolutionary leadership and its political values.23 Two years later, Mao would go on to emphasize to others within the CCP that Dulles was a ‘schemer’ who ‘controlled the US’, and that his ‘thoughtful’ speeches needed to be read in their original English to be properly understood.24

246  Matthew D. Johnson Concern over international headwinds faced by the CCP’s revolutionary government continued to escalate. ‘Peaceful evolution’ became the name for the theory of gradual attitudes-​and values-​based Soviet bloc demise associated with Dulles.25 According to Bo Yibo, Mao began paying particularly close attention to Dulles in 1959; that November, he ordered secretary Lin Ke to prepare translations of three key speeches by Dulles, which concerned peaceful evolution and related themes.26 Mao then read the speeches, added his own comments and convened a small group of high-​ranking CCP leaders in Hangzhou later that month. Dulles’ speeches, together with Mao’s comments, were circulated, read and discussed. Mao may already have been already preoccupied with what would happen to the PRC following his succession and eventual death.27 According to Bo, the main context for the discussion was how to deal with the use of hard and ‘soft’ forces by hostile governments –​the United States and its allies –​against the CCP. Since 1958, Mao had also been concerned with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s proposals for a PRC-​based long-​wave radio station and joint naval forces, which Mao interpreted as part of an attempt to control China militarily. This had precipitated concerns that peaceful evolution was already taking place in the Soviet Union, and that Soviet leaders after Stalin did not trust the CCP as a credible revolutionary partner.28 The Hangzhou meeting thus took place against a backdrop of warming relations between the United States and the Soviet Union (e.g. the Camp David talks), Sino-​Soviet tensions (e.g. Soviet opposition to PRC shelling of Jinmen, scrapping of the Sino-​Soviet nuclear agreement and Soviet support for India in the Sino-​Indian Border Incident) and internal opposition within the PRC to Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies (e.g. the July-​August 1959 Lushan Conference and Mao’s subsequent attack on Peng Dehuai). It was a fraught and complex moment. Mao’s Hangzhou meeting with Zhou Enlai, Peng Zhen, Wang Jiaxiang and Hu Qiaomu, and his commentary on Dulles’ speeches, revealed that he was concerned that the Soviet Union  –​the PRC’s most powerful ally –​was vulnerable to succumbing to US infiltration and subversion intended to restore capitalism through means short of war.29 At the same time, Mao also believed that these tactics reflected a fundamental weakness in the American position, based on the fact that US leaders seemed unwilling to dare to use force in pursuance of their objectives. Principles of justice, law and peace were expressions of isolation –​although, to the extent that those within the socialist camp found them compelling, they represented a threat to the entire world. Mao called this internal process subversion (or ‘overthrow’ 颠覆). ‘Dulles wants to subvert and change us to follow his ideas,’ he complained.30 In response, the CCP would have to resist peaceful evolution from two directions, represented by the United States and Soviet Union. The United States would be exposed through a campaign of facts focusing on strategic plans and what was really meant by ‘peace’. Criticism of the Soviet Union would be less direct, by implication or analogy only. Beginning in 1960, the PRC media began regularly publishing stories reflecting Mao’s belief that the United States was carrying out a strategy of victory through peace (和平取胜的战略) meant to overthrow, corrupt and internally divide

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  247 countries within the socialist camp. This ‘sinister and poisonous’ agenda was portrayed as a fundamental challenge to more genuine peace and progress.31 It ‘numbed’ the will to struggle against imperialism and promoted ‘internal collapse’ leading to capitalist restoration.32 From 1960 to 1964, across successive US presidencies, the People’s Daily sought to link the United States to policies meant to overthrow the governments of socialist countries; revival of imperialism in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and, more specifically, ‘peaceful evolution’ as part of a concerted effort to undermine Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Propaganda carried in the People’s Daily wasn’t the only means by which CCP leaders sought to combat peaceful evolution forces. Threat perceptions of internal degeneration and dissolution leading toward capitalism were also manifested in warnings about ‘contemporary revisionism’, which in turn led to actual efforts to counteract both foreign and domestic assaults on socialism. A 16 April 1960 editorial in the theoretical journal Red Flag (红旗) titled ‘Long Live Leninism’ made these connections plainly –​imperialism, coupled with the belief among revolutionaries that Marxist-​Leninism was becoming ‘outmoded’, made socialist countries internally vulnerable to change.33 Mao wanted to build resistance to these pressures. The plan to resist revisionist forces represented by the United States and Soviet Union, and to remove revisionists within the CCP from power, gained urgency during the 1959–​60 period when the possibility of peaceful evolution at a global scale seemed most acute, as symbolized by Khrushchev’s September 1959 Camp David trip and meeting with Eisenhower. This urgency was particularly apparent by 1962, when PRC Chairman Liu Shaoqi gave the CCP Central Committee’s report at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference held in January, and cited Mao to indicate that without a socialist economy, the PRC ran the risk of becoming revisionist, fascist and reactionary; Mao would later claim that this report represented his first statement that the CCP was in danger of being overthrown by domestic revisionism.34 At the CCP leadership’s Beidaihe meeting and at the Eighth CCP Central Committee Tenth Plenum, Mao again urged the CCP to be vigilant about going in the ‘opposite direction’ and, in the Tenth Plenum communique, the importance of ‘class struggle’ against revisionism and dogmatism. Polemic urging the population to ‘never forget class struggle’ and warning against ‘contemporary revisionists’ in the socialist camp  –​the latter indicating deepening friction with the Soviet Union, which would spill out into the open in July 1963 –​thus emerged as a result of internal assessments that CCP rule was under serious, multidirectional attack. Implications for CCP propaganda work quickly became evident. First, there was the image that peaceful evolution was being conducted by ‘secret’ means, and was first and foremost an issue of consciousness and morality, to be counteracted by study of positive examples, such as the People’s Liberation Army.35 In addition, the domestic film industry was explicitly criticized for ‘reflecting a contemporary revisionist political line’.36 Finally, CCP cadres were targeted for reorientation in thought and work, with hard emphasis on direct experience and ‘eating bitterness’ as prerequisites for professional advancement and political survival.37

248  Matthew D. Johnson The movement to combat peaceful evolution through culture and education work had arrived as early as 1960, when CCP high propaganda official Lu Dingyi addressed the National Culture and Education Mass Heroes Conference (全国文教群英大会) by urging: Our culture and education workers must seriously pay attention to the big secret plot of imperialists to collapse our will to fight and socialist society through ‘peaceful evolution’ toward capitalism. To smash this big secret plot of the imperialists, who are led by the United States, we must establish, solidify, and strengthen the Communist Party in our culture and education work.38 Propaganda as political work through media, culture and education was, as an early domestic battleground against revisionism, a harbinger of a more intense organizational struggle for control over the direction and leadership of the CCP that evolved over the course of the 1960s, erupting as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966. References to peaceful evolution appeared repeatedly in policy discussion around culture and the arts from 1960 onward.39 Prior to the Sino-​Soviet ‘split’, revisionism and peaceful evolution were already linked in the domestic setting; evidence of peaceful evolution and its dangers abroad served as reminders of, rather than distractions from, elite concerns that the PRC’s internal political environment was also moving backward in terms of ideological orientation. Nowhere was the focus of these concerns more evident than in the discourse around youth. PRC youth leaders decried the possibility of degenerate and ‘poisoned’ youth becoming ‘tools of “peaceful evolution” strategy’ and leading others away from political struggle in 1961; by 1963, full-​blown hysteria had emerged around the image of post-​revolutionary ‘third generations’ who had lost all semblance of contact with their own traditions and, by extension, with socialism.40 The threat image of peaceful evolution animated the Cultural Revolution, and also preceded it. Mao’s concern with peaceful evolution as a strategy led by the United States had begun during the 1950s; by at least 1958 he was concerned that the Soviet Union may have already begun to succumb, and one year later his own purging of domestic ‘revisionists’ such as Peng Dehuai seems to have reinforced a dawning belief that the CCP’s own internal vulnerability to peaceful evolution ran deep.41 Propaganda was put forward by alert supporters such as Lu Dingyi as the remedy to an irreversible slide into ideological degeneracy on the part of both cadres and masses. Youth, in particular, was seen as the most threatened segment of the population; culture, education and, ultimately, direct experience were then viewed as necessary safeguards against the loss of revolutionary consciousness and socialism (as defined by Mao and the CCP) as a globally legitimate alternative to imperialist capitalism.

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  249

Struggling to the end with ‘bourgeois liberalization’: Thought work, 1979–​89 The years following Mao’s Cultural Revolution and reconsolidation of CCP Central Committee authority under the short-​lived leadership of Hua Guofeng were characterized by pulling back from an autarky-​and ideology-​based concept of security. Under new leader Deng Xiaoping, peace and rebuilding of the economy and defence industries were put forward as primary objectives.42 At the same time, the CCP continued to wage ideological and political war on internal threats within the superstructure (上层建筑). Socialist modernization construction (社会主义现代化建设), an early Dengist euphemism for fast-​paced development in the productive sectors of the economy, also required realignment of thought (思想). In addition to repudiation of former Maoist ‘radical’ leaders Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, the Eleventh CCP Central Committee Third Plenum also emphasized adherence to Marxist-​ Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and principles of national unity, while at the same time declaring ‘class war’ against counter-​revolutionaries and criminals.43 Education in revolutionary thought was emphasized, although repurposed as democratization of thought and politics at the mass level –​in other words, as an alternative to the more militant Maoism of the Gang of Four –​and to highlight elements of Marxist-​Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought that complemented the Dengist emphasis on ‘seeking truth’. Throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, CCP propaganda strategy was guided by analysis of the political situation, which posited the existence of an ongoing conflict for control of public opinion toward the CCP’s current leadership, socialist system and policies. As during the Mao Zedong era, this conflict was believed to be exacerbated by the presence of hostile and foreign forces. Deng’s 30 March 1979 signal statement on the Four Basic Principles portrayed a world of ‘international struggle’ between imperialism.44 With CCP leadership under criticism by post-​Mao rights and democracy activists, Deng alleged that propaganda collusion existed between internal forces and foreigners. (Equally concerning for Deng were anti-​capitalist forces alleged to be associated with the Gang of Four.) Connections existed between critics of the CCP, foreigners inside China, foreign governments and the Guomindang dictatorship on Taiwan. Several years later, after political opposition to the CCP’s new leadership had effectively been quelled, Deng also asserted that a more economically open ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ would require vigilance against ‘foreign decadence [and] capitalist lifestyles’, which clashed with ethno-​racial (民族) self-​respect and pride.45 During the mid-​1980s, Deng further expressed disagreement with opinion that he characterized as prevalent in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and among ‘foreign-​ capitalist scholars’, which put external pressure on China to liberalize and ensure basic guarantees of human rights.46 ‘All kinds of messy things (乌七八糟的东西) will come in and entangle us,’ he cautioned; within the context of economic development (‘construction’), stability and unity required opposition to bourgeois liberalization and spiritual pollution. China could not leave the socialist road or risk

250  Matthew D. Johnson the political instability that would result from allowing a plurality of domestic and international opinion to impact the CCP’s policies. Protests and concerns for social order again came to the fore of the Dengist assessment of China’s domestic situation in 1986–​87, when student ‘disturbances’ were observed nationally  –​not just in Beijing, but in places where, in Deng’s view, CCP leadership appeared accommodating or weak (‘irresolute’). Allowing ‘rumor-​mongers and slanderers’ to ‘incite the masses’ in the name of American-​ style democracy was a consequence of lack of support for the principle of anti-​ bourgeois liberalization within the CCP itself.47 Losing this principle, however, would amount to China again becoming a ‘loose sheet of sand’ –​lacking political coherence, economically stagnant and vulnerable to foreign influence and invasion. Deng also believed that, in the end, most foreign governments would care more about stability than about liberalization; by 1989, however, he also knew that foreign support for demonstrators –​including sanctions –​was making political control of China more difficult.48 Following the armed suppression and killing of protesters who, in May and June 1989, had gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, CCPCC Politburo member Qiao Shi and CCP elder Wan Li informed visiting members of the soon-​to-​be-​dissolved Social Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) that: External and domestic factors had worked together and led to the situation of counterrevolutionary unrest in Beijing, endangering the socialist order in China. Imperialism hoped for a favourable opportunity to implement its strategy of peaceful change and ideological infiltrations together with domestic counterrevolutionary forces … imperialism exploited in this process general societal tendencies facilitated through the neglect of life within the party and political-​ideological work of the Communist Party. Mistakes by the former General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang, had resulted in disorientation of the party and led to the danger of a split of the party.49 During Deng’s own speech to high-​ranking cadres of the capital martial law forces (首都戒严部队), he highlighted that main goal of the protest movement had been to establish a ‘completely Westernized bourgeois republic’ in place of CCP rule.50 The initial diagnosis of the situation in Beijing and elsewhere by the CCPCC and State Council, reported in early June 1989, had been unambiguous: the movement had become counter-​revolutionary and violent; its perpetrators were ‘long-​term stubborn upholders of bourgeois liberalization’ and political conspirators who were linked to both overseas and domestic ‘enemy forces’.51 The 1989 protests and their aftermath thus highlighted, in the eyes of Deng and other CCP elites like Qiao Shi and Wan Li, that China’s socialist system remained vulnerable to internal and external attack. As during the Mao era, this long-​term struggle, though occasionally reaching violent peaks in its evolution, was primarily waged in the sphere of ideology –​ of ‘thought’, though in a sense that encompassed faith in political

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  251 system, patriotism, culture, media and even lifestyle. In late 1978, the post-​ Mao CCP had sought to ‘start the engine’ of modernization and political reform through a superstructural revolution, slowly increasing pluralism within intellectual and political life so research could be carried out and conditions understood. This was, in essence, the meaning of ‘seeking truth from facts’ (实事求是), which was never separated from Marxist-​Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.52 Revolution in thinking and education was nonetheless to be guided and shaped by the CCP, and Deng was uncompromising in his emphasis on the unified leadership of party and government. The ‘thought and theoretical work battlefront’ (思想理论工作战线), in Deng’s view, had an ‘especially large role to play’ in modernization and the reconstruction of political order.53 Rapid development required that thought and theoretical workers –​in other words, propagandists –​ close ranks around the CCPCC. Just as it was under Mao, propaganda work was thus especially important for defending the territory of thought against forces hostile to socialism and CCP authority. Capitalism –​particularly technology –​was to be studied, but socialism and socialist morality required constant propagandizing, whereas ‘capitalist reactionary and corrupt things’ in the ideological realm necessitated constant criticism.54 Because internal and external enemies conspired to ‘deceive people’ and oppose the CCP and Four Basic Principles, including within the CCP itself, thought and theoretical workers were needed to hold the line, overcome deception among the masses and young people, and educate the entire party concerning the dangers posed by both democracy and ultra-​leftism. Those working under Deng, such as propaganda head Deng Liqun, were tasked with both encouraging intellectual and political pluralism that would drive economic dynamism and support Deng’s post-​Mao institutional reforms, and at the same time ‘unifying wills’ under the CCP to prevent ‘extreme democratization and anarchy’, which was equated in Deng Xiaoping’s thinking with political instability, failed development and the collapse of China into hopelessness.55 Throughout 1980, Deng returned several times to themes of thought –​thought education, thought-​political work, the thought battlefront and ‘thought confusion’ (思想混乱)  –​in speeches to other CCP members on the importance of propaganda work, ideology, the arts and questions of ‘spirit’ (精神).56 Thereafter, general secretary Hu Yaobang became the CCP’s leading advocate for intensification of thought-​political work (思想政治工作) as an antidote to the looming spectre of bourgeois liberalization. However, by 1985, Deng had again returned to the forefront of speaking out against the equation of modernization with liberalization and Western democracy, a result of weakness along the thought-​theory battlefront (思想理论战线).57 Protests and evidence of visible collusion between domestic and foreign pro-​democracy forces deepened CCP leaders’ perceptions of incipient threat, and by the end of 1986 an argument for legal and coercive measures against bourgeois liberalization-​linked activity was beginning to emerge in official media. (In one example approvingly cited by Deng, editors of the Beijing Daily had described putting up big-​character posters as an ‘unprotected’ political activity.) Yet both before and after martial law forces killed protesters on 4

252  Matthew D. Johnson June 1989, Deng and other leaders continued to insist that ideological and educational measures were essential to combatting political change and developing the economy.58 Like peaceful evolution, bourgeois liberalization was an image of political vulnerability to domestic drift away from CCP socialist orthodoxy coupled with invisible forms of international pressure  –​the allure of democratization and luxury transmitted through subterranean, spontaneously organizing forms of dissent. Propaganda work, broadly conceived, was intended as a kind of prophylactic response intended to increase the loyalty rate among ideologically unmoored individuals.

Securing culture against globalization: Continuities in national policy from Jiang to Hu From 1978 onwards, Deng Xiaoping and other CCP leaders had shown concern about the possibility that foreign forces would overthrow the PRC’s political system, exploiting internal divisions and using cultural change as a weapon. The post-​Gang of Four moment was defined by restoration of political institutions and, on the propaganda front, a national propaganda-​study movement intended to enhance political unity and orient the populace towards support for the Dengist vision of national development. During the 1980s, this movement was referred to as ‘construction of socialist spiritual civilization’, officially adopted by the CCP Central Committee in 1986 (originally proposed by Ye Jianying in September 1979).59 Thereafter, creating socialist spiritual civilization became the main organizing principle for the day-​to-​day work of the Central Committee Propaganda Department.60 Under Deng’s successor, Jiang Zemin, the importance of culture as an element of national power and unity rose further. This was evident throughout the period of his leadership (1989–​2002); in addition to post-​Tiananmen intensification of national patriotic education campaigns, Jiang viewed the establishment of robust cultural industries as crucial to the cultivation of a ‘culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics’ and broader ethno-​national consciousness and ‘spirit’ (民族精神).61 Like his predecessors, Jiang also articulated the theory that China faced a cultural challenge, made ‘new’ by the forces of globalization as represented by the World Trade Organization (WTO), created by Western cultural products and media. To counteract this threat, and build national strength, Jiang and other technocratic leaders proposed at the Fifteenth CCP Congress that cultural force be deployed to ‘consolidate and inspire each ethnicities within the whole nation’ as an ‘important sign of comprehensive national power’.62 Culture and national security were once again clearly linked, power being the guarantee of security and, by extension, sovereignty. (In 1994, the implications of the ‘cultural question’ for national sovereignty within a post-​Cold War international system characterized by forces of Western globalization was the subject of a seminal essay published by future Central Policy Research Office director Wang Huning.)63 Cultural competition was an indelible feature of the international order, tied to both national development (‘scientific culture’) and security; ‘culture’ referred primarily to unified

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  253 national ideology. By 1999, an outpouring of scholarship on cultural security began appearing in academic journals, and in August the National Security Bulletin (国家安全通讯) published a substantial article by Lin Hongyu titled ‘Cultural Security: A Fundamental Topic in National Security’.64 By the end of the 1990s, the reinvention of socialism as mass civilization went hand in hand with deep security concerns linked to globalization and Westernization. Socialist spiritual civilization was linked to propaganda institutions as a systemic project intended to modernize people –​indeed, to create ‘new people’ –​and to consolidate CCP control over thought, morality and culture. Elevation of culture to the position of vital complement to PRC national security interests was, from the perspective of vested interests within the propaganda apparatus, perhaps one of the defining events of the 1997–​2002 period. ‘Cultural interests’ (文化利益) and ‘cultural sovereignty’ (文化主权) became linked to issues of strategy and China’s post-​Cold War security concept; globalization itself was identified as a ‘cultural issue’ and an important aspect of international relations was ‘securing China’s cultural position within world culture’.65 These academic discussions had multiple topical variants, including ‘scientific national revival strategy’, ‘anti-​hegemonic cultural strategy’ and building a ‘socialist new cultural movement’. Conceptually, cultural security thus ranked alongside other national strategic goals, birthing the idea of national cultural security (hereafter NCS), which was also sometimes expressed as ‘cultural national strategy’ (文化国家战略). Cultural strategy thus emerged as a complement to the better-​known policies of spiritual civilization construction, patriotic education and Jiang Zemin’s signature theory, the Three Represents (三个代表). Within this new strategic context, the NCS discourse centered on: (1) concern with ‘clashes’ between civilizations as a result of rapid acceleration of economic globalization following Cold War; (2)  Western advantages in military, technology, and the economy creating new issues related to protection of national cultural sovereignty and the defence of non-​Western national cultures; (3)  the spread of Western value systems along with Western economic aid; and (4)  the global propagation of political ideologies, leading to ‘struggle’ on the new cultural battlefront.66 In stricter terms, what NCS stood for was the effective safeguarding (维护) of national cultural interests and security. Its urgency was further embellished by the perceived severity of the Western, or US, threat: the superiority of economic-​technological-​military ‘hard power’ control and leadership with respect to international norms, the appeal of consumerism and the pursuit of economic, cultural and information hegemony.67 The contrast between a decadent and challenging global consumerism controlled by the West and a non-​Western nationality culture supported by state policy constituted the fundamental duality upon which NCS policies were based. Western culture was to be resisted, and national culture propagated and extolled. In November 2002, the Sixteenth CCP Congress report noted the ‘mutually interrelated’ nature of culture, economy and politics in world affairs, and the increasing prominence of the place of all three in competition between nations.68 By 2003, high-​level publications like the Journal of the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC (中共中央党校学报) associated NCS with

254  Matthew D. Johnson ethno-​national survival (民族生存).69 American cultural imperialism was ‘the … monstrous offspring, and pitfall of, globalization, and the contemporary form of capitalist expropriation, [which] directly threatens the cultural security of China and other developing countries’. The range of contemplated responses grew wider and more specific: building a cultural security system (系统), raising public consciousness of the threat posed by cultural imperialism, using the internet and media to more widely disseminate national culture, establishing an NCS ‘warning system’, creating a Chinese cultural industry system, digitizing China’s cultural heritage and educating a creative ‘new force’ for reviving Sinic national culture (中华民族文化) in the new globalization era.70 Within other publications, the definition itself expanded, with cultural security used to refer to the securitization of ‘intellectual trends in society’ (社会思潮).71 Arguably, the concept of NCS was also becoming more hardline and aggressive, with suggestions that successful NCS strategy required greater national cultural ‘dignity’ (尊严), and that socialist cultural industries, supported by state investment and policy, should be used to engage in ‘active outward attack of international cultural markets’. Culture was to be supported by ‘hard’ economic development, while cultural industries were to be protected, as much as possible, from competition and cross-​border movement promoted by the World Trade Organization, to which China acceded in 2001. Under Hu Jintao’s leadership (2002–​12), NCS became both a strategic paradigm and a policy framework. A shift had occurred in national security discourse, with cultural security and discussion of NCS included in the authoritative 2004 National Security Studies (国家安全学) reference series published by the China University of Political Science and Law (中国政法大学).72 As a framework, NCS issues were often discussed as part of broader policy-​related analysis related to international politics and relations and, particularly in the pages of authoritative CCP theoretical journal Qiushi, spiritual civilization construction. At the same time, within the CCP Central Committee Politburo, the topic of cultural security was addressed directly by Hu Jintao as relevant to the development of PRC cultural enterprises and industries, and as of critical importance to the preservation of socialism, ideological change within the CCP and wider society, and the preservation of social stability.73 This significant pronouncement took place at the Politburo’s seventh collective study (集体学习) session on 12 August 2003, which addressed the topic of ‘the condition of global cultural industry development and our cultural industries’ development strategy’.74 Of central important to this discussion was perceived ‘inequality’ in international cultural flows, US policies of ideological expansion, the ‘pressure’ put on developing countries and their governments by US consumerism and popular culture, and the necessity of ‘opening space’ for other cultures globally. As before, securitization of culture at the most elite levels was accompanied by a narrative of overwhelming American economic and technological strength, attempts to undermine other nations’ cultural security through policies of ‘hegemony’ and growing strength as a result of the demise of communism across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Thus, from 2003 onwards, there was greater

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  255 strategic importance attached to the idea of safeguarding cultural sovereignty and security as a matter of national policy. NCS became a national priority just as the forces of US-​led globalization appeared to be gaining strength. As in the period of Jiang Zemin’s leadership, during which socialist spiritual civilization construction through cultural industry development was a key point of emphasis, during Hu Jintao’s tenure as CCP general secretary, and particularly following the 2007 Seventeenth Party Congress, there was a corresponding emphasis on productive cultural activity as well:  revival of socialism and Neo-​Confucianism, popular moral education the ‘Eight Honors and Eight Shames’ and attempted reversal of moral decay within the CCP and society.75 Cultural securitization moved beyond broad discussions of international relations and national strategy towards more specific topics such as media, education and internal security –​a strong indication that the paradigm was gaining adherents. Public security academic policy journals described national cultural security as an ‘urgent and applicable topic’ for the public security curriculum and broader political reform.76 Other discussions addressed the importance of addressing links between globalization and cultural security through education.77 One key focal point was media. Arguments proliferated for greater ‘discursive control’ and use of cultural industries, coupled with external media strategy, to combat the perceived Western threat to China’s cultural sovereignty.78 (Within CCP journals, NCS debates were still often treated as a subset of policy related to spiritual civilization construction, and thus propaganda generally.) By 2005–​06, these discussions spilled out into the mainstream of cultural policy agenda-​setting, and were addressed on a nearly industry-​by-​industry basis as NCS became a byword for managing political-​ideological content within publishing, broadcasting and other mass media, including the internet.79 Like the threat image of peaceful evolution, globalization moved propaganda towards the centre of debates concerning China’s future. Blurring the lines between international relations, domestic security, political education, media and ultimately the Dengist-​Jiangist agenda of maintaining a ‘plurality’ of civilizations amidst globalization, the NCS paradigm under Hu Jintao revived the importance Deng Xiaoping had placed on thought-​political education work (思想政治教育工作) as central to the CCP’s historical mission.80 However, the threat image behind the new emphasis was not ‘bourgeois liberalization’, but rather the civilizational clash between China’s ‘peaceful world’ and the Western ‘new world order’ of globalization led by the United States. From an academic perspective, one of the most definitive statements concerning NCS appeared in 2008, with the publication of Han Yuan’s ‘Preface Concerning National Cultural Security’, published in leading ideological journal The Contemporary World and Socialism and based on research supported by the National Social Science Fund’s program for ‘Research on National Cultural Security Strategy in the Context of Globalization’.81 According to Han’s essay, cultural security was defined as a ‘manifestation of national interest in the cultural domain’, was a prerequisite to national survival and development, and represented the means by which individuals were united through by ethno-​national, state and

256  Matthew D. Johnson social relationships. As ‘protection of cultural interests and defense of cultural sovereignty against in invasion’, NCS came to stand for all efforts, whether domestic or international, to (tacitly) consolidate CCP power within China and maintain an independent international position within the cultural-​ideological sphere. The dangers of not maintaining a robust NCS strategy, Han warned, were that China would face cultural invasion and spiritual enslavement by a United States that ‘looked down on the world’ and that was already emboldened by the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Political and culture security were thus inseparable and, as international competition using ‘soft power’ strategies increased, the creation of a new, safer and more legitimate international order was an urgent necessity. Against this background, the period 2008–​09 can be seen as another turning point during which NCS-​related discussions reached their peak, before splintering into a less coherent grouping of public and academic discussions concerning related themes of soft power, cultural industries, traditional national culture, spiritual civilization and ‘harmonious society’ –​the last of these an emblem of Hu’s efforts to confront rising internal tensions.82 At the same time, the NCS policy paradigm was becoming embedded in internal security and international relations policy frameworks. Combatting cultural ‘splittism’ in Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet required attention to NCS, as did the management of plural value systems and English-​language content on the global internet.83 By late 2010, leading propaganda official Li Changchun had inaugurated a further shift towards ‘ideological security’ (意识形态安全)  –​a seemingly new securitization paradigm, which replicated the emphasis of NCS on Western cultural infiltration and globalization as threatening forces and demanded the appropriate domestic and international responses needed to revive CCP cultural power. In a 7 December 2010 speech, Li urged Communication University of China students to ‘promote national achievements, expand battle for public opinion, protect national and ideological security, and create first-​class international media’.84

Conclusion: Putting cultural securitization in context During Hu Jintao’s second term as president of the PRC, culture became defined as both a key strategic theme and a ‘core resource’ of party-​state power.85 The outcome was a shift not only towards securitization, but also towards centralization of control over media institutions, as well as specific policy approaches intended to minimize foreign influence and ideological multipolarity within the national cultural sphere. On 4 May 2009, top CCP leaders including Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang convened a meeting in the Great Hall of the People to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement. During this anniversary event, Li Changchun commented on the necessity of ‘inspir[ing] the Chinese people to be united and hardworking in rejuvenating the Chinese nation’.86 The phrase ‘national rejuvenation’ echoed earlier statements, such as the October 2006 Communiqué of the Sixteenth CCP Central Committee Sixth

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  257 Plenum, which advocated rejuvenation, along with national prosperity and the ‘people’s happiness’, as one of the three main goals associated with building a ‘harmonious socialist society’ –​and made governance of citizens’ ideology and moral qualities, as well as national culture generally, part of a broader set of means of fostering national participation in support of CCP economic and political agendas.87 The long struggle to defend China’s socialist system described in this chapter, which ultimately produced securitization, and defence of culture against the ‘plural’ and ‘Western’ as the necessary function and purpose of propaganda work, has not been analyzed as a coherent episode in China’s contemporary politics. Rather, conventional accounts seeking to explain the increasingly restrictive turn in culture, media, education and other areas linked directly to CCP discussions of ideological work focus primarily on speeches made by Xi Jinping, cybersecurity and internet policy official Lu Wei, and chief ideology and propaganda official Liu Yunshan when identifying the defining features of PRC cultural policy since the rise of Xi.88 At issue in such analysis is whether the CCP is increasing ‘control’ over culture and the media as it promotes ‘socialist core values’.89 Starting with Xi’s 19 August 2013 speech to attendees at the National Conference on Propaganda and Thought Work (the ‘Eight-​Nineteen Speech’), the CCP is seen as bringing all media closer to systems of political leadership and surveillance, while at the same time elevating the significance of ‘spiritual and civilization construction work’ to a level equivalent with the economy.90 From 2014 to 2016, subsequent speeches by Xi, Lu and Liu on topics such as cybersecurity, informationization, news, public opinion work, and literature and the arts have all consistently emphasized the leading role of the CCP; at the same time, new measures have been taken to further securitize media and culture through the strengthening of centrally guided and infrastructure-​focused institutions that are the direct descendants of policy initiatives already in development under Hu Jintao. However, the Xi Jinping government is far more expansive than its predecessor concerning the culture–​media–​ security connection amidst this ongoing political institutionalization effort, establishing and investing in think-​tanks devoted to ‘national cultural security and ideological construction’, and both institutionally and rhetorically emphasizing the significance of culture and information to national security policy91 (e.g. the National Cultural Security and Ideological Construction Research Center [Guojia wenhua anquan yu yishixingtai jianshe yanjiu zhongxin], Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). As a result, cultural security –​ along with ideological security and cybersecurity –​has been shifted to the fore of a security-​related policy framework labelled ‘unconventional security threats’ and implemented at the highest level by the recently formed National Security Commission.92 While much of this work is managed by clearly designated propaganda organs, most notably the CCP Central Committee Propaganda Department and State Council Information Office, these organs are apparently directed by a powerful new institution, China’s Central State Security Commission (CSSC, 中央国际安全委员会), the establishment of which was announced in November

258  Matthew D. Johnson 2013. As conveyed by Xi Jinping, who serves as CSSC chairman, China’s state security challenges were ‘more complex than at any time in history’, and included internal corruption, challenges to centralized governance and domestic threats with foreign connections.93 This assessment, and the formation of the CSSC itself, further institutionalized definitions of state security as inclusive of cultural security, insofar as information transmission and ideological infiltration were viewed as two of the primary vectors by which both domestic and foreign security threats sought to unsettle CCP claims to legitimately govern China. Examples of colour revolutions in Central Asia from the early 2000s, foreign-​connected NGOs and media attacks on CCP narratives were used continuously in the official press to further legitimate this assessment.94 As a threat image institutionalized within a broader policy framework, the NSC paradigm thus remained embedded within Xi’s CSSC and, by extension, a PRC party-​state security concept stretching back to Mao’s first encounters with US efforts to transform socialist societies from within.

Notes 1 On the historical dimensions of propaganda as a tool of CCP power and legitimacy, see Chang-​tai Hung, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011); Elizabeth J. Perry, Cultural Governance in Contemporary China: ‘Re-​Orienting’ Party Propaganda (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). For more contemporary perspectives, see Anne-​ Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship:  Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Yuezhi Zhao, Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Daniel Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 2 See, in particular, Joshua Kurlantzick, China’s Charm Offensive:  How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Sheng Ding, The Dragon’s Hidden Wings: How China Rises with Its Soft Power (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Zheng Yangwen, Hong Liu and Michael Szonyi, eds, The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 3 Xi Jinping, ‘习近平在全国宣传思想工作会议上强调 胸怀大局把握大势着眼大事 努力把宣传思想工作做得更好’, Communist Party Member Net, http://​news.12371. cn/​2013/​08/​21/​ARTI1377027196674576.shtml. 4 See, for example, ‘网传习近平8•19讲话全文：言论方面要敢抓敢管敢于亮剑,’ China Digital Times, 4 November 2013. 5 ‘专家:设立国家安全委员会提高了国家安全协调层级,’ 人民网-​理论频道, 12 November 2013, http://​theory.people.com.cn/​n/​2013/​1112/​c148980-​23518980.html. 6 On the defence of China’s traditional culture against perceived cultural incursion, see Rao Guimin, ‘ “ 中国梦” 与中华文化复兴’ [The ‘China Dream’ and Revival of Chinese Culture], 中国共产党新闻网, 4 December 2014, http://​theory.people.com. cn/​n/​2014/​1204/​c359404-​26150090.html; Willy Lam, ‘Xi Jinping Uses “Traditional Culture” to Launch a New Cultural Revolution’, AsiaNews.it, 11 February 2016, www. asianews.it/​news-​en/​Xi-​Jinping-​uses-​traditional-​culture-​to-​launch-​a-​new-​Cultural-​ Revolution-​36661.html.

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  259 7 On cultural securitization, Xiism, and People’s Liberation Army psychological warfare strategy, see Matthew D.  Johnson, ‘Securitizing Culture in Post-​Deng China’, Propaganda in the World and Local Conflicts, 4(1) (2017): 62–​80. On the 1990s origins of contemporary CCP media control policies specifically, see James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Ying Zhu, Two Billion Eyes:  The Story of China Central Television (New York: The New Press, 2012); Daniel Lynch, ‘Securitizing Culture in Chinese Foreign Policy Debates:  Implications for Interpreting China’s Rise’, Asian Survey, 53(4) (2013):  629–​52; Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 8 Barry Buzan, ‘Rethinking Security Studies after the Cold War’, Cooperation and Conflict, 32(1) (1997): 5–​28. 9 For two of the finest introductions to the CCP propaganda system and its functions, see Anne-​Marie Brady, ‘Guiding Hand:  The Role of the CCP Central Propaganda Department in the Current Era’, Westminster Papers on Communication and Culture 3(1) (2006):  58–​77; David Shambaugh, ‘China’s Propaganda System:  Institutions, Processes, and Efficacy’, The China Journal, 57 (2007): 25–​58. 10 Bonnie S. Glaser and Evan S. Medeiros, ‘The Changing Ecology of Foreign Policy-​ Making in China: The Ascension and Demise of the Theory of “Peaceful Rise” ’, The China Quarterly, 190 (2007): 291–​310; Susan L. Shirk, ‘Changing Media, Changing Foreign Policy in China’, Japanese Journal of Political Science 8(1) (2007): 43–​70; Michael D. Swaine, ‘Chinese Views and Commentary on Periphery Diplomacy’, China Leadership Monitor, 44 (2014): 1–​43; Robert D. Blackwell and Kurt M. Campbell, ‘Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader’, Council Special Report, 74 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2016), www.cfr.org/​report/​xi-​jinping-​global-​stage. 11 Laikwan Pang, Creativity and Its Discontents:  China’s Creative Industries and Intellectual Property Rights Offences (Durham, NC:  Duke University Press, 2012); Michael A. Keane, Creative Industries in China:  Art, Design and Media (London: Polity Press, 2013); Lin Han, ‘Chinese Cultural Security in the Information Communication Era’, Focus Asia: Perspective and Analysis, 2(6): 1–​7; Haitao Gao, Yi Liu and Xiao Li, ‘An Analytical Framework for China’s Cultural Industrial Security’, in Menggang Li, Qiusheng Zhang, Runtong Zhang and Xianliang Shi, eds, Proceedings of 2014 1st International Conference on Industrial Economics and Industrial Security, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015), pp. 281–​86; Huilin Hu, ‘On the Formation and Evolution of Chinese National Cultural Security Issues in the Twentieth Century’, in Keping Yu, ed., On China’s Cultural Transformation (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 267–​94. 12 Neil Renwick and Qing Cao, ‘China’s Cultural Soft Power:  An Emerging National Cultural Security Discourse’, American Journal of Chinese Studies, 15(2) (2008): 69–​86; David Bandurski, ‘A Few Words on China’s New “Cultural Revolution” ’, China Media Project, 19 December 2009, http://​cmp.hku.hk/​2009/​12/​17/​a-​few-​words-​on-​chinas​new-​cultural-​revolution. 13 US Senate, Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations on the Nomination of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State Designate, January 15, 1953, 83rd Congress, 1st Session (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office [USGPO], 1953),  pp.  5–​6, [http://​teachingamericanhistory.org/​library/​document/​statement-​on-​ liberation-​policy.] 14 As quoted in 邓力群 [Deng Liqun], ‘毛泽东反对和平演变政治战略的形成与发展’ [The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy to Oppose

260  Matthew D. Johnson Peaceful Evolution], QSTheory.cn, 29 January 2016, www.qstheory.cn/​politics/​2016-​ 01/​29/​c_​1117923265.htm. Originally published in Deng Liqun, 政治战略家毛泽东 [Political Strategist Mao Zedong] (Beijing: 中央民族大学出版社 Central Ethnicities University Press, 2004). 15 New York Times, ‘Obituary: Dulles Formulated and Conducted US Foreign Policy for More Than Six Years’, 25 May 1959, https://​archive.nytimes.com/​www.nytimes.com/​ learning/​general/​onthisday/​bday/​0225.html. Dulles had used the term ‘liberation’ as early as 1949; emphasis on peaceful means came later. See Mary Catherine Stagg, ‘Eisenhower and Liberation:  The Case Study of Poland, 1953–​1956’, MA thesis (University of Richmond, 1995). 16 David F.  Krugler, The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000), pp. 198–​204. 17 Deng, ‘The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy’. On the 1953 Solarium Project, NSC 162/​2, and the rollback and containment of Soviet influence ‘by measures short of war’ as part of Eisenhower’s New Look foreign policy, see Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947–​1953 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 134–​45. 18 ‘Memorandum at Discussion at the 277th Meeting of the National Security Council’, 27 February 1956, in US Department of State, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–​1957:  Soviet Union, Eastern Mediterranean, (1955–​1957), Vol. XXIV (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office), pp. 59–​61. 19 National Security Council Report, ‘Statement of US Policy Toward the Soviet-​ dominated Nations in Eastern Europe,’ NSC 5811/​1, 24 May 1958, in US Department of State, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–​1960:  Eastern Europe Region, Soviet Union, Cyprus, Vol. X, Part  1 (Washington, DC:  U.S. Government Printing Office), pp. 18–​31. 20 John Lewis Gaddis, ‘The Unexpected John Foster Dulles:  Nuclear Weapons, Communism, and the Russians’, in Richard H.  Immerman, ed., John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 71–​73. 21 Deng, ‘The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy’. 22 Mao Zedong, ‘Speech at the Second Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee’, 15 November 1956, in John K. Leung and Michael Y.M. Kau, eds, The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949–​1976:  January 1956–​December 1957, (Armonk, NY:  M.E. Sharpe, 1992), pp. 158–​79. 23 Deng, ‘The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy’. 24 Qiang Zhai, ‘1959:  Preventing Peaceful Evolution’, China Heritage Quarterly, 18 (2009), www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/​features.php?searchterm=018_​1959preven tingpeace.inc&issue=018. Originally published as ‘Mao Zedong and Dulles’ “Peaceful Evolution” Strategy: Revelations from Bo Yibo’s Memories’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 6/​7 (1995), pp. 227–​30. 25 薄一波 [Bo Yibo], 若干重大决策与事件的回顾 [Recollection of Some Major Policy Decisions and Events] (2 vols) (Beijing: 中共中央党校出版社 Chinese Communist Party Central Party School Press, 1993 [1991]). See Vol.  2, Ch. 39 (‘To Prevent “Peaceful Evolution” and Train Successors to the Revolutionary Cause’), pp. 1138–​46 26 Zhai, ‘Mao Zedong and Dulles’s [sic] “Peaceful Evolution” Strategy’. These were: (1) 4 December 1958 speech, ‘Policy for the Far East’ to California Chamber of Commerce; (2) 28 January 1959 testimony to House Foreign Affairs Committee; (3) 31 January 1959 speech, ‘The Role of Law in Peace’ to New York State Bar Association.

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  261 27 Ibid. See also Robert J.  Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality:  Mao Tse-​tung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Random House, 1968). 28 See ‘Minutes of Conversation, Mao Zedong and Ambassador [Pavel F.] Yudin’, 22 July 1958, Wilson Center Digital Archive, http://​digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/​document/​ 116982. 29 Deng, ‘The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy’. 30 Zhai, ‘1959: Preventing Peaceful Evolution’. 31 ‘维护和平的决定性力量’ [The Decisive Force in Safeguarding Peace], 人民日报 [People’s Daily], 6 February 1960, p. 2. 32 ‘在 华 沙 条 约 缔 约 国 政 治 协 商 委 员 会 会 议 上 —​康 生 同 志 谈 目 前 国 际 形 势 ’ [At the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Conference  –​Comrade Kang Sheng Discusses the Current International Situation], People’s Daily, 6 February 1960, p. 6; ‘列宁关于和平与战争的理论’ [Lenin’s Theories of Peace and War], People’s Daily, 25 April 1960, p. 7. 33 See Editorial Department of Red Flag, Long Live Leninism!, 3rd ed. (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), pp.  1–​ 55, www.marxists.org/​history/​international/​comintern/​sino-​soviet-​split/​cpc/​leninism.htm. Originally appeared in Red Flag, 8, 16 April 1960. On the connection between contemporary revisionism and peaceful evolution as communicated to a mass audience, see ‘列宁的革命精神万古长青’ [Lenin’s Revolutionary Spirit Will Remain Fresh Forever], People’s Daily, 23 April 1960, p. 8. 34 Deng, ‘The Formation and Development of Mao Zedong’s Political Strategy’. 35 See, for example, ‘不腐不蠹的秘密所在’ [The Existence of an Incorruptible Secret], People’s Daily, 9 July 1963. 36 See ‘ “ 文艺报” 发表题为 “现代修正主义的艺术标本” 的文章批判现代修正 主义的电影艺术’ [The Wenyi bao Publishes an Article Titled ‘Artistic Specimens of Contemporary Revisionism’ to Criticize Contemporary Revisionism in Cinematic Art], People’s Daily, 27 November 1963, p. 2 37 See ‘不蹲点, 就不能指导面,’ [Without Going to the Grassroots, One Cannot Lead], People’s Daily, 26 August 1964, p. 5. 38 ‘陆定一同志代表中共中央和国务院在全国文教群英大会上的祝词’ [Address by Comrade Lu Dingyi Representing the CCP Center and State Council at the National Culture and Education Mass Heroes Conference], People’s Daily, 2 June 1960, p. 1. 39 See, for example, ‘反映社会主义跃进的时代, 推动社会主义时代的跃进 (摘要)  –​ 中国文学艺术界联合会副主席  –​ 中国作家协会主席茅盾在全国 文艺工作者代表大会上的报告’ [Reflect the Era of Socialism’s Leap Forward, Promote the Leaping Forward of the Socialist Era (Extracts) … Report by China Writers Association Chairman Mao Dun at the National Literary and Artistic Workers Representatives Conference], 25 July 1960, p. 4. 40 See    ‘我青年代表团团长在阿尔巴尼亚劳动青年联盟代表大会上致贺词— ​阿 尔 巴 尼 亚 青 年 已 成 长 为 有 高 度 觉 悟 的 新 的 一 代 —​ 中国人民和青年无论在风里雨里都同你们在一起’ [Greeting by Our Youth Delegation Leader at the Albania Laboring Youth League Representatives Conference …], People’s Daily, 27 November 1961, p. 3; ‘一代一代地继承和发扬党的革命传统 (社论)’ [Each Generation Inherit and Carry On the Party’s Revolutionary Tradition (Editorial)], People’s Daily, 4 May 1963, p. 1. 41 Zhai, ‘1959: Preventing Peaceful Evolution’. 42 Maochun Yu, ‘Marxist ideology, revolutionary legacy and their impact on China’s security policy,’ in Routledge Handbook on Chinese Security, ed. Lowell Dittmer and

262  Matthew D. Johnson Maochun Yu (Abingdon:  Routledge, 2015), https://​www.routledgehandbooks.com/​ doi/​10.4324/​9781315712970.ch2 43 ‘把全党工作的着重点转移到社会主义现代化建设上来’ [Transfer the Focal Point of the Whole Party’s Work to Socialist Modernization Construction], report of Eleventh CCP Central Committee Third Plenum, 22 December 1978, in 十一届三中全会以来党的宣传工作文献选编 [Selected and Compiled Party Propaganda Work Documents Since the Eleventh CCP Central Committee Third Plenum] (Beijing: 中共中央党校出版社 CCP Central Party School Press, 1989) [hereafter SCPPWD], pp. 27–​33. 44 The Four Basic Principles (also known outside of China as the ‘Four Cardinal Principles’ [四项基本原则]) were the socialist road, dictatorship of the proletariat, CCP leadership, and Marxist-​ Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. See Deng Xiaoping, ‘坚持四项基本原则是实现四个现代化的根本前提’ [Resolutely Upholding the Four Basic Principles is a Fundamental Precondition of Achieving the Four Modernizations], 30 March 1979, in SCPPWD, pp. 49–​57. 45 Deng Xiaoping, ‘建设有中国特色的社会主义’ [Constructing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics], opening address at CCP Twelfth Congress, 1  September 1982, in SCPPWD, pp. 34–​35. 46 Deng Xiaoping, ‘搞自由化就是要把中国引导到资本主义道路上去’ [To Engage in Liberalization is to Lead China Toward the Capitalist Road], speech during Twelfth CCP Central Committee Sixth Plenum, 28 September 1986, in SCPPWD, pp. 64–​65. 47 Deng Xiaoping, ‘旗帜鲜明地反对资产阶级自由化’ [Take a Clear and Distinct Stand in Opposing Bourgeois Liberalization], discussion with several CCP Central Committee leaders, 30 December 1986, in SCPPWD, pp. 66–​69. 48 Deng, 30 December 1986, in中国共产党宣传工作文献选编, 1957–​1992 [Selected and Edited Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Work Documents, 1957–​1992], ed. 中共中央宣传部办公厅 and 中央档案馆编研部 (Beijing:  Xuexi chubanshe, 1996)  [hereafter ZGXGWX], pp.  751–​55; Ezra F.  Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), p. 641. 49 ‘Protocol #43 of the Meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED’, 17 October 1989, Cold War International History Project, http://​digitalarchive. wilsoncenter.org/​document/​122357. 50 Deng Xiaoping, ‘接见首都戒严部队军以上干部时的讲话’ [Lecture when Receiving Top Cadres of the Capital Martial Law Forces], 9 June 1989, in SCPPWD, pp. 6–​11. 51 ‘中共中央, 国务院告全体共产党员和全国人民书’ [CCPCC and NPC Announcement to the Entire CCP and People], 5 June 1989, in SCPPWD, pp. 75–​77. 52 See report of Eleventh CCP Central Committee Third Plenum. 53 Deng Xiaoping, ‘把全国人民更紧密地团结在中国共产党的周围’ [Unite the Whole Nation’s People Even More Closely Around the Chinese Communist Party], speech to theorists, 30 March 1979, in SCPPWD, p. 36. 54 ‘Resolutely Upholding the Four Basic Principles’. 55 See Deng Xiaoping, ‘我们所需要的民主只能是社会主义民主’ [The Democracy We Need Can only be Socialist Democracy], 30 March 1979, in SCPPWD, pp. 58–​59. 56 Ye Jianying’s speech on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the PRC, given in September 1979 at the Eleventh CCP Central Committee Fourth Plenum, had likewise emphasized socialist spiritual civilization construction (社会主义精神文明建设), the content of which would later be formalized as part of a resolution adopted in September 1986 at the Twelfth CCPCC Sixth

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  263 Plenum (‘中共中央关于社会主义精神文明建设指导方针的决议’). See 张凤琦, ‘新时期文化发展战略的演变’ [The Evolution of New Era Cultural Development Strategy], 当代中国史研究, 16(3) (2009): 21–​34. 57 ‘Take a Clear and Direct Stand’. 58 See Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, pp. 643–​63. 59 Zhang Fengqi, ‘新时期文化发展战略的演变’ [The Evolution of a New Era Cultural Development Strategy], 当代中国史研究 (August 2009), http://​theory.people.com.cn/​ GB/​9771588.html. 60 As evidenced, for example, by the fact that the CPD’s main non-​news media webpage is www.wenming.cn, or ‘Civilization Net’. Civilization, in this case, refers to ‘mass spiritual civilization’. 61 ‘论江泽民的文化安全观的重要内容’ [The Important Content of the Cultural Security Views of Jiang Zemin], 经济与社会发展 [Economic and Social Development], 6(1) (2008): 11–​13 62 Yao Dongmei, ‘The Important Content of the Cultural Security Views of Jiang Zemin’: 11–​13. 63 See Wang Huning, ‘文化扩张与文化主权: 对主权观念的挑战’ [Cultural Expansion and Cultural Sovereignty: The Challenge to the Concept of Sovereignty], 复旦学报 (社会科学版), 3 (1994): 9–​15. 64 Lin Hongyu, ‘文化安全: 国家安全的深层主题’ [Cultural Security: A Fundamental Topic in National Security], 国家安全通讯, 8 (1999): 31–​33. 65 Fu Lian, ‘论文化安全’ [On Cultural Security], 国际政治研究, 4 (2000): 113–​19. 66 Hu Lianhe, ‘论冷战结束后的国家文化安全’ [National Cultural Security After the End of the Cold War], 现代国际关系, 8 (2000): 31–​34. 67 Hu Lianhe, ‘National Cultural Security After the End of the Cold War’: 31–​4. 68 Zhang, ‘The Evolution of a New Era Cultural Development Strategy’. 69 Yu Binggui and Hao Lianghua, ‘文化帝国主义与国家文化安全’ [Cultural Imperialism and National Cultural Security], 中共中央党校学报, 7(3) (2003): 101–​05. 70 Yu Binggui and Hao Lianghua, ‘Cultural Imperialism and National Cultural Security’: 101–​05. 71 Wu Manyi, Sun Chengfang and Xie Hairong, ‘中国文化安全面临的挑战及其战略选择’ [The Challenge and Strategic Choice Faced by China’s Cultural Security], 当代世界与社会主义 (双月刊), 3 (2004): 118–​21. 72 ‘文化安全’ [Cultural Security], 百度百科, http://​baike.baidu.com/​item/​%E6%96 %87%E5%8C%96%E5%AE%89%E5%85%A; 国家文化安全 [National Cultural Security], 百度百科, http://​baike.baidu.com/​item/​%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E5% AE%89%E5%85%A8. 73 ‘胡锦涛强调:  始终坚持先进文化的前进方向大力发张文化事业和文化产业’ [Hu Jintao Emphasizes: Always Resolutely Uphold the Advance of Progressive Culture and Develop Cultural Enterprises and Industries], 新华网, 26 October 2012, www.12371. cn/​2012/​10/​26/​ARTI1351230763388253.shtml. 74 ‘第十六届中共中央政治局集体学习’ [The Sixteenth CCP Central Committee Politburo Collective Study], 中共中央政治局集体学习 (2003), www.12371.cn/​special/​lnzzjjtxx. 75 Yik Chin Chan and Matthew D.  Johnson, ‘Public [Cultural] Service:  New Paradigms of Policy, Regulation, and Reform in China’s Television Industry’, conference working paper, RIPEat.org, 2010, http://​ripeat.org/​library/​Yik%20Chin%20%26%20Johnson.pdf; Timothy Heath, ‘The Declining Influence of Politburo Standing Committee Members and the Growing Strength of the Central Party Bureaucracy’, SinocismWeekend Edition, 1 (2015),

264  Matthew D. Johnson http://​wp.sinocism.com/​the-​declining-​influence-​of-​politburo-​standing-​committee​ m embers-​ a nd-​ t he-​ g rowing-​ s trength-​ o f-​ t he-​ c entral-​ p arty-​ b ureaucracy/​ ; ‘中国特色社会主义’ [Socialism with Chinese Characteristics], 维基百科, https://​ zh.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E%E5%BD%93%E5%89%8D%E6 %84%8F%E8%AF%86%E5%BD%A2%E6%80%81%E9%A2%86%E5%9F%9F%E 6%83%85%E5%86%B5%E7%9A%84%E9%80%9A%E6%8A%A5. 76 Ma Zhenchao, ‘维护文化安全:  国家安全面临的现实性课题’ [Safeguarding Cultural Security: A Serious Topic in National Security], 中国人民公安大学学报, 6 (2004): 88–​93. 77 Zhou Yiqiao, ‘全球化与文化安全教育’ [Globalization and Cultural Security Education], 求索, 3 (2004): 97–​98. 78 Liu Benfeng, ‘对文化全球化与我国文化安全战略的思考’ [Thoughts Concerning Cultural Globalization and Our Nation’s Cultural Security Strategy], 求实, 12 (2005): 88–​90. 79 Wang Cunkui, ‘关于互联网时代国家文化安全的思考’ [Reflections on National Cultural Security in the Internet Age], 国际关系学院学报 [Journal of University of International Relations], 4 (2007): 50–​56; Su Juan, ‘编辑政治意识与国家文化安全’ [Editorial: Political Consciousness and National Cultural Security], 国际关系学院学报, 1 (2008): 63–​67; Kong Lingshun, ‘论国家电视文化安全的一体两面’ [On the One System and Two Aspects of National Television Cultural Security], 国际关系学院学报, 4 (2008): 64–​69, 74. 80 Guangdong sheng Deng Xiaoping liun he ‘San ge daibiao’ zhongyao sixiang yanjiu zhongxin, ‘致力于构建和谐的国际文化新秩序’ [Committing to Constructing a Peaceful International Cultural New Order], 中国外交, 22 (2007): 54–​56; Yu Jinghua, ‘改革开放以来中国国际新秩序观的演进’ [The Evolution of China’s Views on the New International Order Since Reform and Opening], 当代世界与社会主义 (双月刊), 1 (2009): 91–​95. 81 Han Yuan, ‘国家文化安全引论’ [Preface Concerning National Cultural Security], 当代世界与社会主义 (双月刊), 6 (2008): 90–​94. 82 Tan Zhenjiang, ‘文化 “软实力” 及国家文化安全研究引论’ [Introduction to Research on Cultural ‘Soft Power’ and National Cultural Security], 东方论坛, 2 (2009): 27–​ 30; Meng Fanli, Zeng Xiangjuan and Kuang Shouzhong, ‘国家安全战略的四种文化视角初探’ [A Comparative Study of National Security Studies from Four Cultural Perspectives], 战略论坛 [Strategic Forum], 30(1) (2009): 29–​33. 83 Li Shengwen, ‘试论全球化背景下的我国文化安全维护’ [Safeguarding our Nation’s Cultural Security Under Global Conditions], 攀登 (双月刊) [Ascent], 27(160) (2008):  27–​ 30; Jia Yuefang, ‘文化安全的当代视野’ [The Contemporary Perspective of Cultural Security], 求实, 12 (2008):  82–​85; Xiao Yanlian, 肖燕怜, ‘文化安全视野下新疆大众传播媒介的作用探析’ [Exploratory Analysis of the Use of Mass Broadcast Media in Xinjiang from a Cultural Security Perspective], 新疆财经大学学报, 2 (2009): 62–​64. 84 ‘为加强国家传播能力提供坚实人才支撑’ [To Increase International Communication Capacity Provide Substantial Support for Talent], 求实, 16  February 2011, www. qstheory.cn/​zxdk/​2011/​201104/​201102/​t20110214_​67903.htm. 85 Bonnie S. Glaser and Melissa E. Murphy, ‘Soft Power with Chinese Characteristics: The Ongoing Debate’, in Carola McGiffert, ed., Chinese Soft Power and Its Implications for the United States (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2009), pp. 10–​26.

Propaganda and security from Mao to Xi  265 86 ‘China Marks 90th Anniversary of “May Fourth Movement”:  Reviving Patriotism’, Xinhuanet, 4 May 2009, http://​news.xinhuanet.com/​english/​2009-​05/​04/​content_​ 11308861.htm. 87 Xinhua News Agency, ‘Communiqué of the Sixth Central Committee’, China.org.cn, 12 October 2006, www.china.org.cn/​english/​government/​183627.htm. 88 Rogier Creemers, ‘The Pivot in Chinese Cybergovernance: Integrating Control in Xi Jinping’s China’, China Perspectives, 4 (2015): 5–​13. 89 ‘习近平在文艺工作座谈会上讲话 (全文)’ [Xi Jinping’s Speech at the Conference on Literary and Artistic Work (complete text)], 文化中国, 31 October 2014, http://​cul. china.com.cn/​2014-​10/​31/​content_​7337881.htm. 90 ‘习近平 ‘8–​19’ 讲话精神传达提纲全文’ [Complete Text of Outline for Transmitting the Spirit of Xi Jinping’s ‘8–​19’ Speech], China Digital Times, (https://​bit.ly/​33rJZeG). 91 China Issues First Blue Paper on National Security,’ China Military Online, 8 May 2014, http://​english.chinamil.com.cn/​news-​channels/​china-​military-​news/​2014-​05 /​08/​content_​5896243.html; Teddy Ng, ‘ “Cultural Threats” Among Five Focuses of New National Security Panel, Colonel Says’, South China Morning Post, 14 January 2014, www.scmp.com/​news/​china/​article/​1404926/​cultural-​threats-​among-​five-​focuses-​ new-​national-​security-​panel-​colonel. 92 Shannon Tiezzi, ‘China’s National Security Commission Holds First Meeting’, The Diplomat, 16 April 2014, http://​thediplomat.com/​2014/​04/​chinas-​national-​security-​ commission-​holds-​first-​meeting; Ingrid d’Hooghe, China’s Public Diplomacy (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 93 Samantha Hoffman and Peter Mattis, ‘Managing the Power Within:  China’s State Security Commission’, War on the Rocks, 18 July 2016, http://​warontherocks.com/​ 2016/​07/​managing-​the-​power-​within-​chinas-​state-​security-​commission. 94 Hoffman and Peter Mattis, ‘Managing the Power Within’.

11  Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway? Temporalities of ‘ethnicity’ in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien

Introduction: The temporalities of the ‘Chinese Dream’ This chapter explores discourses across several ‘public spaces’ in Urumqi, the main city in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), and Hohhot, the provincial capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in order to explore how a coherent official narrative of dependency is created. We explore how the past is mobilized in multiple ways to evidence this dependency and to naturalize the ‘Chineseness’ of these ethnic regions. However, the ways in which the past, present and future are counterpoised create points of tension, since the ethnic cultures of these regions are visually represented solely as a thing of the past. Exploring examples of propaganda across a variety of public spaces, we consider how this generates a field of meaning for and about those who inhabit these places. Expanding upon Foucault’s concept of ‘pastoral power’, we trace the legitimation of the state’s presence and use of force both in visible symbols of discipline such as the presence of tanks and security cameras, and at play more subtly within the reiteration of these regions’ dependency upon the Chinese state for any economic prosperity, social development and ‘ethnic harmony’. Our analysis thus draws on forms of media that are often considered forms of propaganda (museums and street posters) and considers them contextually. As we have written elsewhere, ‘public spaces are “precisely those which are mobilized” to carry particular symbols or tell particular stories’.1 In considering these different kinds of texts alongside each other, we suggest that they must be understood together. The propaganda in public spaces in the Autonomous Regions conceptually posits the CCP’s legitimacy both through a use of the past and an assertion that, both historically and in the present, the populations of these regions had and have a need for economic development and, increasingly in the case of Xinjiang, protection from ‘external forces’. The importance of the mobilization of the past in the CCP’s current propaganda work is worth noting, in particular the ways the past is discursively linked to the present and future. Xi Jinping made his first speech about the ‘Chinese Dream’ (Zhongguo meng) of the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ (Zhonghua minzu weida fuxing) at the opening of The Road to Rejuvenation exhibition at the National Museum of China, Beijing. As Edney argues:

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  267 The concept of the Chinese Dream is specifically designed to emphasize that the CCP, the Chinese state, and the Chinese people all share a common purpose and common destiny. In this official narrative it is not possible for individuals to achieve their goals unless the whole nation is strong and unified.2 The focus on ‘rejuvenation’ implies a return to a previous state of strength, a conceptual linking of the past and the future. The Road to Rejuvenation exhibition focuses extensively on the damage done to China by various foreign ‘hostile forces’, making use of emotive text and dioramas representing war and conflict. The latter part focuses upon various forms of technological development achieved over the past half-​century, from the development of space capabilities to the bringing of high-​speed trains to the Tibetan plateau. The latter is of note because it links to part of the wider point of our argument: there is little depiction of the ethnic minorities in this exhibit, with a handful of interesting exceptions: photographs of Tibetans welcoming the CCP, photographs of infrastructure development in the Autonomous Regions and a massive mural depicting the various ethnic groups, marked by their distinctive costumes, dancing in jubilation (Figure 11.1). Here, as elsewhere, ethnic minorities are represented as key beneficiaries of the CCP. As we discuss later in this chapter, they are also predominantly depicted as ‘traditional’ –​something that when represented positively relates to tropes of ‘authentic’ cultures, and when represented negatively ties into tropes of ‘backwardness’ and ‘primitiveness’. It is this ‘backwardness’ –​the lack of infrastructure or access to education –​that continues to be foregrounded precisely because it ties into the CCP’s legitimation of its role as the bringer of modernity to those who would otherwise lack it. An inherent contradiction here is that despite foregrounding the modernization of these regions, ethnic minorities continue to be depicted as in continuous need of development.

The meaning of ethnicity From the 1980s Beijing policy towards its minority regions was that any conflict, ethnic or otherwise, was understood as the result of economic disparities between minority and developed areas. Propaganda work therefore revolved around the argument that economic development of the minority areas would solve any such problems.3 This narrative ignores prevalent social factors, including widespread ethnic prejudice against minority groups.4 That being said, the narrative has changed somewhat, now encompassing the threat in Xinjiang to include ‘hostile forces in and outside China, especially separatists, religious extremists and terrorists, [who] have tried to split China and break it apart by distorting history and facts’.5 While this expands the ‘problem’ beyond economic issues, it also deflects the attention and blame onto these ‘hostile forces’. It also particularly emphasizes the place of ‘history’ in the CCP’s claim to Xinjiang –​a claim that likewise circumnavigates dealing with social issues in the present. Since 1978, the party-​state of the PRC has stressed the equal citizenship of its 56 ethnic groups belonging to one overarching ‘Chinese nation’ in an attempt to

268  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien

Figure 11.1 Mural, ‘The Road to Rejuvenation’, National Museum Beijing.

avoid the disintegration seen in the Soviet Union and quell separatism in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The notion of a unified Chinese nation is closely related to the party-​state’s need to maintain stability within China for its legitimacy. It thus has to be ‘invented, created, imagined, and made real’ –​in the sense that it is made ‘meaningful and motivating to people’.6 The official narrative is that Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia ‘are now and have always been’ an inalienable part of China:  this is not open for discussion. The significance of these narratives has grown increasingly important as China has become more disciplinary in its enforcement of power in its Autonomous Regions. Both violent ethnic riots in the past decade and the government’s use of ‘vocational camps’ to inter a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang represent the tension between ethnic groups and the government’s extreme reaction to such tension. Sean Roberts draws upon Foucault’s biopolitics to analyse this situation, arguing that the state’s policies for combatting ‘Uyghur terrorism’ have resulted in ‘a situation in which Uyghurs as an ethnic group are increasingly excluded from PRC society as a biological

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  269 threat to the social order, quarantined so as not to infect the population of the country as a whole’.7 It is partly in light of this that we turn to explore how ethnicity is represented in a context where it is perceived as a potential threat. Anne-​Marie Brady8 argues that despite numerous crises and challenges since 1989, ‘the symbols used and stories told’ to emphasize national unity and social cohesion have on the whole successfully enabled the CCP to maintain its grip on power throughout most of China. Our research attempts to address the following research questions: What narratives and symbols are presented in public spaces in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia? How do they contribute to an officially generated understanding of these regions, the ethnic groups who live there, and to what end? To answer these questions, we explore how ethnic identity is represented in these locations, braiding together analyses of the discourses from the displays in the Provincial Museums of both Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, as well the signs on ‘everyday’ streets. We seek to map the ways in which the representations of the past and present, and projections of the future, underpin the CCP’s framing itself as a pastoral power, while considering the implications of this for the representation of ‘ethnic’ identity in these contexts. We argue that these very different ‘texts’ all echo the same narrative –​that it is only through a relationship of dependency with the imperial dynasties previously, and the CCP currently and in the future, that ‘stability’ and ‘development’ are possible in these regions. This message mobilizes the past, present and future to render any other relationship other than such dependency unthinkable.

Propaganda and pastoral power: Theoretical approach and methodologies As Edney identifies, the definition of ‘propaganda’ differs somewhat between Western contexts and China, with the terms xuanchuan and sixiang gongzuo carrying neutral or positive, rather than negative, connotations.9 The negative connotations of ‘propaganda’ are evident in the recurring theme of ‘manipulation’ in many definitions: ‘Propaganda is a major form of manipulation by symbols’.10 This is also implicit in definitions that focus on propaganda as ‘persuasion’: Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-​sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.11 The focus on persuasion shifts the focus to the intended social repercussions: ‘Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist’.12 Edney identifies that the use of the terms xuanchuan and sixiang gongzuo –​ dating back to the founding of the PRC, which imbues the terms their more

270  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien positive meanings in China –​refers to ‘educating’ or ‘informing of the masses’,13 something deemed ‘both necessary and desirable’.14 Edney notes that none of the definitions he found mentioned censorship, despite this being a known component of the CCP’s propaganda work.15 It is important, however, that the generic meanings of xuanchuan politicize all public dissemination of information –​that is, that all public discourses become situated as a site in which ‘political truths’ are staked. Edney’s definition of propaganda reflects this: propaganda is ‘a collection of practices through which the Party-​state exercises power … [this includes] the Party-​state’s use of power practices to control what is articulated publicly and the power of discourse itself to produce shared meanings that shape political life’.16 That is, propaganda involves a variety of means of exerting power over and through public discourses, and therefore shared meanings. Foucault views ‘power’ as simultaneously an abstract concept and a concrete social practice, but not one reduced to being ‘negative’: ‘[W]‌e must cease [solely to] describe the effects of power in negative terms: it “excludes”, it “represses” … In fact, power produces; it produces reality; it produces … truth’.17 This definition underpins our discussion: it is the ‘discourse of reality’ as depicted in these texts that we are seeking to explore. Foucault’s concept of ‘pastoral power’ is adjacent to his engagement with power in texts such as Discipline and Punish.18 In focusing upon the ‘pastoral’, Foucault does not abandon the concept of discipline, but instead concentrates upon a ‘notion of government’ in which power figures itself as essentially caring for its population.19 Foucault describes pastoral power as being the idea of a pastor-​sovereign … [a]‌judge-​shepherd of the human flock … ‘government’ understood as an activity that undertakes to conduct individuals throughout their lives by placing them under the authority of a guide responsible for what they do and for what happens to them …20 In Security, Territory, and Population, Foucault traces the genealogy of this discourse in religious institutions, in which power is both described as and legitimated through the Church’s responsibility for its ‘flock’. While this emphasizes ‘good intentions’, it simultaneously situates authority in the sole position to determine what constitutes wellbeing.21 In effect, to claim the role of shepherd, power must cast its population as ‘sheep’ in need of such care. The metaphor of shepherd and flock has its origins in ecclesiastical terms, but as noted by Harrell there are significant parallels between Confucian, Christian and Chinese Communist discourses in their framing of a ‘civilizing mission’.22 Key to Foucault’s argument is that this conceptualization of power is not limited to religious institutions, and the state taking on responsibility for its population functions as a discourse that also legitimates its use of force –​which is particularly noticeable if we consider the ambivalence of a term such as ‘security’. An etymology of ‘police’/​’policy’ underpins Foucault’s ‘seminar’ in Security, Territory, and Population.23 Beyond simply meaning ‘police force’, the broader meaning of ‘police’ is the theory and analysis of everything ‘that tends to affirm

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  271 and increase the power of the state to make good use of its forces, to obtain the welfare of its subjects’ and above all ‘the maintenance of order and discipline …’24 Pastoral power works through these combined aspects: the use of ‘police’ and other disciplinary institutions, and ‘the formation of individuals who can normally be relied upon to impose an appropriate rule on their own behaviour’.25 The aims of pastoral power are not ‘altruistic’ in being solely concerned with a population’s ‘wellbeing’, but rather aimed at the power that a stable society has in relation to others. The aims of such police/​policy are to create a state that can compete with others by creating internal ‘wealth-​tranquillity-​happiness’.26 Therefore, the purpose of pastoral power, despite the apparent ‘humanitarian’ discourse of concern for a population’s welfare, is ultimately the state’s own stability, and economic and military strength harmony.27 In this, there is ample comparison to the situation in China  –​as Edney notes, ‘In terms of how it conceptualizes propaganda, the Party-​state sees domestic cohesion as a source of power for China vis-​ à-​vis other states and views the generation of domestic consensus as an important prerequisite to China’s international rise’.28 Foucault’s ‘pastoral power’ has received limited academic engagement, and Foucault himself did not expand this discussion. While acknowledging that some might criticize ‘the use of a Western concept in a Chinese context’, our analysis does not aim to posit that Foucault’s work might be used uncritically as a generalized ‘explanation’ or ‘prediction’ (either of China, or any particular society). Instead, theory serves as a vocabulary, a lens through which to explore social patterns and ideas. We could point out that both Foucault and van Dijk’s concepts of ‘language and power’ correlate with Mao’s vision of the power of language, set out in Yan’an 延安 in 1942, where ‘conformity with a specific public vocabulary of political terminology approved by the Party’ was carried out ‘on the assumption that politically correct language causes politically correct thinking and behaviour’.29 We also feel that criticizing analyses on the grounds of an unbridgeable difference between Western/​Chinese contexts makes problematic presumptions:  first, it essentializes cultures, presuming that there are fundamental  –​essential  –​differences between China and the entirety of the West that are not predicated upon trying to see whether such engagement is fruitful. In so doing, it sets aside any actual engagement with the question, so that rather than discussing particular cases, they are occluded from the start in a genetic fallacy (the presupposition that the origin of an idea determines whether it is true or false). Leading on from this, it presumes that there would be nothing ‘problematic’ about applying Foucault in a ‘Western’ context, rather than equally acknowledging the debates around Foucault’s concepts in the ‘West’. Thus, our aim here is not a rigorous close reading of Foucault, but rather to explore patterns in the legitimation of power. This chapter takes an interdisciplinary methodological approach. Our methods are broadly those of Foucauldian discourse analysis applied to visual ethnography –​ that is, exploring these ‘public spaces’ as capable of being texts in themselves. In this, we argue that they function as media –​certainly as mediums through which a number of discourses are woven together. While attending to representations

272  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien across these different examples, we also consider what is absented, and how this interplay constructs an over-​arching narrative. We believe that examinations of the information notices and displays in the Urumqi and Hohhot Provincial Museums can throw light on the official cultural and historical narrative of history and culture in both ethnic minority autonomous regions.

Stories of the past: The provincial museums The Provincial Museum, Urumqi The XUAR Museum in Urumqi contains a variety of historical artefacts and cultural exhibits on Xinjiang’s ethnic groups, throughout which the theme of ‘ethnic harmony’, ‘stability’ and ‘development’ are emphasized. Our analysis of the museum notices and exhibits does not aim to ‘reveal’ the museum as a political space,30 but rather to engage with the way the museum constitutes a scaling-​up of propaganda to interlinked texts and artefacts across an entire space. The permanent Ethnicity Exhibition aims to represent the twelve main ethnic minorities in Xinjiang (Uyghur, Kazakh, Hui, Kirgiz, Mongolian, Tajik, Xibe, Manchu, Uzbek, Russian, Daur and Tartar). Each group is portrayed in dioramas dressed in traditional costumes, in front of recreations of yurts or mud-​brick homesteads. All twelve of the minority groups are depicted in this bucolic way; there is no depiction of any ethnic groups historically living in towns or cities (consider, for example, the history of Korla, Xinjiang’s second city, which dates back thousands of years and was estimated to have had just under 10,000 inhabitants during the Han Dynasty).31 Without further historical contextualization, these dioramas present a ‘timeless’ ethnicity, in which styles of dress and forms of housing or agriculture remain undifferentiated (and therefore without change or ‘development’) across the entirety of their historical past. This is part of a general tendency to associate ethnic minorities with traditionality and the past, while visually linking the Han majority with modernity. As noted by Gladney:32 The Han are frequently represented as somewhere near the modern end of a Marxist historical trajectory upon which China’s minorities must journey. Much of this derives from a continued commitment in Chinese social science to the study of minorities as ‘living fossils’ … Matrilineality, communal living and property holding, and even extramarital sexuality among the minorities all become ‘proofs’ of how far the Han have come. This is particularly well illustrated by the depictions of ethnicity in the Cultural Palace of the Minorities in Beijing, where photographs of the ethnic minorities represent them in ‘traditional’ settings, while the Han are represented by a man in a white lab coat looking at an industrial mechanism (Figures 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4). The authors took these photographs during fieldwork in 2019, but such imagery is both widespread and has remained fairly consistent for decades. In the Urumqi Provincial Museum, what is noticeably absent from the dioramas is

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  273

Figure 11.2 ‘Han’, China’s Ethnic Groups touchscreen display, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing.

the Han as an ethnic group. This represents a contradiction, since it is simultaneously asserted that the region has always been part of China and Han people have lived there for centuries, yet they are not included here as one of the groups in the Ethnicity Exhibition –​ostensibly because, despite being acknowledged as an ‘ethnic group’, they are conversely situated as the ‘modern’ ‘majority’.33 While many of these groups are clearly cross-​border in origin and name (Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Russian), acknowledgement of such ‘internationality’ is absent. That is, these groups are only represented as Chinese ethnic minorities, and any representation of the border excludes discussion of what is beyond it –​such as a broader history of these groups and migration along the Silk Road. Indeed, the border

274  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien

Figure 11.3 ‘Uyghur’, China’s Ethnic Groups, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing.

is specifically mentioned as something needing to be ‘defended’ rather than a conduit of people, culture and trade, as can be seen in this quote from a museum notice: Xinjiang has been a multi-​national homeland since ancient times. Forty-​seven nationalities live here today … For a long time, they have cooperated as one family to build and safeguard the borderland. This also reiterates ‘timelessness’ (‘ancient times’), while implying a complete absence of any conflict except with the ‘outside’ –​as if all of the various ethnic groups have only ever worked together in solidarity (‘as one family’). Discursively,

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  275

Figure 11.4 ‘Pumi’, China’s Ethnic Groups touchscreen display, Cultural Palace of the Minorities, Beijing.

this also implies that all of these ethnic groups would have conceived of themselves as ‘Chinese’ ‘together’, fighting against other Kazakhs, or Uzbeks or Russians on ‘the other side’ of this border. This ties into wider Chinese discourses in which conflict and instability is always attributed to ‘foreign’ influences, never home grown. The need ‘to build and safeguard the borderland’ not only naturalizes Xinjiang as a border region (peripheral to ‘Inner China’, not a key centre of trade on the Silk Road), but also simultaneously implies Xinjiang’s need to be developed (‘built’) and defended against external danger (‘safeguarded’). The theme of the need for development and stability is a recurring one, implying a lack of independent development and the precariousness of ‘peace’.

276  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien Despite their absence as an ethnic group in the dioramas, the Han  –​explicitly linked to the Imperial Dynasties  –​are foregrounded elsewhere. One particularly striking example of this is the museum’s exhibit of the Tarim mummies. The handful on display include ‘Cherchen Man’ (also ‘Charchen Man’ or ‘Ur-​ David’), a tall red-​haired man who died around 1000 B C E and was buried with his infant son, and the 3800-​year-​old ‘Beauty of Loulan’. A number of genetic studies of the Tarim mummies have identified many of them as having Indo-​European ancestry.34 The mummies are on display in the centre of a room; however, the exhibit surrounding them offers little context for the mummies, instead including artefacts from entirely different eras, such as the Tang dynasty (Figure  11.5). Despite the difference in archaeological age and the locations where they were found, they are also placed alongside the mummy of a ‘Han official’ from the 1700s. The placement of the mummies alongside each other makes a political point: though not featured in the display of ethnic groups, the ‘Han official’ and other ‘Chinese’ artefacts in the room are important because the mummies are seen to question the narrative that the region has ‘always been’ Chinese –​even though Chinese narratives usually stake their claim from the Han dynasty (more than a millennium after most of the mummies, but a millennium before the Han official). The mummies are explicitly racially labelled (‘Cherchen Man’ and ‘The

Figure 11.5 ‘Cherchen Man’, Tarim mummy exhibit, Urumqi Provincial Museum.

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  277 Beauty of Loulan’ are called ‘Caucasoid’), but these labels obscure the fact that the genetic studies show that many of the mummies from the Tarim basin are in fact descendants of multiple ancestries.35 There is little signage in the exhibit about the mummies, most of it referring to when and how the mummies were found in the desert. This lack of contextualization absents the fact that these mummies are not isolated examples of nomadic migration. The ‘Beauty of Loulan’ was discovered in the ‘Xiaohe Cemetery’, a burial site almost 4000 years old consisting of hundreds of graves. The mummies were buried in boat-​shaped coffins, with sculptures, masks, ornaments and textiles. Li et al. call this a ‘necropolis’ for a Bronze Age ‘civilization’.36 Instead, the mummies function similarly to the dioramas –​ethnic groups are clearly defined and distinct from each other, and the Han mummy, in being identified as an ‘official’ rather than simply a person, is explicitly linked to the structures of the empire while the cultures of the others remain limited or mystified. The remaining notices also foreground an imperial history of Xinjiang. Across these notices, it is the various imperial dynasties that are discursively responsible for stability and trade: The Unification in the Han Dynasty Created a New Era:  In 60BC … the Western Regions formally was incorporated into the territory of the Han Dynasty, becoming an inseparable part of the great motherland. In the unified political situation, land reclamation and border areas guard with the unimpeded Silk Road, not only promoted the economic and cultural exchanges of the East and West, but also provided a strong impetus for the economic and cultural development and prosperity of the Western Regions. Tang Dynasty Founded Military Viceroy’s Office in An’xi:  … The inhabitants of the Western Regions lived in harmony, which formed a diverse situation of multiple religions, languages and arts. Tang Dynasty also enhanced frequent exchanges with the Central Asian, West Asian, and European countries, which formed the economic and cultural prosperity of China’s feudal society, so the history of the Western Regions entered a new era. The text overlays sepia photographs of the Taklimakan desert –​a visual means of depicting Xinjiang largely as a ‘wilderness’ (not urban or largely nomadic, as previously mentioned), while also connoting ‘age’ (sepia) –​this semiotically links such descriptions of political unity as being equally ‘natural’ and ‘age-​old’. Like the dioramas, the textual description is idyllic: ‘becoming an inseparable part of the great motherland’, ‘[t]‌he inhabitants of the Western Regions lived in harmony’. As with the previous notice, there is no mention of the numerous religious and ethnic conflicts throughout the complex and rich history of the region; there is only reiteration of harmoniousness and little mention of any political contexts after the collapse of each dynasty. In these notices, it is each dynasty that is solely responsible for the ‘new era’ it heralds:  the Tang Dynasty ‘enhanced frequent exchanges’, the Han Dynasty created the ‘unified political situation’ that stopped any ‘impediments’ to the Silk Road (it is not stipulated what these were, nor the

278  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien continuation of trade or the foundation of kingdoms in the absence of each dynasty mentioned). The effect is to give the region no history –​and, as noted of the mummies, no complex culture –​outside of the empire, and to imply that no trade or development existed without an imperial ‘safeguard’. This is a potted history, and the idyll of each ‘new era’ implies a mirror image of times without such prosperity, which narratively can only be situated ‘outside’ the empire, beyond the safely guarded border and temporally outside of each ‘new’ era. Here, state power is depicted as being responsible for the stability of society –​a ‘pastoral’ role, rather than a ‘colonial’ one. Although projected into the past, this is the same narrative used to describe the role of the state today, even though the CCP differentiates itself from the ‘feudal’ empire. If museums represent official narratives of the past, what is depicted in the Provincial Museum is a history that casts Xinjiang in the role of dependency upon the empire, and the various dynasties ultimately helping it towards modernity. This in part explains the omission of acknowledgement of interdependency: the CCP represents itself as heir to the empire, which legitimates its presence through what it brings to Xinjiang, eliding what Xinjiang gives back in terms of trade historically or resources now. It situates the empire as concerned primarily with the development of the region as though this were largely altruistic. For Foucault, it is not that ‘development’ or ‘stability’ is a lie, but that the ultimate aims of a state ensuring its population’s ‘wealth-​tranquillity-​happiness’ are the State’s own stability and its ability to develop economically and militarily –​something very evident in Xinjiang and China more generally.37 In this particular context, the ‘ethnic’ pasts are depicted as ‘primitive’ (pastoral, not urban or ‘developed’) but essentially peaceful; the ‘harmoniousness’ of society is naturalized, situating any form of conflict as historically unnatural, an ‘outside’ against which everyone ought to safeguard. But this also foregrounds the significance of mobilizing ‘the past’ as a discourse for pastoral power –​ultimately, the museum is a space for constructing a narrative through which it is the present which is made meaningful through the representation of the past. That is, even though unmentioned, the social and political tensions of the present are denaturalized by contrast to a supposedly idyllic past. The Provincial Museum, Hohhot Hohhot Provincial Museum was originally housed in a smaller building in the centre of the city, but was moved in 2007 to a new purpose-​built building. When the authors visited in 2018, three out of the building’s four flours were open. The open exhibits are dedicated to ‘Neolithic Inner Mongolia’; ‘the flora and fauna of the region’; ‘minerals of the province’; ‘the customs of the peoples of the region’; ‘the Communists of Inner Mongolia’; ‘Genghis Khan’; ‘important treasures discovered since the foundation of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region’; and ‘an exhibition on the Shenzhou space programme’. Capsules from China’s manned space flights land in Inner Mongolia, and the region also hosts key nuclear missile development research centres.

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  279 The Provincial Museum in Hohhot presents a slightly different message from the museum in Urumqi, largely because of the significance of Genghis Khan. Unlike the narrative in the Urumqi museum, which represents an ‘unbroken’ relationship of dependency upon Inner China, the Hohhot museum situates Genghis Khan as having the same ideological aim of national unification. Various expansions of the empire, or the conquests of particular dynasties, are thus dovetailed into modern conceptualizations of ‘national unity’: ‘The descendants of Genghis Khan carried on the great cause of unification …’ Identifying artefacts as ‘important treasures discovered since the foundation of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region’ implies a ‘claim’ to Mongolian history through the discursive framing of artefacts as having been found ‘since’ (and therefore implicitly ‘because of’) the foundation of the Autonomous Region, as with the Urumqi mummies focusing on the discovery of the ‘Loulan Beauty’ in 2003. However, Genghis Khan and his dynasty are also represented as the pinnacle of Mongolian history, and as with the narrative in Urumqi, outside of dynastic eras there is a blank: Genghis Khan has been revered as the Proud Son of Heaven by later generations for his great achievements and influence in the world history. The Yuan Dynasty founded by his descendants has pushed the grassland civilization to a new height of splendour. Until now, the Mongolian people are still living on the northern Mongolian grasslands as they have for generations. Nowadays, we are still greatly inspired by the bravery and perseverance, the vitality and pioneering spirit of the Mongols, which are best exemplified by these historical relics. At the beginning of the 20th century, revolution came to the grassland. The Mongolian people joined the struggle for liberation. This narrative elides any other events in Mongolian history besides the Yuan Dynasty and the coming of the CCP. It also pastoralizes Mongolian civilization, with its metonymic reiteration of the grasslands. Beginning with the ‘splendours’ of the past, the shift to the present day is also rendered pastoral: the Mongolian people are still living, as they have for generations, on the grasslands. And it is the ‘historical relics’ that best represents the ‘spirit of the Mongols’, even though part of the museum is dedicated to the space program. As with the focus on ‘traditionality’, this is part of the wider pattern in which ethnic cultures are given an essential ‘pastness’. The fact that there is a whole exhibition on the space program means that the museum does not solely concern itself with the idea of the past. The exhibit signage states that: Since 1957, the supernatural land of Inner Mongolia has been closely related to the aerospace industry of China … ‘The spaceships lift off form [sic] Inner Mongolia and the astronauts land also in Inner Mongolia’. It is the highest honour that the mother country gives to Inner Mongolia … let it come into our view and our heart with grassland children’s proud [sic].

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Figure 11.6 Diorama, space program exhibit, Hohhot Provincial Museum.

Despite being about the technologically modern space program, the notices still pastoralize. This is also clear in the diorama in this room:  Mongolian nomads, with animals and a cart, are shown leaving the grasslands so that they can be used for the space program (Figure 11.6). The figures in the diorama appear happy, but it is a symbolically confusing image for the space industry: ‘the highest honour that the mother country gives’ implies a gift from China to Inner Mongolia, though here there are no spaceships, only implicitly displaced people. It is the ‘supernatural land’, the ‘grasslands’, that are implied to be the contribution made by Inner Mongolia, rather than Mongolians or other ethnic groups being clearly identified as professionals in the space industry. The hierarchical relationship between ‘China’ and ‘Inner Mongolia’ is also implied in this being an honour bestowed by ‘the mother country’, and also with the infantilization of the ‘grassland children’ –​it is also worth noting that the figures in the diorama are in fact women and children. What is perhaps most striking about the diorama is its implication not only that all Mongolians are nomads, but that ‘there is no place’ for them in the space industry, save that they give over space for it. More explicitly than the Urumqi notices, the Hohhot museum draws on the vocabulary of the Marxist historical trajectory:

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  281 The Awakening of the Grassland People: After the Opium War in 1840, China gradually changed from a feudal society to a semi-​colonial and semi-​feudal society … The people of Inner Mongolia, together with the people of all nationalities in China, strenuously fought imperialism and feudalism. The naturalizing of ‘social evolution’ is most striking in a massive stone relief mural in the main entrance hall of to the museum. The mural depicts the history of Inner Mongolia: as a mural with a clear ‘start’ and ‘end’ point, it is a map of linear progression. It begins with the dinosaurs  –​ammonites and a prominent brontosaurus  –​quickly giving way to mammoths and people. Various groups are depicted, often with nomadism highlighted with the presence of camels and horses; Genghis Khan, later dynasties, then the Revolution ushering in depictions of ‘ethnic harmony’, and finally modernity:  high-​speed trains, nuclear power stations, oil rigs, wind turbines, skyscrapers (see Figures 11.7, 11.8 and 11.9).

Figure 11.7 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum.

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Figure 11.8 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum.

Beginning with dinosaurs folds pre-​history into social history  –​naturalizing technological developments so the ammonite fossils and the fossil-​fuel pumpjacks are two ends of the same ‘natural’ history. Also, as with the Urumqi museum, it foregrounds a simplistic representation of ‘ethnic harmony’, with the different ethnic groups represented in traditional costume, rejoicing together. But there is a further point of interest in the depictions of ‘ethnic harmony’ and ‘modernity’ in this mural. The first is very conventional, similar to many such depictions in which ‘harmony’ is represented by people in traditional ethnic costume. The latter depiction of ‘modernity’ is completely devoid of people  –​somewhat like the ‘space industry’ diorama, clear evidence that ‘ethnic peoples’ are not emplaced here. The features of this modernity are industry, skyscrapers, trains –​although the background is framed by a distant line of mountains, beyond wind turbines. In these two images we can begin to see some of the inherent contradictions within this

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  283

Figure 11.9 Mural, Hohhot Provincial Museum.

discourse:  despite the emphasis often placed upon preserving ethnic traditions, ‘traditionalizing’ ethnic cultures attributes a ‘pastness’ to them that is here not represented as having a place in the midst of modernity. The discourse of pastoral power is somewhat different in the Hohhot museum. The implied need for the CCP to modernize the region is less overt, indicated more in the reiteration of a hierarchical relationship. This is present even when a national ‘we’ is being interpellated, as in this final notice: Afterword:  The establishment of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is due to the brilliant leadership of Chinese Communist Party and the fierce fighting of people in all ethnic groups. Standing on the new historical starting point, we shall unite closely around the CCP led by Comrade Xi Jinping at core of the Party Central Committee. We shall unswervingly follow the path of socialism with rChinese [sic] characteristics, persist and perfect the system of regional ethnic autonomy, remember our original aspiration, help one another, unite together, advance courageously and create more beautiful scenery in this northern region of China!

284  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien Although all ethnic groups contribute to ‘the fight’, it is explicitly under the leadership of the CCP, and in this case specifically Xi Jinping. Interestingly, landscape (or rather ‘scenery’) also makes a final appearance in this declaration, as a somewhat confusing ultimate aim (‘to make more scenery’). It is the CCP that takes on responsibility for establishing the region, and for creating this ‘new historical starting point’ –​the point from which ‘the future’ begins, in this case a set path down which everyone will follow. The dependency of the region is implied here insofar as that without the CCP there would be no autonomous region, no ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ future. As mentioned in our earlier discussion of Foucault, ‘pastoral power’ legitimates itself by situating its role as being primarily about its population’s ‘wealth-​tranquillity-​happiness’38 and situating the advancement of any military might or disciplinary institutions as ultimately motivated by this higher ideal.39 This was more explicit in the Hohhot museum, such as in the notice reading ‘Achieving national independence and the liberation of the people, and making the country strong and prosperous and the people happy became the two great historic missions of the Chinese nation …’ This combining of ‘making the country strong and prosperous and the people happy’ is precisely a discourse of ‘pastoral’ power, in which power is ‘the power of the state to make good use of its forces, to obtain the welfare of its subjects’. Interestingly, this is also explicitly an ‘historic mission’, implying that the past is just another reflection of the present (or vice versa). While both museums mediate official history, the Hohhot museum explicitly also looks to the present and the future, and doesn’t just frame ‘all that China has brought to the region’ in retrospective. We will expand our discussion in subsequent sections to explore public spaces and the official posters in them to consider how the present is discursively presented.

Framing the present: Urban spaces Urumqi Friendship Road 友誼路 is one of Urumqi’s busiest commercial streets, and it is this space and the various signs within it that we explore here. Urumqi was the site of ethnic riots in 2009 and terrorist attacks in 2014; the space itself is thus a site in which tension is made manifest. In considering what meaning these ‘signs’ communicate, we did not confine ourselves to posters but also broaden our consideration of what is acting symbolically in this place. Concerning the physical space of the street, there were roadblock barriers, including checkpoints with soldiers and tanks, barbed-​wire gates, metal-​detectors and blockades in the entrances to many buildings, including hotels and shopping malls. These barriers parcelled the spaces through which one might move, and the need to pass through each barrier served as a visual and physical reminder of ‘who is in control’ of this space. Such measures have been brought into Xinjiang in recent years by Chen Quanguo 陈全国, XUAR Party Secretary and former Party Chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region, where such measures were already commonplace. Ostensibly these

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  285 security checkpoints and barriers symbolize a means of ensuring civilian safety, but they simultaneously serve as a threat to any who might challenge this security. There is thus a polysemiotic ‘threat of violence’ –​they imply the existence of a ‘threat of violence’ from terrorism, from which citizens must be protected, but they simultaneously constitute their own ‘threat of violence’ against this terrorism. The armoured vehicle and the barbed wire thus serve as multi-​valent images of violence, interpolating subjects in different ways but also speaking of the violence of the immediate past and disciplinary stability projected into the future. Propaganda posters on Friendship Road also reiterated this message. The poster ‘Enhance our vigilance and take strict cautions against terrorists; strengthening safety and precaution is everybody’s responsibility’ overlays red text against a generic image of snowy mountains and green fields (Figure  11.10). The natural landscape, like the similar images in the museum, reiterates the ‘timeless’ narrative of a ‘natural’ harmoniousness. The text itself concerns the need for ‘everyone’ to be vigilant, but in so doing implied an underlying ‘self’ and ‘other’ in which ‘we’ must be vigilant and take precautions; by implication, terrorists are neither addressed nor part of this ‘self’. We found here the same implied meaning as presented in the museum: a past rendered peaceful (though more ‘agricultural’ than ‘modern’) in which ‘everyone’ idyllically worked together ‘to safeguard this border region’ from an externalized enemy.

Figure 11.10 Propaganda poster, Urumqi.

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Figure 11.11 Propaganda poster, Urumqi.

Many posters were part of bus shelters, while others were printed on barriers separating pedestrian areas from parking or the street. One of the latter contained the caption ‘No CCP No New China’ (in large Mandarin and small Uyghur script) and depicted four figurines of Uyghurs in traditional costume, playing music and singing (Figure 11.11). Through its caption, this poster might be likened to a continuation of a number of discourses that we first examined in relation to the Provincial Museum: it is only explicitly only through its relationship with China/​ the CCP that Xinjiang may enter a ‘new’, ‘modern’ era. The representation of the musicians as toy-​ like invites comparison with Varutti’s analysis of miniatures in ethnic museums: ‘it could be argued that the miniaturized figurines ease the infantilization of ethnic groups … The figurines of ethnic minorities in Chinese museums might be compared to toys …’40 The figurines depicted in this poster were both toy-​like and child-​like (with over-​sized heads and baby-​like faces), and could play out a variety of stories of the past, present or future: an idealized depiction of past ‘ethnic harmony’, or as celebrating the bringing of ‘New China’ to Xinjiang by the CCP  –​another ‘new era’, as in the museum. The infantilization moves both ways, with the image rendering the Uyghurs ‘childlike’ (and therefore implicitly also in need of protection, of someone to ‘look after’ them) but likewise the viewer inviting an imaginative engagement with these ‘toys’. Unlike Varutti’s museum exhibits, this poster was present in the very place it represented; the time, place and people it depicted were also beyond the space of the poster, but driving cars, working in offices

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  287 and navigating security checkpoints.41 The implication of both the Uyghurs and any viewer as being childlike in the context of Friendship Road correlated this need to be ‘looked after’ into the environment itself: the CCP is responsible for bringing the ‘new era’ of ‘New China’ to Xinjiang, and for looking after the ethnic minorities and also the population passing along the street, filtering through the checkpoints. This public space was busy with various discourses, ranging from the official notices reminding passers-​by that without the CCP there would be no ‘new China’, or warning passers-​by against terrorists, to commercial advertisements promoting expensive products as commodities of the successful. Yet across these various discourses there remained particular themes: that ‘stability’ was at stake in this space, that individuals were responsible for being vigilant and for making themselves (and thus Xinjiang) successful. The possibility of a ‘better life’ and a ‘new China’ was safeguarded by these checkpoints, as was the possibility of conspicuous consumption, be it the advertisements of expensive alcohol or the mall with designer brand outlets only accessible through metal detectors. This becomes the idea of the public space that was being defended, and thus also discursively the public space that is under attack. What is writ large in such spaces is a self-​depiction of the state, and as the mass military anti-​terror rallies by security personnel in Urumqi and other cities in February 2017 highlight, public spaces are precisely those mobilized to tell official stories. This was also rendered particularly explicit in a Global Times video released in January 2020, in which Aydidar Kahar and Kedirye Keyser, the granddaughters of Rebiya Kadeer, counter ‘anti-​ Chinese slander’ about the vocational camps by going to a mall. Their journey on a metro-​line and entrance into the mall is cut so that no security barriers are visible, and as they pass Versace and Gucci they say, ‘We can buy products of International Brands. Isn’t this the new changes of Xinjiang? Isn’t this the beautiful Xinjiang we dreamed about?’42 The video explicitly delimits such ‘dreams’ solely to consumerism, the brightly lit interior of the mall supposedly evidencing that there are no vocational camps, and no widespread issues of prejudice. Despite this being an unusual depiction of ethnic minorities by visibly emphasizing their modernity (in clothing and locations), it is somewhat striking that the video nonetheless opens with the two young women dancing a ‘traditional dance’ in front of their applauding family. Hohhot Hohhot is a very different city, without the same level of security concerns. Although police patrol in noticeably large Humvees, there are few checkpoints or security barriers in public spaces. To an extent, this marks Hohhot as distinct from Urumqi or Lhasa (where security barriers and checkpoints are also commonplace) as an Autonomous Region capital. It was also lacking in posters warning of vigilance or terrorism. Much of the city has been developed in recent years, now consisting of large residential compounds and bland department stores. As with all cities in China, propaganda posters are everywhere. A number of these use similar

288  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien visual tropes to those in Urumqi. Extensively they expand upon the same themes we saw in the museum –​namely they situate the CCP as bringing modernity to the region. Unlike the museum mural, this image (Figure 11.12) combines a representation of ‘ethnic traditions’ and modern technologies, with a train extending through a bucolic scene of people cooking in front of yurts, surrounded by grazing animals. Space shuttles and satellites hover over them in the sky, with the hammer and sickle shining over them like a sun. The style visually resembles a traditional papercut. A  cartoon child in Mongolian costume holds up his hands in thanks. The toy-​like child invites comparison to the previous discussion of Vartutti.43 The use of childlike figures is common in propaganda throughout China, infantilizing the representation of the population, rendering them ‘cute’. But scholars have also noted that childlike representations of the ethnic minorities invite comparison with the idea of the ‘big brother Han’ (or, if we recall the Hohhot museum, the children of the grasslands who are honoured by the motherland). The papercut and child are overlaid on a background of dewy grass and abstract sky –​another gesture towards the ‘naturalizing’ of such imagery. Although different from the museum mural in representing ethnic traditions alongside modernity, this appears to function as a contrast:  ‘traditions’ and ‘modernity’ are counterpoints. These

Figure 11.12 Propaganda poster, Hohhot.

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  289

Figure 11.13 Propaganda poster, Hohhot.

were the same counterpoints we identified at the beginning, and in the Urumqi museum’s absenting of the Han in its depiction of ethnic groups: the depiction of past and present is ethicized to the extent that it is solely the minority groups that represent ‘traditionality’. The theme of counterpoints is also made explicit in Figure 11.13, part of the same series, in which ‘city space’ and ‘rural space’ are balanced on a set of scales. The discourse of ‘balancing’ between tradition (yurts) and modernity (skyscrapers) was also present in the museum, but here the metaphor of the scales is particularly apt. The childlike figures respond positively, giving the thumbs-​up and raising their arms joyfully, but the question of who determines what constitutes a balance is set aside. As noted by Harrell, while there is a focus on preserving ‘traditional cultures’, ‘some minzu differences get in the way of progress along the stages of history, so these must be eliminated’.44 The child in blue noticeably wears the red kerchief of the Young Pioneers; this poster uses identical imagery to the previous one, in which it is the Party that, in bringing modernity to the region, is necessarily in a position to determine what such a balance might mean. Another striking feature of the image is that although focusing on balance, it represents no fusion: tradition and modernity are binaries, rather than interwoven.

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Imagining the future: Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway? It must be emphasized that symbols in public places (disparate as murals and surveillance cameras) operate together for those who inhabit these spaces, creating a field of interdependent meaning. Such discourses function not only to represent history or current events, but depict the state in a paternalistic fashion, which legitimates its presence and the use of force. The focus upon concepts of ‘stability’ and ‘development’ emphasizes ‘pastoral power’: it offers a single narrative in which these positive things are provided solely through a hierarchical relationship with China. Our analysis highlights how propaganda not only weaves together various symbols or ideas, but operates across different media and the symbolic areas of public space itself. Particularly for those who inhabit these spaces, such signs (murals or security checkpoints) co-​signify and make each other meaningful. At issue here is that the narratives constructed across these texts and symbols focus upon themes such as ‘development’ and ‘stability’ to construct a complex dichotomy that links these Autonomous Regions’ ‘ethnic’ past, their relationship with the Chinese dynasties and the CCP. This is done by creating a historical arc through which any development in the past is only achieved through unity with imperial China, and currently through being developed or supported by the CCP, circumnavigating any possibility of development, modernity or stability that is not mediated by the Chinese state. As Kedirye Keyser, one of Rebiya Kadeer’s granddaughters, says in the Global Times video: ‘Thanks to the government my classmates and I are benefiting from the favourable policies. We can neither study, nor enjoy the great facilities at the school without the government’.45 Access to any education or infrastructure is here rendered completely contingent on the CCP. Such discourses are not unique to these regions; however, what may be significant in the autonomous regions is the extent to which these discourses are historicized into the empire, and also become ‘ethnicized’ –​rendered not only in terms of the state’s responsibilities towards its general population, but situating particular ethnic groups as those in need of modernization and protection. The same discourses of being interested primarily in ‘development’, ‘unity’ and ‘safeguarding the borderlands’ extend across the museums’ narratives of the past and the other texts’ depictions of the present; perhaps ironically, this also implicitly renders the CCP heir to the imperial dynasties, since these are depicted as always being concerned with ‘stability’ and promoting the development of these ‘frontiers’. Perhaps most striking in this context is not that we might identify ‘the symbols and stories’ through which the CCP maintains its legitimacy in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, but rather that the outbreaks of violence belie the idyllic depictions, and in themselves re-​legitimate the discourse of the need for a disciplinary power to maintain stability. China is increasingly mobilizing the past as part of the site of struggle: China is a unified multi-​ethnic country, and the various ethnic groups in Xinjiang have long been part of the Chinese nation. Throughout its long history, Xinjiang’s development has been closely related to that of China.

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  291 However, in more recent times, hostile forces in and outside China, especially separatists, religious extremists and terrorists, have tried to split China and break it apart by distorting history and facts. (White Paper 2019)46 As we have shown, this is partly because it is through a simplistic narrative of the past that the CCP attempts to naturalize its legitimacy. Of further significance here are the questions raised concerning ‘imagining the future’. The visual and rhetorical intertwining of ethnic identity with ‘traditionality’ and ‘backwardness’ situates a tension at the heart of the promotion of a ‘Chinese Dream’. The ethnic minorities continue to be represented as ‘backward’ more than half a century after the CCP first began to ‘develop’ these regions because, despite its focus on the infrastructural development of these regions, the state needs to maintain a representation of these groups in perpetual need of such development. Thus, despite the opportunity to represent the growing affluent middle classes of ethnic minority groups, Uyghur brain surgeons or Mongolian professors,47 the regions are depicted as ‘that which has been developed’ while the people are not. After half a century, the grassland or desert ‘children’ remain childlike, in need of assistance. Thus, high-​speed trains race across the steppes, but Mongolians themselves continue to be represented as nomads, living in yurts rather than high-​rise apartments. As other ethnographic work has identified,48 many members of various ethnic groups explore ways of incorporating aspects of their traditions that are meaningful to them, but also have to navigate social prejudices and stereotypes within the broader context of Chinese society. Neither such fusions, navigations nor underlying tensions receive much mainstream representation. The tension is that the Chinese Dream is a means through which the CCP situates itself as the bearer of modernity and civilization, but in struggling to represent ‘being ethnic’ as anything other than ‘being traditional’, this introduces a narrative in which, for members of ethnic minorities, ‘becoming modern’ is discursively represented as moving away from an ethnic identity. By associating ethnicity (Han/​minorities) in binary terms with the past and modernity, the official narratives and propaganda struggle to depict development in terms other than apparent complete cultural assimilation. Here is the fundamental paradox at the heart of CCP ethnic policy: while officially categorized and widely represented, the ethnic identities of minority groups are defined through their association with a traditional past, and therefore largely elided from representations of the future. Partly due to discourses of ‘Sinicization’, as we have argued elsewhere, [Underlying] Sinicization is the important and urgent question of what it really means to be “Chinese” in this context, the contours of the path laid out by the CCP as it imagines national rejuvenation and a Chinese future, and the place of various groups in that imagined future nation.49 The danger of such discourses of pastoral power is that, despite the focus on ‘development’, ‘stability’ and ‘harmony’, what is ultimately being legitimated is

292  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien the use of force, as we can see in Xinjiang’s expansion of ‘vocational camps’, making the utopian end-​point of such ‘Chinese Dreams’ justified by any means.

Notes 1 M.S. Brown and D.  O’Brien, ‘Defining the right path:  aligning Islam with Chinese Socialist Core Values at Ningbo’s Moon Lake Mosque’, Asian Ethnicity (2019). doi:10.1080/​14631369.2019.1636637. 2 K. Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 71. 3 N. Becquelin, ‘Trouble on the Margins: Interethnic Tensions and Endemic Poverty in the National Minority Areas’, China Perspectives, 10 (1997): 19–​28. 4 S. Harrell, ed., Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1996), p. 25. 5 White Paper on History and Development of Xinjiang at http://​en.people.cn/​200305/​ 26/​eng20030526_​117240.shtml. 6 D. Brown, ‘The Democratization of National Identity’, in Susan J.  Henders, ed., Democratization and Identity:  Regimes and Ethnicity in East and Southeast Asia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp. 43–​66. 7 S. Roberts, ‘The Biopolitics of China’s “War on Terror” and the Exclusion of the Uyghurs’, Critical Asian Studies, 50(2) (2018): 232–​58 at 258. 8 A.-​M. Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), p. 200. 9 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda. 10 H. Goldhamer and E.A. Shils, ‘Types of Power and Status’, in J. Scott, ed., Power: Critical Concepts (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 103. 11 R.A. Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), p. 233. 12 G.S. Jowett and V. O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006), p. 7. 13 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda, p. 22. 14 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda, p. 23. 15 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda, p. 23. 16 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda, p. 8. 17 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p. 194. 18 Foucault, Discipline and Punish. 19 M. Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, in P. Rabinow, ed., Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–​1984, Vol. 1 Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (New York: The New Press, 1994), p. 67. 20 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’. 21 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’. 22 Harrell, Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers. 23 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’. 24 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, p. 70. 25 B. Hindess, Discourses of Power:  From Hobbes to Foucault (Oxford:  Blackwell, 1996), p. 123.

Whose ‘Chinese Dream’ is it anyway?  293 26 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, p. 70. 27 For further discussion of this theme, in particular how it also links to news coverage in Xinjiang, see X.  Zhang, M.S. Brown and D.  O’Brien D., ‘ “No CCP, No New China”:  Discourses of Pastoral Power in China’, The China Quarterly, 235 (2018): 784–​803. 28 Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda, p. 7. 29 P. Chilton, H. Tian and R. Wodak, Discourse and Socio-​political Transformations in Contemporary China (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012), p. 10. 30 A widely accepted point: see K. Denton, K, Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014). 31 A.F.P. Hulsewé and M.A.N. Loewe, China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC–​ AD 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1979), p. 177. 32 D. Gladney, Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Muslim Nationality (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1998). 33 Historically, the Han have not been the ‘majority’ in XUAR. According to the Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook published in 2012, the Han population rose from 7 per cent in 1953 to 40 per cent in 2010: see Harrell, Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers. 34 J.P. Mallory and V.H. Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000). 35 Li et al. (2010), ‘Evidence that a West–​East Admixed Population Lived in the Tarim Basin as Early as the Early Bronze Age’, BMC Biology, 8(15), www.biomedcentral. com/​1741–​7007/​8/​15. 36 Li et al., ‘Evidence that a West–​East Admixed Population’. 37 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, p. 70. 38 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, p. 70. 39 Foucault, ‘Security, Territory, and Population’, p. 70. 40 M. Varutti, ‘Miniatures of the Nation:  Ethnic Minority Figurines, Mannequins and Dioramas in Chinese Museums’, Museum & Society 9(1) (2011): 7–​8. 41 Varutti, ‘Miniatures of the Nation’, pp. 1–​16 42 Global Times, ‘Xinjiang Busts Secessionist Rumours, Shows Transparency’, 10 January 2020, www.globaltimes.cn/​content/​1176377.shtml. 43 Varutti, ‘Miniatures of the Nation’, pp. 1–​16 44 Harrell, Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers, p. 26. 45 Global Times, ‘Xinjiang Busts Secessionist Rumours’. 46 Government White Paper:  see ‘China Issues White Paper on Historical Matters Concerning Xinjiang’ (Beijing:  The Information Office of the State Council, July 2019). 47 The 2020 Global Times video of Rebiya Kadeer’s grand-​ daughters is actually an interesting exception to this:  both highlight their university education, and as mentioned one asserts that it is all ‘thanks to the government’ that they are able to have this education (somewhat ignoring the fact that Rebiya Kadeer was a millionaire). This is, however, an unusual depiction of an ‘ethnic’ ‘middle-​class’, and in other ways almost appears to go out of its way to reinforce other tropes of ‘ethnic’ ‘traditionality’: the video opens with the young women dancing, and dancing is also foregrounded by the fact that, alongside presenting their degrees, Aydidar Kahar talks about how much she loves to dance, and teaching her Han classmates to dance at college.

294  Melissa Shani Brown and David O’Brien 48 See Harrell, Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers; J.  Huang, ‘Building a Shared and Harmonious Society in China:  An Ethnic Minority Perspective’, Development, 57(1) (2014):  77–​ 83; B.  Hillman and L.-​ A. Henfry, ‘Macho Minority: Masculinity and Ethnicity on the Edge of Tibet’, in Modern China (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006). 49 M.S. Brown and D. O’Brien, ‘Defining the Right Path: Aligning Islam with Chinese Socialist Core Values at Ningbo’s Moon Lake Mosque’, Asian Ethnicity, 21(2) (2019): 269–​91.

12  China as ‘Third Pole Culture’ Between theorizing and thought work Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang

Introduction: Anatomy of the third Mao Zedong’s redirection of the landless peasant as the revolutionary subject is not dissociated with the Third International (also called the Comintern) founded in Moscow in March 1919 to coordinate the world Communist movement. The significance of the work of the Third International is intimately linked with the historical importance of the Havana Tricontinental of 1966 as the first independent coming together of the three continents of the South –​Africa, Asia and Latin America –​ in political solidarity. Robert Young argues that this was the moment in which what we now call ‘postcolonial theory’ was first formally constituted. This offered not only an implied critique but also a knowledge-​base (of insurgent knowledges, in particular those that originate with the subaltern) of non-​Western political and cultural production. Based in and organized from the Third World: The Tricontinental brought together the anticolonial struggles of Africa and Asia with the radical movements of Latin America, and marked the initiation of a global alliance of the three continents … against imperialism. This conjunction was mediated at that time by the worldwide fight against imperialism represented by the American intervention in Vietnam, where an anti-​colonial liberation struggle against the French had itself been superseded by and merged into an anti-​imperial war against the US.1 Synonymous with ‘tricontinental’ in the Non-​ Aligned Movement during the Cold War era, the ‘third’ (in Third World) in the dependency theory of thinkers like Walter Rodney, Andre Gunder Frank and others was connected to the world economic division of ‘periphery’ in a global system that was dominated by the ‘core’ –​much as the term ‘third sex’, describing those neither wholly male nor entirely female, was able to highlight issues around gender ambiguity. The journal Third Text, dedicated to a position of critical independence, and emphasizing its investigations of artistic practices within and beyond the Euro-​American horizon, also claims to offer ‘a platform to pursue timely dialogue about experimental cultures, to advance independent education’.2 The movement for a Third Cinema is likewise in keeping with this direction. The Chinese delegation led by Premier Zhou Enlai attended the Bandung Conference not as ‘a communist nation but as a third world country’.3 While the

296  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang 1960s had been the most favourable period for Chinese anti-​colonialism, in the 1950s, and again in the 1970s, anti-​colonialism was set aside in favour of nationalism. The commitment to the Third World remained throughout this period, as Mao propounded in the Three Worlds Theory (三个世界的理论). Up until the end of the Cold War, Beijing continued to assume ideological leadership over the revolutionary agenda. Chinese socialism as a version of vernacular cosmopolitanism, together with Pan-​Asianism as a project both before and after the Mao era, connected China to the world in the pursuit of universal values.4 The abundant use of numbers (especially the fortuitous number three) in Chinese Communist-era slogans, Perry Link and others have noted, is a particular feature of the party’s language. Similar to that of repetitions, the use of numbers in Communist propaganda has a patronizing effect, infantilizing the people by ‘helping’ them to direct their attention on the important points. Numbers in the Chinese communist context emphasise the form of phrases, providing a sense of correctness while averting attention from its content. They also instill a feeling of completeness – everything is included in the counted and there is no need to go beyond what the figures convey.5 It is in the context of the deployment of the term ‘third’ in these political and historical conjunctures that our chapter intends to situate the idea of the ‘Third Pole Culture’ (第三极), the brainchild of Huang Huilin, Dean of the Academy of International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC) at Beijing Normal University.6 The second vector we explore in the chapter is the consideration of ‘Third Pole Culture’ as reinscribed Chinese thought, however propagandistic its articulation, entering into a dialogue with the notion of ‘Third Space’ as advanced by Homi Bhabha and Edward Soja. The idea of ‘Third Pole’ was initiated in a presentation by Huang Huilin during the Beijing Cultural Forum in 2009.7 The reason provided for her proposing ‘Third Pole Culture’ is to develop a plan with a strategic significance to counter contemporary world culture structure –​that is, European and American dominance over the world cultural scene.8 Despite China’s fast ascendancy onto the world stage as reflected in its economic growth and rising political position, according to Huang Huilin, China’s cultural dissemination has not followed the country’s rapid advance, and China’s cultural export is still ‘relatively backward’.9 This is particularly important, as Huang Huilin and her co-​author Li Ming point out in an article from 2012: Entering the 21st Century, all countries, especially the great nations, are all conscious of the competition and trial of strength between nations. This is not only displayed politically, economically, militarily, etc. through hard power, it is also displayed through the soft power of culture.10 More directly put in the English abstract of one of Huang’s articles, co-written with Gao Yongliang: The primary goal of ‘Third Pole Culture’ is to remold the cultural self-​ confidence of the whole nation, inspire the national spirit and provide mighty spiritual motive power for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, by

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  297 further sorting out, summarizing, refining, inheriting and carrying forward the core value of Chinese traditional culture according to the needs of times and social development.11 That is, ‘The ultimate goal of “Third Pole Culture”’, in Fei Xiaotong’s words, is to, ‘appreciate the culture of others as you do your own, and the world will become a harmonious whole’.12 To rectify the prevailing ‘uneven’ structure, Huang Huilin set up AICCC in 2010, based on the principles of ‘Third Pole Culture’. Its aim is to ‘introduce and disseminate Chinese culture worldwide more effectively and contribute to a harmonious world culture through solid, in-​depth research and art works with Chinese characteristics’.13 Each year, the institute organizes two international events with a focus on Chinese culture. One is the ‘Looking China:  Chinese and Foreign Youth Film Project’, where young filmmakers from all over the world are sponsored to shoot in China and make films about Chinese culture, an activity that ‘has become a brand showing charming China and spreading Chinese culture’.14 The other event is an academic Chinese-​culture themed conference, held each year at the end of autumn or the beginning of winter. Many of the papers presented are then published in the institute’s Chinese book series Third Pole Culture Symposium or in its English-​language journal International Communication of Chinese Culture.

The ‘Third Pole’ Forming a formidable global ecological reserve, and hosting more ice and snow than any place outside the poles, the Hindu-​Kush Himalayan region (or the mountain area surrounding the Tibetan Plateau) has earned itself the appellation ‘the Third Pole’. Covering an area of more than 4.3 million square kilometres in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, it is home to a stupendous socioeconomic and cultural diversity with communities there speaking at least 600 languages –​discounting dialects. Particularly sensitive to climate change, it stands as a fulcrum of anxiety with regard to Anthropocenic extinction. Drawing from this geographic topological tripolarity (North Pole, South Pole and Tibetan Plateau), Huang Huilin posits, setting up an equivalence, that there are three major ‘cultural poles’. The first pole is European culture, which in her reading has released productive forces, carried forward humanitarianism and created many immortal classics.15 The second pole is American culture, which created monopoly capitalism, spurred on individualism, democratic freedom, striving for rationalism and pragmatism, and became the first hegemonic culture. The Third Pole is Chinese culture, which because of its thousands of years of unyielding strife forward, has also proven itself to be an independent cultural tradition, distinguishing itself from the two European and American ‘poles’ in its cultural essence of ‘harmony’.16 ‘Third Pole Culture’ draws heavily from the idea of the geographical ‘poles’: apart from the Tibetan Plateau being the highest ‘pole’, its prominence lies in its individuality, quality and character. In comparison with the other ‘poles’,

298  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang Huang Huilin stresses that each ‘pole’ has its own unique nature. When the term ‘pole’ is deployed as a kind of metaphor, the characteristics of the three poles are not mutually exclusive, but through their own ‘charming contrasts’ they become rich and varied constituents of the geographical environment. It is in this sense of the poles possessing unique charms, extrapolated as they are from the geographical to the cultural realm, that ‘Third Pole Culture’, in contradistinction to the European and American cultures, must be understood.17 Huang Huilin argues that there are two layers of meaning attached to ‘Third Pole Culture’:  first, that China must find its ‘own poles’ –​the best, the most outstanding and the most unique of its characteristics (or, figuratively, its own direction(s)); and second, that China must refine and succeed in developing its own pole for the purpose of displaying it onto the world cultural scene, by truly becoming the ‘Third Pole’. In doing so, it must influence and be influenced by European, American and other cultures.18 The implication here is that ‘Third Pole Culture’ entails accepting the world’s diverse cultural patterns. This is how it is explained on the AICCCs website: Among the current diversified culture patterns around the world, there are three major forces that have high influences on the world culture: the European culture, the American culture and the Chinese culture. If the European and American culture are the ‘Two Poles’ representing the western world, then the Chinese culture, with its deep root and strong vitality developed over thousands of years, can be called ‘The Third Pole Culture’. Rooted in the traditional Chinese civilization, the Third Pole Culture advances with the times and respects cultural differences under the premise of initiating cultural diversities. Currently, the diversified patterns of world culture co-​exist under mutual influences. The Chinese ‘Third Pole Culture’ advocates the idea of ‘harmony’ through a practical and creative approach, adjusting itself with the times and learning from each other with the purpose to build a commonly recognized code and order for the world culture and to contribute to the ever-​ evolving development of human society.19 In a 2016 article, Huang Huilin and Liu Jiangkai state that ‘Third Pole Culture’ embodies a form of ‘cultural diversity’ that aims to foster and advance a ‘community of common destiny’. Not dissimilar to the way the concept of ‘Third Pole Culture’ borrows from geographical terminology, their explanation of cultural diversity parallels that of geographical and biological diversity, which has ‘given direct inspiration to cultural diversity’.20 Echoing Boasian diffusionism in terms of historical particularism, Huang and Liu claim that different geographies have given rise to different cultures: Egyptian culture began around the Nile; Mesopotamian culture developed on the fertile soil between two river basins; city-​states in ancient Greece were first established in the narrow hinterland between mountains and the sea; Indian culture developed in a complex environment limited to the torrid zone of the Indian peninsula, and so on.21 Chinese culture, Huang Huilin and Liu Jiangkai explain, is due to China’s vast territory, different natural resources and social conditions. These features

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  299 produced an ‘unevenly developed cultural diversity’, while simultaneously being ‘unified’. Despite interaction and mixing with neighbouring regions, giving rise to this ‘cultural diversity’, the two authors are at pains to stress that Chinese culture developed independently because its borders kept it separated from the outside world, thus creating a unique Chinese culture.22 Huang Huilin and Liu Jiangkai go on to illustrate the importance of cultural diversity through analogical reasoning with biodiversity. They cite two examples: the Irish potato famine and the rice grassy stunt virus that struck Indian rice fields in the 1970s; when Indian scientists tested more than 6000 varieties of rice, they eventually found a resistant variety, thus allowing biodiversity to avert disaster. Huang Huilin and Liu Jiangkai contend that ‘Third Pole Culture’, in its promotion of cultural diversity, operates according to the same logic: the world benefits from cultural diversity in the same way it benefits from biodiversity.23 The ‘community of common destiny’ is what facilitates this ‘cultural diversity’. However, the specifics of this community are not spelled out in the article, except to suggest that the vital Chinese contribution to it is the concept of ‘harmony’. ‘Harmony’ is important for the ‘community of common destiny’; it is key to gluing together ‘Third Pole Culture’ theory: Advocating cultural diversity is of course good, but the question is how to resolve contradictions, clashes and even conflicts, between different cultures? China exhibited very early a different developed wisdom than the West … … first and foremost, this ‘harmony’ recognises ‘difference’: it is a kind of dynamic harmony which includes different kinds of contradictions that mutually exist and mutually exclude.24 A leitmotif running throughout Huang and Liu’s article and others by Huang Huilin is that ‘harmony’ is the kernel of Chinese traditional culture, and that harmony also potentially represents a new ideal for humankind. In an article from 2011, Huang asserts that ‘harmony’ is the basic value for which the Chinese mode of ‘Third Pole Culture’ strives.25 Projecting third-pole theory in the article, she uses the expression hehe (和合) to denote harmony instead of the more common hexie she usually employs in other articles. The two components that make up ‘harmonious’ or hehe are he (和), often translated simply as ‘harmonious’, and he (合) or united. Together they form the compound ‘harmonious’ hehe (和合). He (和) signifies harmony (和谐); it also refers to ‘gentle and amiable’ (和顺) and ‘peace’ (和平); it is that which is morally enhancing, develops society and is beneficial to human relations. The meaning of the second he (合) can be gleaned from the traditional saying ‘heaven and man are identical’ (天人合一) –​that is, from a universal outlook, all humans, society, nature and even the universe as a whole constitute one system. The first he (和) is the basis for united he (合), and united he (合) in turn is the goal of he (和). Prosperity, in all its forms, is the base for a united system, and a united system strives for prosperity. In tandem, they become ‘harmonious’, leading to a ‘community of common destiny’.26 If ‘harmony’ is the fundamental value for which ‘Third Pole Culture’ strives, another key idea introduced in ‘Third Pole Culture’ theory is ‘comprehensive understanding’ (会通). Huang Huilin holds that comprehensive understanding

300  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang should be translated as a combination of ‘understanding’, ‘merging’ and ‘thorough knowledge’. The goal of comprehensive understanding is to surpass and excel; however, the ‘surpassing’ and ‘excelling’ advocated by ‘Third Pole Culture’ do not necessarily always involve a superior Chinese culture that should or will surpass and excel over European, American or other cultures. Huang Huilin firmly states that there are no hierarchies in culture; one culture cannot surpass or excel over another culture. Instead, there are two meanings to ‘surpassing’ and ‘excelling’ enabled by ‘comprehensive understanding’: one is to ‘surpass’ and excel’ oneself (or make one’s own culture more outstanding); the other is for culture (probably meant as world culture) as a whole to ‘surpass’ and ‘excel’.27 ‘Comprehensive understanding’ is linked to how China should achieve self-​ consciousness and self-​confidence. In an interview about ‘Third Pole Culture’, Huang Huilin stated in a straightforward manner: I think the word ‘self-​consciousness’ is especially important. Why do we propose this to academic circles and business circles? Because of its urgency. If our [Chinese] creators had this kind of self-​consciousness in their cultural pursuits, then what they make would not be garbage.28 She implies that it is only by having ‘comprehensive understanding’ that one can reach the self-​consciousness and thus attain the self-​confidence necessary to surpass and excel. The role of ‘comprehensive understanding’ and ‘harmony’ in ‘Third Pole Culture’ is summarized in the following paragraph: Being a theoretical conception and cultural goal, ‘Third Pole Culture’s’ intention is to remould cultural confidence, stimulate the foundation of the national spirit, adjusting to the time’s and society’s development needs, through ‘comprehensive understanding’ of European culture, American culture and other cultures, to build a harmonious world culture, pushing forward humankind’s culture and progressively make proper contribution [to it].29 Although still couched in terms of ‘the national spirit’ of China, harmonious world culture requires space for a ‘co-​existing diversity’ where ‘each culture has the same fair opportunity to develop’. The consequences when this space is threatened are made clear by Huang Huilin and Li Ming when they write about foreign culture invasion. This time, the analogies used are invasive species. They refer, for example, to the arrival of snakehead fish in the United States. Considered to be a delicacy in China, when ‘smuggled’ it became an invasive species in the United States, where the ‘fish from Hell’ preyed on other fishes, bred quickly and made other species disappear in Maryland.30 Similarly, ‘cultural invasion’, they analogize, occurs when one nation subjugates another through cultural transformation and ideological remoulding. Successfully imposing one’s own values, ideology and beliefs on another without restraint produces a walking corpse. The harm that can be caused by cultural

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  301 invasion, compared with political, military or economic invasion, is profound and long lasting.31 The Chinese fear is that the Chinese will lose their own identity: ‘if the next generation … does not have any contact with traditional Chinese cultural forms, they will not identify with Chinese culture, becoming out and out “bananas” ’.32 ‘Third Pole Culture’ is presented not only as an academic intervention and one of identity, but also in terms of China’s geo-​strategic concerns. As the discourse of ‘soft power’ has gained currency in China, it has also been at pains to define it positively as simply referring to its capacity and right to project and disseminate cultural values.33 In an article from 2010, Huang Huilin elaborates: ‘Third Pole Culture’ is not only an academic proposition, but also an important cultural goal that has strategic significance in improving cultural soft power of our country. Academic research, artistic creation, cultural communication, and social resources integration, may be important paths leading to that goal.34 The essence of this soft power is ‘the spirit of Chinese culture’, which is ‘Harmony’.35 It promotes a common mission for the government, industry and academic circles, with four strategic goals: 1. To elucidate the content, theory and practical significance of ‘Third Pole Culture’ through academic research. ‘Third Pole Culture’ research should relate to the present; researchers should heed to the demands of the times, face social reality, be conscious of these questions while researching, pay close attention to the development of society and prevalent questions concerning cultural construction, be aware of what questions might surface, and resolve those questions. This is also a realization of cultural consciousness. Examples of questions that should be considered in relation to a globalized economy include: How should Chinese culture position itself? What is the relationship between economy and culture? How can ‘Third Pole Culture’ be extended? How do we re-​examine the best and worst of traditional culture? How should Chinese culture harmoniously exist in symbiosis with other cultures? How can school education, artistic creation and scientific research, realize ‘Third Pole Culture’? These are all urgent research questions. 2. To support artistic creation through the creation of original production that uses the underlying principle of ‘Third Pole Culture’. Artistic works should abundantly realize the special characteristics of ‘Third Pole Culture’ and promote its strategic implementation. These artistic creations should be based on tradition, realize the spirit of the time, express the creator’s real lived experience, be an original creation, not appeal to vulgar taste and not be a copy. 3. To forge cultural symbols and utilize different methods to develop cultural dissemination. No matter how good Chinese culture is, it needs to be disseminated to realize its value. China has sufficient cultural self-​confidence; however, more attention needs to be paid to the law of the jungle: ‘struggle for

302  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang survival by the law of natural selection, survival of the fittest’ that governs the world culture structure. China needs to forge something that is easy to distinguish, easy to disseminate, possesses abundant content, includes the Chinese cultural symbols of the spirit of the time, and puts great effort into building cultural trademarks that will have impact abroad. [We should] particularly pay attention to the positive usage of current technology and new media: the internet, mobile phones, iPads and so on to disseminate Chinese culture. 4. To integrate different kinds of resources and bring into play all strata of society to make mutual efforts. A  developing ‘Third Pole Culture’ needs to absorb and unite society’s many-​faceted strengths. It needs to integrate resources, and needs the academic world, industry, government, college and universities, and enterprises to unite for this cause. For example, it is needed to collect development funds, to use new mechanisms to create cultural development organizations, organize special elite classes, and train specialists.36 While the two other Western poles have predominated in the modern era, ‘Third Pole Culture’ theory argues that it is now China’s turn to project its peaceful culture upon the world. One could interpret this as what Roger Ames, who sits on the academic committee of AICCC, has called a ‘second enlightenment’, which moves from the ideology of individualism to ‘Confucian Role Ethics’ –​a Confucianism that has a ‘focus-​field’ conception of personhood rather than a ‘one-​behind-​the-​ many’, single-​source idealism.37 Confucianism acts as the ‘guiding actor’ for ‘Third Pole Culture’.38 Projects such as these can be viewed as part of a move towards the ‘third culture pole’. This also has resonances in the earlier projects to transform and transcribe a classical Confucian model of learning, and more specifically to the New Confucians in the early twentieth century, with their document A Manifesto for a Re-​appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture.39 The emphasis on harmony in the ‘Third Pole Culture’ narrative assuages and reassures us that the violent history of colonization and imperial grandstanding that European powers (and by implication the continual global policing and neo-​ imperial credentials of the United States, and Japan’s past imperial ambitions leading on to the war in the Pacific in the 1940s) inflicted on the world will not serve as a prototype or model for China’s behaviour when it stands as an equal in the community of great continental cultures. This notion also seeks to explain the tradition of Chinese statecraft, a tradition couched in assumptions about the ideals embedded in Chinese classical Confucian thought (now read as philosophy), which articulates Chinese culture as ethically responsive and always aiming for peace.40 The differential ‘vitality developed over thousands of years’ is located not only in the idea of an unbroken continuous civilization and its myriad gifts to humankind, but also in the rich oeuvre of reflective works produced by it; many famous Chinese historians have held this view. It scarcely needs recapitulating that Chinese sources on the imperial tributary system of China (朝贡体系) projected the world in terms of a hierarchy where China occupied the ‘civilized centre’ and the rest of the world was subject to an

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  303 increasing ‘diffusionism’ as one moved further out to its periphery and beyond.41 ‘Harmony’ through the Third Pole is, in contradistinction, presented as revisionist in its impulse in that ‘equality’ is underlined as its quintessential ethos.

Thought work and huayu quan in propaganda Propaganda ‘in its effects can be partial, and it need not be total’, and has always had a degree of open-​endedness.42 The Chinese example of Li Yizhe is a good case of this: the group managed to successfully censure the Cultural Revolution by using ‘carefully modulated language’ to disparage the Lin Biao System –​at the time the most recent CCP campaign –​although the aim of the campaign itself was to attack Lin Biao and not the cultural revolution.43 If propaganda is ‘a central means of organizing and shaping thought and perception’,44 theory in its comparative judgement allows us to understand phenomenon by deterritorializing claims and thus to encounter differences and equivalences. Inherent in theory is an open-​ endedness necessitated by its travelling. Henry Rosemont Jr’s Confucian critique of liberal and conservative US elites is an instance of this; certainly not what the classical Confucians had in mind when their words were turned into classics.45 Similarly, the deployment of Tianxia by scholars such as Zhao Tingying as contributing to new world concepts leading to new world structures can be read in at least two different ways.46 While Zhao sees Tianxia (天下) –​as combining the seemingly contradictory discourses of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, empire and globalism –​as doing the conceptual work that is necessary for world order, a Chinese-​style solution to world problems inaugurated by the Westphalia system –​ the concept in this avatar is also suspected of presenting a new hegemony where imperial China’s hierarchical governance is renovated for the twenty-​first century.47 The role of vernacular intellectual input in the service of the Chinese nation is foregrounded in the idea of the Third Pole, and it can be argued that the notion in some senses works as a ‘direction’ to the public sphere.48 Clearly not independent of state power, the dissemination (through writing, professing and researching, as well as through the sponsorship of filmmaking) of Huang Huilin’s idea in the information system functions as ‘thought work’ or content for the propaganda state in a rejuvenated ‘directed public sphere’ under Xi Jinping today. It comes as no surprise that at a January 2014 meeting, Xi Jinping pressed to increase spending on promoting Chinese culture abroad in order to expand China’s soft power. Xi exhorted members of the CCP Politburo that ‘China should be portrayed as a civilized country featuring a rich history, ethnic unity, and cultural diversity, and as an Eastern power with good government, a developed economy, cultural prosperity, national unity, and beautiful scenery’.49 He further stressed that China should also be known as a responsible country that advocates peace and development, safeguards international fairness and justice, makes a positive contribution to humanity, and as a socialist country which is open and friendly to the world, full of hope and vitality.50

304  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang Here, Xi is harnessing a lush affective range of positive feelings of pride and belonging, and of a just China doing the right thing, reflecting a Žižekian understanding of the operations of ideology. ‘[I]‌deology works by affect, fulfilling a comforting function’, and for propaganda to be effective, it must suture a wide affective array of emotions.51 The thought work of the prescription of ‘Third Pole Culture’ lies in the feel-​good factor of how the future of world culture could be structured harmoniously in relation to China’s achievements. Just as the Maoist concept clusters around ‘attitude’ (态度) –​which Cheek translates as ‘cognio-​affective disposition’, arguing for it to be received as global theory,52 the vocabulary of ‘Third Pole Culture’ can similarly be read as an effort at vernacular theorizing. It raises questions that are worth pursuing, but neither this chapter nor the unfolding of this idea in the intellectual as well as CCP political discourse can hope to secure any definitive judgement. Party-​state officials routinely emphasize the need for countering the West’s international ‘discourse power’ huayu quan (话语权). Calling on China’s academic community to develop new systems of thought and discourse with ‘Chinese characteristics’, Xi Jinping on 19 August 2013, at the National Publicity and Ideological Work Conference urged, ‘In ideological work, we must grasp leadership, control, and discourse power firmly in our hands’.53 The People’s Daily explains this as ‘a Chinese system of discourse (话语体系) [that] is basically a theoretical, discursive articulation of China’s path, which is needed to explain to the world why the Chinese path has succeeded and its significance for the rest of the world’.54 Conscious of this, as of China’s weak ‘soft power’ and the hurdles in the way of its rise as a global great power, Huang Huilin –​not unlike the ruling CCP –​ wants China to ‘gain face’ (要面子) internationally.55 Brady sees the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics as a ‘campaign of mass distraction’ whose narrative deployed slogans of ‘harmony’ and inclusiveness.56 In a vocabulary reflective of Huang Huilin’s rhetoric, Brady raises the question of state Confucianism, Chinese-​ness and tradition in CCP propaganda. While it is not within the scope of this chapter to narrate in any detail the idea of the Third Pole’s downward spread into the hierarchy, it clearly appears to have the makings of an official concept with a particular episteme.

The Third Space and thirding Considering ‘Third Pole’ as a contemporary Chinese theory for global use leads us to the conceptual writings of scholars who, over the last few decades, have iterated that we are always already mediated and implicated, or theoretically imbricated, in the production of knowledge such that cultural phenomena/​experiences become the affect/​effect of the relation between knowing and being. To mediate (mediātus, past participle of mediāre to be in the middle) is to theorize, with the two terms forever (in)forming each other, caught between ‘one temporality and another’.57 The intention in this chapter is not to argue for absolute incommensurability in terms of differential thought originating in different cultures –​especially in the Chinese case –​but to accept a differential commonality, and engage in a cultural

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  305 conversation where the notion of Third Space is understood as another site, the slippery non-​place of the shifting caravan site, in which to further this cross-​ cultural dialogue. Unlike Huang Huilin’s situated reasoning, both in the geographical-​spatial sense and in the cultural meaning, the ‘liminality’ of the concept of the Third Space inheres in its location in an anomalous zone, which is radically outside or beyond first-​space/​second-​space dualism in what is also proposed by Soja as a ‘trialectics of spatiality’.58 Conscious of dialectic binarism, Soja’s critique is styled as critical ‘thirding-​as-​othering’. This advocacy of a spatial and historical-​ social trialectic, thirding-​as-​other, is more than a ‘dialectical synthesis à la Hegel or Marx, which too is predicated on a completeness and temporal sequencing of thesis/​antithesis/​synthesis’.59 Thirding-​as-​othering is a critical exposition and demands the thinking of ‘Third Space’ in that this entails a creative involvement with the dialectic while being radically different yet open to a multiplicity of alternative choices. In his own words, this is the ‘dialectically open logic of both/​ and also’.60 Thirding, if it is to be meaningful, would never assume totalization striving towards axiomization; instead, its aim would be approximation –​that which is open to revision, and celebrating unfinishedness. Building cumulatively ‘on earlier approximations, producing a certain practical continuity of knowledge production’, it serves as ‘an antidote to the hyperrelativism and “anything goes” philosophy often associated with such radical epistemological openness’.61 The spatial turn highlighting the importance of the geographical imagination speaks directly, if one were to take one ripe instance, to the ‘patterns’ (地理) to be found in the constitutive terrain, roads, rivers, maps, boundaries, jurisdictions and borders of the Ancient Tea Horse Road. This route (or 茶马古道) offers an opportunity in its location and traversal of the shifting caravan site to explore possibilities of cross-​cultural dialogue. Soja reminds us of how we think about space in two ways:  first as material and concrete form or as empirical expression of geography; and second as a mental construct or as imagined geography. Warning against the distorted view of Chinese cartographic history, Cordell Yee writes: Geometric and mathematical fidelity to observed reality was not an overarching aim:  maps were often placed in contexts where they complemented verbal representations of geographic knowledge. As a means of storing geographic information, both verbal and graphic modes of representation were held to have their uses. What is now called cartography thus had its place in a unified conception of the arts.62 Maps are, after all, not just geographical representations of the spatial world, but must also be viewed as cultural images that reflect the societies in which they are produced. We are arguing here that the ‘Third Space’ (which is not ‘out there’ like the touristy ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’ on a terrain or a map available on GPS) in some ways gestures to the lack of Bhabhaesque liminality in the cultural images produced by a particular social formation in a particular place. This is clearly the case when Huang Huilin argues for the Third Pole as ‘[r]‌ooted in the traditional

306  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang Chinese civilization’.63 Spatial metaphors allow some insights into the identities or cultures that may form in the ‘Third Space’, but invite the risk of reification of these cultures through close affiliation with specific, enduringly bound spaces. So if the Ancient Tea Horse Road is seen as a complex standing outside and going beyond the mere visual representation of the topographic terrain of tracks, roads, rivers and routes of the trade, it impels us to consider this space as a special space, but not quite a Third Space –​even as it may refuse reification: The maps, as an expression of culture, not only show the location of phenomena on the earth’s surface, such as cities, rivers, and landforms, but also give specific insight into the cultural beliefs and concepts of the time in which they were made.64 As a Third Pole entity in this sense –​as a nation-​state and civilization –​China is both a mapped empirical geography as well as an imagined geography.65 Soja would, in our reading, render an unfolding, in-​the-​process-​of-​becoming China in terms of the third alternative of approximations combining the ‘real’ empirical bounds of the entity as well as the imagined geography of its Lefebvrian lived space. In this regard, Bhabha would remind us that ‘maps are of time, not place’, as the poet Henry Reed once noted.66 Traders and muleteers on the Ancient Tea Horse Road, or the travellers and tourists who traverse the simulcrally ‘old’ trails, do not find themselves erring into the Third Space even as they may stray, completely unaware of it, into it, ‘stumbling and stuttering right in the thick of it’.67 Embracing the simultaneity of the also/​and, and neither and both at once, in its beyonding to bring newness to the world, Bhabha’s reasoning can fruitfully be applied to the constant remaking of Chinese culture. Whether in terms of the Han majority in relation to the Mongolian, Tibetan, Miao and Uyghur minorities, or China in relation to the various interfaces of nations, cultures and histories worldwide that invite and generate a Third Space, his proposal is to argue for a result that is new and substantially different from mere accretions of new and old elements.68 Bhabha’s Third Space is not a space so much as a site, ‘the non-​place of no-​fixed abode’, ‘a site in the sense of situation’, ‘a site of fading, of appearance and disappearance’.69 The intervention of the Third Space of enunciation which makes the structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process, destroys this mirror of representation in which cultural knowledge is customarily revealed as integrated, open, expanding code. Such an intervention quite properly challenges our sense of the historical identity of culture as homogenizing, unifying force, authenticated by originary Past, kept alive in the national tradition of the People.70 Caught in this strain of ‘demand and desire’ is the enunciative space of ‘splitting’.71 The idea of the Third Pole, when pitted against this, would appear to

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  307 be less dynamic, and more importantly, invested in ‘remold[ing] the cultural self-​ confidence’ of the whole nation and ‘inspir[ing] the national spirit’.72 As an ‘interruptive, interrogative, and enunciative’ space of new forms and an ambivalent site where cultural meaning and representation have no ‘primordial unity or fixity’, articulation and negotiation occur in such a way that the pact of interpretation is never simply an act of communication between the ‘I’ and the ‘You’ designated in the statement. The production of meaning requires that these two places are mobilized in the passage through a Third Space, which represents both the general conditions of language and the specific implication of the utterance in a performative and institutional strategy of which it cannot ‘in itself’ be conscious.73 What is being suggested here, contrary to Third Pole articulation, is the radical ambiguity and ambivalence that issue from cultural positionalities, in the place of identification. The hybrid space is written into existence: important as the vector of pedagogical narratives whereby China recounts and styles itself may be,74 Bhabha would also stress the performative element wherein the nation iterates and styles itself to produce, perhaps, a third compound of approximations. His interstitiality replaces ‘the polarity of a prefigurative self-​generating nation “in itself” and extrinsic other nations’ with the notion of ‘cultural liminality within the nation’.75 In Bhabha’s formulation, the ‘something else besides’ is incongruent with the idea of the ‘Third Pole’ in that, even though it expresses itself as ‘neither the one nor the other’, his ‘something else’ is clearly not the same as the space articulated in the polar notion. The ‘new’ must properly alienate … our … expectations, and changes, as it must, the very forms of our recognition … [in] opening up a space that can accept and regulate the differential structure of the moment of intervention without rushing to produce a unity of the social antagonism or contradiction. This is a sign that history is happening within the pages of theory, within the systems and structures we construct to figure the passage of the historical.76 Since the production and use of theory, he warns us, can supplant specific histories and precipitate us to a place where we arrive at answers through dialectical synthesis, it is the uncertain un-​sublated ‘interstices of historical change’,77 read from the borderlines, that can lead the way towards productive space.

Towards a conclusion: Cultural diversity and difference in China’s Third Space discourse If the Third Pole’s project is to highlight the necessity of going beyond the First and Second Poles, Bhabha’s project is to stress culture’s ‘in-​between’:  ‘With the notion of cultural difference, I try to place myself in that position of liminality, in that productive space of the construction of culture as difference, in the

308  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang spirit of alterity or otherness’.78 The point in speaking of a ‘productive space’ is to distance oneself from the discursive space of a liberal relativist perspective, which advocates ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’. In describing the liberal ‘entertainment and encouragement of cultural diversity’ as a form of control and ‘containment’, Bhabha warns us that ‘[a]‌transparent norm is constituted, a norm given by the host society or dominant culture, which says that “these other cultures are fine, but we must be able to locate them within our own grid”’.79 The view held by some academics that China’s relative lack of respect for difference is showcased in the substratal assumption that the non-​Han must become (or are already) like the Han is not uncommon.80 Diversity in today’s China is often seen not only as a consequence of the historical expansions and interactions in the making of an entity that can be free from charges of monoculturalism, but also as a result of the policies and actions of the state in dealing with its messy borders as well as the challenges posed by incongruent and assertive ethnic groups in certain provinces.81 The argument that the notion of ‘Chineseness’ as it works out among the Dai, Miao and Hui minority communities of Yunnan, and the revival of their distinct cultural identities, paradoxically reinforces a sense of national belonging has been strongly made in Communist multiculturalism. Adapting to the government’s nation-​building and minority nationalities policies since the 1980s, recent scholarly work tends to move beyond the narratives of oppression, assimilation and resistance.82 The real and purported successes of pluralistic policies in the era of global interconnections also inform the agenda of ‘mutual understanding’ and ‘dialogue’, which is found in the standard international communiqués and agreements routinely signed between Chinese leaders, diplomats, academics and institutions when they meet representatives of other nations and institutions. In this era of ‘internationalism’ or global understanding, two issues haunt the non-​ synchronous time-​space of ‘transnational exchange’:  stubborn anxieties about terrorism, and climate change. Third Pole theorizing, at least by implication, is sensitive to these concerns. Bhabha’s strategy, although not so much Soja’s, is to temporalize, spatialize and pluralize by recognizing the contingent, variable, shifting and changing. For both Soja and Bhabha, ‘going beyond’ represents an intervention that modifies existing power relations –​as is the intention in the ‘Third Pole’ project –​but only (more so in Bhabha than in Soja) if a Third Space emerges, ‘to dwell “in the beyond” is also … to be part of a revisionary time, a return to the present to redescribe our cultural contemporaneity; to reinscribe our human, historic commonality; to touch the future on its hither side’.83 In that sense of translated temporality, just as the in-​between signified the indeterminacy of colonial discourse moving into an agency of counter-​hegemonic resistance, the jetztzeit has become the intervening space ‘beyond’, a space of intervention in the here and now.84 It was the impulse to touch the future on its hither side as well as make sense of a difficult but vibrant present in early twentieth-​century Chinese history that bifurcated many intellectuals between two broad camps: (1) those like Liu Shipei who argued for the ‘national essence’ (国粹) of China, which must be preserved, closely connected to those who supported the position of ‘traditional culture’ in

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  309 embracing the 1935 Declaration for Cultural Construction on a Chinese Basis (中国本位的文化建设宣言); and (2) those who, like Hu Shi, favoured wholesale westernization (全盘西化), which would launch China on the path to progress and prosperity.85 Restoring China’s past glory, captured in the idea of ‘restoration’ (复兴) or of ‘returning something to its original condition’ –​terms that were at their height in the early twentieth century –​still holds tremendous sway.86 The new opening towards a Third Pole is an attempt to answer the call of a changed world in terms of its acknowledgement and promotion of cultural diversity. But rather than emplacing what is new in this changed world only with regard to continuities vis-​à-​vis past emplacements, the current cultural passages of people in the global ‘hither and thither’ of the overwhelming economic and political diasporas cannot be disavowed. The workers –​refugees and illegals alike –​after all ‘embody the Benjaminian “present”: that moment blasted out of the continuum of history’.87 Third Pole thinking, we have been arguing, has resonances in postcolonial thought and radical cultural geography, but its challenge lies not only in changing received referents, but in recognizing the proviso that the thought of the other terms (peoples and times) outside the three poles have their own opacity, which cannot be simply containerized in the given (order) of things. How do we narrate the mappings in the geometry of the triad of peoples and their times? The continuous present, after all, is abidingly aimed at some future –​near or far –​that peoples and nations traverse in the hope that what they seek will redeem the pasts that had such futures in their sights.

Notes 1 Robert J.C. Young, ‘Postcolonialism: From Bandung to the Tricontinental’, Historein, 5 (2006): p. 24. 2 ‘Mission Statement’, Third Text (2016), accessed 2 November 2016, www.thirdtext.org/​ mission-​statement. 3 Rebecca E. Karl, Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-​century World: A Concise History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), p. 89. 4 Timothy Cheek, ‘Chinese Socialism as Vernacular Cosmopolitanism’, Frontiers of History in China, 9(1) (2014): pp. 102–​24. 5 Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2013), pp. 266–267. 6 The deployment of ‘three’ in China has many precursors: in classical Chinese texts it appears as ‘The Yi is a book of wide comprehension and great scope, embracing everything. There are in it the way of heaven, the way of man, and the way of earth. It then takes (the lines representing) those three Powers, and doubles them till they amount to six. What these six lines show is simply this, –​the way of the three Powers. This way is marked by changes and movements …’ James Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part II (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors), p. 402. More recent examples are Jiang Zemin’s 2002 theory ‘On the “Three Represents”’, which is allied to socialism with Chinese characteristics, and Sun Yat-​sen’s ‘three people’ doctrine, which included the people as a nation (民族). These are only two such instances. 7 Wang Fei, ‘The “Third Pole Culture” embodiment of the “new study of Masters” spirit’ [‘第三极文化’ 体现的 ‘新子学’ 精神], Hundred Schools in Arts, 7 (2013): p. 55.

310  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang 8 Huang Huilin, ‘Regarding the Envisioning of “Third Pole Culture”’ [关于 ‘第三极文化’ 的设想], Arts Criticism, 5 (2010): p. 86. 9 Huang Huilin, ‘Reflection on “Third Pole Culture”’ [关于 ‘第三极文化’ 的思考], Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences), 1 (2011): p. 31. 10 Huang Huilin and Li Ming, ‘The Third-​Pole Culture is the Breast Milk of Chinese Cartoon:  The Necessity and Significance to Build the Third-​Pole Cartoon Culture’, Hundred Schools in Arts, 3 (2012): p. 21. 11 Huang Huilin and Gao Yongliang, ‘The Proposition, Connotation, and Goal of the Third Pole Culture’, Journal of Shanxi University (Philosophy & Social Science), 34 (6) (2011), p. 49. 12 Huang and Gao ‘The Proposition, Connotation, and Goal of the Third Pole Culture’, p. 48. 13 AICCC, ‘About Us’, Beijing Normal University, (2010), accessed 30 August 2017 http://​aiccc.bnu.edu.cn/​yjygk/​yjyjs/​index.html. 14 AICCC, ‘Looking at China:  Foreign and Chinese Youth Picture Plan’ [看中国·中外青年影像计划], Beijing Normal University, (2013), accessed 30 August 2017 http://​aiccc.bnu.edu.cn/​kzg/​xmjj/​index.html. 15 One way of looking at Third Polar reconfiguration and economic cooperation would be to note (like PRC president Xi Jinping) the contribution of Chinese tea farmers to Brazil when they shared knowledge of tea production over 200  years in the re-​ establishment of the Brazilian tea industry. Brought in by the colonial Portuguese in 1812, the tea economy had collapsed with the abolition of slavery in 1888. This was raised during the President’s official state tour of Brazil in July 2014. Almost speaking the language of ‘cultural hybridity’, he also proclaimed in April of the same year in Bruges that ‘tea and wine are not incompatible; we can never raise enough glasses of wine to good friends, while [we can] also savour tea, savour flavour and savour life’. See Xi Jinping, ‘Speech by Xi Jinping at College of Europe, Bruges’ [习近平在布鲁日欧洲学院的演讲（全文）], Xinhua, (2014), accessed 11 November 2016 http://​news.xinhuanet.com/​world/​2014-​04/​01/​c_​1110054309.htm. 16 Huang, ‘Reflection’, p. 29. 17 Huang, ‘Reflection’, pp. 29–​30. 18 Huang, ‘Reflection’, p. 30. It is noteworthy that China, in forming a cultural triad, traditionally construed itself in relation to the West and India. India, for several reasons, disappears from this refashioned architecture. 19 AICCC, ‘About Us’. 20 Huang Huilin and Liu Jiangkai, ‘Cultural Diversity and Community of Common Destiny: Thoughts on China as “the Third Pole Culture”’, Ethnic Art Studies, 1 (2017): p. 160 21 This is not unlike how the early twentieth-​century Chinese thinker Liang Shuming argues that India’s spiritual culture is due to its benevolent climate. 22 Huang and Liu, ‘Cultural Diversity and Community of Common Destiny: Thoughts on China as “the Third Pole Culture” ’, Ethnic Art Studies, 1 (2017): pp. 160–​61. 23 Huang and Liu, ‘Cultural Diversity’, p. 161. 24 Huang and Liu, ‘Cultural Diversity’, p. 162. 25 Huang, ‘Reflection’, p. 35. 26 Huang, ‘Reflection’, p. 33, It is no coincidence that AICCC was set up during the Hu-Wen Administration with its socioeconomic vision of ‘Harmonious Society’. 27 Huang and Gao ‘The Proposition, Connotation, and Goal of the Third Pole Culture’, p. 48.

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  311 28 Huang Huilin, Third Pole Culture [第三极文化  –​ 理论引起共鸣: 专家探讨中华文化传略发展] (Beijing: Beijing Media Network, 2010). 29 Huang and Gao, ‘The Proposition, Connotation, and Goal of the Third Pole Culture’, p. 49. 30 Huang and Li, ‘The Third-​Pole Culture’, p. 22. 31 Huang and Li, ‘The Third-​Pole Culture’, p. 22. 32 Huang and Li, ‘The Third-​Pole Culture’, p. 24. 33 Joseph Nye first developed the concept of soft power where the US superpower status arose from military and economic strength, but also through the third dimension of soft power, or its ability to get what it wanted through ‘attraction’ rather than ‘coercion’. As this power ‘could be cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance, and cultural exchanges’, this would result in ‘a more favorable public opinion and credibility abroad’. See Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics London: Hachette, 2004), p. 154. 34 Huang Huilin, ‘Keeping the Nature of National Culture and Creating the Irreplaceable “Third Pole Culture”’, Journal of Shanxi University (Philosophy & Social Science) 33(6) (2010): p. 56. 35 Huang Huilin, ‘Regarding the Envisioning of “Third Pole Culture”  ’ [关于 ‘第三极文化’ 的设想], Arts Criticism, 5 (2010): pp. 88–​89. 36 Huang, ‘Keeping the Nature’, pp. 55–​56. 37 Roger Ames, ‘Confucian World Order’, Lecture, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, 2016. 38 Huang and Gao ‘The Proposition, Connotation, and Goal of the Third Pole Culture’, p. 48. 39 New Confucianism is a label that has been applied to a group of thinkers retrospectively. See relevant section in Pei-​kai Cheng, Michael Elliot Lestz, and Jonathan D. Spence, eds, The Search for Modern China:  A Documentary Collection (New  York:  W.W. Norton, 1999). 40 In tandem with Legalist practices. See Dingxin Zhao, The Confucian-​Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 41 See Henrika Kuklick, ‘Diffusionism’, in Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds, Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (London:  Routledge, 1997), pp. 160–​62. 42 Jonathan Auerbach and Russ Castronovo, ‘Introduction: Thirteen Propositions About Propaganda’, in Jonathan Auerbach and Russ Castronovo, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 1–​16. 43 Timothy Cheek, The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 203. 44 Auerbach and Castronovo, ‘Introduction’, p. 2. 45 Henry Rosemont Jr., ‘Philosophical Reflections from a Chinese Mirror’, ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, 16(1) (2008): pp. 7–​25. 46 Tianxia refers to ‘the earth’ (everything below the sky) or ‘the (Chinese) world’. In addition to this material and geographical sense, Tianxia also contains two important meanings that are normative:  Tianxia as ‘all the people’ and Tianxia as the ‘world institution’. See Tingying Zhao, ‘Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept “All-​ under-​Heaven” (Tian-​xia)’, Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 12(1) (2006): pp. 29–​41. 47 William A.  Callahan, ‘Chinese Visions of World Order:  Post-​hegemonic or a New Hegemony?’, International Studies Review 10(4) (2008): pp. 749–​61.

312  Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang 48 Timothy Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China:  Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 13–​18. 49 According to Anne-​Marie Brady, ‘Put in most simple terms, in the Chinese context, propaganda is the medium and thought work is the content.’ See Anne-​Marie Brady, ‘The Beijing Olympics as a Campaign of Mass Distraction’, in Anne-​Marie Brady, ed., China’s Thought Management (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 7 n. 6. 50 Quoted from Ann Marie Brady, ‘Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): China’s Foreign Propaganda Machine’, Journal of Democracy, 26(4) (2015), p. 55. 51 Auerbach and Castronovo, ‘Introduction’, p. 10. 52 Timothy Cheek, ‘Attitudes of Action: Maoism as Emotional Political Theory’, in Leigh Jenco, ed., Chinese Thought as Global Theory (Albany, NY:  SUNY Press, 2016), pp. 75–​100. 53 Naoko Eto, China’s Quest for Huayu Quan:  Can Xi Jinping Change the Terms of International Discourse? (Tokyo: Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, 2017). 54 Wang Mingchu and Wang Zengzhi, ‘People’s Daily, People’s Topics: Continuously Enhance the Charm of Chinese Discourse System’ [人民日報人民要論：不斷增強 中國話語體系的感召力] (2016) accessed 18 November, http://opinion.people.com. cn/n1/2016/1118/c1003-28877400.html&prev=search&pto=aue”. 55 Brady goes on to suggest in a more recent essay that, ‘In the long run, the new strategy of “buying a boat” –​taking over Western cultural and media outlets –​may turn out to be the most effective way of improving China’s “international face” and constraining international debate about China-​ related issues.’ See Ann Marie Brady, `China’s Foreign Propaganda Machine’ p. 58. Huang Huilin is undoubtedly one of the sources of the thought work behind this project. 56 Brady, ‘The Beijing Olympics’, p. 11. 57 Homi K. Bhabha, ‘Anish Kapoor:  Making Emptiness’, in Anish Kapoor (London: Hayward Gallery, 1998), p. 39. 58 Homi K. Bhabha, ‘The Third Space –​an interview with Homi Bhabha’, in Jonathan Rutherford, ed., Identity, Community, Culture, Difference (London:  Lawrence & Wishart, 1998). 59 Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-​and-​imagined Places (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996), p. 61. 60 Soja, Thirdspace, p. 60. 61 Soja, Thirdspace, p. 61. 62 Cordell D.K. Yee, ‘Chinese Cartography Among the Arts:  Objectivity, Subjectivity, Representation’, in. J.B. Harley and David Woodward, eds, The History of Cartography, Vol. 2, 2, Cartography in Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 128. 63 AICCC ‘Third Pole Culture’ (n.d.), accessed 11 November 2016, http://www.aiccc. org.cn/about-us/third-pole-culture.html. 64 Bangbo Hu, ‘Maps and Political Power: A Cultural Interpretation of the Maps in The Gazetteer of Jiankang Prefecture’, Cartographic Perspectives, 34 (1999): p. 10. 65 ‘Great(er) China’ (大中华), one could argue, is both real and imagined geography as its span extends both to ethnic minorities and diasporic Chinese. It also evokes an image of the historical ‘imperial China’. 66 Henry Reed, ‘Lessons of the War’, in Jon Stallworthy, ed., Collected Poems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 50. 67 Robert Young, ‘The Void of Misgiving’, in Gerhard Wagner and Karin Ikas, eds, Communicating in the Third Space (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 2008).

China as ‘Third Pole Culture’  313 68 Bhabha, ‘The Third Space’, p. 210; Homi K. Babha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004). 69 Young, ‘The Void of Misgiving’, p. 82. 70 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 54. 71 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 44. 72 Huang and Li, ‘The Third-​Pole Culture’, p. 49. 73 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 53. 74 The pan-​Chinese nation (中华民族) is narrated as a civilization that morphs the Han nation (汉族) with the ethnic minority groups (少数民族). 75 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 148. 76 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 6. 77 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 40. 78 Bhabha, ‘The Third Space’, p. 209 79 Bhabha, ‘The Third Space’, p. 208 80 For example, see Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2009). 81 See Sanping Chen, Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Xi Jinping’s remark during his meeting with the Trung leaders in 2015, to the effect that all 56 national ethnic groups must achieve moderate levels of prosperity (小康), also invites the risk of a modernization that may bring the disappearance of linguistic and cultural diversity. 82 Susan K. McCarthy, Communist Multiculturalism: Ethnic Revival in Southwest China (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2009). 83 In Soja’s words, Bhabha’s concept is ‘teasingly on the edge of a spatially regrounded literary trope … for a critical historical conscience that inadvertently masks a continued privileging of temporality over spatiality’. See Soja, Thirdspace, pp. 141–​42. See also Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 7. 84 Here he is gesturing to a temporality beyond the ‘progressive’ myth of modernity: ‘the non-​synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space … where negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences’. See Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 218. 85 It should be kept in mind that Hu Shi did change his mind from ‘wholesale’ to ‘endorsement’ later in his life. See Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917–​1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). For glosses on these terms, see Henry He, ed., Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People’s Republic of China (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 2016). 86 In the realm of tea and the current era of ‘reform and openness’ (改革开放), ‘restoration’ can be read as how tea is making a remarkable recovery in China’s habitus. For a neo-​Confucian scholar like Zhang Junmai, it was imperative to connect the Chinese path or Dao (道) with Western instruments qi (器) to preserve the national characteristics (國情); this would ensure a Chinese culture on a Chinese foundation (中國本文化). See Zhang Junmai. ‘Comparison of Eastern and Western Political Thought [东西政治 思想之比较]. In the Scholarly Foundation for the Revival of the Nation [民族复兴之 学术基], pp. 115–​23 (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2006). 87 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 8.

Selected bibliography

Introduction Brady, A.M. Marketing Dictatorship (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). Cheek, T. Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China:  Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Ellul, J. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Vintage Books, 1973 [1965]). Heilmann, S. and Perry, E.J., eds. Mao’s Invisible Hand:  The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre, 2011). Lovell, J. Maoism: A Global History (New York: Random House, 2019). Schoenhals, M. Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics:  Five Studies (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992). Shambaugh, D. China’s Communist Party:  Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008). Sorace, C., Franceschini, I. and Loubere, N. Afterlives of Chinese Communism (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019). Yu, F.T.C. Mass Persuasion in Communist China (New York: Praeger, 1964).

Chapter 1 Connelly, M., Fox, J., Goebel, S. and Schmidt, U., eds. Propaganda and Conflict. War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). Curtin, M. Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV ( Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007). Edney, K. The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda: International Power and Domestic Political Cohesion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). O’Dea, M. The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance, and the Making of Modern China, Pegasus (New York: Pegasus Books, 2017). Zhang, Y. Chinese National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2004).

Chapter 2 Brokaw, C. and Reed, C.A., eds. From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 2800 to 2008 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Brown, K. China’s Dream: The Culture of Chinese Communism and the Secret Sources of its Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018).

Selected bibliography 315 Jowett, G.S. and O’Donnell, V.J. Propaganda and Persuasion, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015). Kenez, P. Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–​1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Mittler, B. A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–​1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). Teiwes, F.C., Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993 [1979]).

Chapter 3 Chen, X. Acting the Right Part: Political Theatre and Popular Drama in Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002). Clark, P. Chinese Cinema:  Culture and Politics Since 1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Ebrey, P. and Walhall, A. East Asia:  A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume II: From 1600 (New York: Cengage Learning, 2013). MacFarquhar, R., ed. China under Mao: Politics Takes Command (Cambride, MA: MIT Press, 1966). Meisner, M. Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: The Free Press, 1999).

Chapter 4 Cheng, Y. ‘The Cultural Revolution and the “Chinese path” ’, in Song Yongyi, ed., China and Maoist Legacy (I) (New York: Mirror Books, 2016), pp. 112–​15. Chiu, M. and Zheng, S. with essays by MacFarquhar, R. et al. Art and China’s Revolution (New York: Asia Society in association with Yale University Press, 2008). Evans, H. and Donald, S., eds. Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). Fairbank, J.K., ed. The Chinese World Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). Landsberger, S. Chinese Propaganda Posters from Revolution to Modernization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). Lu, X. Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution:  The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication (Columbia, SC:  University of South Carolina Press, 2004). Shen, K. Chinese Posters:  The IISH-​ Landsberger Collections, Munich (New  York: Prestel, 2009).

Chapter 5 Andrews, J.F. Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). King, R. ed. Art in Turmoil:  The Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966–​1976 (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2010). Lan, Y. Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998).

316  Selected bibliography Mittler, B. A Continuous Revolution:  Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012) pp. 2018–​30. Roberts, R. and Li, L., eds. The Making and Remaking of China’s “Red Classics”: Politics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017). Smith, S.A., ed. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014). Wang, B., ed., Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

Chapter 6 Chen, J. China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-​American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Christiansen, T. Useful Adversaries:  Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-​ American Conflict, 1947–​1958 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). Hung, C. War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–​45 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). Li, J. China’s America: The Chinese View of the United States, 1900–​2000 (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011). Shurmann, F. Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968). Whiting, A. China Crosses the Yalu:  The Decision to Enter the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960). Zhang, H. America Perceived:  The Making of Chinese Images of the United States, 1945–​1953 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002).

Chapter 7 Apter, E. and Saich, T. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). Badiou, A. and Bosteels, B. ‘The Cultural Revolution:  The Last Revolution?” Positions 13(3) (2005): 481–​514. Leese, D. Mao Cult:  Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Mittler, B. A Continuous Revolution:  Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). Schoenhals, M. ‘Formalized Language as a Form of Power’, in Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics: Five Studies (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992), pp. 1–​29. Snead, James A. ‘On Repetition in Black Culture’. Black American Literature Forum 15(4) (1981): 146–​54. Walder, A. Fractured Rebellion:  The Beijing Red Guard Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

Chapter 8 Leese, D. Mao Cult:  Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Selected bibliography 317 Leese, D. ‘The Politics of Historical Justice after the Cultural Revolution’, 27 August 2018, https://​maoistlegacy.de/​db/​politics-​of-​historical-​justice-​after-​the-​cultural-​revolution. Link, P. The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Schoenhals, M. ‘China’s “Great Proletarian Information Revolution” of 1966–​1967’, in J. Brown and M.D. Johnson, eds, Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp. 230–​58. Song, Y. ‘A Glance at the Underground Reading Movement During the Cultural Revolution’. Journal of Contemporary China 16(51) (2007): 325–​33. Veg, S., ed. Popular Memories of the Mao Era:  From Critical Debate to Reassessing History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2019).

Chapter 9 Andrews, J.F. Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). Andrews, J.F. and Shen, K. The Art of Modern China (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 2012). Hung, C. Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011). Landsberger, S. Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). Rea, C. and Volland, N., eds, The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900–​65 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2015).

Chapter 10 Creemers, R. ‘The Pivot in Chinese Cybergovernance: Integrating Control in Xi Jinping’s China’. China Perspectives 4 (2015): 5–​13. Kurlantzick, J. China’s Charm Offensive:  How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). Lynch, D. ‘Securitizing Culture in in Chinese Foreign Policy Debates:  Implications for Interpreting China’s Rise’. Asian Survey 53(4) (2013): 629–​52. Renwick, N. and Cao, Q. ‘China’s Cultural Soft Power:  an Emerging National Cultural Security Discourse’. American Journal of Chinese Studies 15(2) (2008): 69–​86. Shambaugh, D. ‘China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes, and Efficacy’. The China Journal, 57 (2007): 25–​58. Yu, M. ‘Marxist ideology, revolutionary legacy and their impact on China’s security policy’, in L. Dittmer and M. Yum, eds, Routledge Handbook on Chinese Security (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), pp. 34–​48.

Chapter 11 Brown, M.S. and O’Brien, D. ‘Defining the Right Path:  Aligning Islam with Chinese Socialist Core Values at Ningbo’s Moon Lake Mosque’. Asian Ethnicity, 21(2) (2019): 269–​91. Chilton, P, Tian, H. and Wodak, R., eds. Discourse and Socio-​political Transformations in Contemporary China (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012).

318  Selected bibliography Denton, K.A. Exhibiting the Past:  Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014). Edney, K. The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda (New York, Palgrave Macmillan,  2014). Harrell, S., ed. Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1996). Varutti, M. ‘Miniatures of the Nation:  Ethnic Minority Figurines, Mannequins and Dioramas in Chinese Museums’. Museum & Society 9(1) (2011): 1–​16.

Chapter 12 Brady, A.M. ‘China’s Foreign Propaganda Machine’. Journal of Democracy 26(4) (2015): 51–​59. Callahan, W.A. ‘Chinese Visions of World Order: Post-​hegemonic or a New Hegemony?’ International Studies Review 10(4) (2008): 749–​61. Cheek, T. ‘Chinese Socialism as Vernacular Cosmopolitanism’. Frontiers of History in China 9(1) (2014): 102–​24. Eto, N. ‘China’s Quest for Huayu Quan: Can Xi Jinping Change the Terms of International Discourse?’ The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, 4 October 2017, https://​www. tkfd.or.jp/​en/​research/​detail.php?id=663. Hu, B. ‘Maps and Political Power: A Cultural Interpretation of the Maps in the Gazetteer of Jiankang Prefecture’. Cartographic Perspective 34 (1999): 9–​22. Zhao, T. ‘Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept “All-​under-​Heaven” (Tian-​xia)’. Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 12(1) (2006): 29–​41.

Index

Al Qaeda 28 American propaganda 27 Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society (Mao) 58 Ancient Greece 23 Andrews, Julia F. 205, 208 anti-​American propaganda 12–​13, 138–​45, 142–​3, 145, 147, 149, 151, 242–​3; see also Resist America; Aid Korea Campaign anti-​Japanese propaganda 12, 42–​3, 47, 61–​2 art and artists 4, 164–​77, 207–​9; see also icons and imagery; Quan Shanshi; Wen Lipeng; Zhan Jianjun asymmetric warfare 28 autonomous regions see ethnic minority autonomous regions Belt and Road Initiative 7 Bourdieu, Pierre 208–​9 Brady, Anne-​Marie  78, 80 Chinese Dream 7, 33, 36, 266–​7, 290–​1 Chinese Propaganda Posters, From Revolution to Modernization (Landsberger) 206; cinema 60–​1; documentaries of Red Guard rallies 164–​77; see also Liu Hulan (Model Worker) class identity 58, 81 Cold War propaganda (1945–​89) 26–​7, 36–​7, 164, 241–​3; see also Soviet propaganda compatriot propaganda posters 77–​80, 98–​101; Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots in 81–​99, 82–​8, 91–​2, 96–​7; tianxia system and 102–​5, 105–​6, 107–​8

Confucius 17, 37–​8, 40, 47, 79, 103, 108, 130, 255, 270; Third Pole Culture and 302–​4 Cultural Revolution (1966–​76) 3, 13, 101, 114–​15, 183–​5, 206, 303; peaceful evolution and 248; see also Maoism; Red Guard rallies cultural security 15, 241–​8; in post-​Mao Reform Era 252–​8 definition, of propaganda 3–​4, 15, 24, 269–​70, 303 democracy 38 Deng Xiaoping 183, 187, 198, 249–​52, 255 Dulles, John Foster 244–​6 Edney, K. 266, 269–​71 education 244–​8; patriotic education 8, 252–​3 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 144, 244–​5, 247 elites, propaganda and 5, 207–​8, 210–​11 Ellul, Jacques 3, 206–​7 emulation models and campaigns 113–​14 ethnic harmony 15–​16, 266, 272, 281–​2, 286 ethnic minorities in autonomous regions 2, 17, 84, 104–​7, 105–​6, 266, 272; Beijing policy towards since 1980s 267–​9; see also Han people; Mongols (ethnic group); Uyghurs (ethnic group) ethnic minorities in autonomous zones:Provinical Museum in Hohot 272–​8 Exposure Campaign 186–​90, 192, 197; see also post-​Mao Reform Era (1978-​present) Foucault, Michel 16, 81, 266, 268, 270–​1, 278, 284 Fulan Gong 7

320 Index Gang of Four 14, 183–​92, 191, 195–​7, 249, 252 gender stereotypes 59, 79 governance by influence 9–​10, 43–​6 Governance of China (Xi Jinping) 7–​8 Habermas, Jürgen 39, 45–​6 Han people 84, 104–​6, 106, 107, 272–​3, 273, 288, 288–​9, 289, 291, 306, 308; Han mummy exhibit 276, 276, 277; see also ethnic minority autonomous regions Han Yuan 255–​6 Havana Tricontinental (1966) 295 historical perspectives 1–​2, 5–​6, 8–​10, 17–​30, 36; on Maoism 50; see also Cultural Revolution (1966–​76); Maoism; New Era of Xi Jingping (2012-​present); post-​Mao Reform Era (1978-​present) Hitler, Adolf 25 Hohot (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) 266; see also ethnic minorities in autonomous regions Hong Kong 10, 77–​81; compatriot propaganda posters and 81–​90, 86–​8, 94–​7, 96–​7, 100; Hong Kong Leftist Riots 80, 94–​6, 100, 104; tianxia system and 102–​5, 105–​6, 107–​8 Hua Guofeng 128, 183–​7, 192, 249 Huang Huilin 16–​17, 296–​301, 303–​5; see also Third Pole Culture hybrid information warfare 28–​9 icons and imagery 4, 10–​12, 81, 138, 205–​6; ancient forms of 23; Mao Zedong and 162–​3; in Post-​1949 transition 13–​14; Road to Rejeuvenation (exhibition) 266–​7; Socialist Realist iconography 209; see also compatriot propaganda posters; emulation models and campaigns; oil painting visual propaganda; Red Guard rallies idelogical competition (global) 241–​2 Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 266–​9; see also ethnic minorities in autonomous regions integration propaganda 206–​7 internet and social media 29 Iraq War 27–​8 ISIS 28–​9 Jameson, Fredric 163

Kenez, Peter 48–​9 Koselleck, Reinhart 38, 42 Kosovo War 27 kou 184–​6, 188 Landsberger, Stefan 206 Lasswell, Harold 3 Leah Lihua Wong 208 Leese, Daniel 162–​3 Li Honghi 7 Life of Wu Xun (film) 60–​1 Lin Bao System 303 Liu Hulan (film, Model Worker) 57–​62; propaganda posters for 63–​4, 64, 65–​7, 67, 68–​72, 72, 73–​4; see also Model Workers Lu Dingyi 248 Lu Xing 79 Macau 77–​8 Maoism 2, 9, 30–​4, 37–​9, 162; anti-​ Americanism 242; class identity and 81; core assumptions keywords 37–​42; doctrinal culture core texts and activities 9, 37–​9, 42–​5; emulation models and campaigns and 113; legacies of 6–​8; living Maoism 50; public spheres 37–​9, 45–​8, 50; visual propaganda and culture and 205–​7; xenphobic understanding of 162–​3; see also compatriot propaganda posters; oil painting visual propaganda; Red Guard rallies; Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign Mao Zedong 2, 58, 185; Chinese official response to death of 185–​6; Dulles and peaceful evolution and 244–​8; Lu's iconic photograph of from Red Guard rally (1966) 162–​3; on Model Workers 57; see also Maoism Marketing Dictatorship (Brady) 78 mass media 23, 26–​30 Mittler, Barbara 206 Model Workers 6, 57–​9; see also Liu Hulan (film, Model Worker) modern China (1949-​New Era) 4–​6 modernization of propaganda (17th-​20th centuries) 24 Mongols (ethnic group) 16–​17, 84, 104–​7, 105–​6, 268, 274, 286–​7, 291, 306 nationalism 6, 58–​9; in film 60–​1; see also Liu Hulan (film, Model Worker) Nazi propaganda 25

Index  321 New Era of Xi Jingping (2012-​present) 1–​2 New Sinology 37, 42, 50 oil painting propaganda and Maoist texts 205–​9; see also Quan Shanshi; Wen Lipeng; Zhan Jianjun Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China (Andrews) 205 pastoral power 266, 270–​1 patriotism 7–​8, 145–​6, 148–​52, 155–​6; Patriotic Pledge campaign 153–​4; see also anti-​American propaganda; Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign peaceful evolution 244–​8, 252 peasants 61–​3, 71, 114–​15, 121, 123–​4, 126, 130, 212–​15, 295 People's Daily (newspaper) 247 Picturing Utopia:The Visual Iconography of Chinese Socialist Realism 208 Plato 23 police 270–​1 post-​Mao Reform Era (1978-​present) 15, 183–​5; Chinese official response to death of Mao Zedong 185–​6; cultural security and 252–​8; see also Exposure Campaign postcolonial theory 294 power 270 print capitalism 9, 45–​8, 50 propaganda posters 58, 77–​108, 206, 288, 288, 289, 289; background scenes in 99–​101, 101, 102; Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots in 81–​90; for Liu Hulan film 63–​4, 64, 65–​7, 67, 68–​72, 72, 73–​4; tianxia system and 102–​5, 105–​6, 107–​8 propaganda studies 243–​4 propaganda, word origin 23–​4 Provinicial Museum, Hohhot 272–​84 public spaces and spheres 271–​2; in Autonomous Regions 266–​9 Qing Dynasty (1644–​1911) 2, 9; print capitalism in 9, 45–​8, 50 Quan Shanshi 207, 210–​17 reception and affect of propaganda 12–​13 recitation and repitition practices 164 rectification doctrine 9, 50 Red Flag (journal) 247 Red Guard rallies 162–​3; documentaries of 164–​77

redefining propaganda 3–​4, 15 rejuvenation 266–​7, 268 Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign 146–​56, 147; see also anti-​American propaganda; United States revisionism 244–​8 Road to Rejeuvenation (exhibition) 266–​7, 268 Roman Catholic Church 24 Schoenhals, Michael 164 Security, Territory, and Population (Foucault) 270 September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks 27 Sinicization 291 sixiang gongzuo 269–​70 socialism 249–​52; 'construction of socialist spiritual civilization' 252; Model Worker propaganda and 62–​3; socialist realism 60, 209 social media 29, 36, 46; see also mass media; Weibo Soviet propaganda 25, 58–​60, 185; Dulles on 244–​5; emulation models in 113–​14; influence on Chinese propaganda state 48–​50 Sun Yu (film director) 60, 63, 66, 68 symbolic capital 208–​9 Taiwan 10, 77–​81; compatriot propaganda posters and 81–​90, 82–​5, 91–​2, 93–​4, 98–​9; tianxia system and 102–​5, 105–​6, 107–​8 technocratic engineering 7 television 27 teratology 163 Third International (Comintern) 295 Third Pole Culture 16, 295–​303; Confucius and 302–​4; thought work and 303–​4 Third Space 304–​19 Third Text (journal) 295 thought work 249–​52, 303–​4 tianxia system 11, 79, 81, 102–​5, 107–​8, 303; see also ethnic minority autonomous regions Tricontinental (Havana, 1966) 295 Twitter 29 United States 27, 295; as cultural threat 242; peaceful evolution and 244–​8; see also anti-​American propaganda; Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign

322 Index Urumqi (city in XUAR) 266; see also ethnic minorities in autonomous regions Uyghurs (ethnic group) 16–​17, 84, 104–​7, 105–​6, 268, 274, 286–​7, 291, 306 visual propaganda and culture 205–​9 Wang Guofu 114–​30 Weibo 36 Wen Lipeng 207, 210, 217–​21 World War I propaganda 3, 25–​6 World War II 9, 12, 25–​6 Xi Jingping 1–​2, 7, 15, 36–​7, 303–​4; Chinese Dream and 33, 36, 266–​7,

290–​1; see also New Era of Xi Jingping (2012-​present) Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) 266–​9; Beijing policy towards since 1980s 267–​9 xuanchuan (propaganda) 1, 3, 9–​10, 269–​70 youth discourses 13, 65–​6, 165–​7, 248 Zhan Jianjun 207, 210, 222–​30 Zhao Yiman (film) 60 Zhou Enlai 60, 80, 166–​7, 194, 246, 295 zombies 163–​4