Photograph taken of posters along the Nanking Road during the Cultural Revolution in 1967, Shanghai, China. robertharding / Alamy Stock Photo
Translated transcript
[Poster on the right:]
A quotation from Chairman Mao:
‘On the ideological front, one of our important tasks now is to embark on a criticism of revisionism.’
—‘Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work’
[Poster on the left:]
[The red Chinese characters at the bottom:]
All of China’s 700 million people are critics.
[The books held by two of the men:]
Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung
[The broadsheet held by one of the men:]
‘How to be a Good Communist is a book of lies. It is out of touch with the class conflict in the real world, out of touch with revolution, out of touch with the political struggles of the masses. It makes no mention of political regimes as the fundamental issue of revolutions. It makes no mention of the issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It advocates an idealist concept of self-cultivation. It promotes bourgeois individualism in an oblique manner. It promotes slavery. It objects to Marxism–Leninism and Maoism. If you follow what this book says in self-cultivation, you will move closer and closer towards revisionism. We must thoroughly criticise this book and eliminate its adverse effects. Criticism of this book is vitally integral to criticism of the bourgeois reactionary line.’
—‘The Bourgeois Reactionary Line in the Issue of Cadres Must Undergo Thorough Criticism’ [an article published in the Red Flag in 1967]
Look at sources 1a-d. These sources are about propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution.
- Define the term ‘propaganda’.
- What visual techniques (including colour) are used in the propaganda posters (1a & 1b) to communicate their messages?
- Look at the poster transcripts. Explain how the characters add to the messages of each poster.
- Why do you think propaganda like this was used during the Cultural Revolution to promote a cult of personality around Mao Zedong?
- How was Mao portrayed in official propaganda during the Cultural Revolution? Use sources 1c & 1d to explain.
- Referring to all sources 1a-1d: why did the Chinese Communist Party put so much effort into creating propaganda?
- What questions should we ask when considering propaganda as historical source material?