Unstable Heroes: A Study of the Representation of the Male Figure in Chinese Cultural Revolution Oil Paintings

Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Doctorate of Philosophy Degree in the History of Art

Laura W. Fan

August 2013 School of Theory, College of Fine Arts

University of New South Wales

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Introduction 1‐25

Chapter One: Forced Heroes 26‐97 Chapter Two: Fallen Heroes 98‐137

Chapter Three: Model Heroes 138‐210

Chapter Four: Cultural Heroes 211‐244 Conclusion 245‐261

Bibliography 262‐274

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are in order. First of all, to Dr. Fae Brauer, my thesis advisor who urged me to pursue the more difficult topic and has been a steadfast source of support in this rocky journey. Tackling this subject has been challenging, not least because so much new information emerges every quarter, necessitating chapter revisions at speed. Nevertheless, a valuable side‐effect has been to broaden my own perspective and enhance my ability to perceive events from many different angles – whether in China or in the rest of the world.

Thanks for this are due both to the University of New South Wales (UNSW) faculty including Dr. Ian Howard, Dr. Michael Essen, Dr. Leong Chan, and Dr. Alan Krell, and to my surrogate family in Beijing. The UNSW faculty have been encouraging and helpful in facilitating my interactions with Chinese and other academic institutions. My surrogate family in Beijing, which shall remain nameless, helped me to see the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath with more subtlety that I could ever have attained on my own. Introducing me to the former Red Guards, ex‐military personnel, peasant families and artists amongst their friends helped me to understand why the Cultural Revolution generated such powerful loyalty and momentous actions. These conversations were often fraught, but also moving and sometimes fun. Unexpected insights emerged from conversation over casual meals and organic gardening sessions. Those two years living in Beijing were amongst the most formative times that I have yet experienced.

Equilibrium was often restored at the Beijing and Shanghai tables of the incomparable Michelle Garnaut, restauranteur and book‐lover extraordinaire. Her introductions to fascinating people and good books made the long hours trudging in snow to yet another closed and unheated archive significantly more bearable. Dr. Alfreda Murck provided a wonderful sense of balance and connection with an international art historical community. After months negotiating Beijing bureaucracy, a chat with Dr. Murck would often suffice to restore a sense of purpose and gentle curiosity. Moreover, her nuanced, detailed and fascinating comments as external examiner made the revision process one of discovery.

Dramatic and unexpected flashes of insight often emerged when Bruce Doar returned to Beijing. His constant interest in my dissertation topic was very welcome and the long lunches that accompanied our chats helped me to see issues from a different angle.

Back in Malaysia, many thanks to Tunku Intan Safinaz for extensive logistical support and encouragement as well as frequent meals and innumerable cups of tea. My family provided personal historical ballast and expectations of completion. Reflecting on the difficulties my maternal grandfather experienced in ensuring Chinese universities stayed open during enemy occupation, and my parents’ difficulties in pursuing their education, ensured that any problems that I encountered could be faced with a certain degree of realism.

Thanks are especially due to Claire Barnes who provided a wonderful sense of perspective and balance. Most importantly, her curiosity, encouragement and help in reading the dissertation have been invaluable.

Although she has not lived to see this, I am humbled by and grateful to my aunt who survived twenty years in a Chinese labour camp. Upon her rehabilitation, she returned to work teaching English alongside her accusers. The memory of her tenacity and emotional complexity urged me to try to understand the experiences to which she was not prepared to give voice.

For My Parents,

Drs. Pow Foong and Carol C. Fan

List of Illustrations

1.10 Chinese­Soviet Friendship Will Last 10,000 Springs! May the Sino­Soviet Friendship Go On Forever!, Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, 1959, propaganda poster, Collection of Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre

1.11 Luo Gongliu, Chairman Mao at Yan’an Announcing the Rectification Reforms at a Cadre Meeting, 1951, oil painting, Collection of the National Museum of China

1.12 Yang Zhiguang and Ou Yang, Impassioned Writing, 1973, Chinese ink on paper, Collection of National Art Museum of China

1.13 Cai Liang, Sons of Poor Peasants, 1964, oil on canvas, Collection of National Art Museum of China

1.14 Zheng Shengtian, Zhou Ruiwen, and Xu Junxuan, Man’s Whole World is Mutable, Seas Become Mulberry Fields: Chairman Mao Inspects Areas South and North of the Yangtze River, 1968, oil on canvas, Collection of Wang Mingxian

1.15 Ou Yang, It’s Good to Take Exercise from a Young Age, Beijing, People’s Sports Publishing House, 1976, propaganda poster, University of Westminster’s Chinese Poster Collection

1.16 Hou Bo, Chairman Mao at Beidaihe, 1954, photograph

1.17 Li Zhensheng, Red Guards at Harbin’s University of Industry writing big‐ character posters, August‐September 1967 1.18 Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 1967, oil on canvas, Collection of China Construction Bank 1.19 Liu Chunhua, Drawing Study for Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 1967, charcoal on paper, Collection of Liu Chunhua

1.20 Li Zhensheng, detail of Chinese swimmers in the Songhua river, Harbin celebrating their leaders 1966 swim in the Yangtze River, 1968, photograph

1.21. Advance Victoriously While Following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line in Literature and the Arts, 1968, propaganda poster, IISH‐Landsberger Collection

1.22 Advance Victoriously While Following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line, 1971, propaganda poster from the IISH‐Landsberger Collection

1.23 Assorted Chairman Mao Badges from the British Museum Collection, catalogue numbers 118‐129 1.24 Wang Hui, Navigation in the Ocean Relies on the Gear­holder; Revolution Relies on Mao Zedong Thought, 1969, poster, Collection of Yan Shanchun

1.25 Shen Yaoding, Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Proletarian Revolution Line, 1969, Gouache on paper, Collection of T.Z, Chang

1.26 Lü Enyi, Dear Instructor, 1969, oil on canvas, Collection of the artist 1.27 Tang Xiaohe and Cheng Li, Advancing Through the Mighty Winds and Waves, 1971, oil on canvas, Collection of Hanart TZ Gallery

1.28 Chen Yanning, Chairman Mao Inspects the Guangdong Countryside, 1972, oil on canvas, Sigg Collection

1.29 Qin Wenmei (Shaanxi Cultural Bureau Art Creation Group pseudonym), Our Hearts Join with Chairman Mao, 1972

1.30 He Kongde, Gutian Congress, oil on canvas, 1972, Collection of the Chinese Military Museum 1.31 Hou Yimin, Chairman Mao with the Workers of Anyuan, 1976, oil painting

2.0 Hou Yimin, Comrade Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners, 1961, oil painting, Collection of the National Museum of China

2.1 Dong Xiwen, Founding Ceremony, 1953, oil painting, Collection of National Museum of China

2.2 Dong Xiwen, Founding Ceremony, after alteration with the images of Liu Shaoqi and Gao Gang removed, oil painting 2.3 The Promulgation Ceremony of the People’s Republic of China, 1 October 1949, photograph

2.4 Hou Yimin and Deng Shu, 30th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1952, commemorative print on paper

3.0 Shen Jiawei, Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland, 1973, oil on canvas, Collection of Long Art Museum

3.10 Wu Qiang Nian, Lei Feng, 1963, woodblock print on paper, Collection of Leifeng Museum in Fushun, Liaoning Province

3.11 Chen Yifei, Eulogy of the Yellow River, 1972, oil on canvas, Collection of Taikang Life Insurance 3.12 Shang Ding, Continuous Battles, 1974, oil on canvas

3.20 Study the Spirit of Daqing, 1965, propaganda poster, IISH‐Landsberger Foundation, Amsterdam

3.21 Liaoning Provincial Museum Propaganda Troupe’s Creative Group, Mining Copper at Hukou, 1972, oil on canvas 3.22 Zhao Zhitian, The Daqing Workers Have No Winter, 1973, Chinese‐ink on paper

3.23 Pan Jiajun, I am the Seagull, 1972, oil painting 3.30 Liu Zhide, The Old Party Secretary, 1973, mixed media, Collection of Huxian County Peasant Painting Museum 3.31 Shaanxi Provincial Fine Arts Creative Group, Bastion of Iron, 1972, oil painting, Collection of National Art Museum of China

4.0 Tang Xiaoming, The Eternal Battle, 1972, oil painting, Collection of the National Art Museum of China

4.1 Study the Revolutionary Spirit of Lu Xun, Become a Pathbreaker in the Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius, 1974, propaganda poster, IISH‐ Landsberger Foundation, Amsterdam

5.0 Bayreuther Festspiele/Enriquo Nawrath, Stage Design for Siegfried, Spiegel Online, July 25, 2013, photograph

Introduction: The Role of the Male Figure in Cultural Revolution Paintings

The Cultural Revolution, that turbulent decade 1966‐76, arouses complex feelings amongst Chinese mainlanders. For many who grew up in the countryside, not much changed. However, for those who came from scholarly, military, official or creative backgrounds, their experiences were often dramatic and violent. Sometimes these experiences seemed positive, sometimes very negative. Much had to do with luck, or with the abilities of parents and family members to shift and tack with the direction of powerful political gusts.

While I was gathering information for this research project in Beijing during 2010‐2011, my thesis topic was often the focus of heated discussion. Quite by chance, I lived in an old courtyard house with housemates who came from a Chinese military family and had been caught up as students in the Cultural Revolution. Oftentimes at dinner, their friends would drop by and invariably, one of the family would mention my dissertation topic.

My housemates were adept at getting along with many different types of people, and generally good at suspending judgment. One evening, in the company of some of their childhood friends, a serious amount of whisky had been consumed, and again my dissertation topic came up. In Chinese, I usually simplified the topic so it sounded more action‐oriented, less academic than its English title. It better engaged the ex‐military families and artists. I described the topic as “Unstable Heroes” (yingxiong bu wending). One of their friends challenged me and said that since I had not lived through the Cultural Revolution, I had no right to write about it. Furthermore, he said that no one could understand the event since it was so complicated and only survivors had the right to tell their tale. He then stood up and shouted, “Chairman Mao is my hero and will always be. Without him, our family would have continued to eat bitterness. Chairman Mao will forever be my hero.”

“Chairman Mao = Hero” was an equation I never heard as a child growing up in 1970’s Hawaii. My mother’s family had fled from the Communists, except for one aunt and her family. They suffered tremendously during the Anti‐Rightist Movement of the late 1950’s and also during the Cultural Revolution. My aunt 2 was subjected to hard labour and imprisonment for twenty years (1957‐1977), suffering that we suspected but could not know with any certainty because there was no contact between China and America at the time. Both my parents were teachers: had they experienced this period in China, this alone would have put them at risk. In our home, it wasn’t Nixon and Watergate that consumed our conversation, it was Chinese politics. These issues were discussed with a fervid intensity but usually from only one point of view. Since we had visitors from China only from the late 1980’s onwards, we didn’t hear much about the Cultural Revolution from a mainland Chinese perspective. That was the reason why I felt that it was important to live in China, to see how lives and viewpoints were shaped by different experiences.

The Cultural Revolution in China was ostensibly an attempt to remake society through culture. On the one hand, it was a utopian project, a romantic attempt to remake society into something more equal and liberating. But in its murderous attempts to eradicate existing social structures, such as the family, and to overturn conventional respect for members of the establishment and for teachers, and thereby reform educational institutions while removing all experienced administrators, it hacked away at the essential connective tissue of Chinese society.

The complete numbers of those persecuted are still not conclusively known. Since provincial archives alone are open, there is no way of knowing how many people in the cities were affected. However, the numbers that can be verified are still shocking. 16 million young people were sent down to the countryside. 36 million were persecuted. An estimated 750,000‐1.5 million died.1 Millions of cadre members were sent down to labour camps. The Cultural Revolution wrought devastation to Chinese society, particularly as it struck the most educated and loyal members of the community.

Fundamentally a power play by Chairman Mao Zedong, part of the movement involved the oppression of arts practitioners who expressed concepts and aesthetics that differed from a shifting standard of revolutionary principles. In fact, the repression of the Cultural Revolution represented the extreme 3 conclusion of an extended battle over control of aesthetics that had begun even before the Communist Party conquered China in 1949.

To this topic, I brought the experience of studying French academic history paintings. The French Revolution and indeed the history painting genre were a source of inspiration for the Chinese Communists. Mediated through the lens of Soviet academic painting methods, the focus on historically uplifting scenes carried over into Chinese Cultural Revolution painting formats. I wanted to explore several issues. Amongst the questions were the following. What constitutes a Cultural Revolution hero? Does that representation change when the political perception of that hero changes? Can one make history paintings about events that are not yet history? Will the paintings stand the test of time? How can Mao be perceived as a symbol of masculinity? All of these questions shaped the research that followed.

It must be said, however, that there were several challenges to conducting research in China, especially on a topic that the government wants people to forget about. For one thing, the year I had put aside to conduct research on the ground coincided with anxiety about leadership transition. In all of the Communist Chinese history, only one leadership transition has been effected without violence and upheaval. 2011 saw the internal security budget expand phenomenally, to the point where it actually exceeded the defence budget.2 A small fraction of that money was spent in providing my own semi‐official police minder in the form of a bored, uniformed young person who sat outside my front door and logged my movements.

At the National Library, from May 2011 onwards, all books were sealed off from public use. At the Central Academy of Fine Art, the entire selection of Meishu, the official Chinese fine art magazine that was important for my research was put into boxes and sealed indefinitely from June 2011. Even the Cultural Revolution Museum in a little‐visited cemetery with no public transport on the outskirts of Shantou, far to the south in Guangdong Province, was locked in 2012 with no further notice as to when it would reopen. 4

The security crackdown in 2011 extended to the legal, journalistic and artistic community, famously marked by the detention of artist Ai Wei Wei. Over a thousand others were also detained, particularly after activist Liu Xiaobo, who agitates for freedom of speech and is already in jail, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In February 2012, a further 1,065 people were arrested in conjunction with spreading internet reports about a possible coup attempt.3

This was not the ideal climate in which to start conducting research. Fortunately, the timing coincided with a rush of publications that were made possible by the preceding opening of resources in the run‐up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Everything in China has a link with politics. This means that archives, libraries and publications are far more influenced by central party currents than they would be in Australia or the United States. In a desire to appear open and modern, libraries and archives were briefly made accessible from 1990 following a regulation that allowed limited access to documents that dated from over thirty years ago.4 Many topics deemed too sensitive, however, remained closed to researchers, as did Beijing’s Central Archive.5 During the early to mid‐2000’s provincial archives were opened to qualified researchers and this led to a flood of new publications: veteran China scholars recognized the opportunity as it arose and rushed to collect data. Doors then once again started to slam shut: from 2011, my computerized searches on Cultural Revolution topics again yielded no results. Similarly, historian Zhou Xun noted that archived documents that had previously been accessible on the Great Famine (1958‐62), were reclassified as “closed” from 2008, rendering access impossible.

My difficulty in accessing data was offset by the significant new publications that have become available since I started researching in 2008. They provided a rich seam of data, in the form of interviews conducted and definitive statistics extracted from the archives during the period of opening. Consequently, earlier assumptions based on incomplete information have had to be revised to reflect new findings and a new understanding of historic events. This wealth of new sources of data has made it feasible to continue this project in looking at Cultural Revolution images and thinking about how they relate to concepts about bodies and politics. 5

From the earliest days of the Chinese Communist Party’s governance of China, history painting has played an important role in creating an official mythology of Communist China, replete with its own gods and heroes. The Party turned to artists to create a selective and sanitized iconography. During the Cultural Revolution, figurative paintings made up the officially sanctioned art of the period. Almost all other subjects were deemed reactionary, representative of feudalism or bourgeois revisionism. Certainly abstract paintings were not promoted, and even still‐life topics were often controversial. At one point, even depicting boulders was banned.6 Realistic figurative paintings in politically sanctioned landscapes or contexts were straightforward and easily understandable, safe topics for artists and propaganda offices.

The dominance of painting was such that images initially produced as an oil painting became transferred to posters, sometimes with propagandistic slogans painted beneath the images, and to badges. The dissemination of images was not independent of politics. Rather, paintings that cohered with policy objectives were selected for reproduction; as this signaled their political acceptability, the images were often widely disseminated.

This thesis specifically explores how the male figures in Chinese Cultural Revolution paintings presented officially sanctioned role models, and also how those models changed or were erased as political objectives shifted. Selected dimensions of the Cultural Revolution as refracted through the male figure in oil paintings will be discussed. Heroes abounded during the Cultural Revolution. Indeed, they proved so plentiful and problematic that the shifts in representation came to reflect policy shifts during this ten‐year period. The visual world of the Cultural Revolution was populated by idealised male figures, such as Chairman Mao Zedong; unstable heroes such as political figures who had to subsequently be erased from history paintings; model heroes such as soldiers, workers and peasants; and finally cultural heroes such as writers who provided ethereal guidance. Rather than forming a fixed pantheon, the constantly changing representation of heroic male figures testifies to the inherent instability of what constituted a hero in this turbulent decade. 6

Establishing the Historic Record

One of the more challenging aspects of modern Chinese history has been establishing just what happened during the Cultural Revolution. As central Communist party archives remain sealed, and research has until recently been subjected to censorship or worse, domestically published histories used to reflect only official interpretations of this tumultuous period. In the past decade, internet access and the tremendous use of blogs within China have changed public attitudes towards disclosure, and more and more is being revealed about personal history. Many different experiences and perspectives regarding the Cultural Revolution has come into view. Shifting interpretations have been engrossing, and often sobering. It has become evident that it is appropriate to be cautious about declarative and simplistic pronouncements on the Cultural Revolution.

A new personal openness about history found on the internet and occasionally in the newspapers has often come up against official resistance towards truth‐ telling. For example, when filmmaker Zhang Yimou, known for his award‐ winning films such as Raise the Red Lantern and Hero, recently sought to make a film about the Cultural Revolution, he came up against hard censorship that prevented him from relating anything more than a saccharine love story.7

Moreover, since China was also largely closed to the West during the Cultural Revolution, there were very few external observers of these historic events. Foreign observers also had been restricted as to what they could see and how much of the language they could understand. Many accounts of Mao’s life, for example, Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, have been accused of propagating myths that Mao sought to establish, to augment perceptions of Red Army heroism.8

Libraries of the world are littered with polemical screeds about China, both from the left and the right. Perhaps someday there will be new theses written about the cultural construction of China from the views of propagandists on both sides of the chasm. Meanwhile, one has to tread a measured path between reliable sources and when faced with contrary accounts, seek to include only the most 7 definitive. As books such as Andrew Walder’s detailed account, Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement, demonstrate, when one has access to data, the picture becomes much more complicated, changing the picture into one that little resembles fanciful left and right projections of Chinese politics. These factors challenge any researcher on modern Chinese history.

This Introduction discusses first the key texts that establish the historical record of the Cultural Revolution, then the decision‐making process within the Communist Party and fine arts communities. It then discusses literature that relates to Mao Zedong’s political theories about the body, and finally reviews texts addressing the application of these theories to concepts about the body.

The reluctance to examine the Cultural Revolution domestically can be seen in the fact that the recently re‐opened National Museum in Beijing barely addresses the Cultural Revolution. After a decade‐long planning period and nearly US$400 million spent, the museum only represents the ten‐year cataclysm with one photograph and three lines of text.9 Academically, the topic is also contentious. In 1994, a U.S.‐based librarian was arrested and detained for four months on the charges of smuggling state secrets.10 His actions? Purchasing Red Guard tabloids in a public market.11 Only after more than 100 China scholars in the United States signed a petition addressed to President Jiang Zemin was he released.12 Even as late as 1999, a Chinese professor was arrested for “stealing state secrets” while researching the Cultural Revolution.13 Indeed, independent research on the Cultural Revolution within Chinese universities by Chinese academics is effectively banned, although some trusty party historians are allowed to published sanctioned work on the period.14 More recently, in May 2013, even discussing the Cultural Revolution, as well as human rights and press freedom, has been banned from university classrooms in Beijing and Shanghai.15

Despite efforts to stifle examination of this historical period, recently tremendous amounts of information have come to light and there is a social need to acknowledge aspects of the Cultural Revolution. This can be seen in some attempts of former Red Guards to apologise to their teachers whom they tortured.16 Recent political crises in the Chinese leadership have also led to 8 fears of a Cultural Revolution‐type backsliding, as expressed by former Premier Wen Jiabao.17 Political attitudes in China are clashing with major debates among the leadership on the balance between openness and control. The road of muddling through and hoping that history does not have to be assessed has run out, and it is time to chose a more reflective path. The plethora of research, and indeed the current political crisis, suggest that there is both a need to assess that difficult era and a deep fear of doing so.

Why did the Communist Party use art as a form of ideology

The Chinese Communist Party has long used the arts as a means of effecting social control. Maria Galikowski’s Art and Politics in China identifies a pattern of involvement by the Communist Party leadership in the arts. Starting in the 1930’s, the Party sought to influence institutions, artistic style and content.18 Purges of non‐conformist writers underscored the dangers of challenging the leadership. An example was Wang Shiwei who criticized Mao at Yan’an, and died violently in 1947 at Mao’s command.19 By organising fine arts institutes according to revolutionary principles and determining visual style and subject matter, the Party sought to create an alternate aesthetic system to traditional Chinese art. At Yan’an, the methods and apparatus of control became standard practice even before the Communist Party conquered China in 1949.

For example, as early as 1962, still‐life paintings came under attack. Galikowski points out that the Chinese Artists’ Associations exhibition organisers, Cai Ruohong, Hua Junwu and Wang Chaowen were criticized for their non‐ revolutionary criteria. They were accused of curating an exhibition in 1962 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Talks and including “feudal dregs or bourgeois junk which should have been consigned to the rubbish heap of history and which in no sense supported the Talks. They included paintings of lemons, cherries, dead fish, girls with flowers, Luohan (Buddhist saints), conquering tigers and similar trash.”20 Since these were once considered fairly innocuous and traditional images, the curators would not have intended to offend with their selection but rather sought to present images that the largely conservative cadre members would have enjoyed looking at. But the 9 politics had changed and fruit and flowers no longer possessed the charm that they once held.

By shaping the ideology of institutions as well as the final creative output of individual arts practitioners, the Communist Party targeted the arts as a means to influence the population.

How Mao saw the relationship between the People and Art

Promoting art to show Communism in a positive light was a deliberate strategy of the Party even before it took control of China in 1949. Equally important, but more troubling, was the extent to which the party went to ensure that a positive light was the only one cast. In the 1930’s, China possessed a fertile creative environment with a plethora of arts groups in Shanghai, Suzhou and Beijing. Some, such as the Left‐Wing Fine Arts Alliance, were directly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.21 During the late 1930’s, writers, cartoonists and painters came to join the Communists at their revolutionary base in Yan’an in Shaanxi province.

At Mao’s suggestion in 1938, the Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Art was founded in Yan’an to promote Communist values. The academy was named in honour of a respected writer whose work sought to arouse empathy and compassion for the downtrodden. Lu’s writings and influence will be discussed in Chapter Four, “Cultural Heroes.” It was also Mao who instigated the first rectification campaign against artists who had, he felt, gone too far in criticising the leadership. This pattern of initial advocacy later tempered by restriction and punishment is a cycle played out by Mao over several decades, and on a very large scale during the Cultural Revolution.

Mao declared that the purpose of art was to serve as propaganda to end class oppression and promote the Party. This was articulated in Mao’s “Literature and art in the service of the people,”22 which first appeared as a two‐part lecture at the pre‐revolutionary Communist base in Yan’an. Following the talks, a rectification campaign lasted for several months, and required a mass questioning by arts practitioners of the basis of their creative production. Mao’s ideas were then codified in the 1942 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and 10

Art and articulated a strict vision of how artists should serve the party. Paul Clark explains, “By the 1950’s the Talks had assumed the role of a policy statement on the proper relations between writers, artists, and audiences in communist China.”23 This text became the basis for official Party views of art that lasted until the 1980’s.

Mao validated the work of artists and writers and urged them to turn towards the “broad masses of the people,” namely “workers, peasants, soldiers, and petty bourgeoisie,”24 to provide creative material. He identified the main audiences for art to be from these groups and argued that therefore, artists and writers should “unreservedly and wholeheartedly go among the masses… go to the only, the broadest, the richest source to observe, learn, study, and analyse all men, all classes, all kinds of people, all the vivid patterns of life and struggle and all the natural forms of art and literature.”25

Indeed as writers and actors came to Yan’an, Jasper Becker writes that they “worked at the Lu Xun Arts Academy and soon experimented with creating new hybrid forms of drama, song and music.”26 Furthermore, Mao’s urge to use art as propaganda “became national policy after 1949”27 when the Communists took over China.

Mao opined that art cannot just come from “natural forms” but argued that “conceptual “ or “created” art holds greater appeal and so art should not only consist of recording what artists had found.28 Notably, he also discussed whether or not popularization or “elevation” should be the goal of art. In fact, he emphasized both, arguing that art should try not just to be elevated but also to prove appealing, and that quality was also an important part of that process.29 Indeed, Mao stated that “works of art, however politically progressive, are powerless if they lack artistic quality.”30

Mao’s understanding of the difficulty in producing quality art stemmed in part from having failed a compulsory drawing class during his youth. About attending the Hunan Provincial First Normal (Teachers’ Training) School, Mao said “Most of all I hated a compulsory course in still‐life drawing. I thought it 11 extremely stupid. I used to think of the simplest subjects possible to draw, finish up quickly and leave the class.”31

Mao’s early ideas on the purpose of art as propaganda presage the frightening extremes to which this was taken during the Cultural Revolution. Although he advocated some standard of quality in execution, there is no advocacy of originality or of art for art’s sake. Within the Cultural Revolution, his wife Jiang Qing took it upon herself to make sweeping aesthetic judgments that would either elevate artists or result in them being set upon.

Cultural Revolution Historical Sources

An important figure in the research into the Cultural Revolution is Dr. Roderick MacFarquhar who has stimulated research and archival documentation and completed seminal publications and analysis from his faculty position at Harvard University. Moreover, since he lived through the Cultural Revolution and reported on it at the time for British newspapers and magazines, MacFarquhar’s accounts convey specific authenticity.

Startling facts emerge such as the complicity of Premier Zhou Enlai in high‐level Cultural Revolution denunciations, torture and murder. The extent of proletarian engagement in the Cultural Revolution, including de facto civil war in Shanghai, provides insight into how mayhem provided opportunists with a means to attract Mao’s attention and thereby achieve national recognition. Moreover, the armed dimension of the Cultural Revolution in Sichuan demonstrates the murderous insanity fostered by Mao when urging that guns should be given to the proletariat. Indeed, Mao clearly stated that the use of terror by civilians was part of his plan for the Cultural Revolution.32 The display, containment and subjugation of bodies were important methods of control deployed during this time.

A particularly interesting political dimension can be seen in MacFarquhar’s well substantiated argument that the Cultural Revolution emerged because Mao wished to deemphasise the increasingly bureaucratic demands of governance, in which he did not excel and focus on the incitement of revolutionary fervour, which was his strength.33 PLA Marshal Lin Biao sought to curry favour by 12 encouraging personal worship of Mao and the development of his personality cult.34 This campaign, discussed more fully in Chapters One, Two and Three, marshalled the efforts of art communities whose participation was both celebrated and willing, premised on the understanding that a lack of enthusiasm could be fatal.

There is an interesting contrast between the number of paintings made and the numbers of posters produced from those paintings. Just a handful of oil paintings were made during the Cultural Revolution. Their numbers are dwarfed by the mind‐boggling numbers of reproductions printed. In one case, 900 million copies were made of a single painting. As a result, a few selected images came to define that era. Similarly the number of role models allowed to be used in China was highly restricted and regulated. For example, even today, Mao’s image continues to be seen on China’s currency, on Cultural Revolution‐ themed memorabilia, and even in ironic forms of contemporary art. By comparison, few other cultural or political leaders possess a fraction of Mao’s visual recognition among China’s young people.

One of the most startling books to debunk the myth of Mao emerged in 1996. The Private Life of Chairman Mao was written by Mao’s personal physician Dr. Li Zhisui. Dr. Li’s medical education, based on an American curriculum and a short stint working as a doctor in Sydney gave him the ability to view Mao from a critical distance as well as from the perspective of a loyal Chinese citizen. Dr. Li’s chronicle of attending to the Chairman from 1949 until Mao’s death in 1976 provides crucial insight into the ways in which the excesses of the Cultural Revolution (mass struggle sessions, humiliation, and public displays of torture) corresponded to Mao’s previous methods of dealing with dissent. Indeed, Mao often deployed these tactics within his own inner circle. Secondly, the memoir displays Mao’s own indifference to visual art, as compared to his interest in theatre, opera and dance (often to the detriment of their practitioners). Mao was indifferent to visual art and his wife took a close personal interest in viewing and censoring it and deriding specific arts practitioners. The Cultural Revolution’s use and manipulation of visual art thus appears to have been driven more by Jiang Qing than Mao. This is significant when analyzing the motives that shaped 13

Jiang Qing’s propagation of Mao’s image during the Cultural Revolution, a topic that will be discussed in greater length later in the thesis.

The theoretical basis underpinning the People’s Republic of China has been known as Mao Zedong Thought. Western commentators during the 1950’s and 1960’s have often assumed complete centralized authority, but the reality was much more complex. Texts that explore the role of eugenics in shaping Communist social policy, Mao’s own thoughts on physical education, and the contemporary balance of power, provide insights into the role of the body and the representation of the figure in Cultural Revolution paintings.

Vivienne Shue’s The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic, cautions against assuming that all political decisions radiate from a omnipotent centre. Instead, she argues that a more fluid power dynamic flowed between provincial government and national authority.35 She identifies China’s leadership stance as a “modernizing dictatorship” that faces various forms of expressed and internalized resistance.36 Provincial government decisions sometimes reflect and sometimes differ from central government dictates, revealing the degree of autonomy sometimes enjoyed by provincial governments away from the scrutiny of the centre.

The Cultural Revolution and the Visual Arts Community

The fluid nature of power was certainly demonstrated in the formation of arts policy during the Cultural Revolution. Julia Andrews’ groundbreaking Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949­1979 presents a subtle and thorough explanation of the arts institutions and decision‐making processes in China at this time. By beginning her point of study from 1949, Andrews demonstrates that the arts institutions, fine art teaching curriculum and art policy during the Cultural Revolution resulted from choices taken from the time of the founding of Communist China.

Her discussions of China’s early engagement with selected elements of European modernism, the adoption of a Soviet arts curriculum and an abiding emphasis on figurative paintings are invaluable for understanding the primacy of figurative images during the Cultural Revolution. The strength of her text lies in its 14 detailed and patient unravelling of the byzantine power struggles between arts administrators, national leaders and provincial centres as all attempted to adapt to, resist or merely survive the shifting policies and reactions of the time.

One of the challenges and strengths of Andrews’ account is her proximity to events. Published in 1998, many of her interviews were conducted in the 1980’s, shortly after the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution. The trauma undergone by her subjects shaped both their willingness to relate their experience and her reluctance to probe painful memories. Some of the facts stated in her text have been denied a few decades later by the same interview subject,37 complicating the picture for the researcher. Yet this is a mere quibble, and no reflection on the author. Andrews should be the first point of reference for anyone looking at the Cultural Revolution’s impact on the visual arts. In her text, she continually returns to the question of how individual artists fared amongst the ever‐shifting policy emphases, ignorance of which could lead to sentences of hard labour or worse. It is this sense of sympathy and quiet outrage that renders her account compelling and urgent.

A recent and seminal text on Chinese art, A History of Art in 20th­Century China, was published in 2011. Written by Lü Peng, the most important living art critic in China, it provides access to hitherto unpublished documentation on the Cultural Revolution. Strongest in the sections from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, the work is written from the perspective of a critical insider, reflecting a firm confidence in the Chinese establishment yet not refraining from criticising violent excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Weighing in at 7.5 kilograms, the tome is dense with facts that prove invaluable in writing about modern Chinese art. Many documents that Lü quotes are not publicly available. They are in the possession of public institutions, but are being hoarded by individual professors within them.38 Lü’s professional and personal ties with these sources has enabled him to quote extensively from hard‐to‐find documents. Since the book has been translated by the noted Australian China scholar Bruce Doar and accompanied with extensive and carefully reproduced images by Italian publishing house Charta, the text is an invaluable reference. 15

Melissa Chiu’s and Zheng Shengtian’s Art and China’s Revolution accompanied an exhibition of the same title staged at the Asia Society in 2008. It presents key texts from artists and arts administrators who lived during the Cultural Revolution. There are also useful essays from experts such as Roderick MacFarquhar, authoritatively and digestibly summarising the Cultural Revolution. In addition, the book includes translations of relevant primary documents. Interviews with Cultural Revolution artists such as Liu Chunhua, who painted the iconic Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, are also useful. It is important to note that translations of Chinese texts differ noticeably depending on who published the translations and at what point in time. Those provided in the catalogue by Chiu and Zheng are even‐handed in their language choices.

Chiu has been an editor of Art Asia Pacific and she received her Master’s degree from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. Zheng came of age during the Cultural Revolution and painted several seminal works during that time. The editors jointly produced a text that is both fresh and authoritative, no easy task. The access to artists enabled by Zheng’s shared experience was combined with Chiu’s contemporary understanding of what is useful and interesting for modern audiences.

Texts on propaganda posters have also proved useful to help with decoding the political nuances of Cultural Revolution oil paintings. Most officially sanctioned oil paintings were reproduced as propaganda posters, often the same picture is used to illustrate different messages. The academic Stefan R. Landsberger based in the Netherlands has compiled one of the largest collections of propaganda posters in the world, and his essays provide useful insight into the political messages they sought to convey. Kuiyi Shen, former director of the art book division of the Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, also provides regular insights, by contributing essays in catalogues of propaganda posters, into the contemporaneous experience of working before and during the Cultural Revolution. Additionally, vivid personal accounts of being in China and producing propaganda messages and of being in America and being influenced by Cultural Revolution images are related by Lincoln Cushing and Ann Tompkins in their Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. 16

Most texts on Cultural Revolution art have been institutional histories and provide information on how images were produced. While that is necessary and important historical information, there is now sufficient data available to analyze how these images were read and used within political and social contexts. It is a new field of study just beginning to be more fully explored. Ample scope remains to look more closely at the construction of meaning through images in Cultural Revolution art.

The Role of Violence

A theoretical essay about the representation of violence during the Cultural Revolution shines light on how mass propaganda and the endless repetition of empty slogans could provoke widespread social rupture and the destruction of communities. Tonglin Lu’s Fantasy and Ideology in a Chinese Film: A Zizekian Reading of the Cultural Revolution looks at Theodor Adorno’s use of psychology to account for the mass following of Fascism and also at Slavoj Zizek’s critique of Adorno, taking into account Zizek’s experience living under Stalinism and within a totalitarian regime.

By contrasting the excesses and mass manipulation of the Cultural Revolution with Stalinist Russia and Fascist Germany, Lu provides an interesting model for how Lacan’s joissance, an experience of pleasure (according to Zizek’s reading), can be felt by participants in and spectators of community torture and violence. Specifically, he analyzes the film In the Heat of the Sun by filmmaker Jiang Wen to reach an understanding of personal responsibility, and the wilful suspension of this responsibility, that accompanied the frequent and illogical eruptions of violence in the daily life of this time.

Lu argues that the emptiness of ritual and slogans allowed individuals to suspend logical reasoning and follow their sense of “perverse pleasure in pain”.39 By becoming part of a mass movement, individuals gave up their sense of personal responsibility. The frequent release of inscrutable directions from Chairman Mao liberated them from trying to understand them logically, since Mao was above reproach and the statements were enigmatic. According to Zizek, Mao’s formal orders, such as the prohibition of torture, represented “the 17 symbolic order”. To maintain the appearance of a structure, its opposite occurred regularly: in this case, the use of community torture.40 Specific cases will be discussed further in Chapter Two. Lu’s analysis provides a model to represent what was happening historically.

For example, according to both MacFarquhar and Jonathan Fenby, Mao’s statements often contradicted his previous statements; contradicted his instructions to Zhou Enlai and his wife, Jiang Qing; and contradicted his orders to the People’s Liberation Army. In public, he urged restraint. In private, his main targets were selected, and he revelled in the mayhem. His statements, such as the prohibition of torture, enabled him selectively to rein in mass actions that exceeded what he wished to accomplish. However, he and Zhou Enlai were fully aware of the torture of important figures. MacFarquhar also describes how very organized struggle sessions were, often requiring viewers to purchase tickets for Colosseum‐like spectacles held in sports stadia.41 Significant episodes of provincial and urban violence were reported to the leadership, sometimes as often as six times a day,42 but it was only selectively prevented from escalating.

Lu’s argument is valuable in its attempt to account for individual participation in violence. He describes the curious euphoria experienced by some perpetrators when effecting violence, and acknowledges that everyone expected that their turn too would come someday. He quotes the filmmaker Chen Kaige at length, comparing the Cultural Revolution with the Wheel of Fortune,43 an American game show. “Almost everyone had his or her opportunity to play the role of people’s enemy, while the rest of the group felt honored or relieved, because at least for the time being they participated in this movement as attackers, not targets of attacks. In this context, attacking people’s enemies had become a national sport during the Cultural Revolution, or a collective form of enjoyment, in which sooner or later almost everyone wound up a victim.”44

The relentlessly positive images of revolutionary cadre members and radiant Mao figures contrasted with the violence used to enforce conformity. Without force, such a seamless image of unity would have been impossible to ensure. 18

This insistence on presenting only a positive face should in itself trigger curiosity as to what it obscures.

Research and Methods

Discussing the male figure in Cultural Revolution oil paintings may not sound as if it would entail great challenges. However, I soon realized that my assumptions of the value of originality, of the precious quality of historically important relics, and of a desire to understand history in its inglorious as well as its glorious dimensions, were all based on my Anglo‐American art historical training, and are not in fact universal.

One difficulty lies in finding the oil paintings themselves. Although widely reproduced, seeing the original work is not so simple. Many of the paintings were destroyed when Deng Xiaoping declared that institutions should rid themselves of Cultural Revolution materials. The ones that have been saved survived mainly due to neglect. Artist Shen Jiawei, who now lives in Bundeena, Australia, retrieved his work from a warehouse where it languished for decades. The 1950’s and 1960’s section of the National Museum has been periodically shut (unfortunately these periods covered all the time that I lived in Beijing) because of debates about how to present that era in an institutionally appropriate way.

Originality is another challenge. There are many copies of “original” oil paintings, yet the copies are not usually labelled as copies. The Military Museum has many of the key Cultural Revolution paintings that are listed as being part of the National Museum collection. Which one is the original painting? After a while, it becomes clear that identifying an original painting is not a high institutional priority in China. Instead, what matters is the image, and that a painting is available for view. For my research, I have attempted to focus on images and reproductions that have been selected and authenticated for view by Cultural Revolution scholars, yet there are obvious perils of attempting to be too definitive in this cultural environment.

Most oil paintings have also been reproduced extensively, however colours used in the various print runs can vary tremendously. Again, this does not seem to 19 have been an institutional concern. Posters sometimes are the only remaining survivors of Cultural Revolution oil paintings. As the next chapter will discuss, during charged political periods, when a painting failed to find official favour, it might be destroyed to prevent compromising the artist if it turned out to be a political liability.

Interpreting history from different perspectives is a dangerous business in China. In 2010, a history teacher at an elite Beijing high‐school who advocated looking at the Cultural Revolution from different perspectives and who compared Mao to Hitler in class was removed from his post and banned from teaching in Beijing.45 Foreign researchers also face difficulties if their publications do not cohere with official perspectives. Thirteen professors who took part in a Johns Hopkins University research project and published a text on Xinjiang, a restive and largely Muslim province in Northwest China, were subsequently rejected for all future Chinese visas. This group includes professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University.46 In at least one case, this has affected the professor’s ability to fulfill his job requirements, he has since stopped teaching at Dartmouth.47 The potential for reprisals as a result of conducting historical research is great, and fosters a cautious attitude amongst researchers.

An actual historically specific object does not command the same protection and respect that it would in France, Britain or the United States. Instead, something that is close enough and in good condition is considered a reasonable substitute.

Given the difficulty in finding the authentic paintings and also of accessing specific resources, I broadened my investigations to include Cultural Revolution references and resources of all types. This led me to the Military Museum, the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center, and the moving Cultural Revolution Museum in a remote location near Shantou in Guangdong Province. In the process of conducting this research, I have seen thousands of Cultural Revolution produced images and a handful of remaining oil paintings.

Archival research has taken me to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, which houses Stephen Landsberger’s collection, and to the Archive 20 of Modern Conflict in Kensington, London. I have also been to view Cultural Revolution themed exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, at the University of Westminster, London and at the Asia Society in Hong Kong.

Many excellent personal accounts of the Cultural Revolution have been published, and I have relied upon some of them to help me develop a sense of the human dimension of the period. Personal conversations and films have also helped to further an understanding of the texture of the period. My personal experience of surveillance, limited as it was, and listening to friends consoling those whose friends had been detained, also provided some insight into the paranoia and fear endemic during the Cultural Revolution.

Chapter Overview

Chapter One, “Forced Heroes or the Ubiquity of Mao,” focuses on the representation of Mao and traces shifts across three major periods: 1966‐1968, 1968‐1971 and 1971‐1976. The first period marks the emergence of the Cultural Revolution as a formal movement. It includes acknowledgement by Chairman Mao, the formation of leadership teams, and the rise of the Red Guards. A youth movement fostered by Chairman Mao, the Red Guards were to produce the future leaders of revolution. Their riotous behaviour and violent action are legendary, rending administrative units and educational institutions. Particularly well documented are their activities at the Central Academy of Fine Art. Implications for artistic production are considered.

The second period of 1968‐1971 marks the end of the Red Guards and the transfer of power to the workers. Power struggles took place in factories and industrial zones. All provincial governments were disbanned in favour of revolutionary committees. In terms of visual imagery, this period marked the high point of Mao deification. As all other leaders disappeared from visual art, Mao became not just a god but the only politicized man left standing.

The period 1971‐1976 starts with the death of Lin Biao, the military architect of Mao‐worship, and ends with the death of Mao himself. In these years of consolidation and national drift, the art that emerged sought to reassure a weary 21 population that Mao continued to care for them, featuring images of Mao touring the countryside and in historic military engagements.

Chapter Two, “Fallen Heroes,” traces the rise and fall of political leaders during the Cultural Revolution. Seminal contributions by Head of State Liu Shaoqi and the extensive, multi‐faceted campaign to depose him, as well as the manipulative and sycophantic behaviour of Marshall Lin Biao in his rise to power, are discussed in relation to their depiction and subsequent erasure from visual imagery. General Peng Dehuai’s unexpected fall from grace for daring to criticize Mao is contrasted with the experience of Lin Biao.

Chapter Three, “Model Heroes,” explores the construction of idealised masculine role‐models from the red classes in what is known as Worker‐Peasant‐Soldier art. The codes that shape the depiction of a model worker, peasant or soldier are highly specific to each category. In paintings of model workers, even women are depicted as masculine, making visible the compulsory masculinity expected of model workers. The chapter discusses the characteristics of a model citizen from each category, and specific images that present these ideals.

Chapter Four, “Cultural Heroes,” discusses the differences between traditional archetypal heroes and those promoted during the Cultural Revolution. Distinctive heroic qualities are embodied in the martial hero Guan Yu from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the talented scholar‐hero Jia Baoyu from Dream of the Red Chamber. The qualities of heroism they symbolise are discussed in relation to the heroic qualities promoted during the Cultural Revolution. Looking at these two traditional categories of heroes puts into context the portrayal of heroes during the Cultural Revolution. This chapter also addresses the promotion of Lu Xun as a transcendent cultural hero. Mao’s political use of Lu Xun will be contrasted with the ideas that Lu Xun himself advocated during his lifetime. Distortions of Lu Xun for propaganda purposes has had a dire impact on Chinese creative life. The systems developed for this manipulation continue to be used for the suppression of dissent in China today .

The conclusion underscores the correlation between Cultural Revolution oil paintings and policy directions. Because of changing power structures, the 22 control previously exerted to direct the subjects and the historical context of oil painting became suspect. This led to the use of unusual processes to identify model works of art, heavily influenced by personality. Changes in the leadership and the corresponding policy shifts were reflected in changing models of heroism, and therefore in the selection of those deemed to qualify as heroes. Other distinctive shifts occurred in the representation of the body because of increased militancy in industrial life. Long after the end of the Cultural Revolution, conflicts between creative expression and authoritarian control continue to erupt, arising from issues that originated during the Maoist period and came to a head in the Cultural Revolution. These current struggles to control the history and the lessons of the Cultural Revolution continue to test the limits of state control and propaganda. 23

1 Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2006), 251, 262. 2 Jamil Anderlini and Kathrin Hille, “A Sharper Focus,” Financial Times, May 11, 2011, 11. 3 Kathrin Hille, “Beijing Censors Microblog Sites Over Coup Comments,” Financial Times, April 2, 2012, 3. 4 The Great Famine in China, 1958­1962: A Documentary History, ed. Zhou Xun (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2012), ix. 5 Ibid. 6 In 1973, when the Chinese‐ink painters were being rehabilitated, there was a fear that they might paint traditional bird and flower paintings that were consider bourgeois. The conventional accompaniments to flowers are boulders. The authorities could not very well ban all flowers and birds since some were deemed revolutionary, for example sunflowers, deemed to be like citizens who turn towards Chairman Mao, the “red, red sun in their hearts,” as the Cultural Revolution song goes. Thus the administrators banned paintings that featured boulders, to avoid appearing to support “unrevolutionary” art. Julia Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994), 362. 7 Michael Garrahan, “Made in China,” Financial Times, December 31/January 1 2012, Life & Arts, 8. 8 John Gapper, “Instant Messengers,” Financial Times, October 1/October 2 2012, Life & Arts, 1. 9 Ian Johnson, “At China’s New Museum, History Toes Party Line,” New York Times, April 3, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04museu.html?pagewanted =all&_r=0. 10 Yang Su, Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 72. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Jonathan Fenby, The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power 1850­2009 (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008 and 2009) xliii. 14 Sophie Roell, “Rod MacFarquhar on The Cultural Revolution,” Five Books Interviews, June 22, 2010, fivebooks.com/interviews/rod‐macfarquhar‐on‐ cultural‐revolution. 15 Hayashi Nozomu, “Chinese Authorities Ban Human Rights, Political Discussions at Universities,” Asashi Shimbun, May 12, 2013, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201305120046. 24

16 Wang Youqin, “Heading to a Good Place:’ Red Guards Apologise,” Southern Metropolitan Weekend, October 21, 2012, E23 and Chao Getu and Yang Jibin. “History’s Deep Areas Send a Letter,” Southern Metropolitan Weekend, November 4, 2010, 1. 17 Jamil Anderlini, “Wen Raises Fears Over Return of the Cultural Revolution,” Financial Times, March 15, 2012. 1. 18 Maria Galikowski, Art and Politics in China 1949­1984 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998), 4‐5. 19 Wang Shiwei’s essay “Wild Lilies” criticized Mao’s sexual excesses and leadership’s excessive privileges at Yan’an, the Communist Party’s Revolutionary headquarters while they were fighting the Nationalists for control of China. Mao ordered several struggle sessions in which Wang was found guilty. After five years of incarceration, Mao ordered Wang hacked to pieces and thrown down a well. Wang was a noted writer, having spent time studying at Peking University as well as in Moscow. His translations included work by Marx and Engels as well as Eugene O’Neill and Thomas Hardy. Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961­1966 (New York: Columbia University Press and London: Oxford University Press, 1997), 292, 586. 20 Chan Hui, “An Art Programme Serving the Restoration of Capitalism,” Chinese Literature, 4: 1967, 124. 21 Lü Peng, A History of Art in 20th­Century China, trans. Bruce Doer (Milano and New York: Charta Books Ltd., 2010), 234 22 Stuart R. Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse­tung (New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963, 1969), 359‐363. 23 Paul Clark, “Model Theatrical Works and the Remodelling of the Cultural Revoution,” in Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966­1976, ed. Richard King (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 168. 24 Schram, Political Thought, 359‐360. 25 Ibid, 360. 26 Jasper Becker, City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China (London and New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008), 226. 27Ibid, 227. 28 Schram, Political Thought, 360. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid, 363. 31 Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China, 3rd ed. (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972), 170. 32 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 102. 33 Ibid, 12‐13, 48. 34 Ibid, 262‐264. 35 Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 17. 36 Ibid, 19. 37 An example that has been quoted extensively involves the painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (Figure 1.18). The artist Liu Chunhua is meant to have stated that Raphael’s Madonna was a source of inspiration (Andrews, 339). 25

However, the 2008 exhibition catalogue Art and China’s Revolution included an interview with Liu conducted by fellow artist Zheng Shengtian in which he was asked about the Raphael inspiration. Liu replies, “I am really very ignorant about religion. I had seen a few paintings, but had no understanding of their religious background.” Zheng Shengitan, “Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan: A Conversation with the Artist Liu Chunhua,” in Art and China’s Revolution, ed. Melisssa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 127 (New York: Asia Society and New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008). Erring on the side of caution, I have not claimed Raphael’s Madonnas’ as a source of Liu’s aesthetics. 38 In my two years in China, I have tried repeatedly to gain access to these documents only to be told by my Central Academy of Fine Arts advisors as well as private artists that the only way I could gain access was to become close to these professors and to find useful connections with foreign institutions from which they could benefit. Since this was not probably feasible and might well have posed ethical conflicts, I have instead taken the path of referring to established published information. 39 Lu Tonglin, “Fantasy and Ideology in a Chinese Film: A Zizekian Reading of the Cultural Revolution,” Positions, Duke University Press, 12.2: 2004, 559. 40 Ibid. 41 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 149. 42 Ibid, 79. 43 Lu, Fantasy and Ideology, 557‐558. 44 Ibid, 558. 45 Chao Getu, “Does the History Teacher Deserve to be a Criminal?” Southern Metropolitan Weekend, May 20, 2010, 1. 46 Daniel Golden and Oliver Stanley, “China Banning U.S. Professors Elicits Silence From Colleges Employing Them,” Bloomberg News, August 17, 2011, 1‐6. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011‐08‐11/china‐banning‐u‐s‐professors‐ elicits‐silence‐from‐colleges.html. 47 Ibid. 26

Chapter One: Forced Heroes

During the course of the Cultural Revolution, the image of Mao became the icon of revolution. No other public figure in China came close to his visual dominance. Indeed, the inclusion or exclusion of a person next to Mao was taken as a signal of their influence. Keeping up with the revolving cast of public figures in and out of favour could, at times, be a matter of life or death.1 Minute variations in the images of Mao became essential signs as to the direction of political favour.

Further afield, the propaganda images of Mao registered on a global scale. Not only did Andy Warhol devote a series of his celebrity‐focused silkscreen paintings to Mao but in a more serious dimension, the militant advocates of black power, the Black Panthers, structured their programmes following aspects of the Red Guards.2 Kathleen Cleaver, Communications Secretary for the Black Panthers and wife of Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver explained that “we read the Red Book, we had rules of discipline that came out of the Red Book and many of our newspaper covers had a Chinese style”3. When Eldridge Cleaver was asked why he displayed a Chinese propaganda poster with Mao’s image prominently in his home, he stated “We’ve got that picture of Mao Zedong up on the wall because Mao Zedong is the baddest mother f***ker on the planet Earth!”4

Mao makes an unlikely symbol of virility. In most pictures, he beams with avuncular cheerfulness or looks off into the far distance with a solemn air. Indeed, when contrasted with Soviet Socialist Realism, or even with Chinese interpretations of hunky Soviet and Chinese workers such as Chinese­Soviet Friendship Will Last 10,000 Springs! (Figure 1.10), Mao’s suitability as a avatar of masculinity may appear puzzling.

What Mao represented, and what Cleaver responded to, was power. As a revolutionary who overthrew a government backed by American money and influence, as a statesman who unified China, and as a man who could still command the fervent worship of the young, Mao’s strategic ability, ruthlessness and brilliance at projecting a benevolent figure was and is remarkable. The classic image of the Cultural Revolution that remains is the image of Mao himself. 27

Figure 1.10 Chinese­Soviet Friendship Will Last 10,000 Springs! May the Sino­Soviet Friendship Go On Forever!, Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, 1959, propaganda poster, Collection of Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre 28

Yet Mao’s visual dominance was not axiomatic. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, images of other domestic leaders also featured in propaganda and certainly portraits of Marx and Lenin were deemed as suitable to display at home as Mao’s.5 Indeed, oil paintings produced in the early days of the People’s Republic of China depict Mao declaiming before the images of Marx and Lenin as illustrated by Chairman Mao at Yan’an Announcing the Rectification Reforms at a Cadre Meeting (Figure 1.11). This deification of the rulers of a Communist state was part of Stalin’s strategy to centralise power in nascent Communist governments.6 Once Stalin decided to back Mao as the head of the Chinese Communist Party in 1938, he initiated the cult of personality to celebrate Mao in the Soviet Union.7 Mao’s implementation of his own cult of personality in China was a continuation of Stalin’s tactics, as was the elimination of rivals, even in the absence of any real threat, in order to consolidate his own power.8 What Stalin did not reckon with was Mao’s eventual decision to jettison the Soviet Union, leaving Mao alone deified in China.

Following the various and important contributions made by several other members of the leadership in establishing the Communist Party and ultimately the People’s Republic of China, Mao’s consolidation of power involved several brutal and murderous campaigns. Campaigns such as the Yan’an Rectification Movement of 1942‐44 and the Anti‐Rightist Movement of 1957‐59 saw thousands dead and, in the latter case, hundreds of thousands persecuted.9 The first movement was crucial in consolidating the rise of Mao, and both movements saw the elimination of his critics. Mao’s campaigns were spectacular and deliberate, and the Cultural Revolution was the last of several. However, it was the Cultural Revolution that actively used visual imagery, designed to target various audiences in different media, to create an idealised view of the leadership and produce a utopian vision of the fertile, creative China to which these struggles were meant to lead. To study how this campaign was played out through images, particularly oil paintings, is to study both the power and the limits of propaganda. 29

Figure 1.11 Luo Gongliu, Chairman Mao at Yan’an Announcing the Rectification Reforms at a Cadre Meeting, 1951, oil painting, Collection of the National Museum of China

Figure 1.12 Yang Zhiguang and Ou Yang, Impassioned Writing, 1973, Chinese ink on paper, Collection of National Art Museum of China 30

Figure 1.13 Cai Liang, Sons of Poor Peasants, 1964, oil on canvas, Collection of National Art Museum of China

In paintings, Mao appeared as a romantic young theorist as captured by, Impassioned Writing (Figure 1.12), an avuncular soldier (Sons of Poor Peasants, Figure 1.13), and an omniscient deity (Man’s Whole World is Mutable, Seas Become Mulberry Fields: Chairman Mao Inspects Areas South and North of the Yangtze River, Figure 1.14,). Indeed, during the Cultural Revolution, the representation of Mao changed in accordance with the vicissitudes of power. Three distinct periods within the Cultural Revolution correspond to shifts in 31

Figure 1.14 Zheng Shengtian, Zhou Ruiwen, and Xu Junxuan, Man’s Whole World is Mutable, Seas Become Mulberry Fields: Chairman Mao Inspects Areas South and North of the Yangtze River, 1968, oil on canvas, Collection of Wang Mingxian the representation of Mao: the early phase of the Cultural Revolution from 1966‐ 68, the apogee of Mao deification from 1968‐1971, and the final phase starting with the death of Lin Biao, the architect of Mao’s deification, and ending with Mao’s own death in 1976. Before turning to examine the images of Mao during these three periods, an understanding needs to be established of the theoretical underpinnings of the depiction of Mao. There is no better source than Mao’s own writings on the topic.

Mao’s Theory of the Body

Adapting Communist theory to the Chinese context was Mao’s greatest strength. He made Marxist‐Leninist philosophy practical and accessible to the Chinese masses. Rather than quibbling with abstruse points of Marxist doctrine, Mao used analogy, repetition, and examples from popular folk culture and martial arts stories, including classic tales such as The Outlaws of the Marsh, to make Communism relevant to the Chinese peasantry. These tactics reached out to a population of which a significant percentage was illiterate. The 1964 Census reported that in 1964 only 38% of all people aged 12 and older were literate,10 making the case for a largely visual propaganda effort. Additionally, pictures 32 made abstract values tangible, and so fine art had been valued for propaganda purposes by the Communist leadership even before they took China in 1949.

By the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, correct Communist values were deemed to be Mao’s thoughts, the National Artists Association declared that “Studying Mao Zedong Thought is the primary and basic task for all our work. The revolution in every region, creative field, and team area is the result of the active study and application of Chairman Mao’s writing.”11 Indeed, Mao’s writings had been the basis of political thought and “the source of the language of political life”12 from the time the first volume of Selected Works was published in 1951 until his death in 1976. During the Cultural Revolution, even young ballet students at the Beijing Dance Academy, an institution set up to propagate Madame Mao’s new Cultural Revolution model operas, noted that “we spent more time on Mao than we did on ballet and all other subjects combined.”13 Mao’s writings stood in for all forms of knowledge, eventually replacing military tactics manuals, medical textbooks and even foreign ballet teaching materials.

One of Mao’s objectives for figurative painting was to change attitudes and to establish revolutionary leaders. Another was to situate the worker, peasant and soldier as model citizens in the estimation of the people. He sought to use art as part of a dialectic, to prompt people to confront contradictions between the ideal values they saw depicted and their internalised values that would have been shaped by traditional Chinese feudal culture,14 believing that when a person was faced with a superior example through literature, theatre or visual imagery, he would be inspired by that example to become a better person as determined by Mao.

Noted Dutch scholar Stefan Landsberger explains that Mao believed that a person would continually evolve as a result of repeated exposure to new ideal models of behaviour. He quotes Mao as stating, “…it is only through repeated education by positive and negative examples and through comparisons and contrasts that revolutionary parties and revolutionary people can temper themselves, become mature and make sure of victory.”15 Simple to understand, narrative figure painting became the prime vehicle to disseminate ideal values. 33

Constant repetition of the same values was intended to encourage and reinforce internal changes to mould an ideal citizenry.16

What Mao emphatically did not want was to create figures that were seductive in appearance, or to feature scenes that emphasized romance. Mao stated that romantic images of “what young people get up to on a snowy night” were “passive and retrograde.”17 The word romantic, in describing a Chinese revolutionary painting style, is used in a very specific and unusual way. Eminent art critic and modern Chinese art historian Lu Peng explains, “If people were enthusiastically responsive, had a positive attitude and a healthy body and spirit then these qualities were regarded as the ‘romantic’ content of revolutionary realism.”18 Happy, healthy, positive workers, farmers and peasants thereby constituted romantic figures, participating in the construction of a new Communist China.

Moreover, the conservative party leadership, largely drawn from the peasantry, was wary of allowing nude figure drawing to be taught in art schools.19 In 1964 they effectively pressured the Ministry of Culture to ban nude modelling in tertiary art classes.20 In an interesting twist, Mao was then petitioned by Central Academy of Fine Arts teachers to keep the classes open, which he did, at least until his wife Jiang Qing had the Central Academy itself closed down a few months later. In Mao’s letter, he argued that the study of the human nude was important to facilitate a scientific approach to art making.21

No romance, no nudity, what then can Chinese figurative art depict? For Mao, the body was a machine, not a playground. Much as Foucault described in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, a goal was to create docile bodies who internalised Mao’s goals and individually regulated themselves, whether through policing their thoughts or exercising, in order to serve the state.

The body, to Mao, was an emblem of modernity and of revolutionary spirit.22 Clues towards understanding possible artistic approaches can be found in Mao’s “A Study of Physical Education.” This 1917 essay outlines his pre‐Revolution thinking about the role of disciplined and regular exercise, and would have been very familiar to those working in arts and publishing institutions. Mao links 34 individual endeavours to strengthen the body with national strength and military heroism.23 This contrasts with what he identified with traditional idealised figure appearances as having “flowing garments, a slow gait, a grave, calm gaze,”24 an appearance that he condemns as symbols of a literati appearance that had been socially dominant since the time of Confucius, emblems of an elite intellectual class that Mao sought to eradicate. To replace this with a revolutionary ideal, he urged people to strengthen the body in order to “enhance our knowledge”25 and claimed that civilising the mind could be made possible by making “savage the body”.26 Interestingly, he links physical education with increasing knowledge and morality as he states, “When the body is strong, then one can advance speedily in knowledge and morality and reap far‐ reaching advantages.”27

In this sense, his thinking was very much in accord with thoughts of the early 20th century on modernity, utopia and the human body. Although rooted in a desire to improve humanity, early eugenics thinking came to have darker associations as it became identified with Hitler and with Nazism, a movement that sought to remake society through genocide. Another society that sought to improve their communities through removing class enemies and undesirables was Lenin’s Soviet Union. Sculptures and paintings of chiselled male and female figures filled public spaces, providing visible emblems of Soviet masculinity. Those deemed subversive or otherwise not contributing to the dictatorship of the proletariat were amongst the 14 million people sent off to the Gulag, the Soviet system of forced labour camps. In Mao’s case, political adversaries, and those who fell foul of the shifting standards of appropriate revolutionary background or behaviour, were variously destined for public humiliation and torture, forced labour camps, indefinite deportation to remote borders, execution and “suicide”. The exposure of China to early eugenics thinking bears relating at this point.

Written in 1917, “A Study of Physical Education” was produced as part of a fervid quest to strengthen China. It was published in New Youth, a galvanizing new publication that introduced to China international ideas such as Western conceptions of human rights and democracy, as well as the first serious 35 discussion of Marxism.28 The magazine was edited by the influential intellectual Chen Duxiu and eventual co‐founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Although Mao was based in Changsha in Hunan, far from Beijing, the magazine’s reach granted him a wide and influential audience. In fact, Mao’s views cohered with the magazine’s editorial slant in viewing the state of the physical Chinese body as a measure of the strength of the nation. The traditional cultural ideal was of a retiring, soft‐handed Confucian intellectual who looked down on physical exertion. Mao saw this as part of the malaise afflicting China, and this mirrored Chen’s own sentiments. Mao’s voice was one of an increasing number of voices clamouring for national strengthening. The exhortation to build strong Chinese bodies became a recurring motif in nation‐building debates from the beginning of the 20th century.

Physical strengthening was one of many approaches discussed in relation to China’s challenges of self‐governance, free from an imperial hand. The Qing Dynasty had been overthrown in 1911 yet the newly established Republic was beset with problems, such as extensive corruption and feuding warlords. The New Culture Movement from the mid‐1910’s to the 1920’s was a period of intellectual searching and exploration of international ideas to try to find the best ways to govern China. Intellectuals debated whether the solutions would come from following a Chinese “essence” to be found in traditional culture and history, or from pursuing Western ideas.29 Scientists, philosophers and writers engaged with each other and the general public through a newly independent press. In 1919, foreign philosophers such as John Dewey and Bertrand Russell were invited to China to observe the changes in society and to lecture. Their audiences hoped to hear ideas for political solutions as they debated how to create a new society.30 Later, Margaret Sanger, Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore also visited and presented public lectures, introducing a plethora of new ideas.

It was in this heady atmosphere that the young Mao was exposed to a range of ideas on which he later drew as he formulated his own philosophy. By this time, as a young man, he had already read selected works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, and John Stuart Mill, as well as Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and Logic by 36

Herbert Spencer, all in translation.31 Spencer’s writings, in particular, had had a strong impact on China. His concepts on Social Darwinism were presented in his Evolution and Ethics (1893), this was translated into Chinese as On Evolution, by a scholar named Yan Fu. Yan had taken certain liberties with the interpretation of the text, to inject prescriptions for nation‐strengthening.32 Yan’s view of Darwinism explains that “People and living things struggle for survival. At first, species struggle with species; then as [people] gradually progress, there is a struggle between one social group and another. The weak invariably become the prey of the strong, the stupid invariably become subservient to the clever.”33 Yale China scholar Jonathan Spence states that Yan’s text, because of its focus on nationalism, had a tremendous impact on Chinese scholars.34 A few years later, while Mao was working at the Peking University library, New Youth published the first Chinese article to review the Bolshevik Revolution. It was written by Li Dazhao, who also worked at the library, albeit at a supervisory position to Mao’s.35 This introduced Mao to the ideas of Karl Marx.36

Over the next decade, Mao formulated his own view of Marxism. He fought to use the peasantry as the driving force of revolution, rather than gradually industrialising and developing a proletariat to lead as advocated by the Soviet Comintern and in Marxist theory.37 Looking back on his later governance of China, one can discern a melding of these concepts of Social Darwinism and Marxism. It can even be argued that his robust attitude towards the tens of millions who died during the famines brought on by the Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1962)38 and who suffered during the Cultural Revolution was influenced by a Social Darwinist‐inflected view that only the strongest ought to survive. Certainly, his attitude towards the youths battling during the Cultural Revolution was to see if a new generation of revolutionary leaders would arise from the turmoil, suggesting a real‐life application of Social Darwinism that ultimately failed to produce any leaders of substance.

From the many learned calls for self‐strengthening during the early years of the Republic, it is Mao’s essay that remains the most famous. After the Communist Party took China, there were waves of repression alternating with openness. Mao ensured that young people would not have access to the same range of 37

Figure 1.15 Ou Yang, It’s Good to Take Exercise from a Young Age, Beijing, People’s Sports Publishing House, 1976, propaganda poster, University of Westminster’s Chinese Poster Collection ideas that he did, and initiated book burning exercises on a huge scale during the Cultural Revolution. This was one of the most restrictive intellectual periods in modern Chinese history. The broad spectrum of debate experienced during the New Culture Movement was dramatically narrowed, until only Mao’s words were permitted.

For example, Mao’s physical education instructions translated into daily radio announcements calling out exercises (“March in place, One, Two, Three”)39. Everyone listening was expected to participate, to arrange themselves in a systematic order, and to exercise along with the broadcast40 (Figure 1.15). 38

Those who refused to participate were suspected of harbouring anti‐Mao sentiments which could lead to subsequent persecution. Group exercise may sound fairly harmless. However, in Mao’s China it formed part of a comprehensive system of social control, and required total compliance. The system left no space for individuals to pursue their own thoughts and dreams.

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s words infused everyone’s life. To ensure familiarity with selected aspects of Mao’s thinking, phrases from Mao’s writings were compiled in easy‐to‐remember Quotations from Chairman Mao, popularly known as the Little Red Book. This was used by the People’s Liberation Army to disseminate Mao’s thinking, and also came to be used as a textbook within the army for learning Chinese. The Little Red Book was widely distributed within China, as well as internationally. The hysteria associated with Mao‐worship resulted in claims that the Little Red Book:

… supplied the breath of life to soldiers gasping in the thin air of the Tibetan plateau; enabled workers to raise the sinking city of Shanghai three‐quarters of an inch; inspired a million people to subdue a tidal wave in 1969, inaccurate meterologists to forecast weather correctly, a group of housewives to re‐invent shoe polish, surgeons to sew back severed fingers and remove a ninety‐nine pound tumor as big as a football.”41

People were meant to internalise Mao’s thinking so that all of their physical, mental and spiritual energies were attuned to realising what Mao wanted. In this way, the vast majority of the population was encouraged, directed, and in some cases forced, to live their lives as Mao directed. It was suggested that belief in Mao’s words would be rewarded with the ability to perform miracles, in much the same way that belief in holy relics were meant to confer divine protection in Medieval Europe. The punishment for non‐compliance, let alone outward defiance, was at best restrictive, and often fatal.

In this way, the Cultural Revolution ushered in a vast system of thought control and physical enforcement that stifled dissent and terrified the population into unthinking submission. A set of ideas that were meant to free China from tyranny led ironically to even greater repression than ever experienced under 39 the system previously overthrown. Taking an idea about national strengthening and turning it into a constrictive practice is a pattern which has parallels in the development of eugenics.

The Evolution of Chinese Thinking on Eugenics

Ideas about modernizing the nation through physical activity were part of a larger eugenics movement that found eager proponents among China’s would‐be reformers. In fact, eugenics became a significant part of the discussion about modernization, as was addressed in Hiroko Sakamoto’s article, “The Cult of ‘Love and Eugenics’ in May Fourth Movement Discourse.”

Sakamoto traces the path of eugenics thought from theories espoused by Francis Galton who was a cousin of Charles Darwin, the formulator of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Galton’s ideas were advocated by a Chinese student Pan Guangdan who studied at Dartmouth College and Columbia University. Pan later went on to teach at the prestigious Qinghua University in Beijing and his influence has been very strong, although he later fell foul of Cultural Revolution radicals, accused of having an elitist bent.

The eugenics theories of famous nineteenth‐century sexologist Havelock Ellis’ also figured significantly in modern Chinese thinking. They found a powerful advocate in Margaret Sanger, a birth control advocate who was also Ellis’s lover.42 Sanger’s well‐publicised visits to Japan and China in 1922 gave the Chinese audience direct contact with Ellis’s thoughts on eugenics and with Sanger’s advocacy of universal access to birth control.

Sanger came to visit China after her Japan tour. Her ideas were disseminated both in academic journals and in commercial magazines. She was interviewed by the Chinese version of Women’s Journal, which dedicated a special issue to birth control.43 Proponents of eugenics recommended strengthening and advancing the nation through social control, and maintained that their policies would result in a superior civilization. In short, eugenics became part of the modernization narrative. 40

Mao would certainly have been exposed to the theory of eugenics. His village teacher Tan Sitong was an advocate of physical education as part of a larger modernising national project.44 Moreover, some of the most vocal and important disseminators of eugenics thought, the Zhou brothers, were known to Mao. Mao’s writings clearly link physical fitness with moral fitness, for the betterment of the nation. Yet they steer clear of advocating the practice of eugenics.

It is worth noting that when the Communists came to power in 1949, eugenicists were viewed with suspicion. The previous Republican government had contemplated the institutionalization of eugenics programmes and had established a Committee for the Study of Population Policies. Amongst the policies under consideration was a restriction on the rights of the individual to reproduce, based on mental and physical fitness. These plans only came to a halt because of the outbreak of World War II.45 After the Communist victory over the Republic in 1949, the leadership viewed the freighted language of eugenics and their monstrous realization in Nazi Germany as detrimental to their objectives. The extreme policies and language of eugenics were put aside, but some concepts advocated by Mao were shaped by eugenics.

The dimension of genetics that became dominant during the early years of the Communist Party’s dominance was a pseudo‐scientific approach propagated by Ukranian Trofim Lysenko. An agronomist with no formal training in genetics, Lysenko shot to prominence in the Soviet Union because of his background as a member of the peasant class and his dramatic promises to solve a chronic Russian problem in wheat production: how to extend the growth season. Lysenko advocated a novel approach to treating wheat over the winter, called “vernilization”, allowing it to germinate with an unusual success rate in the spring. He claimed that wheat plants treated by his method passed on their resistant qualities to their seed and future offspring. This came to be seen as applicable to people.

Based on this concept, during a phase of the Cultural Revolution it was hotly debated whether or not children would inherit positive “red” characteristics from their parents, and conversely, if those who had “black” family backgrounds 41 were irredeemable.46 Class determined whether or not young people were selected to be youth leaders, and was a factor in college admissions and selection for professional work. Children of soldiers received preferential treatment, as did children of poor to lower‐middle peasants and workers. Notably, class status was determined through the male line.47 During the Cultural Revolution, class distinctions became the subject of heated debates that led to situations akin to warfare.

In early August 1966, a piece of doggerel about lineage and class origins went up on the wall of the Aeronautics Institute High School in Beijing. It stated:

Demons see this and worry

It is basically like this The son of a revolutionary is a hero

The son of a reactionary is a bastard48 The students from the Aeronautics High School then posted this couplet on the campuses of Beijing University, Qinghua University and the People’s University.49 This became known as the theory of blood relation and sparked off youth violence in Beijing with those who were deemed to have “red” or “revolutionary” backgrounds persecuting those who didn’t.50 The uproar amongst the students soon threatened to involve the political leadership and the debate descended into violence amongst competing Red Guards factions.51 Jiang Qing, Chen Boda and Zhou Enlai’s State Council staff member, Xu Ming and even Mao, were dragged into weighing in on the controversy. The furore shifted when Lin Biao made it clear that the elite were seeking to target other members of the leadership and so the focus of the battle moved on to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping,52 as will be discussed in Chapter Two. Nevertheless, the impassioned battles over the theory of blood relations reveals how entrenched the notions of lineage entitlement and genetic inheritance remained in China, even after the 1949 revolution that was meant to begin the transformation of society into a more equitable utopian nation.

In the 1950’s, Chinese interest in genetic theory stemmed from the desire to improve grain yields. Lysenko’s success in China stemmed from the validation 42 he received in the Soviet Union. In fact, his results claiming inherited temperature‐hardiness of wheat could not be replicated by experimenters, but his dramatic flair caught the attention of Stalin, who promoted him above reputable scientists. Subsequently, Lysenko was personally responsible for the removal and persecution of hundreds of Soviet scientists. Specifically, he persecuted his professional rival, the former head of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union, biologist Nikolai Vavilov. Lysenko took Vavilov’s position. Vavilov was then imprisoned and died of starvation.

The nascent Chinese government relied heavily on the Soviet Union for technical advice in developing the economy during the 1950’s. China was largely agrarian, and lacked the scientific and technological knowledge to develop heavy industry. The Soviets provided technical specialists and blueprints, and built entire armament factory complexes staffed with Eastern German specialists. Thousands of Chinese went to study sciences in the Soviet Union, and the Soviets also provided the complex system of research institutes that continue to award science research degrees in China today.53 The Soviet origins of Lysenkoism and its easily understandable pseudo‐science appealed to leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, most of whom came from agrarian backgrounds. Lysenko’s unproven and dangerous ideas of inherited qualities found fertile soil in China.

Lysenko’s main advocate in China was Luo Tianyu, an agronomist of limited education. Luo had taught biology from the early 1940’s at Yan’an, where the Communist Party had its revolutionary headquarters.54 With confirmed revolutionary credentials, once the Communists took China, Luo easily became president of the newly formed Beijing Agricultural University in 1949. From this seat, he spread Lysenkoism and the celebration of I.V. Michurin, a Russian botanist who advanced the study of the genetic structure of fruit trees and who developed over three hundred new varieties of fruit plants. Michurin captured the attention of Lenin and presented a romantic image of the rustic peasant who could transform agriculture through common sense and practical application. In China, Luo set up Michurin Societies in the villages and Michurin study groups at the universities. Both textbooks and lecturers were monitored to ensure that they taught Lysenkoism and followed the “Michurin Line”.55 43

Luo seeded universities with Michurin study groups to report on their lecturers because in China there were already several professors who had been trained by eminent American geneticists. Preeminent amongst them was Tan Jiazhen (better known as C.C. Tan) who had received his Ph.D. under Thomas Dobzhansky and had been taught by Thomas Hunt Morgan at the California Institute of Technology. Tan’s approach was similar to that of Dobzhansky, who was the author of Genetics and the Origin of Species, a seminal text that furthers Darwin’s principle of natural selection and Gregor Mendel’s theory of genetics. Indeed, Tan’s research features in Dobzhansky’s book.56 On returning to China, Tan became Dean of the Science College at the National Zhejiang University, a faculty with many celebrated scientists. Following international scientific protocols and keeping current with international scientific research, Tan’s grounding in Mendelian genetics was inevitably going to clash with Luo’s support for Lysenkoism.

Luo’s aggressive advocacy of Lysenkoism took root within the Ministry of Agriculture, and from that base he assailed Tan. Luo attacked Tan’s Mendelian approach to genetics, sending Soviet geneticists to try to convert him, and directly challenging him to change the national university biology curriculum so that Lysenkoism alone would be taught.57 In 1952, the “Michurin line” was promulgated, and Tan was forced to write a self‐criticism.58 Moreover, Tan was transferred from his university, but he was allowed to established the first genetics department in Shanghai, at Fudan University. Far from Beijing, his department managed to survive various ideological battles over the decades. Although not allowed to pursue high‐level genetic research, it being deemed “not practical”,59 Tan still managed to keep himself and his department alive. At times of ideological struggle, he focused on paleontology, the study of dinosaurs, to uncover physical evidence of evolution.60 In times of openness, he tirelessly advocated engagement with science and the understanding of genetics. During the Cultural Revolution, Tan’s patient approach meant that he and his cohort did not suffer unduly. Instead, the dominant Lysenkoists were toppled and the scientists, irrespective of background, were sent to the countryside. Unlike the 44 practitioners of the arts, these Western‐educated scientists were not singled out for special punishment or humiliation.

Managing to survive Luo’s 1950’s attacks and then the Cultural Revolution, Tan went on to become one of the most celebrated scientists in modern China. Although only able to take up genetics research again in 1979, by which time he was 70, he nonetheless enjoyed a full and engaged international career as a scientist. He advocated the humane genome library, researched rice strains, and participated in the development of devices to detect pollution and trace their effects on human health, amongst many other projects.61 His curiosity and openness to different aspects of science helped to develop the resilience he displayed in overcoming the many threats and constraints on his freedom to think.

The strength of Lysenkoism in the face of more legitimate approaches to genetics reveals much about the decision‐making process of the Chinese leadership. Lysenkoism’s Soviet roots were an advantage, given China’s political alliance with the U.S.S.R.; Mendelian genetics had European origins and American contributions so was politically less palatable.62 Lysenko’s experiments were also much easier to understand and explain, and this was a factor in the popularity of his theories amongst policy‐makers.63 His advocate Luo also argued that Lysenkoism placed scientific creativity and advancement in the hands of the farmers, removing control from the elite scientists in their laboratories.64 This conformed to the anti‐intellectual, anti‐elitist political mood of China in the 1950’s. In this case, science was held hostage to political ideology. Yet the way in which genetics researchers managed to survive the ideological battles of the 1950’s and eventually to pursue long‐lasting international careers provides a lesson in the value of patience, political sensitivity, and unceasing efforts to engage and communicate both within the elites and with the general public.

The body, thereby carried tremendous import for Mao. As a symbol of the nation, and a barometer of political and ideological health, the body was invested with the responsibility of conveying national strength, purity and moral uplift. 45

Freighted with these abstract ideals, it stands to reason that the actual task of painting the human figure became the subject of intense debate.

How to Paint Mao

Given the extreme focus on understanding Mao’s thought, it is not suprising that the painting of Mao’s figure was one of the most nerve‐wracking activities for an artist. The political tides were chaotic and constantly shifting. Casual mistakes could and often did result in torture, imprisonment, or death. A strategy advocated to sculptors by Jiang Qing was to model their images of Mao from photographs, all of which had been officially sanctioned by government bodies: “It is not easy to make good sculptures of Chairman Mao. It is necessary to thoroughly study Chairman Mao’s writings and to diligently seek out good photographs.”65

In fact, some of the most iconic images of Mao derive from photographs taken as much as a decade earlier. For example, a repeated image is of Mao standing with the wind blowing the lower left corner of his coat slightly open, a pose that suggests a paternal and heroic isolation, singly defying the elements. This was based on a photograph taken in 1954, a good 12 years before the onset of the Cultural Revolution (Figure 1.16). This photograph became the de facto model for officially sanctioned statues of Mao throughout the country.66 As will be discussed later, it also became one of the standard poses in which Mao would be painted.

Painters of Mao were not aiming at a realistic portrayal. Very few artists had the chance to see Mao in person. During the Cultural Revolution, if someone from a village had been in the same vicinity as Mao or Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, he was treated like a celebrity.67 It was sufficient to be present as part of a huge throng, as experienced by young people who had attended the mass Red Guards rallies of 1966 in which Mao had appeared in crowds of up to a million people. Without television and with limited supplies of paper available, all images of Mao were strictly controlled, originating from official sources.68

During the initial phase of the Cultural Revolution (1966‐68), virtually no original propaganda images were being produced. One of the first ministers to 46

Figure 1.16 Hou Bo, Chairman Mao at Beidaihe, 1954, photograph be purged was the Minister of Propaganda, Lu Dingyi, throwing the department in disarray.69 To the south in Shanghai, China’s most creative and prolific propaganda department also saw severe disruption. Shen Kuiyi, former director of the art book department at the Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House 47 relates that “most design studios of the publishing industry were dismantled.”70 During this period, the only images they were permitted to print as propaganda posters were officially approved oil paintings on which they added political slogans.71

The Importance of Mao Photographs

Photography provided a safe source of Mao images. The photographer who produced the most iconic images of Mao, Hou Bo, was chosen to capture Mao’s image because of her ideological qualifications rather than professional skill. Her family came from one of the approved worker‐soldier‐peasant categories. Prior to her decade‐long assignment, she had barely even held a camera.72 Yet she became a part of Mao’s family for over a decade, recording moments of private contemplation and behind‐the‐scenes images of Mao to which no other photographer of the period had access. Hou’s photographs conveyed an intimacy that more formal images lacked. Karen Smith, Beijing‐based art historian wrote, “In her 12 years at Mao’s side… she was present at pivotal moments in history and, having been counted as a member of his household, was present in all aspects of his daily life.”73 The resulting relaxed, contemplative and engaging images of Mao formed the basis of thousands of Cultural Revolution paintings, posters and sculptures. For example, Hou Bo’s 1956 photograph, Mao swimming in the Yangtze river at Wuhan, June 1956 provided a template for virtually identical paintings on the subject. Indeed, Hou Bo’s photograph of Mao standing on a beach (Figure 1.16) “became the de facto model for the monumental statues of Mao erected across the country during his reign”.74 Images of Mao that were approved were circulated and reproduced in a variety of media, and used in endless ways. In this way, the Chinese masses were exposed to approved yet personal images of their leader that allowed them to feel as if they had access to Mao. Through the constant recycling and recombining of these images, Hou’s images became totemic.

Class background held a disproportionate weight in determining who could paint Mao. In this respect, the criteria by which Hou was assessed were similar to those on which the artists of the Cultural Revolution were later judged. In 48 order to paint Mao’s face, artists had to have sufficient revolutionary credentials: for example, having parents who belonged to the right classes, having been a poor peasant, or having worked as a peasant‐worker‐soldier. Notably, a person’s class background was based on that of his or her father75 and was thereby held to be hereditary. Artists lacking sufficient revolutionary capital, even if they had superior artistic training and talent, might be relegated to painting the landscape or background figures if they were lucky and had not been labelled as class enemies.76 Those deemed more revolutionary could paint Mao’s body; only those with “a relatively higher revolutionary consciousness” were allowed to paint his face.77 This will be discussed in more detail in relation to specific paintings.

Revolutionary consciousness, commonly referred to as “redness,” was held to be inherent in the blood of the children of revolutionaries. Redness was also believed to be written in the body and was meant to be inscribed on the body in figurative paintings. A heightened revolutionary consciousness was believed to be transmitted through the actions of such individuals, including pressing a shutter or wielding a paintbrush, and to be absorbed by viewers of their work.

The method used to paint Mao was highly regimented, contradicting any confidence that revolutionary consciousness was genetically transmitted. (Of course, if revolutionary consciousness was indeed genetically transmitted, such strict prescriptions should have been unnecessary.) A description by artist Tang Muli is worth quoting at length:

On Sundays he visited old classmates from the youth palace who had become professional artists. He heard from them about Cultural Revolution art classes on the correct method of painting portraits of Chairman Mao. From his classmates he learned the new technical requirements: pure red should be used to paint the face, burnt sienna for shading, and yellow ochre for highlights. He was warned that blue and green must never be used on the face and that the paint squeezed on one’s palette should be organized in a specific order, with cool colors in the least accessible spot. Mao’s face was to be divisible into three equal sections, and his pigmentation to follow the chromatic sequence on a color chart issued for that purpose.78 There were exceptions to this strict system but they were usually only applied to those who had received arts education in the Soviet Union and who had been 49 able to escape severe reproach during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. Every village and work‐unit wanted paintings of Mao to decorate billboards and walls. Uniformity in Mao portraits was even taught at arts schools. The Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art started a “Chairman Mao portrait painting training class” late in the Cultural Revolution, in 1975.79

Formulas such as those used by Tang’s classmates helped to ensure a uniformity of appearance. Several paintings of Mao, such as Tang Xiaohe’s Strive Forward in Wind and Tides, which will be discussed later, were printed in how‐to‐paint instruction books so that amateur artists could learn to paint reproductions as propaganda.80

The systematic representation of mass images of Mao ensured strict control of how he was represented. The selection of images to be popularised therefore, became a potent indicator of new political directives. The following section will trace three significant stages in the Cultural Revolution, and discuss major works that were produced within those periods as well as the conditions in which they were disseminated.

The Rise of the Red Guards and the Impact on Painting

The period from 1966‐68 marked the emergence of the Red Guards, witnessed the formal recognition of the Cultural Revolution, and featured its most lawless period of wanton destruction of property and destabilization of national and local governments. Government ministries, schools, universities and communities were riven in a national process of thought reform. Mao’s desire to reorient Chinese society resulted in the paralysis of industrial output as well as the suspension of healthcare services and educational institutions.

The arts institutions were targeted earlier than the rest of society. From 1964, the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), based in Beijing, underwent a series of political exercises that effectively suspended classes. CAFA was one of two preeminent art schools. (The other is based in Hangzhou in Southern China.) CAFA lecturers and graduates were regularly selected to depict the leadership in oil paintings. However, the Socialist Education Movement (1963‐65) disrupted CAFA classes to engage students and teachers with the challenge of uprooting 50 bourgeois revisionism. Red Guards documents state that arts institutions had been chosen to serve as pre‐Cultural Revolution test cases in order to gauge the reactions of political leaders and to formulate mass mobilization tactics.81

At the ending phase of the Socialist Education Movement, CAFA students and faculty were sent to the countryside, supposedly to help root out rural corruption as part of the Four Cleanups campaign.82 They returned to Beijing in late May 1966, just in time for their campus to be caught up in the Cultural Revolution. Classes at all universities and schools were then suspended on June 13 to allow students to devote themselves fully to the Cultural Revolution.83

Red Guards activities at CAFA paralyzed all regular art making activity on campus and by all members of the CAFA community, substituting terror and the production of images oriented to the requirements of the Cultural Revolution. At the first mass rally at Tiananmen Square on August 18, 1966, Mao put on a Red Guards armband, signifying his endorsement of the Red Guards mass mobilisation. A million students and teachers attended that first rally.84 One of the architects of the Cultural Revolution, Marshal Lin Biao, urged the young people to “completely smash old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits”85 (later known as the Four Olds). The very next day, big‐character posters criticizing art teaching and gallery exhibitions appeared on the campus of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.86

The legitimisation of the Red Guards resulted in large‐scale destruction of teaching aids, such as plaster casts of Classical sculptures; the burning of the library books of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and destruction of paintings; and the physical torment of arts practitioners and teachers. There were several Red Guards factions at CAFA, which fought amongst themselves.87 Significantly, the destruction of property at CAFA was carried out as a joint exercise between the CAFA Red Guards and the physical education department of Beijing Normal University because the art students anticipated difficulty in destroying with axes the plaster replicas of statues such as Michelangelo’s David and the Venus de Milo statues from which they had practised life drawing.88 The scheduled destruction of teaching materials and the request for outside help indicate the 51 planned nature of the spectacle of vandalism and of the ritualised humiliation that followed.

At this session, CAFA Red Guards members accused and tortured their teachers and administrators. Eminent revolutionary political satirist, artist and senior CAFA teacher Ye Qianyu relates the horrific treatment meted out to the teachers at the time of the CAFA bonfire:

They then gathered up the old lecture materials and art albums, throwing them onto a huge fire, and dragged the class enemies who had been labeled demons out from the ‘pens’ in which they had been imprisoned and made them kneel around the fire. The Red Guards proclaimed that we were the dregs of the old world who would be buried with it. The rebel group stood behind us, and if we made the slightest movement, a hand would reach out and wrench us back into position. As the fires burned more fiercely, we felt that our faces were being scorched. Kneeling beside me was the deputy director of the traditional Chinese painting department. He suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and could not kneel properly. He appealed to the rebels but they were unconcerned whether he lived or died, and the more he complained the more abuse he suffered. I clung on obstinately and even if they threatened us with death I gritted my teeth waiting to be sacrificed. They didn’t kill us but I laid down feigning death, convinced the rebels would throw us onto the pyre and destroy us together with the old world, or just send us to the morgue of Capital Hospital, for our relatives to collect the corpses.89 Ye Qianyu was a veteran of World War II resistance activities, a leftist supporter during the dangerous Republican‐era, and a survivor of decades of Maoist political movements. He was a stalwart supporter of the Communist party, his mettle already tested against many challenges. His loyalty to the Party was unquestioned yet as a member of the CAFA establishment, he feared for his life and suffered several beatings during the Cultural Revolution.90 His crime? Using black outlines in a purportedly “western” style in his Chinese ink paintings.91

Many artists and teachers were kept in ad hoc prison cells on campus for the ten‐ year duration of the Cultural Revolution. Often the determining factor for persecution was age. As Julia Andrews relates, “the movement pitted young artists against their older teachers.”92 Similar situations played out at other leading arts colleges and within prominent universities. 52

It is important to remember that the Red Guards were not, at the time, regarded as hooligans. Typically, they were promising young people from established and politically sanctioned families attending sought‐after high schools and colleges. Students who did not have the requisite class background or whose parents were labeled as “black elements” were prevented from joining Red Guards units. Furthermore, mass struggle sessions followed a strict bureaucratic procedure in which applications to use public facilities such as stadia, and the names of those to be struggled against, were submitted to relevant government bureaus. Their vandalism was regarded as fulfilling Mao’s exhortations. The violence of the first phase of the Cultural Revolution was not uncontrolled rioting but rather targeted and structured terror.93 The mundane administrative dimensions of the struggle sessions, applying for permits, submitting applications and securing signatures for approval, provided a framework of order that validated these public spectacles of humiliation and terror. The very banality of evil made the spectacles seem a part of life. The institutionalised nature of the struggle sessions and enforced communal thinking made the possibility of dissent even harder to imagine, let alone effect.

There are eerie similarities between the Cultural Revolution and Stalin’s crackdown on avant‐garde artists and writers and on dissent of any kind. These are not accidental. Kang Sheng was the architect of civilian struggle sessions and forced labour camps, a model that originated in the 1950’s and continued operating throughout the Cultural Revolution. He had spent four years in the Soviet Union learning his craft from Stalin.94 The Cultural Revolution catapulted him into the centre of power and provided him with an opportunity to implement fully the lessons he had learnt.

When a work could result in praise or deadly criticism, creative endeavour became fraught and sporadic. Because of the poisonous political atmosphere and constant shifts in the political winds, not many paintings were produced by established artists or from the arts academies. Instead, the images that emerged from 1966‐68 were often produced for specific exhibitions, to demonstrate the application of predetermined political concepts. 53

Figure 1.17 Li Zhensheng, Red Guards at Harbin’s University of Industry writing big‐character posters, August‐September 1967 Another important factor was the lack of materials. In an era in which rice, oil and cloth were available only with government‐issued ration‐coupons, it was not easy to obtain art materials simply because one wanted them. Canvas was strictly controlled, and only released for individual works that had been approved by institutional bodies that had political influence at the time. Even paper wasn’t easy to come by. Only official propaganda units were allowed to publish any text or image, along with selected Red Guards units who were allowed to print broadsheets. For Red Guards units who wanted to write large‐ character posters criticising the establishment or to paint propaganda Maoist images, paper was easy to come by ‐ but only for that express purpose and in set 54 sizes (Figure 1.17). Access to materials was limited to selected groups and defined purposes.

Production of new, politically relevant images of Mao was thereby even more challenging than usual, even though politically there was a need to make visible these new revolutionary directions. Yet, because so many accomplished figurative artists were imprisoned, banished or deemed suspect, few artists were available to produce figurative paintings to the aesthetic standards deemed acceptable, especially in painting Mao. Arts students of this era remember only two or three large exhibitions being staged, including the Black Painting Exhibition of 1966 (featuring paintings deemed counterrevolutionary) and another in 1967, the “Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line” Exhibition95 that largely featured works by peasants and workers.96

The Hills Are Alive

The most famous painting of this era was originally displayed in a location where it would not immediately been seen by many other artists. Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan depicts a fairly innocuous, romanticized image of the young Mao striding in a dreamy yet purposeful fashion over mist‐draped hills (Figure 1.18). The painting was commissioned to accompany an exhibition entitled “Mao Zedong’s Thought Gloriously Illuminates the Labor Movement of Anyuan,” staged at the Museum of Revolutionary History.97 The main focus of this exhibition was on display by professors of Communist Party history, as related by noted art historian Julia Andrews.98 The exhibition sought to rewrite history and credit Mao with leading an early industrial strike action at a site historically important to the history of the Chinese Communist Party.

The 1922 coal miner’s strike at Anyuan, Jianxi province plays a mythic role in party history. Anyuan programmes provided a model of how to awaken the consciousness of the nascent Chinese proletariat,99 having developed a successful worker’s school, worker’s club and ultimately, successful strike action. Once this model proved effective, the originator of these programmes, Li Lisan was sent out to replicate them in industrialized centres such as Wuhan and Shanghai.100 Anyuan’s importance’s was further bolstered by the role the mine 55

Figure 1.18 Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 1967, oil on canvas, Collection of China Construction Bank workers later played in the military. In the 1930’s thousands of workers from Anyuan joined what later became the PLA,101 including some who rose to the ranks of vice‐commander and lieutenant‐general.102 The miner’s familiarity with explosives and with principles of Communist thought made them a valuable part of the Communist forces and they were regarded as being the “backbone” of the guerilla forces103 that later helped the CCP take China. In terms of political 56 awareness, skill and discipline, the Anyuan workers were an important part of the eventual Communist victory.

Originally, credit for the Anyuan strikes was attributed to head of state Liu Shaoqi, who had lived for nearly three years at Anyuan.104 However, he only arrived at Anyuan as the strike was about to begin. The hard work of earning the trust of the workers, negotiating the legalities of opening the workers’ and children’s schools, developing the curriculum and leading the strike itself was done by classically and French‐educated radical Li Lisan.105 Li, however, was sidelined in the decades following the party’s 1949 victory, allowing Liu Shaoqi, and later Mao, to take credit for this important symbol of party history.106

By the Cultural Revolution, the credit for masterminding Anyuan became a hotly contested prize. Liu Chunhua’s seemingly innocuous painting was used to promote a historical distortion that covered up yet another distortion. The massive campaigns to downplay Li’s role and exaggerate Liu’s, and then discredit Liu and promote Mao, will be discussed in Chapter Two.

The Museum of Revolutionary History’s exhibition was intended to bolster claims that only Mao had the revolutionary credentials to govern China, and to invalidate all competing claims. The artist of the key painting, Liu Chunhua has stated that “This group felt that Chairman Mao’s [role] in the revolutionary movements at Anyuan should be positively portrayed and disseminated, with the ultimate aim of criticizing Liu Shaoqi.”107 The exhibition organisers wished to give all credit to Mao, even though Mao was not present when the strike occurred. Mao played a strategic role in having identified Anyuan as a possible site for developing workers’ support for Communism.108 He sent key personnel, such as Liu Shaoqi, to make this happen, and oversaw subsequent developments.109 However, Mao’s involvement in Anyuan was at a remove, and not direct.

Although displaying art was not the purpose of the exhibition, Liu’s work became the most famous painting of the Cultural Revolution. From 1967‐1977, over 900 million reproductions of the painting were printed in a variety of media. Thanks 57

Figure 1.19 Liu Chunhua, Drawing Study for Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 1967, charcoal on paper, Collection of Liu Chunhua to Jiang Qing’s endorsement, it was designated one of two model creative works to emerge from the first phase of the Cultural Revolution. Even today, new reproductions can be purchased at the state‐run Xinhua bookstores throughout China. However, the painting might not have been produced: the story sheds 58 some light on the haphazard processes of artistic production during the Cultural Revolution.

First of all, the exhibition organisers went to several art colleges to find artists to produce seven paintings. Each painting was to chronicle one of Mao’s seven visits to Anyuan. Liu, a fourth year design student at CAFA was selected by default for this topic when the originally designated artist tired of waiting for the organisers to confirm details of the exhibition.110 Liu then went to Anyuan to visit the old workers who were still alive, and also to develop a sense of the landscape. Furthermore, he visited Shaoshan, Mao’s birthplace in Hunan Province. After studying several photographs of Mao and reading Mao’s poems, he repeatedly sketched Mao’s image so as to internalize his likeness and produce something more original, rather than directly copying a specific photograph which he states was common practice at the time.111

Liu had studied for four years at the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Middle School in Shenyang. His foundation would have included composition, colour studies, and drawing from plaster casts. Indeed, while in middle school, his sketch of Michelangelo’s David was commended by director of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CCP Zhou Yang,112 attesting to his skill in figurative drawing. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, he had been enrolled at CAFA since 1963. Despite the classroom disruptions, he had already received several years of formal art training. This is evident in his sketches, which indicate the use of a grid in working out the proportions of Mao’s face (Figure 1.19). Liu was the perfect candidate to produce a figurative work of Mao, trained yet not entrenched in the Beijing art scene.

Moreover, since he and his family were not from Beijing, and his father’s generation was not privileged, there was nothing in his family background to disqualify him from participating in the exhibition, and he was too young to have developed enemies in the art world. Significantly, Liu possessed the zeal of one who had benefitted from the changed class system, and he had always wanted to show his gratitude. In his father’s generation, no one could read or write. Because Mao prioritized the peasantry, amongst other categories, Liu and his 59 siblings were able to attain university educations at state expense, a formerly unimaginable achievement for his family. Their family credited Mao with their change in fortune and praised him. Liu relates “My father would always say, ‘If there were no Communist Party, and if there were no Chairman Mao, then there would be no you. … From the time we started school and all the way through to the Cultural Revolution, the news and propaganda about Chairman Mao deepened this sense that I had of him.”113

He worked out his composition at home. After finalising his composition, he went to the Museum of Revolutionary History to ask for materials, but the administrators refused to issue him canvas. Fortunately, a staff member took pity on him and helped him find some discarded half‐finished paintings that he could paint over.114 Pragmatically, he then made the painting at the Museum, not at CAFA where “I would be bothered”115 because of Red Guards activities

The final work depicts Chairman Mao as a young man, striding purposefully forth, clouds streaming behind him, and a subtle energy animating the misty fog lying over the valleys behind. Mao’s form takes on a somewhat mythic form, seeming to float above the landscape, with a light wind animating his long scholarly robes. The work is remarkable for what it does not depict: coal miners, industrial strike action, or any signs of Communism. Most surprisingly, Mao is wearing a changshen, a long scholar’s robe reminiscent of the traditional attire of Confucian intellectuals, a class that Mao despised and sought to destroy.

How this suprising selection of costume came about springs from Liu’s interviews in Anyuan. There is some uncertainty as to what Mao actually wore when he first visited. Scholar Elizabeth Perry has documented several interviews with elderly Anyuan miners who distinctly recall Mao clad in a long blue Mandarin gown holding an oiled paper Hunan umbrella.116 They were struck with the incongruity of such a privileged and educated scholar visiting lowly miners.117 However, Liu states that the elderly workers assumed that Mao, as an educated man, would have been wearing scholarly robes. “They couldn’t remember exactly what clothes Chairman Mao had been wearing. All they said was that “gentlemen” all wore changshen (traditional long robes), and also that, 60 because it often rained there, Mao sometimes wore strong shoes and carried an umbrella or wore a bamboo hat.”118 On Liu’s part, he then thought that since Mao had been principal of a school during the Republican era, the changshen would have a been a logical form of clothing for him to have worn at the time.119 Further enhancing the scholarly effect were the soft cheeks, dewy eyes, slight frame and lightly wind‐tousled hair Liu used in the portrayal. All in all, Liu’s work positioned Mao as a classically educated gentleman, the very sort of man that the Cultural Revolution sought to annihilate. Confucian scholars were the products of the arduous Imperial civil examination system, a system that had been first formulated in 605 C.E. to identify men of intellect and talent to serve the emperor. Only Confucian scholars who had passed the examination system could work for the civil service. In many parts of the country, these scholars were the immediate representatives of the emperor. As such, they enjoyed great power, wealth and prestige. The system continued for 1,300 years, until 1905, before being abolished in the final years of the Qing Dynasty. For well over a millennium, the examination system had provided an opportunity for young men to advance by merit. The cultural resonance of what it means to be a scholar is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, along with ideal forms of behaviour and of dress. Even today, in China it is considered an honour to be a university student. It would take more than a few decades of Communism to erase that from people’s collective memory. Recalling Mao’s advice for young people to “make savage the body” and not have “flowing garments, a slow gait, a grave, calm gaze,”120 Liu’s decision to depict Mao in these scholar’s robes could have been a dangerous choice.

The appeal of scholarly attire hearkens to a traditional and cultural sense of how to depict authority. Historian Louise Edwards writes that, “at crucial junctures in Chinese Communist Party history the balance between the Mao‐suited “soldier” and the wise and virtuous “scholar” reappears to reassure the population of the leadership’s wisdom, strength and constancy.”121

Mao personally favoured military dress, particularly a utilitarian uniform that is now known in the West as the Mao Suit. In fact, this outfit was first known in Chinese as the Sun Yat‐sen Suit or Zhongshan zhuang,122 named after the 61 instigator of the first revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Revered by both Nationalists and Communists, Sun Yat‐sen is often referred to as the Father of Modern China. Sun’s outfit with its mandarin collar and four patch pockets was based on a Japanese school uniform.123 He chose the style to reflect a modern outlook, consistent with the progressive, logical values he sought to promulgate in China. Mao appropriated this suit and made it standard military attire. Mao held strong views on appropriate military dress, insisting that his men “must never don old‐fashioned robes emblazoned with the character yong (brave) on both front and back.”124 Even the Qing Dynasty military uniform he described was much too soft and flowing for Mao’s taste. His assumption of the Sun Yat‐sen suit allowed him to take on the aura of reverence and the modernizing associations that surrounded Sun.

Liu’s work was spectacularly successful. His decision to pose Mao alone, facing the morning sun, and attired in traditional scholarly dress, struck a deep resonant chord. Many viewers wrote favourably in the four comment books provided, with a large number requesting copies if the painting were to be reproduced. The popularity of the work attracted the attention of a propaganda publication, People’s Pictorial, that was under the direct supervision of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. The work was printed as a colour‐proof to be viewed by Jiang Qing. Jiang then issued a directive approving it for mass circulation.125 In fact, the first print‐run was in the hundreds of thousands. In the rush to print, they misspelled Liu’s name from Liu Chenghua to Liu Chunhua. His birthname, Liu Chenghua, roughly translates to Liu of the Magnificent Success, and was mistakenly written as Liu Chunhua which means Liu of Magnificent Springtime. The second name sounds much more like a girl’s name. Additionally, in the exhibition, the artist was listed as “Created collectively by students of Beijing’s colleges and executed by Liu Chunhua,”126 although Liu was clearly the author of the work. This collective attribution derived from the Party’s desire to encourage collective activity and “to eliminate individual thoughts and combat individuality.”127 Given the huge number of reproductions of this image in the form of posters, badges and other formats, the artist has ever 62 since been known as Liu Chunhua. Not only has he had to share the painting credit with a collective, he has even lost his own name in the process.

The practice of mass printing derives from propaganda practices initiated in the 1950’s. Julia Andrews explains that “Of particular prestige, [a selected work] might be designated for reproduction in one of the nation’s propaganda journals, in a special art album, in an official art journal, in the newspaper, or as a poster. In truly exemplary cases, a single work might receive all these forms of recognition; as a result, it would become better known in China than any single art object might be in the West, except possibly one of such artistic and religious interest as Leonardo’s Last Supper.”128 Liu’s work can be said to be the most widely reproduced oil painting of the Cultural Revolution. Invested with a divine power, it often stood in for Mao, presiding over pageants like a religious icon in an Italian saint’s feast day parade. During the Cultural Revolution, reproductions of Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan were even taken on celebratory swims across the Yangtze (Figure 1.20).

Notably, it is not the original painting that is invested with divinity. Rather it is this particular image of Mao that is being celebrated. Even Jiang Qing only approved the colour‐proof. She didn’t bother to see the actual painting. The painting as an object is not invested with any dimension of divinity. Originality is not the key factor. Rather, the appeal of the image lies in its ability to present a resonant cult image of Mao. The work operates as a sanctioned avatar of Mao.

As noted Chinese art historian Freda Murck writes, “For symbols to survive they must have cultural coherence, a message appropriate to the symbol, and institutional support – whether religious, political, or commercial ‐ that articulates and repeats the message in association with the symbol. When people identify with a symbol and its message, it will be voluntarily replicated.”129 As part of a larger ideological campaign to discredit Liu Shaoqi, the image’s popular appeal cemented the impression that Mao and Mao alone made the revolution possible. In today’s China, very few young people have even 63

Figure 1.20 Li Zhensheng, detail of Chinese swimmers in the Songhua river, Harbin celebrating their leaders 1966 swim in the Yangtze River, 1968, photograph heard of the name Liu Shaoqi, but no one ever forgets Mao’s. By distilling a mass propaganda effort into a picture that hearkens to the eternal, Liu’s work helped to invest Mao’s figure with an aura of divine sanction. 64

Stage Two – Deification or How Mao Became a God

In the second stage of the Cultural Revolution, it became untenable to have any revolutionary heroes other than Mao. Mao’s major political rivals had been vanquished, either sent off to the countryside to undergo thought reform or imprisoned like Head of State Liu Shaoqi. Liu eventually suffered a painful death caused by injuries sustained during his many public beatings, which were worsened by the denial of medical care.

The vacuum created by the absence of Mao’s political rivals and the eventual dispersal of the Red Guards resulted in a ferocious lower‐level battle for power that led to a military presence within almost every ministry and provincial government. This period of 1968‐1971 is marked by the militarization of society, the establishment of Revolutionary Committees, and the deification of Mao. All three aspects ostensibly served to centralize authority on Mao, yet were contingent on military support. This situation resulted in a dangerous dependence on military approval for government to function. This stratagem was effected by Marshal Lin Biao, who seemed at this stage to be one of Mao’s most ardent supporters. Mao came to be presented as a deity, a position that was expressed and amplified in visual culture. Yet by 1971, Lin’s mysterious flight to the Soviet border and possibility of betrayal shattered the perception of Mao’s omnipotence. To understand how the deification of Mao was made possible, it is helpful to explore the overthrow of the Red Guards and the military infiltration of government.

The dissolving of the Red Guards occurred because the youth had fulfilled Mao’s desire to rid himself of political rivals. Once Mao’s enemies were vanquished, the Red Guards’ disruptive presence and potential destabilizing energies were no longer needed. Mao’s patience with the Red Guards was also strained by their disruption of foreign embassies which caused international tension and embarrassment. Red Guards’ demonstrations at foreign embassies saw as many as a million protesters over a three‐day demonstration period. The demonstrations, observed by Reuters correspondent Anthony Grey, were accompanied by the burning of effigies of political leaders, such as General 65

Suharto (Indonesia), Leonid Brezhnev (Soviet Union), Harold Wilson (Britain), Indira Gandhi (India) and General Ne Win (Burma).130 In Hong Kong, the office of the British chargé d’affaires was stormed and subjected to attempted arson, and the personnel were physically abused. In Beijing, foreign diplomats were dragged out of their cars and shouted at for hours at a stretch. The British consulate in Shanghai had to be evacuated. All in all, from September 1967, China was in dispute with over thirty nations because of their violence against embassies and personnel or because of violent demonstrations outside China.131

The last straw came in the form of a clash with work teams that Mao sent into Qinghua University. On July 27, 1968, in an attempt to restore order, reinstate classes, and form a revolutionary committee to administer the university, Mao sent in 30,000 workers from several factories, backed by the PLA, to confront the Qinghua Red Guards units. The Red Guards carried on battling other Red Guards factions and also attacked the work teams. Since the young people would not listen to Mao’s own representatives, he decided that things had gone too far. The next day, Mao summoned Red Guards leaders to the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. At the meeting he told the Red Guards leaders that they had not managed to develop a strong following, having only a few hundred supporters. Moreover, the general population did not support them, and they were engaged in “armed warfare” rather than class struggle.132 He further stated that if they carried on disrupting traffic and didn’t disperse, he would have them annihilated.133 Within weeks, all university students and middle school students were sent down to the countryside to learn through work and become peasants and workers. In total, from 1967‐1979, the number of students sent down to the countryside numbered over 16 million. They were known as rusticated youths.134 Military support made the dispersal of the Red Guards possible, and the threat of deploying organized force underscored Mao’s power.

In this way, Lin Biao became absolutely vital to Mao. Without the military, China’s government would not function. By infusing the military into all dimensions of government and positioning himself as the only person who could 66

Figure 1.21 Advance Victoriously While Following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line in Literature and the Arts, 1968, propaganda poster, IISH‐Landsberger Collection

Figure 1.22 Advance Victoriously While Following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line, 1971, propaganda poster from the IISH‐Landsberger Collection stabilize Chinese life, Lin Biao engineered his rise in the Chinese leadership and ensured that he would be named as Mao’s successor. This succession plan was eventually even written into the Constitution following the Chinese Communist Party’s Ninth Congress in 1969. 67

Key to this was the deification of Mao. During a critical assessment of Mao’s Great Leap Forward in 1958, Lin famously opined that “Chairman Mao is the only real hero.”135 Subsequent years saw Lin promoting devotion to Mao akin to religious worship. He also ensured that all who criticized Lin would be seen as criticizing Mao. This period saw the distribution of posters that depicted Mao as a radiant god such as Advance Victoriously while following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line in Literature and the Arts (Figure 1.21). Prior to this, other political leaders had appeared with Mao. However, during the deification period of Mao’s image, only Lin would appear, as seen in Advance Victoriously While Following Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line (Figure 1.22). Through mass distributions of propaganda posters, Lin’s image became visually identified as Mao’s successor. During this period, at every level of society, no one could safely express criticism or even doubt as to the judgment of Mao or Lin: to do so was to risk grave retribution.

The Cultural Revolution came early to the army. Many of the tactics of deifying Mao were first introduced by Lin Biao from September 1959 onwards, to eradicate his political rivals.136 Indeed, unquestioned public worship of Mao had been Lin’s route to power. Although a legitimate war hero historically, Lin suffered from various psychosomatic disorders that often rendered him incapable of attending to routine administrative duties.137 Lin compensated for his weaknesses with dramatic assertions of Mao’s greatness. Even as early as 1959, when hurriedly summoned to a political meeting in mid‐session to shore up Mao’s authority (this was the Lushan Conference of July‐August 1959 which was held to assess the disastrous Great Leap Forward), Lin’s response was that “only the Central Committee and Chairman Mao were accurate” and “only Chairman Mao could claim to be a great hero”.138 Sycophancy was Lin’s song, and he sang it until his untimely death in 1971. Without Lin, there would not have been widespread, hysterical worship of Mao.

When Lin invited Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing to play a larger public role, the new alliance enabled both to rise to greater national prominence. Jiang had never been inclined to let reality get in the way of her opinions,139 and had previously been perceived by senior cadre members as a political liability to be kept under 68 control and out of public life. Lin changed all that with his invitation for Jiang to address the military at the Forum on Literature and Art in the Armed Forces on April 18, 1966. The forum opened the floodgates to the Cultural Revolution in the country at large. During its first phase, Jiang, Lin and Lin’s wife Ye Qun worked together to destroy their political rivals and even those who remembered parts of Jiang’s life as a minor Shanghai actress. Shanghai friends, actresses, even former maids were tortured and killed in an attempt to erase witnesses to Jiang’s life before Mao.140 Jiang’s access to Mao, and Mao’s continued support of Jiang, ensured that Lin was able to rise spectacularly quickly. In the five years before he fatally overreached his role in 1971, Lin managed to consolidate personal power to an impressive degree, by orienting individuals towards Mao and by inserting key military personnel in national and provincial governments.

This phase of the Cultural Revolution was marked by the extreme reorganisation of all levels of government. Provincial governments were dissolved, and previous leaders of local government and government bureaus were removed from power. In place of provincial state governments, Revolutionary Committees were established and through these committees the military injected their own people into all levels of government. Virtually every level of civilian provincial government now had a permanent representative from the military. This was even more evident within national ministries.

The State Planning Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and the People’s Bank of China all saw officers “exercising joint leadership with a preexisting body of civilian ‘revolutionary’ cadres and ‘masses’”.141 The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and the Ministry of Railways were completely under military control. As Roderick MacFarquhar explains, “In the end, not a single ministry remained entirely civilian.”142 Lin Biao’s command of military and civilian government was now almost unrivalled. It was exceeded only by Mao’s, and even Mao’s hold was to prove vulnerable to betrayal. 69

One of Lin’s army innovations that became broadly disseminated was the Little Red Book, officially known as Quotations from Chairman Mao. Initially developed to consolidate loyalty to Mao within the army143 as well as to demonstrate Lin’s slavish devotion, the collation of Mao’s sayings became a textbook for soldiers to learn how to read Chinese characters. A difficult language to read, Chinese characters require students to memorise how to pronounce an image rather than pronouncing words according to a phonetic system, such as English or French. With direct and rousing language, Mao’s sentences proved easy to remember and to recite. Zhou Enlai estimated that 700 million copies of Mao’s Quotations were in circulation in China,144 roughly equivalent to the size of China’s population in 1964 .145 Not only did the promotion of the Little Red Book ensure Lin’s popularity with Mao, it also became a means to instill an entire system of demonstrative worship. Moreover, as China specialist Judith Shapiro writes, “Military‐style social reorganization facilitated Party control and kept people too preoccupied with the transformations of their individual lives to question or resist Mao’s rule.”146 The constant social upheaval and the treacherous political minefields directed individual attention to survival and to the constant guarding of each person’s thoughts and actions, leaving little energy to question or challenge the efficacy of the social disruptions themselves.

The militarization of Chinese society and the deification of Mao was inextricably linked. Lin ensured that pervasive Mao worship infected every village, home, and (at least outwardly) every individual. By elevating Mao to the level of a god, Lin as the right‐arm of Mao then became the successor of the deity. Seeding military personnel in all levels of national and provincial ministries and bureaucracies also ensured Lin access to administrative control of the nation. Forcing the citizenry to internalize Mao’s values and unquestioningly orient themselves to what Mao would like them to do ensured broad practical support for Lin. To question Mao’s decision was tantamount to signing one’s own death warrant, and so Lin’s power would not be challenged by the general population. Had the relationship between Mao and Lin remained stable, Lin’s own eventual succession would have been guaranteed. 70

During the years between 1968‐1971, citizens greeted each other with Mao sayings. In particularly zealous government‐run provision shops, customers had to recite half of a Mao statement and the shop assistants would respond with the second part of the sentence. It was also used as a means of testing loyalty. Those who had faulty memories or were not word‐perfect in their recitation were accused of harbouring anti‐revolutionary sentiments and punished accordingly. The Mao‐worshipping cult found its most extreme expression in the town of Shijiazhuang, which came to be promoted as an example for the rest of the nation. The townspeople were said to speak “the language of loyalty,” to perform the “acts of loyalty”, and were thereby “persons of loyalty”.147 This meant, for example, that shop employees would begin each day in front of a picture of Mao, salute the picture, sing the patriotic anthem “The East is Red,” wish him a long life, and commence a study session of approved texts by Mao and Lin Biao’s “Preface to the New Edition” of Mao’s Quotations.148 They would end the workday by reporting to Mao’s picture what had transpired that day.149 Mao’s personal physician describes the national daily ritual as follows:

Tens of millions of people throughout the country began each day by bowing before a picture of Mao and asking it for the day’s instructions. They ended the day by bowing again, reporting to Mao and confessing their mistakes. Every workday began and ended with collective recitation of Mao’s thoughts. Chairman Mao’s thought was not just the country’s guiding ideology, it was its collective mantra.”150 This was tantamount to treating Mao as a God, a God that requires morning scripture study and bedtime prayers.151 This performative devotion allowed communities to demonstrate and ritually enact their revolutionary fervour, and individuals to emphasise their own political correctness in the public sphere.

It wasn’t enough to perform one’s devotion, citizens also had to wear it on their sleeves. This period was marked by the proliferation of Mao badges, commemorative pins that featured Mao’s image in a raised profile (Figure 1.23) Although Mao badges had been produced from 1966, the practice of regularly 71

Figure 1.23 Assorted Chairman Mao Badges from the British Museum Collection, catalogue numbers 118‐129 wearing the badges only became a mania during the deification period of 1968‐ 71. The army led the way. From 1967, the General Political Department of the 72

PLA distributed two badges to all personnel, one with a detailed portrait of Mao with the five‐pointed star, and another rectangular badge featuring Mao’s quotation “Serve the People” (wei renmin fuwu).152 Army badges and many government‐produced badges featured Lin Biao’s calligraphy on the back, emphasizing Lin’s endorsement of Mao. Some badges had images of Lin Biao as well, or the newly built Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, but the vast majority of the badges that were produced featured images of Mao alone.153 The Mao badge mania grew to such proportions that aluminum supplies ran short, jeopardizing the output of military aircraft. Mao famously complained, “Give me back my airplanes. It would be far more useful to make airplanes to protect the nation out of the metal being expended in the production of Mao badges.”154 The severity of the aluminum shortage led the Central Committee to issue a decree banning the trade in badges.155 Those who were from “black” family backgrounds were no longer allowed to wear Mao badges.156 For those whose class background allowed, covering oneself in Mao badges became a talismanic practice to confer protection against violence or public criticism by making visible the wearer’s revolutionary class status. Those allowed to wear Mao badges were expected to make their loyalty to Mao visible all the time, whether they were government officials or young children.157 The estimated number of Mao badges produced from 1966‐1971 was 5 billion,158 showing the importance of demonstrating loyalty for the entire population, and not just for the political elite.

Although Mao himself was not vain about his appearance, it is evident that the display of his image pleased him. Unlike Indian maharajahs who covered themselves in diamonds, Mao had the singular distinction of being a national leader whose citizens covered themselves in his image. Mao’s image acted as a signifier of the wearer’s connections, access and resources within the Communist state. The coin of the realm, for a moment in time, was the possession of Mao images. Scholar Melissa Schrift describes this mania as being driven by a desire to demonstrate revolutionary or “red” political capital, rather than by a cult mentality.159 Wearing Mao’s image displayed a citizen’s political and social capital and helped them to avoid random persecution.160 73

Required demonstrations of revolutionary ardour also meant that every home, office, factory and military base had a picture of Mao. Not having a Mao picture would invite censure or worse. Most of these pictures were from widely reproduced paintings, such as Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan.

Paradoxically, as demand swelled for huge quantities of Mao badges and portraits, the opportunities to study art, to produce art, or to work in the arts disappeared. Key government departments and arts institutions were completely dissolved in the political reorganization. For arts practitioners and administrators, all of the main work units that provided their employment, housing and even food ration coupons that together accounted for thousands of employees such as the Ministry of Culture, the Central Propaganda Department and the Chinese Artists Association, were disbanded. All of their previous responsibilities were transferred to a new culture group under the aegis of Jiang Qing.161 Moreover, the faculty and students of arts academies had been sent to different parts of the countryside. Indeed, the army had been sent into the Central Academy of Fine Arts to guard the teachers still imprisoned on campus, and there was no artistic activity at CAFA at all. The art students then became workers or peasants, depending on the location of their new assignations. Few new images of Mao were produced, and only a few of these were selected for mass reproduction, but the number of posters printed from them were was large. An estimated 2.2 billion162 portraits of Mao were printed during the Cultural Revolution. Each image might be reproduced in hundreds of millions of copies, creating a unified and restricted body of images that the entire nation saw repeated. This resulted in a common visual lexicon, omnipresent and severely limited.

Even as the numbers of original images dwindled, propaganda paintings of Mao proliferated in public and private spaces. Paintings of Mao were painted on to the sides of buildings, on the walls of factories, in village assembly halls, reproduced in prints and displayed in every home and pressed into badges. It was impossible to escape from the image of Mao. Virtually no other political leaders were depicted, except occasionally Lin Biao and very rarely, Jiang Qing. 74

The mass proliferation of Mao’s image, caused by the demand for demonstrations of loyalty, gave people unprecedented visual access to selected images. This is in marked contrast with practices of the preceding Qing dynasty. Commoners were forbidden to look on the face of the Qing Emperors on pain of death. The emperor’s annual processions to the Temple of Heaven were preceded by announcements for all commoners to remain indoors and avoid looking on the imperial visage or face immediate execution. The propagation of Mao portraits is analogous to the Soviet dissemination of portraits of Lenin and, after the ruinous battles following the death of Julius Caesar, the empire‐wide distribution of statues featuring the triumphant Augustus Caesar portrayed as a god. The distribution of all these portraits served to instill a sense of personal connection and loyalty to the image of the new ruler.

The deification of Mao witnessed the blanketing of China with his image. Objects of devotion and worship, Mao badges and pictures comprised the only images that most Chinese people in China saw on a daily basis. This was part of the attempt to use Mao’s figure to exemplify the Chinese Communist Revolution in its entirety, even to the point of rescripting historic events in revolutionary history. Indeed, one of the stated activities of the demonstrating students in 1967 was to engage in “god‐creating”, the process of uplifting the image of Mao into that of a divinity.163 Artist Chen Danqing relates that he had no problem with the requirement to paint Mao repetitively and notes that “At the time, I felt that there was no difference between [me and] the Renaissance painters – they painted Jesus. I painted Mao.”164

For many people who experienced the Cultural Revolution but did not suffer persecution, the images, recitations and rituals are the aspects most vividly remembered. Just as the catechism, portrayals of the crucifixion, rosaries and pictures of the saints provide a framework for Catholics; reciting Mao’s quotations, collecting badges, and reporting to Mao’s picture provided an ersatz religion to people for whom conventional faith was proscribed.

The cult of Mao had been encouraged by the man himself. In 1958, he stated that “There are two kinds of cult of the individual. One is correct, such as that of 75

Marx, Engels, Lenin and the correct side of Stalin. These we ought to revere and continue to revere for ever…A squad should revere its squad leader; it would be quite wrong not to.”165 Reverence is a significant step towards deification. In the decade before the Cultural Revolution, Mao already had strong views on how he should be represented, complaining that, “When Chinese painters painted pictures of me together with Stalin, they always made me a little bit shorter, thus blindly knuckling under to the moral pressure exerted by the Soviet Union at that time.”166 Moreover, Mao had complained of painters who had portrayed him on a lesser footing to Lenin and felt he should be depicted as an equal.167

Figurative painting became a means to promote the cult of Mao. It was also a device used to reinforce the power of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, who sought influence by promulgating the celebration of Mao’s role as the revolutionary and spiritual leader of China. This mass propaganda effort sought to turn representations of Mao’s body into key symbols of the Chinese Communist Revolution and of China itself. By the middle of the Cultural Revolution, this had been achieved and the figure of Mao was the only figure allowed to be depicted in association with revolution.

Militarised Mao Imagery

Almost all images of Mao produced in this middle period depict him in a military uniform, within a military context, or in a military community. The images very closely reflect the militarization of Chinese life in this period and the deification of Mao. However, it is notable that the oil paintings do not depict Mao in a historic context, for example headed into battle, or lecturing in Yan’an. Instead, he is often depict as a solitary figure, or surrounded by eager, sturdy and adoring young people. Mao has been transformed from one who acts to one who only needs to be.

As mentioned earlier, most citizens had personal images of Mao in the form of badges, and in the home and office, some of the freely distributed posters or commemorative reprints of paintings such as Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan. Given the dearth of young art students and emerging painters, and the general 76

Figure 1.24 Wang Hui, Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman, Making Revolution Depends on Mao Zedong Thought, 1969, poster, Collection of Yan Shanchun absence of artists from society, the types of images that were produced during this period reflect the power structure of the day. Oil paintings required materials, and access to the influence required to ensure the production of the work and the survival of trained artists. Paintings show clearly the shifting rankings of those with political, economic and social capital.

Examining five prominent images provides a view into the challenges of producing images in this period. They comprise a widely distributed propaganda poster, a gouache of the political hierarchy, and three oil paintings with diverse fates. Given the martial dominance of all aspects of government and daily life, it will not be surprising to find that militarized subject matter dominate the images.

Propaganda posters such as Wang Hui’s Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman, Making Revolution Depends on Mao Zedong Thought (Figure 1.24) directly convey the political tenor of the period. A bulky Mao dominates the centre of the composition. A large Chinese Communist flag behind him waves to the left, to indicate political orientation. In the mid‐ground on the left stands the historic building at Zunyi from which Mao emerged triumphant after a 1935 leadership struggle to head the Long March.168 In the mid‐ground on the right is the entrance to the Forbidden City (the centre of power in Imperial China) are visible like tiny models behind Mao, trace his progress from the beginning of his 77

Figure 1.25 Shen Yaoding, Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Proletarian Revolution Line, 1969, Gouache on paper, Collection of T.Z, Chang leadership of the Chinese Communist Party to his triumphant taking of the nation. The rays of a brilliant sun emanate from behind the flag, evoking the phrase, “Chairman Mao is the Red, Red Sun of Our Hearts,” that was recited by millions each morning. In this image, laden with overt symbolism, Mao alone is shown in triumphant dominance. Mao is presented as China, and identified with Chinese Communism.

Propaganda posters draw upon easily understood symbols of nationhood and power. Intended for mass distribution, they provided a quick and inexpensive means to disseminate political messages to be understood by the masses. This 1969 poster was produced by a purpose‐built studio under the auspices of Jiang Qing and her culture group. Wit, classical allusions and complexity did not feature in propaganda posters of this time period. Overt symbolism was the norm. The perpetually stocky, stolid form of the balding Chairman clad in an army uniform was now standard – quite a change from Liu Chunhua’s imagined romantic poet, purposefully walking through rosy‐fingered lands, impelled with revolutionary hopes for the betterment of the Chinese people. What happened to Mao? Just as the nation choked off diverse ways of thinking with the new structures of governance and civil society, so too did art reflect the narrowed vision of the nation. From now on, there would be a more restricted range of ways in which to depict Mao.

A more subtle message of political hierarchy features in Shen Yaoding’s Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Proletarian Revolution Line (Figure 1.25), a 78 carefully rendered gouache on paper. This is a rare surviving image of Mao together with Lin Biao. Prints and badges of the two men used to be ubiquitous, but after Lin’s disgrace they were mostly destroyed by their collectors out of a sense of self‐preservation. In this picture we see the entire leadership, with Lin Biao on the extreme right holding up his copy of the Little Red Book. Next to him and much larger is Mao. Mao’s figure spans the entire vertical height of the painting. They are standing at what appears to be a balcony, as behind them lies a sea of waving red flags. Bunched together in the left side of the painting, stands Premier Zhou Enlai, and behind him, Kang Sheng, the evil head of the Secret Police. In the extreme left back corner is Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, in an army uniform, with Chen Boda, one of the directors of the Cultural Revolution Group, officially number four in the party hierarchy at the time of the painting. Lin and Mao are immistakably the dominant figures. Both are in army green. Mao’s hand is aloft, in a pose not unlike a Nazi salute. The proximity of Lin and Mao and their similar green army uniforms makes their grouping read as one cluster. Lin’s Little Red Book provides a strong red shape on the right. The book and Mao’s upraised arm create a dynamic L‐shape that draws the eye to Mao and Lin as the focus of the work. Visually, in this work, there is no doubt that Lin Biao was positioned to take over from Mao. Indeed, by standing in front of Mao, he may have displayed an undue haste in seeking the top leadership role.

A fascinating case of politics sinking a picture emerges in the oil painting by Zheng Shengtian entitled Mao’s Whole World is Mutable, Seas Become Mulberry Fields: Chairman Mao Inspects Areas South and North of the Yangtze River (Figure 1.14). The work was produced just at the time of transition between the Red Guards‐dominated phase and the militaristic phase, in the early part of 1968,169 and was caught out by the rapid political changes in Beijing. As the artist was based in the south, he was not well placed to obtain early warning of the political shifts to which Beijing art instructors were, and are, so sensitive. Zheng Shengtian, a well regarded painting instructor at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, one of the two most eminent art academies in China alongside the Central Academy of Fine Arts was the originator of the work but was not allowed to paint all of it. 79

Because of his political background, Zheng was not authorized to paint the body and face of Mao. Instead as Zheng explains, “I was told that Mao’s head had to be painted by a young revolutionary Red Guard. Also, the body had to be drawn by a teacher with a stronger revolutionary awareness [than I had].”170 Zheng could only paint the background. Indeed, the work was initially painted anonymously, following a policy of not encouraging individualism and not seeking or allocating credit for individual production of art.

The title in the painting refers to a poem that Mao had written about a military victory.171 Mao is cast as an immortal, standing above the clouds in his army uniform, coat slung over the right arm, contemplating with a relaxed air, a vast expanse of land, presumably his conquered realms. Beneath him, multitudes of tiny figures, more than the eye can see, stand waving bright red flags, suggesting the Red Guards rallies in Tiananmen Square. The clarity with which Mao is painted, and the vast distance from the crowds, makes visible the association between Mao and divinity.

Indeed, the symbolism is not accidental. The title Zheng gave to the work comes from a traditional story in which a female immortal tells a male immortal that she has already seen the East Sea turn into mulberry fields three times. He mentions that he has heard a wise man saying that the East Sea would soon become dust. 172 The idiom suggests that the world continues to change from one extreme to the other, and also in unimaginable ways, suggesting that nothing is immutable. Zheng was educated in the Chinese classics as well as in Marxist ideology, as he came of age before the educational system was reformed to comply with Mao’s version of Communism. Consequently, Zheng was still familiar with the traditional idioms used prior to the Cultural Revolution. Picking up on Mao’s poem allowed him to bridge those two worlds in his painting title.

The painting also makes visible the great distance between Mao and his student followers. The work proved remarkably prescient. It was only a matter of months before Mao completely lost patience with the Red Guards and ordered them to the countryside to learn from the peasantry, making clear that he 80

Figure 1.26 Lü Enyi, Dear Instructor, 1969, oil on canvas, Collection of the artist thought them lacking in the political consciousness that peasants possessed naturally.

The leadership in Zhejiang strongly approved of the work and it was reproduced and distributed regionally. However, once it was taken up to Beijing for Jiang Qing’s approval, she “stated that what was popular with the masses might not necessarily be good,” and additionally that she thought Mao’s chin not skillfully painted.173 That was the death knell for the work and it was withdrawn from propaganda poster printing circulation. The painting itself subsequently disappeared.174

One of the more intimate works of this period comes from the navy. Lü Enyi’s Dear Instructor is an oil painting from 1969 (Figure 1.26). Although trained as a professional painter, Lü was also in the navy,175 and during the Cultural Revolution he produced many anonymous paintings about naval life. This work 81 features Mao, again in army dress, seated and animatedly speaking with enthusiastic young naval officers. In contrast with the frosty day outside, the atmosphere is cheerful and respectfully informal. Almost all of the officers are seated and leaning forward attentively. Another sits in the back, with his arm casually placed on the back of a sofa. A young smiling female officer stands to Mao’s left, taking notes of his comments. The furniture, the blocky brown leather sofas, and the cups of tea with porcelain cup covers on wooden glass‐topped coffee tables all speak of reality. In today’s China, government reception rooms are similarly outfitted. This work stands out because of its freshness. Obviously Mao’s visit to the navy was a special occasion, and this work is a record of the officers’ personal encounter. By comparison, most of the other artists discussed in this section worked from photographs that were endlessly recycled for various propaganda uses.

The artist Lü Enyi remained unknown for a long time, and had the freedom to make works to record and commemorate daily naval life. These first drew attention in an exhibition in 1971, in which the professional standard of the naval paintings stood out in stark contrast176 with the majority of awkward and indifferent amateur works. Lü had worked with other naval painters to ensure that a reasonably good standard could be seen in the 200 displayed paintings by the navy. His own paintings were “attributed to an anonymous ‘naval art worker.’”177

The last painting of this time period to be discussed is perhaps the best known, Tang Xiaohe’s and Cheng Li’s, Advancing Through the Mighty Winds and Waves (Figure 1.27).178 The work conveys Mao’s love of swimming and depicts him in a dressing gown, surrounded by young, jolly, ruddy‐cheeked army personnel and Red Guards. The overall mood is joyful and bright: a strong clear sun beams over the scene. The reds, blues and yellows of the work lend it a cheerful quality in contrast with the dourness of many of the propaganda images of Mao.

Yet close study of the work reveals disturbing elements. Mao stands slightly left of centre, and is manifestly the tallest person in the composition, standing like a oddly still Statue of Liberty. On a boat, he is surrounded by young people in a 82

Figure 1.27 Tang Xiaohe and Cheng Li, Advancing Through the Mighty Winds and Waves, 1971, oil on canvas, Collection of Hanart TZ Gallery vaguely triangular composition. Their scarves and towels are waving in the stiff breeze, creating a sense of dynamism and movement in the painting. The sense of movement is further enhanced by the waves that shoot up in the foreground alongside the boat, dangerously near the open stairs that are meant to allow Mao to enter the water. Close scrutiny of the background reveals thousands of swimmers following alongside Mao’s boat which holds aloft the red Chinese flag. As in Zheng’s painting discussed earlier, the figures are miniscule, representing the wide distance between Mao’s status and theirs. The cluster of young people around Mao is meant to demonstrate how close he is to the people, yet the distance of the massed figures is much closer to reality.

The overt military props are the most curious part of the picture. At odds with the carefree mood of the image, the young people carry rifles slung over shoulders, while wearing shorts and shirts with rolled‐up sleeves. The young girl in front with her hair in pigtails bears a Red Guards armband and also carries a regulation‐issue army satchel. The young girl with her hair tied up behind her also carries a rifle on her back. If they’re going swimming, why do they need guns? 83

The undercurrent of threat relates to Mao’s choice of swimming location. The work commemorates a legendary swim taken by Mao in the Yangtze river. The river is widely considered to be too dangerous for swimmers. In the words of Mao’s personal physician Dr. Li:

That Mao should swim in the Yangtze was truly unthinkable. It was the mightiest of China’s rivers, the swiftest and most dangerous, with strong currents and whirlpools. Even boats have difficulty maneuvering. No one had ever swum in the Yangtze River before ‐ not even the people who lived along its banks. But Mao wanted to swim the Yangtze anyway.

When Han Qingyu and Sun Yong [Mao’s bodyguards] returned from their test swim, both agreed that the Yangtze was much more dangerous than the Pearl [River]. Anyone trapped in one of the whirlpools could not be saved. Moreover, the water was infested with snails carrying schistosomiasis, a debilitating disease.“179

Dr. Li further explains that at the time of Mao’s first Yangtze swim in 1956, Mao was facing challenges to his policy directives.180 Members of the central leadership challenged the wisdom of his proposed agricultural reforms, reforms that in years to come led to widespread famine and the resulting deaths of tens of millions.181 That initial 1956 swim was perceived as symbolically demonstrating the power of his will, his mastery over fear, and his successful defiance of received knowledge.182 It was a public relations triumph, adding to the legend that was building up around him in the provinces of China.

In 1966, Mao reprised his historic swim. This act was celebrated and remembered throughout the Cultural Revolution, even leading to a cross‐Yangtze swimming contest in Wuhan right at the most fevered terror period of the early Cultural Revolution in 1966. Mao’s second Yangtze swim in 1966 took place with five thousand participants plunged into the cold river alongside Mao.183 At seventy‐two years of age, this was a public demonstration of his physical strength, and accordingly was widely and “rapturously” reported and documented in the newspapers.184 84

The link between physical strength and nation‐building remained a constant feature in Mao’s self‐presentation. He loved to swim and the repetition of this feat continued to aggrandize the early legend, refreshing it in the minds of millions even as Mao’s own health faced crisis after crisis.

This bright and lively painting, redolent of physical vigour and the affection of the young, proved a great success. The following year, in 1972, an exhibition was named after it at the National Art Museum in Beijing. The exhibition, Strive Forward in Wind and Tides, displayed the work prominently. The painting was also designated a “model work”, which carried with it the recommendation that elements should be emulated in future paintings.

Stage Three – Mao and Community

This third and final section addresses the five years from the violent death of Lin Biao in 1971 to Mao’s own death in 1976. Images of Mao in this period started to emphasise his empathy with the people and the historic military events with which he was associated. During in this period, Mao came to actively shun his deification.

Lin Biao died in 1971 in circumstances that remain a murky despite much speculation. There were rumours of a planned coup, perhaps a joint effort organised by Lin and his son Lin Liguo, an air force officer, or a plot of his son’s own devising.185 It is said that Lin Liguo was piloting an aircraft, with Lin Biao and his wife Ye Qun on board, although the events that triggered Lin’s flight continue to be shrouded in official mystery. The aircraft crashed in Mongolia. The plane may have run out of fuel, or possibly it was shot down. The cause has not been definitively explained.186 The official Chinese line states that Lin formed a conspiracy to unseat Mao and he was aided in this endeavour by Lin Liguo.187 After exposure, the conspirators allegedly fled towards the Soviet Union. It remains unclear whether there was indeed a planned coup, or whether Mao staged the incident to bring down Lin Biao’s clique. 85

Figure 1.28 Chen Yanning, Chairman Mao Inspects the Guangdong Countryside, 1972, oil on canvas, Sigg Collection Visibly ageing after the betrayal by or of Lin Biao, Mao’s health took a turn for the worse. After battling repeated illnesses, he finally succumbed in 1976. Images from the period of his illness range from one that demonstrated virility to several that show a hale and hearty Mao accompanying peasants and workers. The worse his health fared, the more vigorously Mao was depicted in publicized works of art.

A jolly countryside tour is featured in Chen Yanning’s 1972 work Chairman Mao Inspects the Guangdong Countryside (Figure 1.28). Bright colour and a central focus on Mao display continuity with previous portrayals. However, a striking difference with work from the 1968‐71 period can be seen in the proximity of the farmers. Casually dressed, with many of the peasants walking barefoot, they share the same road as Mao. No adoring multitudes fill the background. Instead paddy fields spread out on either side and other peasants continue to work there, looking up only after the procession has passed. The unmistakable message is of unity with the people and of Mao’s empathetic humanity. Clad in a white shirt and grey trousers, Mao looks like a provincial government official today. When it was exhibited in 1972 at the Strive Forward in Wind and Tides exhibition, it was given a place of honour next to the work that inspired the exhibition, making government approval quite evident. 86

Figure 1.29 Qin Wenmei (Shaanxi Cultural Bureau Art Creation Group pseudonym), Our Hearts Join with Chairman Mao, 1972

Figure 1.30 He Kongde, Gutian Congress, oil on canvas, 1972, Collection of the Chinese Military Museum 87

Unity is a theme that also features in Qin Wenmei, Our Hearts Join with Chairman Mao (Figure 1.29). Painted in 1972, the work features Mao sitting down with a group of men, who are possibly Uighur tribesmen. Qin Wenmei is actually the pseudonym of the Shaanxi Cultural Bureau Art Creation Group. The province lies south of Mongolia and has a large population of minority communities. Many of the minority communities suffered grievously during the early phase of the Cultural Revolution, until Zhou Enlai stepped in to provide some protection and stop the eradication of their traditional practices. In this painting Mao sits while the men lean forward, eagerly listening to what he has to say. Clad in a dark grey army uniform, Mao blends in with his surroundings. His audience is attentive but not subservient.

Key moments in Communist history are also chronicled in this period with Mao playing a central role. Take for example, He Kongde’s 1972 painting, Gutian Congress (Figure 1.30). The Congress, which took place in December 1929, marked a turning point in Mao’s fortunes. At this time, Mao had been removed from the party leadership for several months. However, as the designated representative of the Comintern, Mao was able to address the Congress. He proceeded to lecture them on the dangers of ultra‐democracy leading to individualism and the subsequent weakening of the Party and of the revolution. The choice of this event is very pointed. For one thing, Lin Biao included a section on ultra‐democracy in the Little Red Book, so the concept would have been widely familiar during the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, the image is a pointed criticism of Lin Biao himself, and suggests that he overreached his position.

The work itself draws upon a Soviet‐trained aesthetic, using chiaroscuro to highlight Mao and to create a sense of dramatic intensity. The painting is also very large, 175cm x 290 cm, on the same scale as a European history painting. Currently hanging in the Chinese Military Museum in Beijing, it is a work not often reproduced in English language texts on the Cultural Revolution, but is fairly well known in China. During the two earlier periods of the Cultural Revolution, very few paintings depict Mao’s revolutionary history, perhaps because this would cast doubt on his omnipotence, as his rise would 88

Figure 1.31 Hou Yimin, Chairman Mao with the Workers of Anyuan, 1976, oil painting then have been far from assured. However, this artist was allowed to depict a turning point in Mao’s career, reflecting an understanding of history. The use of Soviet painting techniques also demonstrates the greater latitude now enjoyed by artists in terms of painting style. Gone is the monolithic Mao. Now we see a more romantic Mao reemerging, with floppy hair and casual dress.

Finally, a full circle is drawn literally and metaphorically in Hou Yimin’s Chairman Mao with the Workers of Anyuan (Figure 1.31). Painted in the year of Mao’s death, the work depicts the Chairman in the midst of a circle of workers. As with Liu Chunhua’s work, the painting avoids any depiction of Mao actually leading the strike. Instead, it skirts the truth and depicts him talking to the miners. With the figures clustered close around him, many shirtless, their faces are eagerly turned towards Mao. Mao himself is dressed in an untucked white shirt and an unbuttoned khaki coloured army jacket. His hair is parted and loose. This image closely resembles how Mao actually looked during his revolutionary days, according to Edgar Snow’s photographs. This, as with He Kongde’s work, reflects a Mao who is more human and accessible than the monolithic propagandistic Mao seen in the 1968‐1971 images. Community‐ 89 oriented and sitting down to talk with the downtrodden, this Mao is closer to the revolutionary ideal than either Liu Chunhua’s romanticized solitary figure or Tang Xiaohe’s enigmatic bathrobe‐clad Yangtze hero.

The images discussed comprise a selection of the many produced of Mao. However, they bear unmistakable characteristics of their times. Even though the Cultural Revolution lasted for only ten years, the politics of the period were vicious and unforgiving, and the emphasis shifted significantly in its different phases. Art mattered. Images provided a means to communicate with a mass audience, and to engage emotions powerful enough to serve the extraordinary social engineering projects on which the country and its scheming leaders had embarked. As Mao mattered more than anyone else at that time, his figure was invested with a whole spectrum of meanings. Revolutionary leader, divinity and romantic hero are just a few of the roles he played. Yet the relationship of these images with the man himself is tenuous. Rather his figure embodied the shifting political priorities and vicissitudes of the age. 90

1 Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “Keeping Mao Company,” in Poster Power: Images from Mao’s China, Then and Now (London: University of Westminster, 2011), 11. 2 Lincoln Cushing, “Revolutionary Chinese Posters and Their Impact Abroad.” In Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, eds. Lincoln Cushing and Ann Tompkins, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007), 19. 3 Cleaver qtd. in Cushing, “Revolutionary Chinese Posters,” 19. 4 Bob Avakian, “Bob Avakian: The Making of a Revolutionary,” Revolutionary Worker, 1212 September 13, 2003, http://www.rwor.org/a/1212/baback.html, 6. 5 Stefan Landsberger. “Paint it Red. Fifty Years of Chinese Propaganda Posters,” (Groningen: Intermed Publishers, 1998), http://chineseposters.net/resources/landsberger‐paint‐it‐red.php, 2. 6 Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story, trans. Steven I. Levine (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 323‐324. 7 Ibid, 324. 8 Ibid. 9 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 543. 10Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, ed. Edward L. Davis, (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 336. 11 Lü Peng. A History of Art in 20th­Century China, trans. Bruce Doer, (Milano and New York: Charta Books Ltd., 2010), 629. 12 Ibid, 461. 13 Li Cunxin. Mao’s Last Dancer (Camberwell: Penguin Group Australia, 2003), 159. 14 Mao initially applied this model, of rooting out inherent class contradictions in order to rectify Communist cadres, during the pre‐Revolutionary period in Yan’an. Through writing self‐criticisms and group confrontations, one could recognise one’s own failings and so could become a better Communist. During the Cultural Revolution, this became a system that was applied to rectifying the nation, but spun‐out to an extreme and murderous degree. 15 Landsberger, Paint it Red, 26. 16 While this approach might seem to produce mind‐numbing similarity, to many Chinese viewers who lived through the Cultural Revolution, the uniformity of style and approach created a comforting familiarity and set tropes that were easily understandable. In fact, I found the experience of viewing 2,000 propaganda posters in a Shanghai museum very similar to the effect of visiting the Cloisters medieval art museum in New York when I was an undergraduate. Hundreds of gilded Madonna and Child scenes produced a similar effect to viewing thousands of Mao’s. After a while, they all merged into one image! 17 Lü, 20th Century China, 511. 18 Lü articulates the complex and historically specific evolution of the combination of the ‘two‐in‐one combination‘ of ‘revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism’ in his A History of Art in 20th Century China pp. 510‐ 516. It was a debate that dominated Chinese art theory discussions from the 1950’s until the 1980’s, and served to distance the Chinese from Soviet Social 91

Realism. It was a fairly academic debate that did not seem to greatly affect whether or not a painting rose in prominence or popularity. Lü, 513. 19 Richard Curt Kraus, The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture (State and Society in East Asia), (Lanham, Boulder, and New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004), 75. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid, 76. 22 Curiously, Mao tended not to apply his own standards to his personal behaviour. He famously did not brush his teeth as observed by his personal doctor, leading to permanent halitosis. Moreover, he tended to sleep during the day and remained awake through most of the night. Towards the latter part of his life, he also enjoyed the company of many young women, provided by various military “cultural work troupes.” Indeed, this last activity lead to his contracting venereal diseases that he then cheerfully passed on. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (New York: Random House, 1994) (hereafter Private Life), 507, 345, 490‐491. 23 Mao Tse‐Tung, “A Study of Physical Education: April 1917,” in The Political Thought of Mao Tse­tung. ed. and trans. Schram, S. in 1963 (New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1969), 152‐53, 157. 24 Ibid, 158. 25 Ibid, 156. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid, 154. 28 Jonathan Spence, Mao Zedong: A Life (New York: Penguin Group, 1999), 26, 29. Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China.. 2nd ed., (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd., 1999, 1990), 296. 29 Spence, Search for Modern China, 302. 30 Jessica C.S. Wang, John Dewey in China: To Teach and To Learn (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 22, 26. 31 Spence, Mao Zedong, 21. 32 Spence, Search for Modern China, 290. 33 Yan qtd. in Spence, ibid, 291. 34 Spence, Search for Modern China, 291. 35 Spence, Mao Zedong, 33. 36 Ibid. 37 Alexander V. Pantsov with Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story (New York and London: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 192. 38 Frank Dikötter argues persuasively that 45 million died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward. His statistics are derived from examining newly released data from public security bureaus across China. Previous researchers had arrived at numbers ranging from 15‐32 million based on census data. Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine (London, Berlin, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2010), x. 39 During my student days in Beijing, I lived above a secondary school preparing for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. At 6.30am every school day for two months, loudspeakers would vigorously and robotically bellow forth exercise instructions for hundreds of 92

school children to follow. When viewing Cultural Revolution documentary films, I was filled with a peculiar nostalgia when I heard similar recorded exercise broadcasts. 40 Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, “Making Light: Animation and the Invitation to Laugh Out Loud at Absurdity,” in Poster Power: Images from Mao’s China, Then and Now (London: University of Westminster, 2011), 20. 41 Stefan Landsberger, Chinese Posters: The IISH­Landsgerger Collections (Munich, Berlin, London and New York: Prestell, 2009), 4. 42 Hajime Sakamoto, “The Cult of ‘Love and Eugenics’ in May Fourth Movement Discourse.” Positions, 12:2, Duke University Press, 2004, 346. 43 Ibid, 347. 44 Ibid, 335. 45 Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 185. 46 Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao, Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution, trans. D.W.Y. Kwok (Honolulu: School of Hawaiian, Asian & Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, 1996), 101‐108. 47 Andrew Walder, Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2009), 7. 48 Ibid, 137. 49 Ibid, 101. 50 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 103. 51 Walder, Fractured Rebellion, 138. 52 Yan and Gao, 106. 53 L.A. Schneider, “Learning from Russia: Lysenkoism and the Fate of Genetics in China, 1950‐1986.” In Science and Technology in Post­Mao China, eds. Denis Simon and Merle Goldman, (Cambridge, M.A. and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), 52. 54 Ibid, 48. 55 Ibid, 49. 56 James F. Crow, “C.C.Tan: A Life of Peaks and Valleys” in Genetics, no. 1 1‐4 (May 1, 2003), 2. 57 Schneider, “Learning from Russia,” 51. 58 Ibid. 59 Crow, “C.C. Tan,” 2. 60 Ibid. 61 Crow, “C.C. Tan,” 3. 62 Schneider, “Learning from Russia,” 48. 63 Crow, “C.C. Tan,” 2. 64 Schneider, “Learning fron Russia,” 48. 65 Jiang Qing, “Jiang Qing’s Discussion with Arts Workers,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York: Asia Society, 2008), 220. 66China: Portrait of a Country, ed. Liu Heung Shing (Hong Kong: Taschen, 2008), 11. 67 Li Cunxin, Mao’s Last Dancer, 176. 93

68 China’s censors still wield a sharp pen. Recently, Chinese broadcast authorities have notified stations that they must reduce the number of television game shows, reality shows and talent contests. Apparently the rampant materialism and vulgarity of contestants on shows such as dating programme If You Are the One (“I’d rather be sitting inside a BMW crying than sitting on your bicycle and smiling” was a comment much repeated in China) have provoked national soul searching and prompted broadcasting authority directives to increase programming on morality and housework (Malkani, 7). 69 Roderick MacFarquhar, “The Cultural Revolution,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society in Association with Yale University Press, 2008), 42. 70Shen Kuiyi, “Propaganda Posters in China,” in Chinese Posters: The IISH­ Landsberger Collections, eds. Stefan R. Landsberger and Marien Van Der Heijden, (Munich: Prestel, 2009), 14. 71 Ibid. 72 Karen Smith, “Picture This,” in China: A Country in Pictures, eds. Karen Smith and T.S. Liu (Hong Kong, Köln, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo: Taschen, 2010), 60. 73 Ibid. 74 Smith, “Picture This,” 112. 75 Walder, Fractured Rebellion, 7. 76Zheng Shengtian, “Art and Revolution: Looking Back at Thirty Years of History,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York: Asia Society, 2008), 32. 77 Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, eds. Art and China’s Revolution (New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008), 10. 78 Julia Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949­1979 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1994), 354‐355. 79 Zheng, “Art and Revolution,” 36. 80 Shen, Kuiyi, “Propaganda Posters and Art during the Cultural Revolution,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York: Asia Society, 2008), 159. 81 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 309‐310. 82 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 313. More detailed information about the Socialist Education Movement and Four Cleanups can be found in MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 334‐348. 83 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 319 and MacFarquhar, Mao’s Last Revolution, 60. 84 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 107. 85 Wang Mingxian and Yan Shancun, 1966­1976: The Art History of the People’s Republic of China (Beijing: China Youth Publishing Society, 2000), 3. 86 Wang, 1966­1976, 3. 87 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 319. 88 Wang, 1966‐1976, 3 and Andrews, Painters and Politics, 322. 89 Ye qtd. in Lü, 20th Century China, 638. 94

90 Fortunately, Ye survived the Cultural Revolution, passing away in 1995. It was eleven years after his death until it was deemed feasible to publish his autobiography. It appeared in 2006, during the brief period of openness prior to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. 91 Lü, 20th Century China, 1207. 92 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 323. 93 Andrew Walder’s superb book Fractured Rebellions unpicks the complex web of associations and consequences of actions that motivated the Beijing Red Guards. 94 Walder, Fractured Rebellions, 15. 95 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 321. 96 Wang, 1966­1976, 11. 97 In texts, this museum has been referred to as the China History Museum (Lü 651), the Museum of the Revolution (Liu quoted in Zheng, 122) and the Museum of Revolutionary History (Andrews, 338). This museum has changed names several times, often because of differing views on representing what constitutes ideal revolutionary images. I’ve used the latter term, since until 2010 that’s what it was labeled in guidebooks, and this may be of use to future researchers and the curious. Since 2010, the Museum of Revolutionary History has been subsumed into the National Museum of China, and occasionally labelled as such on maps. Incidentally, in 2011, after waiting 2 ½ hours in the entrance queue in 2° weather, I was dismayed to discover the section on the 1950’s‐70’s closed. This is, I understand, not unusual since the challenge on how to represent the era is still contentious within China. 98 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 335. 99 Elizabeth Perry, Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition, Berkeley, London and New York: University of California Press, 2012, 51‐102. 100 Ibid, 85. 101 Ibid, 141. 102 Ibid, 143‐144. 103 Ibid, 143. 104 Ibid, 85. 105 Elizabeth J. Perry, “Red Literati: Communist Educators at Anyuan, 1921‐25,” in Twentieth­Century China (April 2007): 115‐123. http://web.ebscohost.com.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/ehost/detail?vid=4 &sid=2592d0c8‐a7ce‐4e31‐a77b‐ 962c7a631488%40sessionmgr4&hid=1&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3Q+bG12ZQ% 3d%3d (accessed 28 July 2013). 106 Perry, Anyuan, 168, 198. 107 Liu qtd. in Zheng Shengtian, “Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan: A Conversation with the Artist Liu Chunhua” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York: Asia Society, 2008), 119. 108 Ibid, 113. 109 Ibid. 110 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 120. 111 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 124. 112 Liu qtd. in Zheng , “Chairman Mao,” 120. 95

113 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 122. 114 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 125. 115 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 124. 116 Perry, Anyuan, 49. 117 Ibid. 118 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 122. 119 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 123. 120 Mao, “Physical Education,” 158. 121 Louise Edwards, “Dressing for Power: Scholar’s Robes, School Uniforms and Military Attire in China,” in The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas, eds. Mina Roces and Louise Edwards (Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), 67. 122 Valery Garrett, Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present, (Rutland, Vermont and Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2007), 134. 123 Garrett, Chinese Dress, 134. 124 Mao Zedong, “A Talk to Music Workers,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (New York: Asia Society, 2008), 217. 125 Liu qtd. in Zheng, “Chairman Mao,” 125. 126 Lü, 20th Century China, 651. 127 Lü, 20th Century China, 667. 128 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 75, 77. 129 Alfreda Murck, “Golden Mangoes – The Life Cycle of a Cultural Revolution Symbol,” in Archives of Asian Art 57 (New York: Asia Society, 2007), 20. 130 Grey qtd in MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 223‐224. 131 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 223. 132 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 251. 133 Lü, 20th Century China, 665. 134 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 251. 135 Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao’s Great Famine, eds. Edward Friedman, Guo Jian and Stacy Mosher, trans. Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian (London; Allen Lane, a division of Penguin Books Ltd., 2012), 377. 136 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 179. 137 Mao’s personal physician, Dr. Li Zhishi noted that Lin suffered after his various military campaigns to the extent that his terror of water, wind and the cold was so strong that he even avoided being outside. His fear of water was so great, that in the words of Li, “Lin Biao never used the toilet. When moving his bowels, he would use a quilt, as if it were a tent, to cover himself and would squat over a bedpan his wife would put on his bed.” Li, Private Life, 454. 138 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 179. 139 Li, Private Life, 259. 140 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 366‐374. 141 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 160. 142 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 160. 143 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 62. 144 Geremie Barmé, “The Irresistible Fall and Rise of Mao Zedong,” in Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader, (Armonk, New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 40. 96

145 Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 35‐36. 146 Ibid, 6. 147 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 264. 148 Ibid, 265. 149 Ibid, 265 150 Li, Private Life, 507. 151 In this sense, this phase of the Cultural Revolution resembled parts of the French Revolution’s Terror. After the dechristianisation of selected churches, some Jacobins attempted to replace Christian imagery with emblems celebrating Reason. In the end, Jacques Louis David’s paintings ended up producing the Neoclassical icons that presented the martyrs of the French Revolution. The use of the iconography of religion to help people internalize revolutionary ideals is a practice often drawn upon. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 770. 152 Helen Wang, Chairman Mao Badges: Symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution (London: The British Museum, 2008), 20. 153 Barmé, “The Irresistible Fall,” 40 and Wang, Chairman Mao Badges, ix. 154 Ibid, 40. 155 Melissa Schrift, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge: The Creation and Mass Consumption of a Personality Cult (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 72. 156 Wang, Chairman Mao Badges, 21. 157 Wang, Chairman Mao Badges, 21. 158 Wang, Chairman Mao Badges, ix. 159 Schrift, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge, 104. 160 Ibid, 105. 161 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 349. 162 Barmé, “The Irresistible Fall,” 8. 163 Zheng, “Art and Revolution,” 22. 164 Melissa Chiu, “Introduction: The Art of Mao’s Revolution,” in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Chiu, Melissa and Zheng Shengtian (New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008), 10. 165 Mao Tse‐Tung, “Talks at the Chengtu Conference March 1958, ” in Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters: 1956­71, ed. and trans. Stuart Schram (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 99. 166 Mao, “Talks at the Chengtu Conference,” 99. 167 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 100. 168 Many thanks to Alfreda Murck for identifying this building in her external examiner’s notes. 169 Please note that this work has also been dated as 1967 in Landsberger’s Chinese Posters: The IISH_Landsberger Collections. However, I have chosen to follow the 1968 dating of the work by the artist, Zheng Shengtian, as published in his “Art and Revolution” text. 170 Zheng, “Art and Revolution,” 33‐34. 171 “Capture of Nanjing by the People’s Liberation Army,” by Mao Zedong Over the Purple Mountains sweeps a storm heading 97

Our troops have crossed the great river, a million strong The Tiger girt with Dragon outshines days gone by; Heaven and earth o’erturned, our spirit ne’er so high! With our courage unspent pursue the foe o’erthrown! Do not fish like the Herculean King for renown! Heaven would have grown old were it moved to emotions; The world goes on with changes in the fields and oceans. The last line also can be read as, Man’s Whole World is Mutable, Seas Become Mulberry Fields, a classical idiom (沧海桑田,canghai sangtian). Zheng, “Art and Revolution,” 39. 172 He Zeren. The Stories Behind 100 Chinese Idioms (Beijing: Sinolingua, 2010), 216. 173 Zheng, “Art and Revolution,” 34. 174 Ibid, 34. 175 All branches of the military (army, air force and navy) have their own cultural troupes, usually involved in song and dance productions. Moreover, the army has a notable painting school as well. Even today in Beijing, one of the nicest venues for contemporary dance and theater is the PLA auditorium at Jishuitan. 176 Lü, 20th Century China, 667. 177 Ibid, 667. 178 This painting is also known as Strive Forward in Wind and Tides. 179 Li, Private Life, 159. 180 Ibid, 163, 166. Mao swam more than once in the Yangtze. The one that was most famously chronicled was his 1966 swim that is celebrated in Figure 1.20. 181 Ibid, 166‐168. 182 Ibid, 166. 183 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 81‐82. 184 Jonathan Fenby, The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power 1850­2009, (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008 and 2009), 444. 185 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 334‐335. 186 Ibid, 335. 187 Ibid, 333.

98

Chapter Two: Fallen Heroes

The deification of Mao was only made possible only by the destruction of his former revolutionary comrades, destroyed through character assassination, humiliation and death, as well as by erasing their figures from history paintings and propaganda images. The spectacle of their destruction and the efforts to scrub their bodies from cultural history engulfed the nation. As long as they held some power, Mao could not rule China according to his whim. This chapter will explore the specific details of how Mao annihilated his comrades‐in‐arms, as well as discussing specific images that were condemned, altered or destroyed because they depicted Mao’s targets in a positive light while they were in power. The condemnation of previously lauded paintings and the entire repainting of other iconic paintings were necessary to align art history with reversals in the political hierarchy. These orchestrated campaigns reveal how the Party leadership forced iconography to reflect the changing ideology, even if this meant changing the icons.

During the Cultural Revolution, fallen heroes didn’t just fall, they vanished. The second most famous man in the country at the time of the Cultural Revolution is a man whose name and image few recognize today, President Liu Shaoqi. His reputation was destroyed; when placed in solitary confinement he physically disappeared from view; and after death, even his name disappeared. He was erased from paintings and from mention in public life and historical records. During the Cultural Revolution, both the body of the head of state and the likeness of his body disappeared.

Whilst many leaders of China such as General Peng Dehuai, Central Committee member Deng Xiao Ping, and Marshal Lin Biao were deposed, demoted or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, no other leader suffered as thoroughly and was erased as completely as President Liu Shaoqi. This chapter will explore his significance, his contribution to Chinese history, the strategies used to effect his downfall, and the ways in which he was depicted and subsequently erased.

99

A disciplined, principled man, Liu occupies a seminal role in Chinese Communist history. He was a schoolmate of Mao’s. Both men hailed from Hunan province and were early members of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920’s. While Mao’s strength lay in arousing revolutionary passion and igniting peasant rebellions, Liu possessed a steady, cool head. He was good at building coalitions, using logic and fairly meting out discipline. Mao spun the dream but Liu helped make it happen.

Liu’s resolve and steady nerves were proven during the 1920’s and 1930’s, when he coordinated a historic Shanghai boycott of British goods that turned into a national movement, as well as facilitating the miners strike at Anyuan.1 After the industrial actions, he was under suspicion by the Kuomintang and so had to work undercover when in Kuomintang‐dominated areas to spread support for the Party.2 This earned him a reputation at the time for staying cool under pressure, but would have fatal consequences decades later during the Cultural Revolution when he was accused of collaborating with the enemy. During World War II, his strategic acumen shown on behalf of the United Front, in the face of constant set‐backs and betrayals, earned him a reputation for steely determination and for practical leadership skills. Following the Communist victory in 1949, Liu formalized his political and organisational skills while studying at the Moscow based Communist University of the Toilers of the East, and applied them later in governing China.

Liu established his credentials as a theorist through his essay “How to be a Good Communist” (1939). The text took on the principles of Marxism and Leninism and melded them with Liu’s practical experience in organising within a Chinese context, to develop a persuasive and reasoned argument for Communism in China. It uses a clear and logical style that eschews the dramatic hyperbole to provoke emotional response on which Mao relied. Liu lucidly puts forth his arguments for working towards a Communist ideal society, and the text is compelling in its clarity. It is that most quixotic of documents, a blueprint for a utopian society. Studied by cadre members at Yan’an, the essay ranked at the time as one of the most important texts of Chinese Communism.3 100

“How to be a Good Communist” originated in a lecture series that Liu delivered at Yan’an. Liu later codified his ideas into a document with nine parts, each section corresponding to the divisions of the lecture series. Within the text, he exhorts his readers to base their ideas on the theories espoused by Marx, Lenin, and occasionally Mao. This theoretical knowledge, he states, needs to be tested individually against one’s own experience in working with the masses to enable the proletariat to “fight for the emancipation of all the working people, the emancipation of the nation and of all mankind, for only thus can it fully emancipate itself”.4 Complete emancipation from oppression of all mankind begins with each individual, Liu argues. It is only through constant self‐ reflection that change is possible. In Liu’s vision, self‐cultivation in the tradition of Confucius and other ancient Chinese philosophers is the key to becoming a good Communist.5

This sense of continuity with the past would later be used by Mao to help bring Liu down. However, it is the section on self‐sacrifice that appears with hindsight to be most prescient, and to presage Liu’s eventual fall from grace. Chapter Six, “A Party Member’s Personal Interests Must be Unconditionally Subordinated to the Interests of the Party,” outlines the necessity for party members to set aside their individual interests and well‐being. Liu maintains that for a good party member, “Even if it is temporarily to his disadvantage and if, in upholding the truth, he suffers blows of all kinds, is censured by most other people and so finds himself in temporary (and honourable) isolation, even to the point where he may give up his life, he will still breast the waves to uphold the truth and will never drift with the tide.”6 When Mao engineered Liu’s crushing downfall and ignominious death, Liu tragically came to live out his own words with painful dignity.

Liu’s text positioned itself within the larger body of Chinese philosophical thinking on statehood and individual responsibilities. This outlook is crucially shaped by Confucian edicts which state that man’s individual behaviour and relations with others are the foundation of a solid and ethical state. Liu’s 101 document is fascinating in its implications of continuity with China’s philosophical and ethical traditions. This unique drawing together of philosophical influences, from Marxism as well as from traditional Chinese philosophy, offers a tantalising glimpse of how China could have evolved if Liu continued to lead the nation. The extreme xenophobia and intellectual isolation pursued by Mao appeaers in stark contrast to Liu’s principled, logical and measured thought.

Liu was however not innocent of bloodshed. After writing “How to Be a Good Communist” in 1939, Liu was put in charge of the first major rectification campaign in Yan’an in 19427 in which many cadre members were tortured and killed. He was the architect of the campaign as well as its executioner.8 Additionally, he was a key proponent of the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, following which thousands of people were condemned as landlords and rich peasants lost their lives, with their property redistributed for the use of the peasants. Liu knew how these campaigns worked, how to structure the struggle sessions and their probable outcomes. His work had provided the structure that the struggle sessions followed.

Yet Liu’s text advocated the possibility and importance of reform, and outlined the processes for individuals to question themselves and rectify their outlook. People joined the Communist Party for a variety of reasons, not always out of ideological kinship. Liu understood this plurality and felt that once in the Party, it was important for members to understand what it meant to be Communist and how they might change their thinking and form a shared vision towards which all could work together.

These ideas became expressed in a lecture, and later a text, entitled “On Inner‐ Party Struggle” (1941). This outlined the format of criticism and self‐criticism that became standard practice within the Chinese Communist Party.9 This system of rectification is still in use within the Party today. Liu advocated self‐ reflection and thought reform as an alternative to the deployment of a secret police system.10 Unfortunately for Liu, Mao chose to deploy both. He used the 102 criticism and self‐criticism system to horrific public effect during the mass struggle sessions of the Cultural Revolution but also developed a formidable secret police under the direction of Kang Sheng. This secret police force would go on to manufacture evidence, torture potential witnesses, and remove Mao’s selected enemies.

By the time it looked possible that the Communists would be able to take China, Liu was in senior leadership positions. From 1945 to 1955, Liu worked as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Secretariat, overseeing day‐to‐day decision making for the Party and from 1949, for all of China.11 In 1959 he succeeded Mao as head of state, being appointed President of the People’s Republic of China, while also serving as the Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. By 1961 Mao had told the British field‐marshal Viscount Montgomery that Liu was his designated successor.12

Following Liu’s installation as head of state, “How to be a Good Communist” was reprinted in the People’s Daily newspaper to mark the 44th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.13 Liu’s photograph was published alongside a picture of Mao and in the same size, an unprecedented honour.14 An additional 18 million copies of the work were published over a four year period. Before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Mao had requested that Liu’s Selected Works should be compiled.15 The future head of the secret police, Kang Sheng, was appointed to head the editorial committee.16 Later on, during the Cultural Revolution, Kang Sheng would be the organiser of Liu’s torture sessions.17

As head of state, Liu Shaoqi proved consistent and effective, working according to clear principles and pursuing the establishment of a responsible civil service. His strengths were very different from Mao’s. Liu excelled in the creation of an administration and a bureaucracy, all work that Mao found ineffably boring. The skills required for inciting revolution, which were Mao’s strengths, differ from those required for nation‐building. Liu’s restructuring of the organization of the nation, and his creation of systems for the compilation of statistics and for 103 accountability, paved the way for China to move systematically towards development.

How did Mao’s designated successor fall from favour so rapidly? According to MacFarquhar, Mao may have decided to topple Liu as early as 1964,18 however, it took approximately two years to put his plan into action. Mao was convinced to destroy Liu by a combination of paranoia and ideological differences over the role of capitalism. Importantly, Mao became paranoid following the ousting of Khrushchev from power in the Soviet Union. Fearful of the consequences of his failure of his Great Leap Forward policies that had resulted in the death of tens of millions of Chinese by famine, and threatened by criticism of his agricultural policies by Liu and Deng, Mao became obsessed with a threat against his position, as well as with his legacy. He became convinced that Liu’s pragmatic leadership of China was “posing a political threat” to Mao’s own position.19 Secondly, Mao felt that Liu posed an “ideological threat to China” because Liu felt strongly that categorical opposition to all forms of capitalism was unwise, opening a path to possible resumption of private commercial activity. Liu was opposed to removing those in the party “who are taking the capitalist road”.20 The selective opening of Soviet archives also suggests the possibility that Liu had been reporting on Mao to Stalin in the 1940’s.21 Whether or not Mao was made aware of this is unknown, nevertheless, the possibility adds another possible motivation for Mao’s actions.

Furthermore, Mao was unnerved by the suggestion in 1964 from a drunken Soviet defence minister to Marshal He Long that the Chinese should rid themselves of Mao. The Soviet minister stated, “We’ve already got rid of Khrushchev; you ought to follow our example and get rid of Mao Zedong. That way we’ll get on better.”22 The Soviet condemnation of Khrushchev’s “harebrained scheming, half‐baked conclusions and hasty decisions and actions divorced from reality… attraction to rule by fiat, [and] unwillingness to take into account what science and practical experience have already worked out”23 certainly could have applied to Mao. Moreover, by 1964 Liu and Deng were already doing a solid job of managing China without the daily involvement of 104

Mao. That said, no evidence has emerged to date that suggests Liu or Deng contemplated a plot to unseat Mao. There would later be allegations of a plot by Lin Biao, but no suspicion whatsoever has emerged involving Liu or Deng.

The disgracing of Liu Shaoqi, his fall from President to outcast, and his ignominous death are among the great tragedies of the Cultural Revolution. Prior to Liu’s humiliation, Mao had taken care to eliminate selected Politburo members, the head of departments such as the Central Propaganda Department, as well as the mayor of Beijing ‐ all on trumped up charges to ensure Liu had no powerful supporters who could defend him. Those who spoke out on his behalf, such as Deputy Premier Tao Zhu and eminent war hero and Foreign Affairs Minister Marshal Chen Yi, were attacked and toppled from their posts. Their efforts to speak out were labelled the February Adverse Current and they were accused of planning a coup d’etat. In Tao’s case he was kidnapped to be “struggled against” during Red Guards criticism sessions. Tao was sentenced to house arrest during the Cultural Revolution and died of cancer during this time. Marshal Chen Yi was spared because of Mao’s favour, but he too succumbed to cancer during the Cultural Revolution. Their crime was to have spoken out in defence of Liu. Liu himself was derided as a “capitalist roader” and accused of reptilian behaviour (paxingzhuyi),24 on account of the gradual pace of development he advocated versus Mao’s desire to effect a “Great Leap” forward. Large rallies were held throughout China to denounce, humiliate and physically torture Liu. In some of these events there were over a hundred thousand participants.

The search for evidence to damn Liu was dirty work. From 1967 until Liu’s downfall in 1968, Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng headed the Special Investigative Committee of the Party Central in extreme efforts to find such evidence.25 Four hundred people were employed to comb 2.25 million files in fifteen archives to find evidence that Liu betrayed the Party.26 However, they found no evidence of Liu’s disloyalty. Since the legal route yielded no evidence, Jiang and Kang focused on manufacturing doctored evidence. Their efforts included torturing many people to death in an attempt to find evidence to damn Liu and his wife 105

Wang Guangmei.27 Their victims included several university professors who had taught or led universities that Wang had attended, and also Wang’s colleagues at the Military Mediation Office.28 After some of the witnesses died, Jiang made up damning confessions from them to create a fabricated case against Liu.29 Several others agreed to false testimony under torture, only to recant the statements when the physical abuse stopped. None of the recantations were forwarded to Mao. All in all, 64 people were taken and interrogated in an attempt to find evidence of Liu’s guilt.30

The gathering of evidence led to further cruelty by Jiang Qing. Jiang and other members of the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group went to Qinghua University where Liu’s daughter Liu Tao was enrolled, to urge her to denounce her parents. Jiang stated, “Your natural mother has been oppressed. I have been also oppressed for decades. You should go see her, and together you should do some exposing work.”31 Liu Tao’s mother, Wang Qian, had been divorced from Liu Shaoqi for several years. After Jiang’s visit to Liu Tao, the girl wrote a large character poster entitled, “Witness the Despicable Soul of Liu Shaoqi”.32 Since Liu Shaoqi was under house arrest, Jiang suggested that the poster be placed on the outside of the house walls in the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai. Moreover, copies of the poster were distributed throughout the country. For a nation that still valued the family, a child’s denunciation was a terrible blow.33 The struggle sessions, initially verbal became violent. Liu’s wife, Wang Guangmei was seized. Later, Liu was subjected to regular beatings and torture.

Mao’s campaign to destroy Liu dominated the public realm. An American communist, Sidney Rittenberg, who was working with the Chinese government on English language propaganda efforts, describes the mood that animated the crowd outside Zhongnanhai crowing for Liu’s downfall as perplexing. He states, “Despite the ferocity of the slogans, the roars of the crowd, and the clenched fists, Sol and I couldn’t escape the same feeling. This was no angry, out‐of‐control mob. It was a crowd full of merriment and good humor. Everyone was relaxed and friendly. It was as if roaring for Liu Shaoqi’s head was the most amusing, most natural thing to do.”34 Mao’s quest to topple Liu involved tens of thousands, yet 106 most had experienced no actual contact with the man. The mass numbers involved resulted in denunciations that took on the exaggerated, surreal quality of a theatrical spectacle. Yet the Liu family’s private suffering, and the tragedy of unnecessary destruction of a capable leader and national hero, eventually revealed the hollow egotism of Mao’s judgements.

Liu’s end was ignominious. Separated from his family in 1967,35 Liu was expelled from the Party in 1968, and fell gravely ill. He was denied medical care and kept in isolation which led to Liu’s eventual death in 1969. Liu’s former bodyguard was summoned to prepare the body for burial. He found the former head of state abandoned in a rural hospital basement corridor, with foot‐long hair and draped in a sheet.36 After the bodyguard dressed and cleaned Liu, the body was taken away under an assumed name, that of Liu Weihuang.37 By informing the crematorium that a man had died of a contagious disease, the leadership managed to have the former president and war hero cremated in secrecy, under cover of night.38 His children and widow did not know that he had died until several years after the fact. His widow was given his ashes only when Liu’s name was redeemed in 1980. At this time, following investigations into a possible posthumous rehabilitation, the People’s Supreme Court announced that approximately 26,000 cases had been brought against Liu, and 28,000 people had been implicated in his case and accused of being counterrevolutionaries.39

Concomitant with the efforts to topple Liu was his erasure from the visual public record. Indeed, one of the early signs that Liu and Deng had fallen out of favour occurred on November 2, 1966. The Party Organization Department, formerly under Liu’s command, printed posters denouncing Liu and Deng, and these were posted in Tiananmen Square.40 The following day, a mass Red Guards rally was held, and newspaper photographs of the event depicted all of the top leaders except for Liu and Deng. Although they had been present, the newspaper had edited out their pictures.41 To all sensitive political watchers, it was proof that they were now targets of the Cultural Revolution, even though at that time they were still nominally part of the leadership. 107

On January 10, 1967, the main branch of the national bookstore chain Xinhua bookstore burned all of its posters that included Liu and Deng in pictures of national celebrations at Tiananmen Square. An order went out to all other Xinhua bookstores nationwide to follow this example.42 During the criticism of Tao Zhu, one of his alleged crimes was to have produced false documentary photographs that showed Liu standing next to Mao: these photographs were accurate, undoctored, and represented reality.43 On a popular level, a plethora of propaganda posters was produced to excoriate “China’s Khrushchev”, a derogatory label that was applied to Liu. This perjorative label was particularly ironic and cruel: Mao feared that he would be the one associated with Khruschev, and it was this fear that led him to persecute Liu. Depicting Red Guards about to stomp on Liu and Deng, the images in these posters left no doubt as to the leadership’s endorsement of mob violence, and as to the suggested targets.

The use of imagery, labels to denigrate Liu, and public humiliation sessions all combined to create a toxic public atmosphere. The campaign to discredit Liu was a nightmare that crushed his spirit, erased his figure, slandered his deeds and denied him the right to die under his own name. Entire government ministries, university student cohorts, and factory workers were successfully urged to participate in this campaign.44 A useful way to approach this phenomenon is discussed by Guy Debord in his The Society of the Spectacle. Debord writes:

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of generalized separation.45

108

The passionate fury roused in order to oust Liu also temporarily united the Red Guards and the leadership, deluding some of the students into believing that they held real power, perhaps even enough to determine the President. Mao manipulated the students by allowing them the illusion of power. Once he achieved his goal, they were dispersed to the countryside, and so were confronted with their ultimate helplessness, unable to direct even their own individual fates.

Hysterical efforts accompanied campaigns to erase Liu’s image from history paintings.46 Works produced during the 1950’s in a mood of euphoric uplift had been painted by trained artists and sought to chronicle the founding acts of the nascent government. One of the cornerstone events was Liu’s organisation of the Anyuan coal workers in an unsuccessful but historically significant strike. As discussed in the previous chapter, tremendous efforts were made to rewrite history, scripting Mao as the leader of the industrial action and erasing Liu’s role.

The actual history of Anyuan reveals that credit for organising the strike does not belong to either Liu or Mao. As discussed in Chapter One, credit was due to Li Lisan.47 In 1951 Li was removed as the head of the national trade union because he “encouraged worker autonomy at the expense of party control”.48 Later, in 1954, he was removed as the Minister of Labour.49 With Li out of the way, a massive propaganda campaign was undertaken to credit Liu Shaoqi with the Anyuan strike.50 At the time, Liu was vice‐chairman and these efforts helped to bolster his credentials as having played an important role in leading the proletariat.51 A regional opera, film, book and exhibition displays at Anyuan were all produced to bolster this claim.52

In 1959, when Liu was named head of state, the propaganda effort went into overdrive and engaged in a full‐blown creation of a Stalinist‐inspired personality cult.53 This was a tactic enthusiastically endorsed by Liu himself. He stated:

109

After the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Union in 1956, which opposed the personality cult of Stalin, some people in China also opposed a personality cult… As for me, I have always enthusiastically advocated a cult of personality… For a long time, I have pushed this… Even before the Seventh Party Congress I promoted Chairman Mao… Now I’m still doing this, even advocating cults of personality for Comrade Lin Biao and Comrade [Deng] Xiaoping. Even if you don’t approve, I’m going to do this. I don’t need people to agree.54

The propaganda effort to glorify Liu reached all levels of the population. Folk songs were rewritten to laud Liu and replace Li Lisan.55 An oil painting was commissioned of Hou Yimin, deputy dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts to celebrate Liu’s role in Anyuan.56 To grab popular attention, Prairie Fire, a nationally released film, presented a fictive historical recreation of Liu leading the Anyuan strike.57 In a particularly daring claim, the film credits Liu with the strike slogan “Move the people through righteous indignation”58 which was specifically devised by Mao during the planning of the strike.59 Even the title of the film, Prairie Fire was claimed as Liu’s even though it was written by Mao in a letter from 1930.60 As historian Elizabeth Perry states, “Liu Shaoqi was presented as the lone seer and savior of the Chinese proletariat” completely excluding the contributions of Mao and Li Lisan.61

Perhaps it is not so suprising then that when Mao decided to depose Liu, Anyuan was a key part of Mao’s propaganda campaign. In fact, Mao, with Jiang Qing’s active involvement, so thoroughly eclipsed Liu’s own propaganda efforts that Mao alone is now popularly thought to have organised the strike. It is to the credit of Elizabeth Perry and the dedicated Chinese scholars who have facilitated Perry’s research that the truth has now emerged.62

The propaganda effort to erase Liu’s role in Anyuan took a multi‐pronged approach. The first step was to vilify the painter who depicted Liu as the strike leader and destroy the original painting. The second was to stage a major art 110

Figure 2.0 Hou Yimin, Comrade Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners, 1961, oil painting, Collection of the National Museum of China exhibition proclaiming Mao’s role and co‐opting arts institutions to help produce quality paintings. Finally, the massive nationwide distribution of the painting, Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (Figure 1.18) ensured that citizens who had barely even heard of the initial strike action would invariably associate Mao’s name with Anyuan rather than Liu’s. While this sequence was extremely successful, comprising one of the most thorough rewritings of history through the visual arts, it wasn’t exactly planned. It was all driven with the intention of erasing Liu’s role in Party history and placing Mao at the center of all Party achievement.

The newly‐problematic painting, Comrade Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners (Figure 2.0) by Hou Yimin is a somewhat awkward work that seems to strive for realism and symbolic meaning rather than myth‐making. Grey and stern, the work conveys the seriousness and difficulty of the task ahead: a ragged team of workers is determined to strike. Liu walks in their midst, slightly left of center. Clad in a light grey shirt with a mandarin collar and holding a small lamp in his left hand, his reddened cheeks and bunched brow suggest his indignation and determination to demand justice. While Liu walks upright, the miners stride hunched over, half‐naked and with faces covered in soot, clutching upright blades. Emerging from the dark coal tunnel, the miners might, to the Chinese eye, have more closely resembled demons than heroes. 111

This most famous of Hou’s paintings was also the one that caused him the most grief. In order to produce a realistic image, Hou visited Anyuan twice.63 On one of the occasions, in 1951, he took along his art students.64 In his work, he sought to make visible “the awakening of class consciousness”65 on the faces and the bodies of the workers. Several of the figures were based on real people related to industrial action or coal mining.66 For example, the handsome youth on Liu’s left was based on the martyred worker Zhou Huide.67 He stands upright with a pickaxe slung over his shoulders and a fresh wound on his right cheek, the side of his face alongside Liu. Zhou had not, in fact, been killed at Anyuan, but at a later strike. His presence elevates the painting from a depiction of a single historic event into a broader visual tribute to the sacrifices of Chinese workers in resisting oppression and to their subsequent contribution to the Communist victory. The painting chronicles a historic process of recognising shared oppression, and celebrates the unity of workers and Party members determined to overthrow the ruling class.

Hou Yimin stated “If I gave the figures suffering faces then the work would be murky and if, for example, I painted the miners with naked torsos, black faces and gleaming white teeth and bruised and bloodied bodies… I might have depicted my subjects with compelling realism but this would have submerged the revolutionary fighting spirit of the work, and distorted the heroic stature of the central figure.”68 He had to strike a balance between realism and the ideal of revolutionary heroism, a balance between truth and euphoria. In his case, and for many others, the objectives were often hard to reconcile.

At this point, it is worthwhile to consider further the types of bodies portrayed. Collectively, they represent the whole spectrum of ages in the labour system. The front row ranges from the young boy on the left, half‐naked except for rags girded about his hips, who represents the exploitation of children, to the elderly moustachioed man on the right, bent double from a lifetime of hard labour, who symbolises the men who have given their lives and their physical health to the unhealthy and oppressive conditions of mining.69 Hou thought at length about 112 how the bodies in the painting would capture the revolutionary message that he sought to convey.

In the middle of the painting, forming the compositional focal point, is Liu. Although not at the front of the group, he is clearly leading the group as he walks with an upright stance, striding with his left foot forward. The step is not that of a muscled soldier or worker. Instead, he moves at a dignified pace, like a determined intellectual scholar‐official. This impression is enhanced by his mandarin collared long‐sleeved shirt and his good black trousers. He is shod in sturdy black fabric shoes. Liu’s outfit is clean, practical and tidy. The scholarly impression is further enhanced by his slim and upright figure, indicating that his work is that of an educated professional, rather than as a labourer. This is in stark contrast with the miners of all ages. Every figure is lean and muscled, darkened with soot, and wearing torn black clothing. Several figures are permanently disfigured, the result of long hours working the coal face. Most are barefoot; only the two men to Liu’s left are wearing shoes. The challenges of their work and their poverty are unmistakable. Contrasting the workers bodies with Liu’s disembodied intellectual physical type suggests Liu’s willingness to bridge the class divide. Privileged intellectuals in urban dress are rarely seen associating with the working class. By placing Liu firmly in the midst of the strikers, Hou demonstrates his humility and compassion.

Further realism can be seen in an overturned coal carriage to the right, attesting to their strike action. The coal carriage further directs attention to Liu’s figure by drawing the eye in. This focus on Liu is enhanced by the tracks for the coal carriage; which form orthogonals that lead towards him. Compositionally, it is notable that no route out is visible. The artist has created a wall of indignant men from whom there is no visual or psychological escape. Just as the viewer has no escape, nor can the men escape themselves: their only path is forward, even if it leads to their defeat. This sense of being trapped is alleviated by the dreamy abstract qualities of the road on which the group walks. The translucency of the white that overlays the grey road beneath and the horizontal soft red that rests before Liu underscoring his revolutionary spirit, all harmonise 113 to create a beautiful painterly surface that is as unexpected as it is lovely. This textural and atmospheric path provides a respite from the grim resolve displayed by the subjects, and suggests the quixotic and utopian dreams that lead the group on.

Artist Hou Yimin made art that he felt would exemplify Communist values and history for the public. He explored many styles in an attempt to find a visual language that would appeal not just to a broad audience, but also to specific groups within that audience. His aesthetic style changed according to what he wished to convey, whether it was social realism, revolutionary uplift for the Cultural Revolution, or a cheery multi‐coloured print for family homes. A relatively early supporter of the Communist Party, Hou had worked as an underground party organiser at CAFA’s predecessor, the Beiping Art Academy, while China was being governed by the Nationalists.70 During that time, he organised students and lecturers to produce images sympathetic to the Communists, and chose to stay when invited to flee to Taiwan. His wife Deng Shu was also a CAFA lecturer, and she too had been involved with producing North China University propaganda work for the Party, at great risk to her life. Hou had received academic art training and Deng had studied at CAFA post‐ 1949. Their paintings, some of which were jointly produced, reflected their academic background as well as evincing revolutionary zeal.71 None of their credentials prevented the suffering that resulted from Hou producing a painting that lauded a leader who was later disgraced.

Even at the time of production, the painting was subjected to some aesthetic criticism by the powerful. It was commissioned as part of the official narrative for the new Revolutionary History Museum in 1959. At a preview, Kang Sheng pronounced it too gloomy and too grey.72 This first work was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and no visual record of it can be found.73 The work that is discussed in this essay is a second version that was produced for a following campaign to produce history paintings for the museum. This painting was deemed so successful that it was widely lauded at a 1961 Forum on the Creation of Revolutionary Historical Paintings held in Beijing.74 114

Despite his best efforts, Hou could not guard against the vagaries of politics in a tyrannical system. When Mao turned on Liu Shaoqi, then all associated with him suffered, however remote the connection. Hou Yimin’s painting was deemed revisionist and the artist was punished for having depicted Liu in a heroic manner. As art historian Lü Peng explains, “When political struggles within the Party resulted in power shifts, the explanations of history, regardless of whether it was the history of the CCP or of peasant uprisings, also changed.”75 History painting during the Cultural Revolution became purely propaganda. Monumental history paintings were sometimes changed multiple times to reflect changing political power dynamics; examples will be discussed later..

At this point, it is useful to review some of the hysteria that surrounded Hou Yimin’s painting of Liu Shaoqi. A special issue of China Pictorial was issued to discredit Liu’s effort in organising the workers, and instead to give credit to Mao. The publication celebrated Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, the painting discussed previously, and also took the opportunity to denigrate Hou’s painting, albeit without naming it explicitly. This follows Chinese Communist convention of naming only those that they wish to celebrate and obliterating those whom they wished to denigrate. Many of the articles in the publication would have been heavily edited, or were perhaps entirely written by political factotums who reported directly to the leadership of the Cultural Revolution Small Group.

The following quotation from one of the articles refers to the exhibition for which Hou’s painting was originally commissioned. In this extended quotation, “Khrushchov [sic]” refers to Liu Shaoqi, being the invective label ascribed to him during the Cultural Revolution. Comments attributed to Chia Chih‐pu, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Anyuan Coal Mines, are as follows:

In order to grab credit for himself, China's Khrushchov [sic] together with his trumpeters set up a black exhibition which viciously tampered with the revolutionary history of Anyuan, turning it upside down. During the 115

great proletarian cultural revolution, the revolutionary workers rose to smash this "monument" of China's Khrushchov [sic] to smithereens. Since this revolutionary oil painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan vividly reproduces the true history of the early struggle between the two lines following the founding of our Party, it pictures our red hearts full of warm love for Chairman Mao. Greatly moved, we coal‐miners of Anyuan, our blood surging with enthusiasm, pledge with determination: Always be loyal to Chairman Mao and follow Chairman Mao closely forever in waging revolution!76

Several other publications that autumn adopted much the same tone, including articles attributed to the young student artist Liu Chunhua, the painter of Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan. One of several articles under the artist’s name claimed that Liu Shaoqi had arranged to produce “expensive” paintings that “fabricate stories”, and to distort history to mislead the general public.77

Further criticism was leveled at Hou’s painting because it was produced in the Soviet Social Realist style, a style that had become discredited with the USSR’s withdrawal of financial and technical aid from China in 1960. During the 1950’s, the Soviets provided painting instructors to China and selected artists were sent to Moscow to learn from the Soviet art academies. Given the speed of the reversal in official Chinese attitudes from regarding the Soviet Union as a celebrated big brother to denouncing it as a hated arch‐rival, any Chinese artists who painted in the Soviet Social Realist style suffered in the wake of the political split.

Just prior to the Cultural Revolution, Mao instigated a movement to reduce the influence of Soviet‐trained Chinese professionals, an attitude that hardened during the Cultural Revolution. Given that Liu Shaoqi had been educated in the Soviet Union and that two of his children had studied there, this part of their life history became a vulnerability and a focus of attention. As Hou Yimin had graduated from a special two‐year postgraduate CAFA painting programme led by the Soviet painting instructor Maksimov, the Soviet angle further incriminated him in the eyes of the Red Guards. During struggle sessions, he was hung by his arms and beaten. His artist wife, Deng Shu, who had studied in the 116

Soviet Union, was also struggled against.78 She suffered a heart attack while being beaten.

All painters of Liu, and all politicians who had approved work that had depicted Liu, were subjected to personal humiliation, physical abuse and reputational disgrace. The Red Guards groups from art institutions throughout China joined together to produce Art Storm, a monthly magazine produced at Beijing’s CAFA. Their first issue featured coverage of a conference entitled “Cut Off Liu Shaoqi’s Black Hand in the Art World – Thoroughly Eliminate the Poisonous Weeds Erected as Steles and Biographies for Liu Shaoqi”79. At this forum, selected officials were paraded for criticism before a combined audience of military and labour representatives and members of “rebel” art groups.80 Further articles in the magazine contained scathing criticism of the prominent portraits of the head of state, and specifically attacked Hou Yimin’s portrait of Liu.

By 1976, Hou had spent many years imprisoned at CAFA. He was then released when the political mood turned more conciliatory and painted the work discussed in the previous chapter, Chairman Mao with the Workers of Anyuan (Figure 1.31). Colluding in the Mao Anyuan leadership myth, he depicts Mao surrounded by glowing, healthy, ruddy‐cheeked, well‐fed workers. On the outer part of the circle, the men are thinner but muscled, and are clearly labourers. All participants gaze adoringly upon the youthful visage of the casually‐dressed Mao. Hou had clearly chosen to adhere to the Cultural Revolution pictorial style that infantilises and simplifies adults into adoring, child‐like fans. Given the violence that he had endured, it is not entirely suprising that he changed his style. After all, he had not intended for his original painting to be controversial. Moreover, he, unlike many others, had survived.

Today it is hard to find painted images of Liu Shaoqi, even in reproduction. Fortunately, Hou’s painting had been made into 172,077 commemorative posters by government ministries.81 Although the work is supposed to be in the collection at the National Museum of China, it is much better known from reproductions, and the sheer number of copies saved the image. As seen in this 117 case, the mutability of history made history painting a perilous vocation. When used to shore up legitimacy, reproductions of Chinese history paintings blanket the nation, yet when the Party wishes to change the record, they destroy the images and expect that people will forget the leader. The initial construction of Communist heroes was an urgent and considered operation, and relatively successful. Reversing that glorification into vilification suggested that there had been a lack of judgment in the first place, revealing the fallibility of the Party. The propaganda actions of the Party are revealed as self‐serving and manipulative, and thus the seeds of doubt were sown. As the wheels of propaganda spun faster and faster and the Cultural Revolution progressed, it became increasingly difficult to convince people to believe in Mao.

Erasing Liu from the public record also required changes to one of the most famous of Communist China’s early history paintings, Dong Xiwen’s Founding Ceremony (Figure 2.1). This had been painted to commemorate the day Mao declared victory over the Nationalists. Prior to and during the Cultural Revolution, the leadership figures were changed numerous times and removed when disgraced. After the Cultural Revolution, figures were reinstated when those leaders were rehabilitated. Further complicating notions of authenticity, the final edition was completed after the artist’s death. The work was repainted by another artist, albeit selected by Dong prior to his death, following the method originally used by Dong. One could say, the original painting was painted again. This ersatz work is the one now on view in the National Museum of China and attributed to Dong Xiwen.

The history behind this seemingly mild but ultimately contradictory painting is a fascinating tale that illuminates the inconsistency of politics and the fragility of imposed versions of history. The multiple mutations undergone by this painting make visible the views of the Chinese Communist Party on history and authenticity. With the Cultural Revolution’s rigid orientation on Mao, all previous works of art about the Party’s history became subject to revision. These changes ultimately reveal the mechanisms used by the Party to 118

Figure 2.1 Dong Xiwen, Founding Ceremony, 1953, oil painting, Collection of National Museum of China

Figure 2.2 Dong Xiwen, Founding Ceremony, after alteration with the images of Liu Shaoqi and Gao Gang removed, oil painting create propaganda through culture, and Founding Ceremony provides a perfect case study. Commissioned to provide the final image of the officially sanctioned Party history, Dong’s painting was part of an ambitious educational and propaganda project. The Museum of the Chinese Revolution was built to educate a largely illiterate population about how the Party came to take China. Mao’s designated 119

Party historian, Hu Qiaomu, and the newly formed Leadership Group of the Production of Revolutionary History Painting (which reported to the Art Bureau of the Ministry of Culture), used Hu’s 1951 text Thirty Years of the Chinese Communist Parrty (Zhongguo gongchandang de sanshi nian)82 to guide their selection of the important historic events to be depicted in oil paintings.83 The Leadership Group selected the scenes, chose artists based on their professionalism and possible involvement in the events depicted, and also reviewed the works for appropriateness.84 This process of review took place from 1958‐1961 and involved many “rounds of internal investigations”85. Notably one of the most contentious issues discussed was the degree of importance that should be accorded to Mao within the historical record.86 Several works were rejected including the undocumented painting by Hou Yimin discussed above, for various reasons. As Hung Chang‐Tai points out, since the museum archives are closed to the public, there is no public record of how many works were rejected and for what reasons.87

The plan was to create nothing less than an orchestrated official visual narrative of the rise of the Communist Party. The displays included artefacts used in the decades of struggle, and each room was capped with a carefully commissioned painting illustrating the selected historical event. As the museum was to present the official propaganda of the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, it was heavily overseen by multiple committees that had access to the highest levels of the leadership. The committees based their museum display structure on Moscow’s National Museum of the Revolution.88 The head of the Chinese delegation that studied the Soviet museums, Wang Yeqiu, observed that Soviet museums served as “part of a larger design of proletarian education” and as such offered a valuable opportunity to establish control of the historical narrative.89 Yet even in the 1950’s, the Chinese officials were determined that they would not merely imitate the Soviets. They also sought to emphasise the unique quality of the Chinese revolution and the differences encapsulated in Mao’s contributions to Communist thought.90

120

Powerful cadre members serving on the museum committee included the head of the Propaganda Department, Lu Dingyi, Mao’s compiler of his Selected Works and Party Historian Hu Qiaomu, as well as Mao’s personal secretary, Tian Jiaying.91 As with any project overseen by multiple committees, progress was slow and impeded by frequent delays. One of the biggest issues of contention lay in the emphasis given to Mao’s role in Party history. Both Kang Sheng92 and Zhou Enlai93 sought to enlarge the already considerable emphasis on Mao in the museum displays, and by doing so came to loggerheads with the museum director and the Propaganda Department head. The issue of Mao’s prominence came to be known as the Red Line, after the Red Line of Mao Zedong Thought. The debate was so hotly contested that it led to paintings being destroyed (such as the first version of Hou Yimin’s Comrade Liu Shaoqi and the Workers of Anyuan, discussed previously). The opening of the Revolutionary History Museum was ultimately delayed for two years in order to work out compromises to keep all parties content with the final result.94

Founding Ceremony, initially painted by Dong Xiwen in 1951, presents a view of Mao announcing the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and establishes both the Party’s dominance and its aspirations. The victory over the Kuomintang in 1949 was announced by Mao from atop the massive gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the palace that had for centuries been the home of the Ming and Qing emperors. His audience was in Tiananmen Square, with Mao on the boundary. No other building in China conveys power as potently as the Forbidden City, completed in 1420. Mao’s position, high above the masses, over the palace gates, signalled his commanding authority over China, and made a statement as powerful as that of any previous emperor.

In the initial painting, the leaders hover far above the crowds, on the imposing Tiananmen gate that divides the Forbidden City from the public. In this space of power, Mao stands slightly left of centre reading a text from a sheet of paper. Ranged behind him on his left are prominent revolutionary leaders including Marshal Zhu De in the foreground on the left, Liu Shaoqi next to him, and then Madame Sun Yat‐Sen (Soong Qing Ling). At the other end of the line is the 121 bespectacled Gao Gang; next to him is the elderly Zhang Lan closest to the balustrade. Significantly, Mao wears a Sun Yat‐sen suit (now known as a Mao suit), aligning himself to be the inheritor of Sun’s mantle as revolutionary hero. The presence of Madame Sun attests that she has bestowed her sanction upon Mao. Above the Chairman dangles a large red lantern, with a yellow tassel that wafts towards him. Arrayed to Mao’s right were two microphones.95 The political leaders stand on a subdued yet richly patterned carpet; this creates a medium‐toned foreground that contrasts with the expansive light square in front of the palatial gate. Displayed in the square is a sea of people, as tiny as the leaders are large. The crowds hold aloft the new red flag of the People’s Republic. They also wave other brightly coloured flags, creating a festive mood enhanced by the glorious weather. A vast clear blue sky, with fluffy cumulus clouds drifting overhead, amplifies the sense that all of heaven has blessed the victory of the Communist Party.

The body of Mao takes on a new heft, compared to earlier images. While the intellectuals on the left don grey scholars’ robes and seem to float, their weight insubstantial, Mao has the figure of a healthy burgher. Accentuating this newly chunky figure is his dark brown Mao suit, which is cut baggy at the leg and results in his body appearing to be twice the width of the scholars’. Indeed, the only other figure in the image who shares Mao’s dimensions is the robustly imposing figure of Marshal Zhu De. Mao’s receding hairline and somewhat jowly cheeks accentuate the sense that he could be a prosperous member of the business community. Mao’s image in the painting closely resembles how he looked at the time, as seen in news photographs(Figure 2.3). This realistic portrayal contrasts with the idealizing efforts of other periods, including during the Cultural Revolution.

While Mao’s painted image in Founding Ceremony resembled his photographed image, the composition of the work had very little to do with the scene as it appeared on the day itself. Andrews surmises that Dong probably based the painting on photographs, as he is unlikely to have been near and much more likely to have been viewing the event from the stands below.96 The photograph 122 of the event shown here (Figure 2.2) depicts a more varied and cluttered image. Some of the leaders, such as Mao, Liu and Marshal Zhu De wear freshly tailored suits, but most of the other leaders wear the often‐laundered grey suits that had been standard army issue. Since the Party leadership had spent eight years fighting the Japanese during Occupation and four years fighting the Kuomintang, there had been little time and resources for new clothes. Having taken Beijing in September 1949, the Party held the ceremony to declare the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1. The news photograph conveys the poignancy of that day of triumph, with Marshal Zhu De looking battle‐weary, and the elderly Zhang Lan in a notably worn grey suit, attesting to their long years of struggle.97 Perhaps the most recognizable of the secondary figures in both photograph and Dong’s painting was Liu. Even though his image in the photo is partially cropped, it’s clear that Liu possess the same light physical presence and upright posture as in the painting. In the photograph he seems less focused than the others on Mao, and more intent at looking at the crowd, which would also be in accordance with his character. The casual arrangement of the leaders and the haphazard assortment of various microphones in the photo enhances the sense of a hastily‐seized win. This was no well‐lubricated act of political showmanship. The photograph reveals the costs and emotions of the victory.98 The humanity and the vulnerabilities found in the photograph are not evident in Dong’s painting. However, propaganda demanded that the triumph should be presented as an inevitability.

In comparison with Mao’s chunkiness, Liu Shaoqi in the painting has very little physical presence. Clad in a dark suit, wearing dark leather shoes and with salt‐ and‐pepper hair, he looks like any serious senior administrator. Only his left hand appears, and it lacks the attention to detail which is apparent in his face. The only spot of colour on his body comes from a commemorative red‐ribboned badge on his upper left chest that is also worn by all the other leaders in the line‐ up. His directed and attentive gaze shows his focus on Mao. Notably, he eschews the green of the army uniform, the grey used by intellectuals and the blue that denotes an affiliation with workers. Instead, he is depicted in a black suit, signaling his seriousness and a desire to rise beyond institutional affiliations. As 123

Figure 2.3 Promulgation Ceremony of the People’s Republic of China, 1 October 1949, photograph

Liu stands in the middle of the group, viewers can’t see the outlines of his body. There is virtually no sense of his body at all. He is there to help lead China, not to assert his individuality.

The size and composition of the work leaves no doubt that it was meant to be a triumphant celebration. The painting’s monumental dimensions, 230 x 405 cm, is more than double the size of France’s Prix de Rome history paintings on noble topics. (These were a regulated 113.7 cm x 146.5cm.)99 Compositionally, the work emphasizes dynamism within stability, and an imperial reach. It is significant that Mao is slightly left of centre. The space occupied by Mao and the leaders forms an isosceles triangle that widens out to the left. The vast expanse of Tiananmen Square, filled with the cheering populus, and its surrounding buildings, forms an implied triangle that widens out to the right. Together, the triangles form a stable horizontally aligned rectangle that forms a clear horizon line. The total effect is one of energetic stability. Stability is further emphasized by the strong horizontal lines of the railing and of the edge of the gate in front of Mao, and the clouds overhead that flow in a clear horizontal axis. Strong verticals also animate the space in the form of thick red pillars that emerge from the top back left of the painting and form an implied diagonal axis, advancing 124 towards the bottom right corner. Yet their progress is halted by the figure of Mao and from his form onwards the diagonal axis contains only thin microphone stands and a narrowing space placed at a sharp angle. By bringing the foreground so close to the edge of the painting, Marshal Zhu De’s shoe actually runs into the bottom edge of the work. In this way, the artist’s subject intrudes into the viewer’s space and so includes the viewer in the triumphant moment. What the work suggests is that an imperial progression has been halted by the Party leadership and particularly, by Mao. The work suggests that the space for a new China has been opened up and that the viewer is meant to be a part of it ‐ or are they?

Despite the clear efforts to produce an uplifting and celebratory image, the painting feels constrictive. Size, subject, and space contribute to this sense of being trapped. First of all, when viewed in person, the monumental size of the work feels oppressive. Indeed, the figures are close to life‐sized, allowing the viewer no distance from the scene. Displayed at the National Museum of China, the painting is elevated a few feet above the ground, and it feels as if one could simply step into the work. Internally, the space constriction is further intensified by the giant red lanterns bobbing above the leaders’ heads. Red lanterns symbolise happiness, but these appear to be over‐sized and perilously close to the figures, lending an oppressive feeling to the space. Secondly, in terms of subject matter, the ranks of the leaders are packed so tightly on the left that there is no room for any one to enter their ranks. Moreover, with every figure absolutely focused on Mao, there is no engagement with the viewer to enter into the picture. Instead, one is invited to worship Mao. This does not appear to be pleasurable even for the subjects. Thirdly, the space feels very tight. Dong’s composition allows only a very narrow band of space for the viewer to enter the painting visually: the way is blocked with the rows of curiously empty microphones. Is Mao then looking over his speech before addressing the public? Why does he need so many identical microphones? Are other leaders speaking? If so, why do they need their own microphones? The structured nature of the painting renders the careful central placement of the several microphones 125 needlessly mysterious, and has an array that differs from the more haphazard placement of the microphones seen in the photograph (Figure 2.3).

Baffling and fraught, this space does not appear to welcome viewers to enter the work, let alone anyone uninvited. Moreover, the figures of the public below are so small as to render their features indistinct. Hierarchical, constrictive and as elitist as any imperial court, the New China certainly does not look like an appealing place to be. Indeed, the most euphoric and free space in the painting is the lovely blue sky in which several birds glide above the square. Apart from the birds, everyone else from leaders to proletariat is ranked, packed in and controlled. Worse yet, everyone is compelled to appear to be happy. The bright and lively colours that dot the square provide a cheerful atmosphere at odds with the dark gloom of the leader’s space.

The painting found favour with the leadership when first shown. Designated a model oil painting to be emulated,100 the image was printed on the front page of People’s Daily, made into a nationally distributed New Year commemorative print (known as nianhua), and reproduced in an English language propaganda magazine.101 560,000 copies of the painting were sold within three months of publication.102 Much of its popularity was assured by the fact that it numbered amongst the very few paintings that personally lauded Mao. The machinations that surrounded Mao’s viewing of the exhibition had been byzantine. In fact, the exhibition was the only one that Mao viewed in person after 1949.103 It was staged within the leadership compound at Zhongnanhai,104 a venue that also ensured that no casual visitor could have seen it first. As part of an agenda to secure supreme approval and support for oil painting as a medium, the highly placed senior art administrator Jiang Feng worked with Mao’s former bodyguard, who liaised with Mao’s current bodyguard, to ensure that Mao saw the exhibition during breaks in a political meeting.105 After seeing the painting once, Mao came back twice to view it again and joked in a friendly fashion about 126

Figure 2.4 Hou Yimin and Deng Shu, 30th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1952, commemorative print on paper the work, seeing it three times in total.106 Mao’s approval guaranteed that the image, not necessarily the painting itself, would become iconic.

A large part of the painting’s appeal at the time lay in its representation of an idealised political hierarchy using popular Chinese aesthetics in an oil painting, a medium that was considered modern. Chinese folk and popular aesthetics, as seen in celebratory country fabric patterns and temple decorations, feature vivid colours and movement, and are densely patterned with very little white space. These aesthetic characteristics were deliberately used in the propaganda prints produced by the Party in Yan’an and continued in the New Year’s commemorative pictures (nianhua) that were distributed to the public to decorate their homes (Figure 2.4). 107 As can be seen in Hou Yimin and Deng Shu’s nianhua, 30th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China (hereafter referred to as 30th Anniversary), the composition is densely crowded with gesturing figures, flying flags, applauding leaders and brightly costumed citizens. The only white space is found in the clear blue sky overhead. The New Year pictures typically used pure colour, eschewed the use of value, and always featured realistic imagery. The aesthetics of this medium are directly drawn from folk and popular art and architecture. 127

Dong sought to integrate folk aesthetics with oil painting. He had spent several years studying murals at the ancient Buddhist site of Dunhuang and had also lived in Guizhou, a sundrenched agrarian community that has many different ethnic minorities whose dress and ceremonies are colourful and expressive, a strong contrast to the austerity displayed by Han Chinese Confucian scholars and the uniformity of Mao suits. Dong’s formal art training at art colleges in Shanghai as well as at the French Fine Arts College in Hanoi108 would also have exposed him to the Post‐Impressionist use of pure colour, which he used in Founding Ceremony, rather than the realist style of using value to depict depth. Dong explains:

The Chinese people like bright, intense colors. This convention is in line with the theme of The Founding Ceremony of the Nation. In my choice of colors I did not hesitate to put aside the complex colors commonly adopted in Western painting as well as the conventional rules for oil painting. . . . If this painting is rich in national styles, it is largely because I adopted these approaches.109

Dong sought to align oil painting with revolutionary Chinese values and aesthetics. The artist wanted to make oil painting “part of our blood” or else it would remain “a foreign product”110. These objectives were in accord with Mao’s concepts on revolutionary art as expressed in the Yan’an Talks on Literature and Art (1942) as well as Zhou Enlai’s later guidelines. Zhou enumerated several points of emphasis in a talk given at the All‐China Congress of Literary and Arts Workers in July 1949. They included the advice to focus on popularization over the raising of standards and the need to change old art forms.111 He further clarified that changing old art meant both changing the subject matter of old art to better reflect the people’s lives, and secondarily, changing the form to better reflect the new subjects.112 The overriding cultural and national goal was to produce a different aesthetic, in tune with both Chinese communist principles and Chinese culture. Dong’s painting was an attempt to further that project, and it was hailed as the breakthrough work of its time. The painting introduced a 128 different vision of what revolutionary art could be, integrating popular folk expressions into a fine art medium.

This differentiation is perhaps best seen by comparing Dong’s painting with a printed nianhua of a similar subject. This brief comparison of Dong’s Founding Ceremony painting and Hou’s 30th Anniversary print makes visible the different status that the works enjoyed and the different audiences at which they were targeted. Where Dong’s painting is formal, reverential and hushed, Hou’s print is noisy, bustling and jolly. The composition of Dong’s oil painting is highly structured and sets a clear demarcation between the leadership and the citizenry. In Hou’s print, an aged grandmother is helped on to the stage with Mao to share an old Communist Party flag. In Dong’s work, nothing personal can be seen in the serried crowd. Hou’s print, by comparison clearly depicts the jubilant faces of the assembled workers, who wear caps and overalls, farmers who wear white cloth wrapped around their heads, and soldiers in the respective uniforms of their various units. For good measure, a colourful assortment of ethnic minority people is depicted on the bottom right, ecstatically offering bouquets of flowers to the nearby Mao. Dong’s painting was aimed at the leadership, at cultural communities and at visiting foreign dignitaries so he sought to present the ceremony as formal, permanent and structured. Hou’s nianhua was targeted at the peasantry and workers, so presented the appearance of an open, caring and casual leader who wanted to be accessible to all the peoples of China.

Although the two works depicted different events, could major national celebrations really have been so emphatically different in character? Hou Yimin is the same artist who has been discussed earlier in this chapter, painter of Comrade Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners. The mutability of his style as depicted in oil painting and in nianhua demonstrates his clear understanding of the different expectations of each medium. The purpose of nianhua was to disseminate a propagandistic message of love, harmony, and gratitude to Mao amongst the people of China. Oil painting, by comparison, was meant to sound an elevated tone that would chronicle the Party’s history in a formal manner. 129

Neither was intended to depict a historic event in a realistic or objective way. Both were for propaganda, and all visual elements were marshalled to that end. The differing messages communicated by these images make visible how the government chose different media to broadcast targeted messages to their various audiences.

As a model painting, Founding Ceremony looked set to introduce a new way forward for Chinese oil painting, embracing both folk and traditional aesthetics. Away from the murky grimness of Comrade Liu Shaoqi Leads the Workers of Anyuan and towards a bright, new aesthetic, Dong’s work proclaimed a style that promised to be both Communist and Chinese, rather than imitative and Soviet. Art historian Julia Andrews considered that this painting marked an apogee of experimentation with style, as it combined Chinese folk painting with social realism, and argues that realist painting degenerated after Dong’s work as the “antimodernism of Communist aesthetics” took over.113 What all the contemporaneous praise could not have foreseen was the cutthroat nature of politics. Despite all of Dong’s precautions to create a formal image coherent with current propaganda and ideology, nothing could prevent the unfolding drama that led to him being ordered to change his painting multiple times. The challenges Dong came to face had little to do with realism. Ironically, history paintings had to be altered repeatedly to accord with retroactive changes in the interpretation of Party history.114

The removal of figures in Dong’s painting began soon – well before the start of the Cultural Revolution. One of the prominent early leaders of Communist China, Gao Gang, the bespectacled man on the extreme right of the line of leaders and closest to the balustrade, was ordered out of the picture in 1954.115 Gao was found guilty of scheming to topple and replace Liu Shaoqi.116 Whether or not Gao was encouraged in his plotting is still open to speculation.117 Mao’s feelings toward Gao would have been complicated by Mao’s awareness that Gao was spying for Stalin.118 Mao became aware of Gao’s betrayal from Stalin himself, as Stalin personally passed to Mao a copy of a report from Ivan V. Kovalev (Stalin’s former representative in China)119 that included information from Gao as well as 130 documents that Gao had provided to be passed on to Stalin.120 While Stalin was alive, Mao could not move against Gao. However, Stalin’s death in 1953 made it possible for Mao to remove Gao when the opportunity arose.

When Gao’s alleged attempted coup was revealed, he was charged with trying to destabilize the Party, and his membership in the Communist Party was revoked. It was decided that erasing Gao from the painting “expressed ‘revolutionary purity’ and this could be understood as ‘the essence of reality’“.121 Dong followed orders and removed Gao from the painting.122 During the Cultural Revolution, the pace of removal accelerated and Liu Shaoqi and Lin Boqu, the white‐haired man standing in the second row at the far left of the painting, were serially replaced as each in turn fell from grace. Liu’s image was removed in the late 1960’s as part of the larger campaign against him, and Lin Boqu’s in 1972 (Figure 2.2).123 Lin Boqu’s sole crime was having opposed Jiang Qing’s marriage to Mao in Yan’an124 on the grounds that Mao was already married at the time to a widely‐respected female soldier. Mimicking Mao’s efforts to eliminate Liu from the national history, Jiang’s vindictive nature and desire to flex her muscles led her to demand that Lin Boqu should also be erased.

All of these changes did not sit well with the artist. Although Dong had gone along with the initial removal of Gao, during the Cultural Revolution the artist underwent confinement and arbitrary punishment at CAFA.125 Being a victim of political persecution himself, his experience cannot have failed to affect his trust in authority. Although he complied and removed Liu Shaoqi, he sidestepped the request to add Lin Biao in Liu’s place. Dong pointed out that Lin had not been present at the time and he felt that this was one change too far.126 After that, he contracted cancer. Facing the end of his life, he refused to make any more changes and also refused to allow his work to be further repainted by anyone else.127 A particularly Chinese Communist institutional solution was then devised. Two other young artists from CAFA, Zhao Yu and Jin Shangyi were brought in to make a copy of Dong’s work, eliminating Lin Boqu’s image.128 When the Cultural Revolution was over, it was decided that the painting should be restored to reflect the original leadership lineup, and still more artists were 131 employed to repaint Zhao and Jin’s copy of Dong’s original.129 Consequently, the image we now call the original is anything but.

Each time the painting was changed it was so that the work could be displayed at a national event or, in 1972, for the renovation of the Revolutionary History Museum.130 The emphasis placed on the work as a national model for oil painting, and as the official image of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, meant that it couldn’t just disappear as had happened to so many other inconvenient paintings. This one had become much too famous. Moreover, Mao’s imprimatur meant that not showing the work might signal disloyalty and incur dangerous attention. Modifying, erasing, and editing the work became the solution. Handled as an inconvenient display object that needed modification, the painting’s treatment makes clear an attitude that devalues historical accuracy and artistic integrity. Yet Dong’s resistance to make further changes to the painting, and the fact that his own work was not defaced against his will, also suggests that artists could sometimes draw a line and defend it successfully. Although the Party treated history and art as mutable, and individuals may for the time being comply if they have to, people’s collective memories and sense of integrity are not so easily moulded.

The tremendous effort expended on erasing Liu Shaoqi from history and art makes visible how very threatened Mao felt by him. As a pedagogic tool, oil paintings played a prominent role in propaganda. Inclusion of the body of Liu Shaoqi in an important history painting was felt to undermine the supremacy of Mao. Liu’s body proclaimed his existence, and the work made visible his importance and position in the Party hierarchy. His presence also signals fallibility: to have been included in the first place, he must have been sanctioned by Mao, and his exclusion could only mean that Mao had made a mistake at one time or the other.

Given the demands for total internalization of Mao’s Thought and of externalized mimicry in terms of dress and gestures, the existence of Liu eventually threatened Mao’s omniscience and omnipotence. An alternative role model, who 132 had had the temerity to pronounce on “How to be a Good Communist” was unacceptable. Mao wished everyone to be oriented to him as the red, red sun in their hearts. Liu’s existence and image made clear that there were other options. In order to dominate and establish himself as a secular god, Mao crushed all other leaders and erased their images. Other military and political leaders were also erased from paintings, but none were eliminated with the same institutional thoroughness and fury that attended the downfall of Liu.131

Guy Debord’s extended quotation on spectacle offers an interesting perspective on the relationship between totalitarian dominance and terror. He writes:

The imposed image of the good envelops in its spectacle the totality of what officially exists, and is usually concentrated in one man, who is the guarantee of totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute celebrity or disappear. This celebrity is master of non‐ consumption, and the heroic image which gives an acceptable meaning to the absolute exploitation that primitive accumulation accelerated by terror really is. If every Chinese must learn Mao, and thus be Mao, it is because he can be nothing else. Wherever the concentrated spectacle rules, so does the police.132

As Debord’s quotation suggests, Mao’s use of force to underpin his dominance was masked by the image of red heroism that he projected to the people. Liu’s very existence represented a challenge. By providing an alternative, by seeking understanding and redemption over terror, Liu proposed a logical and ethical basis for Communism. Individual hero worship was never his style, and indeed was a danger of which he warned. Liu, anti‐heroic by nature, was nevertheless toppled by Mao so that Mao could be the only hero left standing.

1 Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shao­Ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1974), 12‐ 14. 2 Ibid, 16‐17. 3 Ibid, 18. 4 Liu Shaoqi, How to Be a Good Communist: IV: The Unity of Theoretical Study and Ideological Self­Cultivation (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1939), 133

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu‐shaoqi/1939/how‐to‐ be/index.htm, 5. 5 Liu Shaoqi, How to Be a Good Communist, III: The Self­Cultivation of Communists and the Revolutionary Practice of the Masses, 1. 6 Liu Shaoqi, How to Be a Good Communist VI: A Party Member’s Personal Interests Must be Unconditionally Subordinated to the Interests of the Party, 3. 7 Yang, Collective Killings, 140. 8 Ibid. 9 Dittmer, Liu Shao­Ch’i, 20. 10 Ibid, 28. 11 Ibid, 26. 12 Ibid, 27. 13 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961­1966 (New York: Columbia University Press and London: Oxford University Press, 1997), 262. 14 Ibid, 262. 15 Ibid, 262‐263. 16 Ibid, 263. 17 Ibid. 18 The more commonly accepted date in Western scholarship about China puts the date at 1965, the year in which Mao told Edgar Snow that he had decided that Liu had to go. However, MacFarquhar looks closely at internal Party documents, documents that had not been available to Snow. These indicated that Mao was building a ideological case against Liu so as not to betray his fear of being toppled as Khruschev had been. MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 432. 19 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 432. 20 MacFarquhar quoting Edgar Snow, Origins 3, 431 21 Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story, trans. Steven I. Levine (New York and London: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 395. 22 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 9. 23 William Taubman, Khruschev: The Man and His Era (New York: Norton, 2003), 620 as discussed in MacFarquhar, Mao’s Last Revolution, 9. 24 Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, 126. 25 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 361. 26 Ibid, 362. 27 Ibid, 357‐359. 28 Ibid, 359‐360. 29 Ibid, 356‐362. 30 Ibid, 361. 31 Ibid, 133. 32 Ibid, 134. 33 Ibid, 134. 34 Sidney Rittenberg, The Man Who Stayed Behind (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), 379. 35 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 278. 36 Ibid, 163. 37 Ibid. 134

38 Ibid, 163. 39 Ibid, 162. 40 Ibid, 99. 41 Ibid, 99. 42 Ibid, 135. 43 Ibid, 120. 44 Sidney Rittenberg’s account of watching and participating in the persecutions of Liu Shaoqi and his colleagues is fascinating and instructive in how educated and well‐intentioned individuals became caught up in the events as they unfurled. Reading his account, The Man Who Stayed Behind, provides a cautionary tale about false consciousness, the danger of believing that one is influential when really just serving as a pawn for a more powerful political force. 45 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Trans. Black and Red, 1970, 1977. First published as La Société du Spectacle, Paris: Editions Buchet‐Chastel, 1967) Chapter 1, no. 3, http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/19. 46 This term “history painting” has occasioned some confusion. I have used this to refer to a genre of oil painting that has come to be very significant to the Soviet Union and China. With a preeminent role in French academic painting, history paintings chronicled elevating subjects, such as classical myths and religious narratives. Since David transformed the format and genre so successfully to oil paintings that represented the French Revolution, the genre has made the transition to revolutionary art. Please note, this term is not meant to refer to paintings that have been deemed historically significant but to a highly codified genre of painting. 47 Perry, “Red Literati,” 115‐123. 48 Perry, Anyuan, 168. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid, 169‐197. 51 Ibid, 169. 52 Ibid, 169‐184. 53 Ibid, 185. 54 Liu qtd. in Perry, Anyuan, 185. 55 Perry, Anyuan, 186. 56 Ibid, 187. 57 Ibid, 190. 58 Ibid. 59 Perry, “Red Literati,” 121. 60 Perry, Anyuan, 191. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid, xiii. 63 Hung Chang‐Tai, “Oil Paintings and Politics: Weaving a Heroic Tale of the Chinese Communist Revolution,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49:4 (October 2007): 808, http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S001041750700076X. 64 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 242. 65 Hou qtd. in Hung, “Oil Painters and Politics,” 809. 66 Hung, “Oil Paintings and Politics,” 808. 135

67 Ibid. 68 Hou Yimin qtd. in Lü, 20th Century China, 537‐38. 69 Ibid. 70 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 91. 71 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 90. 72 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 241. 73 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 453. 74 Chiu and Zheng, Art and China’s Revolution, 235. 75 Lü, 20th Century China, 538. 76Chia Chih‐pu, “Workers of Anyuan Will Always Be Faithful to Chairman Mao,” China Pictorial, 1968 n. 9, p. 16. reference.http://chineseposters.net/resources/chia‐workers‐of‐anyuan.php. 77Liu Chunhua, “Singing the Praises of Our Great Leader Is Our Greatest Happiness,” Chinese Literature, 1968, 35. http://chineseposters.net/resources/liu‐chunhua‐singing‐the‐praises.php. Also published as Liu Chunhua, “Painting Pictures of Chairman Mao is Our Greatest Happiness,” China Reconstructs, October 1968, 4. http://chineseposters.net/resources/liu‐chunhua‐painting‐pictures‐of‐ chairman‐mao.php. 78 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 332. 79 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 328. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid, 791. 83 Ibid, 786. 84 Ibid, 791, 801. 85 Ibid, 801. 86 Ibid, 792. 87 Ibid, 801. 88 Hung Chang‐Tai, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca: Cornell University, 2011), 114. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid, 115. 91 Ibid, 118. 92 Ibid, 122. 93 Ibid, 121. 94 Ibid, 121‐122. 95 The versions of the painting included in this text both contain four microphones. Andrews explains that in the initial painting, there had been two microphones. Once the order to remove Gao was given, Dong had to rebalance the now lopsided composition and so he added on two microphones and enlarged a chrysanthemum that had formerly been placed next to Gao. The version of the painting that includes Gao (Figure 2.1) is a latter version that was rectified to include Gao but did not adhere to all aspects of Dong’s original composition. Andrews, Painters and Politics, 83. 96 Ibid, 81. 136

97 Zhang Lan was an early 20th century reformer. In this picture, he is included as one of the Vice‐Chairmen of the Central People’s Government and head of the China Democratic League. Mao initially declared that the People’s Republic of China would have room for people with a broad spectrum of backgrounds and views. In the first few years of the PRC, this assertion of tolerance was revealed to be empty. 98 A moving account of attending the ceremony is described by physician Li Zhisui in his The Private Life of Chairman Mao on pp. 51‐52. 99Philippe Grunchec, “The Painting Curriculum at the École des Beaux‐Arts 1797‐ 1863,” The Grand Prix de Rome: Paintings from the École des Beaux­Arts 1797­ 1863 (Washington D.C.: The International Exhibitions Foundation, 1984), 26. 100 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 79‐80. 101 Ibid, 80‐81. 102 Hung, “Oil Paintings and Politics,” 809. 103 Ibid, 80. 104 Ibid, 81. 105 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 80. 106 Ibid, 80. 107 Hung Chang‐Tai provides a lively and insightful discussion about the lack of appeal these new Communist themed nianhua held for the peasantry. His chapter “New Year Prints and Peasant Resistance” describes both traditional imagery and punchy comments from the peasants about why they preferred their old pictures of gods, warrior heroes and lovely maidens to the arid and depressing images of martyred youths and children wielding machine guns. Hung Chang‐Tai, Mao’s New World, 182‐209. 108 Lü, 20th Century China, 424. 109 Hung, “Oil Painting and Politics,” 809. The Dong Xiwen quotation comes from “You hua Kaiguo dadian de chuangzuo yingyan” (How I created The Founding Ceremony of the Nation), Xin guancha (New Observer), 21 (1 Nov, 1953): 24‐25. 110 Hung, “Oil Paintings and Politics,” 812. Dong’s quotation comes from “Cong Zhongguo huihua de biaxian fangfa tandao youhua de Zhongguofeng,” (From the expressive methods of Chinese painting to Chinese characteristics of oil painting), Meishu 1 (1 Jan 1957)): 6. 111 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 35‐36. 112Ibid, 36. 113 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 94. 114 Lü, 20th Century China, 523. 115 Ibid. 116 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 639. 117 Ibid. 118 Pantsov. and Levine, Mao: The Real Story, 404. 119 Ibid, 367. 120 Ibid, 394. 121 Lü, 20th Century China, 523. 122 Fan Yin, “Shi cuowude lishi haishi lishide cuowu,” Fine Art (Meishu), 7 (1983): 13. Please note that this text identifies another figure rather than Lin Boqu as 137

the individual removed but as both Andrews as well as Lü state it was Lin Boqu, I have followed their identification. 123 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 84. 124 Lü, 20th Century China, 524. 125 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 84. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid, 85. 130 Ibid, 84. 131 Prominent examples include the substitution of Marshal Zhu De with Lin Biao in The Joining of Forces at Jinggang Mountain as described by He Rong in “Jiang rensheng youjiazhi de dongxi huimie gei ren kan – du lian huan hua Feng he xiang daode yixie wenti”, Fine Art (Meishu), 8 (1979): 14. 132 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 3:64.

138

Chapter Three: Model Heroes

Although Mao served as the ideal hero during the Cultural Revolution, an alternate, more attainable heroic type emerged after the fall of Lin Biao in 1971. Chapter One discussed how Lin rose by deifying Mao1; when Lin died, Mao’s deification abated. This chapter will address the final phase of the Cultural Revolution, the phase that coincided with the search for Mao’s successors2 and the rehabilitation of selected formerly disgraced political leaders3 and artists.4 In terms of art, the shift away from the cult of personality coincided with a series of national oil painting exhibitions in the 1970’s that featured an expanded range of heroic subjects.

The new model heroes were drawn from the red classes of workers, peasants and soldiers (gong, nong, bing), and shown in a category of paintings that Julia Andrews refers to as Worker‐Peasant‐Soldier art.5 This genre has very codified figure types that establish the model criteria. It is paintings that feature these model figure types that will be examined in this chapter.6 Selected individuals were elevated into models, examples for the nation to emulate. In some cases, it is debatable whether the models were real or imagined; an example is model soldier Lei Feng.7 The antecedents for the model ideal can be found both in earlier Chinese Communist propaganda efforts that celebrate the revolutionary martyr and in Soviet propaganda.

This chapter will explore the rationale for construction of model heroes, and what constitutes a model. To this end, it may be useful to look at a painting that achieved great renown during the Cultural Revolution. Shen Jiawei’s Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland (henceforth referred to as Standing Guard) (Figure 3.0), the artist’s first major oil painting, was an absolute hit when first displayed in a national exhibition.8 Singled out for praise by Jiang Qing and turned into a widely circulated propaganda poster,9 the work exemplified a complete synthesis of the artistic goals of the Cultural Revolution as defined by the leadership. Key issues such as the class origins of the painter and subject, the theatrical aesthetics of the work’s composition, and its reception by the leadership were all factors in the success of this painting. These same 139

Figure 3.0 Shen Jiawei, Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland, 1973, oil on canvas, Collection of Long Art Museum factors also led to its subsequent abandonment when the personalities and aesthetics that had dominated the Cultural Revolution were rejected in the collective disavowal that followed.

First, Find Your Model Painter

A model painting was ideally to be created by a painter with a solidly red background. Shen Jiawei started painting in the crucible of the Red Guards phase 140 of the Cultural Revolution (1966‐1968). During this time, he was part of the Red Guards Third Command Center Rebel Faction from Zhejiang10 and an ardent self‐ taught painter who took every opportunity he had to deploy and develop his artistic skills.11 As his graduation from secondary school coincided with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, he had no access to formal arts training before this period, enabling him to escape any problematic associations. However, this also left him with a skills deficit, a deficit that he remedied through personal study of books, interactions with older painters and the drawing of hundreds of images of Mao for propaganda purposes.12 His interest in art was facilitated by his choice of a Red Guards unit headquartered at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. This affiliation and the fact that he was artistically gifted gave Shen crucial access to painting materials and informal training. Moreover, his Red Guards activities and appropriate class background allowed him to paint without having to worry about material concerns, as he had access to communally available food and lodging.13 Shen observes:

Because of the Cultural Revolution, people with strong painting abilities were needed everywhere. I grew up in a small provincial city and never had the chance to be trained in the fundamentals of art… In fact, many artists of my generation were able to become oil painters only because of the Cultural Revolution. Before 1966, most Chinese households could never have afforded to buy oil paints for their children who studied art;…. But during the Cultural Revolution, all work units needed people to paint portraits of Mao Zedong. Once we completed the paintings, we were allowed to keep the leftover paints to do our own work.14

Following his time as a member of the Red Guards, Shen was sent down to the countryside as one of the rusticated youth, students sent out of the cities to learn from the peasants, soldiers or workers. Significantly, only students with a suitably red background were allowed to go to the countryside, a qualification that will be discussed further in Chapter Four. Those deemed reactionary or tainted by association were either sent to labour camps for reeducation or kept in their homes to perform menial labour. Being a rusticated youth was only for 141 those with approved backgrounds, so as to not taint other communities or disseminate reactionary attitudes.

Shen’s credentials were virtually impeccable. Clear of unfortunate past associations, innocent of any problematic actions and as ardent and loyal as anyone given a chance to change their life, he had the perfect background to produce a model painting. His only flaw was an early interest in Soviet literature and art, a flaw felt to be unfortunate but not disastrous.15

Following Mao’s dispersal of the Red Guards from the cities, in 1970 Shen volunteered to go to Heilongjiang, which was formerly part of Manchuria and bordered the Soviet Union.16 Site of a massive agricultural initiative under the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army, Heilongjiang had four hundred thousand rusticated youths in this harsh and remote land.17 Shen was assigned to the Forty‐second Regiment of the Fourth Division of the Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps.18 After a year, Shen was designated an art worker attached to the divisional political department’s propaganda team.19 As one schooled in the passionate and extreme language of the Red Guards, Shen proved adept at selecting wholly appropriate models for his first major oil painting.

Can You Be a Model?

Not everyone could be a model subject and indeed, choosing the wrong model could be dangerous. In terms of appearance, only model figures or generalized forms based on specified ideal model figures could be safely painted. It was not advisable to paint ordinary people, especially people close to you. For example, a young artist in a military work group based the figure of a young woman on his girlfriend although she was not immediately recognizable.20 When this was discovered, all 100,000 copies of the propaganda prints made from his work were destroyed.21 Furthermore, the artist was punished and forbidden from painting for two years.22 By using his girlfriend as the subject, the artist was elevating an individual whom he cared for to the status of a model. In a society in which merit was decided by the state, this display of romantic love and individual free will was seen as dangerous and subversive.23 142

The word ‘model’ was used in a specific sense, contrasting with current usage. Mao referred to models to designate revolutionary categories who had helped shape his ideal Communist society. From the period of the Great Leap Forward, he advocated using models to motivate the masses. He believed individuals could achieve the impossible, based on the Hegelian concept of “the identity of thought and existence.”24 As MacFarquhar explains, “For Mao, it was the philosophic basis of the Great Leap Forward, the possibility of transforming ideas into actuality, and his contention that properly motivated human beings could achieve miracles.”25 Revolutionary fervour was associated with magical qualities.

During the Cultural Revolution, this early lauding of the model peasant‐soldier‐ worker was lacquered further until the model heroes shone with a slick, red, high‐shine gloss. Stories that featured models were ideal propaganda vehicles to broadcast Chinese Communist values, and the families of the selected martyrs found their relatives’ lives embellished and edited to cohere with a red ideal determined by the state machinery.26 Models were built up on the strength of statements from Mao, as well as the supporting comments provided by Zhou Enlai, and the backing of the entire Communist state machinery. Model peasants, workers and soldiers came to be celebrated; they represented everyday heroes who achieved supernatural results.27 Before turning to specific examples of model heroes, it may be useful to review their cultural antecedents in order to arrive at a better understanding of this cultural construct.

China was not the first nation to use model types to motivate the population to work harder. The Soviets first started elevating hyper‐productive workers for propaganda purposes, styling them “Heroes of Labour.”28 In an attempt to boost flagging rates of industrial production, selected individuals were deemed “shock workers”. Their examples were meant to motivate others towards outperformance, so as to better the West in industrial production.29 The prime model was Alexi Stakhanov, a miner who, in 1935, brought up huge amounts of coal. Used by Soviet propagandists to create an avalanche of materials celebrating his efforts, his name came to replace the earlier designation of an entire category: Heroes of Labour became known as “Stakhanovites.”30 This 143 propaganda model was rolled out by Eastern European Communist governments in East Germany, Poland and Hungary, which all identified and lauded their own Stakhanovs.31 However, these propaganda efforts did not measurably enhance Soviet or Eastern European industrial productivity.32

Other antecedents of the model workers can be found in what historian Hung Chang‐Tai calls “the cult of the red martyr”. Hung identifies the origins of this cultural phenomenon in two documents: Mao’s 1944 “Serve the People” speech, and an official proclamation issued a year after Mao’s speech.33 The first commemorative action was prompted by an accident. A kiln collapsed on a young soldier who had participated in the Long March and had served as Mao’s bodyguard.34 In his speech, Mao stated “From now on, when anyone in our ranks who has done some useful work dies, be he soldier or cook, we should have a funeral ceremony and a memorial meeting in his honour. This should become the rule.”35 Notably, Mao sought to honour the provision of labour, not heroic death in battle. A year later, official thinking had coalesced into honouring the death of official “martyrs.”36 Approaching the triumphant end of World War II and the defeat of the Japanese, the Party sought to honour revolutionaries who had died in the defense of China, and a commemorative statement declared:

Having long abhorred China’s decline, darkness, and backwardness, you valiantly stepped forward to protect the people and fight against the aggressors, tyrants, and oppressive systems. Ultimately you shed your blood…Your sacrifice bore fruit… and your heroic spirits have continued to inspire us all.”37

These antecedents provided both the form and the justification for the creation of the model workers celebrated during the Cultural Revolution. Yet, as Hung further discusses, this Party celebration of the red martyr actually grafts a new branch onto the established Chinese cultural practice for venerating honoured individuals.38

In the past, upright scholars who defied tyrannical rulers were lauded,39 yet this type of independent critical thinking was exactly what the Party sought to eradicate. After 1949, the party machine controlled official nominations to the 144 status of martyr. Earlier in the 20th‐century, heroes had been determined by the bereaved family members and by deft local political figures.40 Now the selection process became controlled for propaganda purposes and followed a set formula for veneration, tomb formats and martyrdom narrative.41 At times, the propaganda exaggerated the poverty of the deceased, or enhanced other aspects, in order to cohere more closely with the formula for a red martyr.42 The government declared that the traditional day for venerating deceased ancestors, Qingming Day, would henceforth be known as Martyrs Memorial Day. Hung notes that this was an example of the Communist practice of “pouring new wine into old bottles”43 which helped to facilitate the acceptance of the Communist Party and its integration into Chinese cultural life.

Within China there were debates about the model system, linked to questions about how best to govern the nation. The model system of magical, miraculous accomplishment was diametrically opposed to a steady bureaucratic system with proper accounting for agricultural and industrial output, advocated and eventually established by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. During the Cultural Revolution, the advocacy of models took on a frantic quality that became divorced from any realistic context. What emerged was a formulaic symbol of the Chinese proletariat ideal, unmoored from reality. In text, in dance, in working attitudes, and certainly in paintings, the emergence of hyped‐up model figures became a key feature of this period.

The worker‐peasant‐soldier categories were identified during the Yan’an period and were given great prominence during the Cultural Revolution. The Summary of the Proceedings of the Forum on Literature and Art in the Armed Forces, Convened by Comrade Jiang Qing with the Endorsement of Comrade Lin Biao put forth a theoretical basis for the Cultural Revolution and how it should be expressed in the arts. Published in the PLA Daily on April 18, 1966, the summary provided a broad public warning as to the Cultural Revolution’s goals and targets. About model figures, it states:

Under the correct guidance of the party’s policy, heroic figures of workers, peasants, and soldiers have emerged whose outstanding 145

qualities embody the nature of the proletariat class. We must enthusiastically and by all possible means mold heroic images of workers, peasants and soldiers and create typical characters.44

The verbs used, “mold” and “create,” make it clear that model heroes would be constructed by the Party and not merely identified. These “typical characters” were based on actual people, but licence was given for florid embellishment of their life stories, and in one memorable case, complete fabrication.

The committee continues on to quote the Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art from 1942 as follows:

Chairman Mao has said, “Life as reflected in literature and art can and should be loftier, more intense, more focused, more typical, and more ideal than actual everyday life, for then it will have greater universality.” We must not be restricted to depicting actual people and events, nor should we write about heroes only after they are dead.”45

The licence to embellish came from Mao himself. Mao’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum provided the justification for enhancement and exaggeration of a person’s accomplishments. From this perspective, exaggeration could be viewed as patriotic. The resultant models would then serve as examples for how people should conduct their lives.

Mao directed the nation to believe in faith‐propelled accomplishment, apparently confident that the socialist analysis of historical processes and the inherent contradictions of capitalism would ensure that communism would ultimately triumph. This investiture of miraculous powers to those who were sufficiently “red”, and the nation‐wide application of their unscientific methods, came to result in some of the greatest environmental disasters of the 20th Century.

What were the qualities to be thus exalted? A model, as drawn from an official description of model soldier Lei Feng, should display a “love for the Party and hatred of class enemies, obedience to the Party, selfless service to the people, thrifty living” and “hard work in any assignment.”46 While these qualities may be 146 identified through action, how can they be seen from looking at an image of a person’s figure?

How to Get the Right Look

Getting the right look was a minefield for artists. How could they determine what a model was supposed to look like? Interestingly, the performing arts provided the idealised body types and gestures that came to determine model heroes in the figurative painting of the Cultural Revolution. Opera, ballet, and the films made from both, established new aesthetic codes that came to shape the visual arts. Once selected works had been held up as avatars, this made life easier for the visual artists, as they provided a set of approved guidelines to follow.47

Jiang Qing herself helped to identify ideal model figure types. A former B‐grade Shanghai actress, known by the name Lan Ping, Jiang styled herself as an expert in these matters. She had first attacked Beijing Opera a few years prior to the Cultural Revolution.48 She ostensibly sought to modernize the form, but in actuality eviscerated the tradition through persecutions of honoured performers, and organising the public destruction of props and the burning of ancient scripts.49 The rich centuries‐old vernacular art form was swept aside to make way for Eight Model Plays.

The Eight Model Plays were the performing arts works that saturated all available leisure time and usurped genuine cultural activity. In a May 31, 1967 People’s Daily editorial, it was declared that the Eight Model Plays were five Beijing operas The Legend of the Red Lantern, Shajiabang, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, and On the Dock; two ballets Red Detachment of Women and The White­Haired Girl; and the Shajiabang Symphony.50 After 1969, a few more works were added and in 1973, another group of nine model operas were announced,51 but for the purpose of clarity, this section refers to the Eight Model Plays as first identified by Jiang Qing in 1967. Together, they provided the constant cultural backdrop to the Cultural Revolution. Chinese citizens saw the performances, watched the cinema versions, passed chalkboard drawings of key scenes at the workplace, heard the 147 music on the airwaves and could purchase propaganda posters of heroic scenes from the bookstores to paste on their walls at home. No one could escape the hegemonic dominance of the Model Plays. They presented simplistic and monolithic modes of behaviour, speech, conduct, and ideological outlook, represented as ideals for everyone living in China at the time.

The Model Plays combine elements of Peking Opera, regional plays, and Western ballet. The simplified plots present moral dilemmas as class conflicts that could only be resolved by the triumph of the proletariat and the revenge of the oppressed. Their stories feature heroes and especially heroines from the red classes who had suffered humiliating and physically traumatic treatment from stereotypical enemies such as oppressive and lascivious landlords and vaguely defined capitalists. As scholar Lü Xing puts it, all villains “looked base, shabby, ugly and stupid.”52 By contrast heroes were “wiser, more intelligent, and better looking than their enemies.”53 Plots were reworked from folk history and literature to cohere with a Communist reading of all human suffering as originating from class conflict and capable of resolution only by removal of the oppressing classes. The reduction of complex issues to this formulaic plot line resulted in a numbing predictability to the Model Plays.

The borrowing and perversion of local history and of literary plots resulted in a distortion of culture analogous to a situation that Hannah Arendt discusses in her essay “The Crisis in Culture”. Arendt writes about the threat posed to culture in the popularization of stories to suit mass entertainment. She distinguishes between culture and mass entertainment, arguing that the public has an insatiable appetite for entertainment, which is consumed and then discarded in an incessant search for novelty.54 However cultural things possess lasting value in their ability to speak for their times and to “grasp and move the reader or the spectator”.55 The threat is that “culture is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment”.56 Prior to and during the Cultural Revolution, the teams that developed the Model Plays took aspects of traditional folk‐culture and modern literature and greatly modified them to provide ideologically correct mass entertainment, debasing the “cultural things” in precisely the manner against which Arendt cautions. 148

Unfortunately, within China, these Model Plays were so widely seen that only a few people today have seen or read the original works, the Model Plays having completely eclipsed the original source materials. Arendt’s theories about culture and mass entertainment provide a useful perspective on the cost of debasing culture. Altering what Arendt calls “cultural things” is analogous to the reworking of history by the Party machinery (discussed in Chapter Two) and the embellishment of the biographies of model heroes. This raises an enduring question, the cost to China’s identity and authenticity from these decades of institutionalized alteration of history and culture. In his subtle and nuanced book on the Cultural Revolution, Paul Clark wrote that the Cultural Revolution’s efforts to combine Western and Chinese cultural elements “in a new‐style mass culture…can be seen also as an era of modern innovation and efforts at real change in China’s cultural inheritance.”57 However, Mao’s injunctions to modernise art to serve the people necessitated a simplification and reduction of creative aspects to be easily comprehensible by the masses. The unique value and meaning of “cultural things” were sacrificed.

Returning to the model heroes, what did they look like? Heroes and heroines were uniformly young and good‐looking in a strong and healthy way, while oppressors were old, hunched and often lascivious. As Stefan Landsberger explains, “These strong and healthy bodies functioned as metaphors for the strong and healthy productive classes the State wanted to propagate. However, the gender distinctions of the subjects were by and large erased. The physical distinction between males and females practically disappeared – something which was also attempted in real life.”58 He further details that both sexes were clothed in “cadre grey, army green or worker/peasant blue; and their faces, including short‐cropped hairdos” and for women, a point of distinction, “chopped‐off pigtails.”59 The Cultural Revolution aesthetic favoured hearty workers who lacked the erotically charged signs of sexed difference that might detract from communal work.60

A notable exception to the standard can however be found in the depictions of heroines in the Model Plays. Perhaps because they fell under the purview of Jiang Qing, the Model Plays consistently featured strong female characters, and 149 are amongst the few art forms in the Cultural Revolution that to do so. The most popular works of the Model Plays were The Red Detachment of Women, The White­Haired Girl and The Red Lantern. All of them featured heroines who were clad in red. They often had long, braided hair, and occasionally flowing clothes, dynamically poised to defy evil landlords, avenge cruelty and defeat Japanese occupiers. Their vivid differences from the grey‐clad corps de ballet as well as other female characters also underscored the uniformity of the latter.

The dynamism of the heroines also contrasts with the blandness of the uniformly handsome but somewhat generic male heroes. Heroes in these plays all feature a tall, robust form with clear features. They are pleasant enough, but on the whole, rather dull. Historian Maria Galikowski explains that the ultimate model for all heroes of the Cultural Revolution was Mao.

The portrayal of these central figures has echoes of Mao’s personality cult. It becomes clear that it is Mao who provides them with the attributes of a hero or heroine, such as strength, wisdom and so on. This is not only made explicit through open acknowledgement of Mao’s inspiration by the characters in the operas, but also implied through the use of stage lighting to represent the sun or sunshine, which, in turn, was one of the most ubiquitous symbols of Mao himself.” 61

As Mao represents the ultimate hero, no stage hero could be presented as more charismatic, dynamic or compelling than the Chairman himself. The heroes of these Model Works possess a generic proletarian goodness, lacking the vivacity and derring‐do of the heroines. The men project generally recognized heroic Communist values by being suitably bland. They conform closely to the figure‐ types that will be explored in this chapter, in appearance, behaviour, and sentiments. These are all aspects that Jiang Qing took upon herself to direct.

In a dramatic and revealing exerpt fron Ross Terrill’s colourful biography of Jiang Qing, Madame Mao: The White Boned Demon, he describes her physical involvement in shaping a hero:

She made the hero more heroic, taking bad language off his lips and putting a fur‐lined coat on his back. The bandit villains she dressed in 150

rags and kept away from center stage! A hero should not “mumble” or “dodder,” she told the lead actor, Tong Xiangling. Mounting the stage, she ran her fingers up the handsome actor’s spine and exhorted him: “Subdue those old ways! Stand tall and sing powerfully!” How should a hero get off a horse? “Don’t simply slide off his back,” Jiang said to Tong; “that looks weak,” added the woman who never could abide her men to be weak. “Spring over the horse’s head,” she commanded.

In the unreformed version, Tong had worn his pistol suspended from the front of his belt. “Carry it to the side,” Jiang said solicitously. Why, Tong wondered. Because Jiang felt Mr. Tong’s genitals might suffer if he wore his pistol “in front for a long time.”62

Clothing, diction, movements and genital health all factored in Jiang Qing’s conception of a hero. Her close involvement in the creation of the Model Plays resulted in clear prototypes of Cultural Revolution heroes emerging from the performing arts. This construction of performative masculinity, as determined by Jiang Qing, came to permeate the visual arts following the establishment of the Three Prominences.

The Three Prominences, staging directives that governed the Model Works, directly linked the presentation of stage heroes and the appearance of heroes in the visual arts. Indeed, these directives came to fundamentally shape the composition of paintings depicting model workers and soldiers. Yu Huiyong, Minister of Culture during the Cultural Revolution proclaimed, “In portraying all the characters, the positive figure must be prominent; In portraying the positive figures, the heroes must be prominent; In portraying heroes, the leading hero must be prominent.”63 In terms of the performing arts, that meant that heroes and heroines were always recognisable as such. Model Play villains never undergo sudden changes of heart that might cause them to be transformed into heroes. Nor do the Plays ever feature anti‐heroes who drop out of society. Model Play heroes often stand in the centre of the stage. They tower over other performers and certainly over villains. They either wear red or have reddened faces to indicate their revolutionary fervour. As shall soon be discussed, these 151 simplistic methods of establishing visual and moral preeminence were directly translated into oil paintings of Model Workers.

The Model Plays stripped away all controversial and complex elements from the earlier works on which they were based and were peopled with ideal citizens and model heroes. These heroes were depicted in film, propaganda posters, regular blackboard drawings, radio broadcasts and ultimately as model types in oil paintings. This created multi‐faceted integrated symbols of ideal model heroes that permeated cultural and popular life during the Cultural Revolution. What emerged was myth‐making on an epic scale.

Who Were the Top Models?

From each red category, the government machinery selected an ideal model. This selection began in 1964, just prior to the Cultural Revolution, during the same year that efforts were being made to reform the visual and performing arts. As Chinese art historian Lü Peng states:

Every propaganda organ let people know that the heroes of this era were Wang Jinxi from the Daqing oil field, Chen Yonggui from Dazhai village, and Lei Feng from the PLA. Together they symbolized and represented the images of the worker, soldier, and peasant that were to be propagandized and extolled. They were regarded as something that had never appeared in any literary or art form of the past.64

Named individuals from specific projects were lauded and this sparked off a frenzied copying of their methods, even when geographical, climactic and personnel conditions were drastically and disastrously different.

Amongst the worker‐peasant‐soldier categories, the soldier provided the preeminent model. Under Lin Biao’s leadership, the People’s Liberation Army took a leading role in deifying Mao. By 1964 the army was lauded as the model for the nation to follow.65 The People’s Daily explained that “The PLA ardently loves the country, the people, and socialism and is boundlessly loyal to the cause of the proletariat.”66 Other groups such as factory work units came to study the PLA’s working methods, and sought to apply them to their own endeavours. 152

Reflecting the preeminence of the military, the overall aesthetics of the Cultural Revolution became increasingly militarized. This chapter will discuss model soldiers first followed by model workers, and will conclude with a brief discussion of the limited representation of the model peasant.

The Role of the Army

The militarization of Chinese life permeated all forms of culture, as discussed in Chapter One, and this was reflected in the large number of oil paintings of model soldiers. Ever since the Yan’an period, the PLA has had a strong arts component. In Mao’s 1942 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, he declared that “To defeat the enemy we must rely primarily on the army with guns. But this army alone is not enough; we must also have a cultural army, which is absolutely indispensable for uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy.”67 Thus soldiers, rather than other red categories, came to define the aesthetic ideal. Moreover, as the PLA had been called in to stabilise national and local government and had personnel installed in every ministry, as well as in all forms of industry and in the rural hinterlands,68 they possessed tremendous power. Although the PLA’s influence diminished following Lin Biao’s fall, the military possessed much greater arts resources compared to the other two red classes. These PLA resources included visual and performing arts schools, drama troupes, symphony orchestras, performing arts halls and positions for artists – these were acquired prior to Lin’s fall and are retained today.69 Additionally, as Landsberger points out, the PLA provided “most of the models that corresponded most closely to Mao’s ideas about ideological correctness.”70 Depicting the military was much safer than risking untested subject matter.

The prototype of the ideal soldier was the much lauded Lei Feng. This model soldier did nothing extraordinary in his brief life, fought in no major battles and failed to perform any act of heroism, exceptional or otherwise. Instead, he was a helpful, loyal and unquestioning soldier who died when a utility pole fell on him after it was backed into by a truck.71 He was known as “a rustless screw in the 153

Figure 3.10 Wu Qiang Nian, Lei Feng, 1963, woodblock print on paper, Collection of Leifeng Museum in Fushun, Liaoning Province machine of the revolution.”72 This “rustless screw,” as Landsberger explains, “taught the people how to be happy with what they had, to obey the Party and to let the Central Committee, or better still, Mao himself, do their thinking for them.”73 The considerate acts Lei was meant to have undertaken include anonymously darning his comrades’ socks, sending his small amount of savings to the parents of a slain comrade, and other such acts of kindness. After Lei’s death, Mao lauded him as a model to emulate, and the army discovered that Lei Feng had left behind a diary that extolled the Party, celebrated Mao and recorded his good deeds. It remains to be decisively proven whether or not Lei Feng was a product of the Propaganda Department’s imagination.74

However Lei Feng lives on in propaganda posters, in easily reproduced woodblock prints (Figure 3.10), and in revivals to drum up patriotism, such as in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacres.75 Oil paintings tend to feature named soldiers with traceable histories. There is a remarkable dearth of oil paintings of Lei Feng, underscoring his propaganda value rather any status as artistic subject matter. Yet, what endures is the general prototype that Lei Feng provides for artists, an example of the ideal model soldier that they should depict. 154

Soldiers, according to Paul Clark, had “rugged good looks”76 and the heroes of the Model Plays, who were most often from the military “all show a toughness that expressed a rejection of reliance on the cultivated mind for traditional intellectuals and a need for physical endurance and risk taking.”77 Following on Mao’s emphasis on physical fitness, soldiers too exemplified a new Chinese man: strong, fit, and healthy. The Confucian intellectual physique had no place in Cultural Revolution aesthetics. Yet what lurked beneath this hale and hearty new look was also a dark reminder of recent history.

Prior to the Cultural Revolution, the catastrophe that had engulfed the nation was the Great Famine, years of starvation that resulted from the disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward. From 1958‐1962, it has been estimated that the famine caused up to 36 million unnatural deaths and a shortfall of 40 million births.78 In many cases, death was caused by deliberate withdrawal of food from citizens who, for one reason or the other, had fallen foul of local cadre members, or because the canteens for their communes had no food at all.79 In this context, the promotion of a fit soldier as a heroic type underscored the importance of following official guidance with unquestioned obedience and submission to authority. Independent action, subversion, or rebellion of any degree, at that time, might well have been perceived as pointless and potentially fatal. A healthy, obedient man clad in an army uniform became a symbol of stability and life ‐ in contrast to the chaos, violence and starvation that had preceded the Cultural Revolution in much of China.

Three examples of prominent oil paintings present this model soldier in surprisingly original and distinctive ways. Chen Yifei’s Eulogy of the Yellow River, Shen Jiawei’s Standing Guard for the Motherland and Shang Ding’s Continue the Fight each highlight the soldiers in atmospheric, romantic settings. Despite the many prescriptions about model soldiers, the remarkable thing about these paintings is their diversity, expressed through distinctive personal styles of painting and directly observed landscapes and work scenes. They present a degree of independent vision and style, albeit within realism, that escapes the stifling rigidity found in portraits of Mao and other officials. 155

The new energy that emerged from the paintings can be attributed in part to the structure of the exhibitions that led to these works being made. From 1970, there was an attempt to re‐establish institutional life in China and that included resurrecting oil painting. The army organised national exhibitions among their ranks. More importantly, a high‐level culture group was established, headed by a woman named Wang Mantian who reported to Jiang Qing.80 Wang directed arts activities, and amongst them was a major art exhibition to be held in 1972 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Literature and Art talks. The exhibition organizer was a prescient young painting instructor, Gao Jingde, who reported to the culture group.81 He made it a point to visit every province and arts institution to find artists who could participate. Gao personally insisted on releasing many artists who had been jailed, as long as they had not been convicted of a crime, so that they could paint.82 The culture group also solicited work made by workers, peasants and soldiers.83 Significantly, Gao also wanted to raise artistic standards, and made that an important feature in the selection criteria, in contrast with the painting selection standards of 1966‐70 that prioritised class origins of the artist over technical skill.84

The exhibition requirements stipulated that the works had to be realistic in the Chinese‐adapted Soviet academic style, and explained how to incorporate Jiang Qing’s Model Plays aesthetic directives.85 The subject matter of the works ought to “glorify the Cultural Revolution but that were related to their personal experiences.”86 This led to a much broader range of subject matter and also a greater diversity of painting styles than had previously been seen in the works glorifying the nation’s leaders.

A painting produced for the 1972 exhibition, Chen Yifei’s Eulogy of the Yellow River (Figure 3.11), combines compositional oddness with painterly skill to produce an enigmatic portrait of a lone soldier. The painting features a tanned soldier holding a long bayonet at an optimistic angle, standing guard on a rocky precipice overlooking a large expanse of murky river while a stream of golden 156

Figure 3.11 Chen Yifei, Eulogy of the Yellow River, 1972, oil on canvas, Collection of Taikang Life Insurance birds flows past below him towards the right. He shoots out a toothy grin to the right of the painting and past the viewer. A light source illuminates his face from the left and, paradoxically, another from the right illuminates his clothing. The figure is memorable for its Freidrich‐like isolation that is belied by the soldier’s cheerful and confident expression, an expression that looks as if it comes from a film poster or even an American toothpaste advertisement. Much further below him to the left is a sentry post on the Great Wall, injecting a symbol of overt patriotism to Chen’s work. With the Great Wall behind him, the golden birds moving forward to the right, the symbols suggests that the army stands with China, with history behind it and a promising future ahead. Yet there is much that is uneasy and inconsistent within this work, despite the symbols of confidence ‐ that broad grin, the flowing stream of birds, the big gun.

It is an oddly claustrophobic work. The soldier in the foreground is encircled by the Great Wall that runs behind him and by the line of birds that form a line in front of him. The space he stands on is dangerous, shallow and with no way out. The precipice before him lacks an escape route. The only possible route out of the setting is into the viewer’s space, or to leap off the cliff. Behind the soldier lies a vast land, and a river that seems to be hemmed in by the walls of its own banks. Even the river doesn’t have a visible means of escape for itself. The only things that break through the horizon line are the emblems of the military, the soldier’s cap and the tip of his bayonet. Seemingly a wide‐open land, the various 157 elements in the picture conspire to trap the man in a small space, analogous to the limited arena and choices most citizens in China had at that time.

In terms of handling, Chen’s work offers an interesting link between the army and the land. The painterly facture that Chen uses to depict the sentry’s uniform is also used for the rocky outcrop that he stands on. The surface dissolves in dense, textural trowels of abstraction. The similarity of handling between the uniform and the rock surface creates a relationship between the army and the geology of China, suggesting that the PLA and China are one and the same. It’s an intriguing example of how Chinese art and ideology could have come together to create an interesting ideological statement. This sophisticated integration of paint handling and thought doesn’t appear in Chen’s other works and it is a direction not followed by Chinese art of the 1970’s.

The hearty physicality of the sentry, his isolation and his prominent, upright gun all ostensibly conform with directives governing how to present a hero. Yet the work itself did not gain prominence until after the Cultural Revolution when it received national exposure at the 1977 United Armies Art exhibition.87 In fact, it is said that when the work was first presented in 1972, the entire Yellow River series failed to excite the interest of Jiang Qing because there were other political issues that distracted her from focusing on art, and indeed there was very little critical notice at all.88 The presentation for visual consumption of a solitary man, rather than a team, as well as a lack of detail about the soldier’s appearance, may have contributed to a sense of unease about the work.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this painting is the fact that the sentry serves no apparent purpose except to be looked at. He belongs to no team, has no visible enemies to guard against and although he doesn’t directly look at the viewer, he smiles and looks off to the distance, just past the viewer, seemingly aware of being admired and presenting himself to be admired. This is anomalous. Other paintings show model heroes who are engaged in purposeful work and action. More importantly, the only men deemed important enough to be depicted standing prominently and alone in oil paintings were Mao and the writer Lu Xun. With very rare exceptions, no other men were highlighted as individuals.89 In an 158 era that was so self‐conscious about eradicating all signs of romance and sexuality from images of people, it’s remarkable that Chen presents this soldier as an object of visual display. Although he is not meant to be presented in a sexualized manner, his isolation, the phallic gun and the somewhat coy expression all present him as a “sexual spectacle,” as Geoff Dyer terms the presentation of a man presented as an object of visual consumption.90

In fact, the purpose of the painting was not to represent army life realistically , but instead, to please the leadership, especially Jiang Qing and those who surrounded her.91 This can be explained by Chen’s own background, Shanghai’s revolutionary government, and the specific circumstances that surrounded the making of Eulogy of the Yellow River.

Signs of Chen’s desire to appeal to the Cultural Revolution leadership can be seen in odd details of the setting and the soldierly accoutrement. Firstly, the setting does not resemble contemporaneous PLA sentry posts, unlike the work by Shen Jiawei. This perhaps has to do with the fact that Chen was not a military man and might not have seen an actual sentry post.92 Secondly, the bayonet looks anachronistic, more closely resembling the guns used by the Shanghai militia than those used by the PLA at the time or even those featured in Model Plays. A possible explanation can be found in the fact that the Shanghai militia had actually overthrown the Shanghai city government, as well as the PLA military command, and had set up their own Revolutionary Committee of Shanghai Municipality in a worker‐led event known as Shanghai’s January Storm in 1967.93 This Shanghai Revolutionary Committee possessed its own military equipment and was loyal to the leaders of the Cultural Revolution, not to the Chinese leadership as a whole.94 By representing the soldier holding a militia‐ type bayonet, Chen was signaling his support of Jiang Qing and the Cultural Revolution leadership by emphasizing Shanghai’s loyalty to them. Moreover, just as Shanghai’s Revolutionary Committee of Shanghai Municipality dared to go it alone, so too is Chen’s sentry presented alone rather than as part of a team. This painting can be seen to signal a defiant, singular loyalty that Shanghai offered to the leadership of the Cultural Revolution. 159

During the Cultural Revolution, Chen held a position as an art cadre and the making of the Eulogy of the Yellow River reveals much about how oil paintings could be made in this period. While Shen had access to painting materials from the PLA, Chen had had a tougher time gaining access to opportunities to paint. Chen graduated from the Shanghai Training School of Art in 1965, and in the same year joined the faculty of the nascent Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio95 (OPSS), now known as the Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute. When the Cultural Revolution erupted in 1966, Shanghai’s Red Guards wasted no time in targeting well‐known and controversial artists such as Paris‐educated Liu Haisu, who had introduced nude figure drawing into the Shanghai arts curriculum.96 Liu and many others were harshly treated by the Red Guards97, and their freedom of movement was restricted throughout the Cultural Revolution. Chen, as a young graduate and faculty member of OPSS, was poised to benefit from the overturning and imprisonment of the well‐educated and sophisticated teachers whom he replaced.

However, in 1969, when Mao disbanded the Red Guards and ordered that the students be sent to the countryside, Chen was relocated to one of the many May Seventh Cadre Schools, a labour camp in the suburbs of Shanghai.98 These institutions were set up to accommodate the many cadre members who had been removed from power during the first part of the Cultural Revolution, the mass mobilization phase.99 By 1968, 70‐90% of all original cadre members in government ministries had been to May Seventh Cadre Schools to perform manual labour and learn from the peasantry.100 While this sounds unappealing, Chen was in a relatively advantageous position. He held an official position, received a salary101 and was not strictly confined, although, as with everyone else in China, there were limits on his range of movement. Everyone who had taught at the OPSS was moved to this particular May Seventh Cadre School, from which young artists had some opportunities to travel into Shanghai.102 Painting materials were hard to come by, but Chen’s chance came when Shanghai’s rival newspapers decided that art would provide a useful edge to burnish their revolutionary credentials.103 160

The two Shanghai‐based newspapers, Wenhuibao and the PLA‐affiliated newspaper Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily) competed to commission artists to produce a series of paintings related to the Model Works.104 To facilitate painting, artists were given lodging within the newspaper’s residential facilities for a year.105 Some of the artists selected were from the May Seventh Cadre School. Jiefang Ribao commissioned Chen to produce a painting based on the Yellow River Piano Concerto,106 a piece based on the Yellow River Cantata that had originally been composed in Yan’an and was substantially revised several times, which had been designated one of the Model Works. Why, one might ask, did Chen depict a militia member and not a soldier, in a commission for a PLA‐ affiliated publication?

The choice is explained by the unique role Jiefang Ribao had played in the successful power seizure of the Shanghai municipal government. Jiefang Ribao, which had been established as a PLA‐affiliated newspaper, was the first organ taken over by those who sought to seize power. In late 1966, at the urging of Beijing‐based Red Guards, the Shanghai Red Guards seized power at Jiefang Ribao’s offices, only to be confronted by overwhelming numbers of citizens organised by the Shanghai municipal authorities.107 The Shanghai Red Guards appealed to the newly formed Workers’ Revolutionary Rebels General Headquarters, which comprised large numbers of “disadvantaged temporary and contract workers”108 who agreed to help the beleaguered and outnumbered Shanghai Red Guards with the condition that they, the Workers’ Revolutionary Rebels General Headquarters, would dominate the new alliance.109 MacFarquhar notes that this was the moment that “Red Guard power began to fade in Shanghai and workers took over the Cultural Revolution there.”110 When the Workers’ Revolutionary Rebels General Headquarter seized power over the Shanghai municipal government itself its leader Wong Hongwen rose rapidly to prominence.111 Wong went on to became the youngest member of the Gang of Four.112 The hunger to represent Shanghai’s revolutionary success was made manifest in Jiefang Ribao’s desire to present a painting celebrating its role in the Cultural Revolution. This took the form of paintings based on the Yellow River Piano Concerto. 161

The Yellow River Piano Concerto occupies a historic and interesting role in Chinese Communist cultural history. The concerto was based on the Yellow River Cantata, a work written by Xian Xinghai who had studied at the Paris Conservatory in the 1930’s. The cantata had premiered at Yan’an during the Japanese Occupation.113 The composition takes as its subject the importance of the Yellow River in Chinese civilization. The Yellow River is credited for sustaining life on the Central Plains, but also lamented for causing tremendous suffering during its irregular flooding.114 Xian struck a parallel between the suffering inflicted on man by nature and the suffering caused by enemy occupation.115 Given the wartime situation and the difficulties of the time, the instruments used for the original performance included a salvaged church organ, a few violins, a cello and a large collection of Chinese folk instruments that had been pressed into service.116 Listening to a recording of the composition now, it may be challenging to see the appeal. However Edgar Snow, who was visiting at the time of the premiere, relates that the work was accompanied with a passionate narration by Xian that shaped an understanding of the composition, and that the work greatly roused the audience and, notably, pleased Mao.117 It is not hard to imagine that as a performance art piece it would have provided stimulating theatre even if not necessarily euphonious. The composer died tragically in 1945 in the Soviet Union after having been sent to produce a score for a film about the precursor to the PLA, the Eighth Route Army. His early death meant that his memory was henceforth burnished with a revolutionary halo endorsed by Mao.

The adaptation of the Yellow River Cantata into the Yellow River Concerto resulted from joint efforts of Jiang Qing and a young pianist, Yin Chengzong, who had won the second prize in the 1962 Tchaikovsky piano competition in the Soviet Union.118 An ardent young man who enthusiastically embraced the challenge of adapting classical music forms to serve revolutionary purposes, Yin had attracted Jiang’s attention by recording a piano accompaniment for one of her Model Plays, The Red Lantern.119 After a wildly successful concert of the work for the leadership, Jiang organised Yin and a team of musicians to update 162 the Yellow River Cantata.120 To that end, she arranged for them to visit the Yellow River, to stay in nearby caves as previous inhabitants had done, sail with boatmen who plied that route, and to interview local inhabitants about conditions under the Japanese Occupation.121 The resulting concerto was the product of the musicians’ research, along with an understanding of the political elements that Jiang Qing wished them to include.122 Jiang Qing was deeply involved in this work, and it is the only symphonic composition in which she took an active and integral part.123

Correspondingly, to flatter Jiang Qing, Jiefang Ribao selected the Yellow River Concerto as its subject for a commissioned series of paintings. The newspaper assembled the painting team in 1971 and each movement was assigned to an artist to depict.124 Chen’s was the second movement, namely the Ode to the Yellow River.125 Explicitly produced to demonstrate revolutionary fervour and gain favour with Jiang Qing, the works nevertheless failed to attract much official attention at the time of their display.126 For Chen, however, it proved a useful means of demonstrating his willingness to help in official art matters. Over the next few years he came to assist those less skilled to paint selected propaganda paintings, as well as repainting amateur art works for national display.127

Although Chen had benefited from the turmoil of the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, he nevertheless owed his painting skills to the very teachers who had been usurped and imprisoned. For this last phase of the Cultural Revolution, official statements declared that greater emphasis would be placed on the work of the “rusticated students”,128 those who had been sent down to the countryside, and of amateur artists. Many of these “rusticated students” had been sent down to learn how to be peasants, workers and – for the luckiest and most capable ‐ soldiers.

The most famous painting of soldiers is by a rusticated student who became a soldier, Shen Jiawei. Shen’s Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland, shown earlier (Figure 3.0) features three soldiers on the Soviet border, in Heilongjiang, an area legendary for freezing cold winters in which temperatures could go as low as ‐40°. The location depicted in Shen’s work was the Ussuri River which 163 carried a specific political charge as the site of recent border fighting. Several skirmishes had taken place in March‐August 1969 following the political rift between China and the Soviet Union. Soldiers on both sides died, and a greater conflict loomed. Last minute negotiations in September 1969 averted a war,129 but not before the entire nation had been put on edge.

The tension implied by Shen’s subject matter is further enhanced by his dramatic composition. The viewer first sees a soldier highlighted against the sky with his body forming a dynamic triangular shape. The eye then follows to an officer on the lower left, walking up the steeply angled stairs, just about to reach the viewing platform. Shen uses triangles and diagonals to create a sense of dynamic movement. This upward movement is enhanced by the vertical direction of the river, expressed in a somewhat vague light‐coloured shape that leads the viewer directly to the standing soldier. There is no doubt that the sentry holding the binoculars is the main subject of the painting. In this way, Shen fulfils one of the Three Prominences, the requirement that the hero should be clearly presented.

The theatrical dimension of the painting is emphasized through its sense of imminent action. By cropping the image to bring the viewer closer to the scene, so that viewers seem to be just below the level of the viewing platform, Shen heightens a sense of drama. Through this dynamic cropping, as well as the time‐ based dimension implied by the narrative, Shen imbues the work with a filmic quality. This contrasts sharply with the static composition of the earlier leadership paintings discussed in Chapters One and Two.

The structure of the building underscores the precariousness of the soldier’s position. Standing on an exposed platform high above the river, the blocky solidity of the command post contrasts with the exposed supports of the stairs and of the building itself, adding tension to the scene. The strong diagonal formed by the stairs and the platform that juts into space emphasizes the sense of movement and fragility.

The soldiers, representing real individuals with a traceably red history, look every inch the stout‐hearted defenders of the nation they were meant to be. Of the three men in the painting, two are named: the commanding officer Wang 164

Dezhong and Private Wang Shuja.130 According to Shen, Wang Dezhong was a garrison commander who “came from a worker background…. slender and fit, and treated the soldiers like brothers.”131 The commander is striding up the stairs in a decisive fashion and is portrayed in a three‐quarter profile. The private stands with legs firmly planted apart, binoculars at the ready and his right hand solidly holding on to his shoulder‐slung holster, the embodiment of the active and prepared soldier. Not surprisingly, Shen made the final painted version of the garrison commander more handsome than he appears in the research photograph that he took.132 This is entirely consistent with the idealising process that Mao urged upon artists to adopt in their depiction of revolutionary model heroes.

The high detail that Shen uses for his figurative work reveals his faculty for portraiture, a talent that has served him well in his successful Australian career. However, the landscape is oddly vague. Shen explains that given the sensitive nature of the site, he wasn’t allowed to “sketch or photograph the view from the watchtower”133 and so it remains abstract with vague fields of white and brownish green and a few clearly delineated boats floating on the white expanse.

Shen’s notes on his painting process reveal a close understanding of what the leadership sought to hear. His official description “claims additional inspiration from the study of revolutionary model operas, which emphasized heroic characters”134. Without awareness of ideology, Shen’s work would never have been displayed. Moreover, he would not have been granted access to painting materials if he hadn’t been sophisticated about his use of contemporaneous directives.

Shen Jiawei’s own history is particularly interesting and provides unusual insight into painting during the Cultural Revolution. He was immersed in the Cultural Revolution as a member of the Red Guards, was subsequently educated in Beijing, and is now a successful Australian portraitist whose work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and the Guggenheim Collection in New York. Researchers now benefit from Shen’s Australian citizenship, given his confidence as an Australian citizen that he can provide explanations without any 165 risk that they may be used against him. His comments are therefore unusually layered and informative. Shen allows us privileged insights into the mental gymnastics required to produce a successful Cultural Revolution painting. His explanations help us to understand his thought processes at the time, and how he came to make specific decisions. Hearing Shen’s story helps us to understand the limited choices available to young people during the Cultural Revolution. It is all too easy to demonise people who participated. It is much more challenging, and ultimately rewarding, to grapple with the shifting complexities of the period.

In the text that accompanied a seminal 2008 exhibition on Cultural Revolution art at the Guggenheim in New York, Shen demonstrates his consciousness of the shifting politics that he needed to master to survive in a range of different circumstances:

On the train, I used my scrapbook of source material to write and copy notes on the process I followed in creating the painting. These notes were half true and half fabricated. This was because at that time any kind of writing, even personal diaries, could be subjected to public reading. Any politically incorrect word could bring disaster in its wake. So I had to make sure that even my notes on my creative process were in keeping with official standards.” 135

When Shen viewed his painting at the 1974 exhibition in Beijing, he was startled to find that his faces had been reddened in an obvious attempt to make them appear more symbolically revolutionary. He states, “It was obvious that my efforts to paint a picture as close to reality as possible had not been acceptable to the authorities. Both faces now appeared to be fuller and wider, they wore exaggeratedly fierce expressions, and the color tone had been changed to pink.”136 Even though Shen’s work conformed with the official directives, and featured model soldiers, and his notes displayed a fluency with governing ideology, it was not enough to avoid the application of further signs of revolutionary fervour. His work still had to adhere to Cultural Revolution codes of heroic masculinity. 166

The team tasked with correcting paintings in the 1974 exhibition had included Chen Yifei. Chen was designated part of the “painting correction group” that was assembled to amend paintings to adhere to revolutionary principles for the national exhibitions of the 70’s.137 Each region was assigned a senior artist who effected the changes to the works. Chen was in charge of Shanghai,138 and not, fortunately, of Shen’s region.

Shen’s painting fell into eventual disgrace followed the fall of Jiang Qing. Her praise during the Cultural Revolution then led to its opprobation when she fell out of power. The painting was abandoned after the arrest of the Gang of Four. In 1981 Shen was instructed to retrieve it, which he did the following year.139 When he unrolled the painting many years later in the Conservation Department of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, he found that it had suffered extensive damage, particularly on the newly reddened faces, so he restored it to appear as he had intended it to be seen.140 The image that has been included with this text is from Shen’s restored original as it was displayed at the Guggenheim exhibition in 2008.

One of the most humane and atmospheric paintings of a soldier was produced by a young man named Shang Ding. His Continue the Fight,141 an oil painting from 1974 (Figure 3.12), features a man from the army sitting on a sunlit patch of grass and furiously writing. Beside him rests a thick copy of Mao’s Selected Works. A wreath of camouflage leaves rings his head, lending an incongruously festive note. His right foot rests against what looks like a rubber tree, from which his canteen hangs suspended above the ground. With his rifle slung behind him, and the wheels of a tank in the background, the setting suggests a brief moment’s respite from patrol, a break that he devotes to writing and to the study of Mao’s words. The light spring sunlight alleviates the sense of urgency that is seen in his face, drawing viewers’ attention to the intensity with which he is writing. 167

Figure 3.12 Shang Ding, Continue the Fight, 1974, oil on canvas

The composition of the painting is fairly straightforward as the soldier dominates the picture plane. The bright red cover of Mao’s Selected Works draws the eye to the foreground. Slightly angled diagonals formed by the soldier’s legs and a staff that is placed behind him lend a sense of movement to the work. A leg is placed at an angle and a toe pressed up against the tree, to show that he is part of his environment. He uses some sort of pole with hooks and a padded bit to form the support for his writing. The stick runs behind him into an unseen area outside the picture plane, and thereby creates the other diagonal line. The angled leg and the angled pole form a triangle with his writing at the apex.

The work’s palette is dominated by green and flashes of judiciously placed red, complementary colours that imbue the painting with a subtle vibration. The careful placement of red emphasizes the soldier’s face by drawing the eye towards him. The book in the foreground is the largest patch of red, and is the first item to draw the viewer’s attention. The eye then moves to the man’s collar which has a rectangular red shape, and flows to the tiny patch of red used for the star on the soldier’s cap. In this way, the artist connects the soldier with Mao. The soldier’s face is illuminated an unseen source. The gentle spring sunshine warms and lightens the painting: it keeps the mainly red and green palette warmer, and allows a certain lightness to the painting. 168

The artist knows tropical environs well as Shang Ding was born in Yunnan, a province known for its mild year‐round climate, which in parts has subtropical temperatures. A member of the PLA, Shang took painting classes at PLA art school where tuition was provided by acclaimed history painter He Kongde.142 The carefully observed details of his painting attest to his specific experience of serving in a Yunnan army base. Such details include the rubber tree against which the soldier’s toe pressed, and the rubber‐soled cotton shoes with short socks, which were issued for the tropics rather than the standard heavy leather army boots issued in the Northeast.

Shang depicts a model soldier who is completely unselfconscious. His soldier is comfortable in his skin, at ease with studying Mao in the midst of a beautiful spring‐like day. Gone is the stagey posturing of Chen Yifei’s work, as well as the bravado of Shen’s work. Instead, Shang’s soldier is perfectly himself, completely at ease with his job, with his passion for Mao’s writings, and with his robust, healthy body. The painting demonstrates the absorption of the Three Prominences as well as the centrality of Mao Zedong Thought, without the studied theatricality mustered by those who had been exposed to art from different eras with different objectives. Shang has internalised the objectives of the Cultural Revolution, as it was through the movement that he gained exposure and training in painting. Shang’s soldier thoroughly depicts the man that the Cultural Revolution sought to produce, yet it did not attract attention to the same degree as Shen’s more theatrical work.

Paintings of model soldiers far outnumber paintings of the other red classes, the model workers and model peasants. Moreover, the paintings of soldiers include pictures with the most specific details as compared to images of the other red classes, as will be seen in the following paragraphs. Many factors contributed to the preponderance of paintings of model soldiers. For example, the PLA possessed a national organization that had survived the Cultural Revolution; it also had the resources, teachers, functioning arts training, and salaried positions for artists. Neither the workers nor the peasants had these benefits. The PLA also had access to painting materials. These material considerations factor significantly in the number and the quality of the paintings of model soldiers. As 169 discussed in earlier paragraphs, painters who were not actual members of the PLA, such as Chen Yifei, might use martial imagery in order to curry favour and to gain prominence. For Shanghai‐based artists such as Chen, it was felt that attracting leadership praise for their painting was a means of accumulating “political capital”143 that could protect each individual against future crackdowns or future persecution. Given the material and political considerations, it is not suprising that paintings of model soldiers feature the broadest range of lifestyles and geographical settings of all three red categories.

Model Workers

The representation of model workers combines the Marxist high regard for this red class with a martial air, resulting in dynamic pictures of determined masculine figures. As China was a largely agrarian society in 1949, the class of workers was the youngest and the smallest out of the three red classes. Yet because of the fundamental role that workers play in Marxism, they were viewed as critical to legitimise a modern Communist state.144 Indeed, in the Soviet Union, they were perceived as the “chosen people who brought the Bolsheviks to power.”145 In China, the withdrawal of Soviet technical advisors in 1960 led to great anxiety about the nation’s ability to develop its own industry. The importance of a working industrial state was understood by the Chinese leadership, and the need to protect this nascent sector led to heated early debates in 1966‐67 about the appropriate degree of worker involvement in the Cultural Revolution.146 In the end, the workers decided for themselves and jumped into the fray.

Before addressing the workers’ involvement in the Cultural Revolution, it may be useful to looking at previous model workers. One stands out in particular, “Iron Man” Wang from the Daqing oil field. This was China’s first major oil discovery.147 In 1964 Mao stated, “In industry, learn from Daqing”, and so Daqing became a national model for workers to emulate.148

“Iron Man” Wang exemplified the model worker. In true model hero fashion, Wang Jinxi came from a poor peasant family and had been named a model worker in 170

Figure 3.20 Study the Spirit of Daqing, 1965, propaganda poster, IISH‐Landsberger Foundation, Amsterdam 1959, even before Daqing was discovered. He achieved fame for his work in the Iron and Steel Well‐Drilling team and at the Yumen oil field.149

His official history states that in 1959 Wang was attending the Nationwide Industry and Communication Gathering of Heroes when he first heard about the Daqing oil discovery.150 He then proceeded to organise his team in Yumen to head off to Daqing to join the “Great Battle for Oil”.151 At Daqing, he performed 171 many heroic acts in difficult weather, as depicted in Figure 3.20, such as putting out an oil fire at great danger to himself when already injured, and by organising his team to haul equipment by dint of their strength alone.152 In recognition of his bravery and enterprise, he was named team leader, deputy director of Drilling Headquarters, vice‐director of the Daqing Revolutionary Committee, and representative to the National People’s Congress in 1964 and 1969.153 Wang died in 1970 in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, of stomach cancer.

As with Lei Feng, periodic revivals of Wang’s cult recur when the leadership seeks to bolster a Communist work ethic and shore up its revolutionary credentials. For example, in the 1980’s when the leadership sought to encourage young people to travel to the remote hinterlands to develop China, campaigns extolling Wang Jinxi appeared.154 Another campaign, targeted at all citizens, was waged after the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4, 1989.155 As a symbol of ideal Communist behaviour, Wang has a museum dedicated to his memory in Daqing. The museum was completed in 2003, attesting to the continued value that the Communist Party perceives in Wang’s propaganda capital.

The Daqing oilfield teams were the first to credit their industrial success to studying the political work experience of the PLA.156 Once this claim was made, the ministries of water conservancy, electric power, metallurgical industry and chemical industry all declared their eagerness to explore this military dimension.157 Once Mao was informed, he was wholly in support of the practice; he urged Lin Biao and other senior military leaders to engage with and expand this effort.158 To this end, increased numbers of party branches were formed, PLA consultants entered into industrial work units, and the PLA established political departments within industries.159 The mutually consensual and deep infiltration of the PLA into industry happened prior to the Cultural Revolution, in the early 1960’s.160

In the Cultural Revolution, workers played a seminal role in inculcating the deification of Mao and engaged in some of the most devastating physical violence. It was ostensibly the workers, under the guidance of the army, who wrested power away from the Red Guards.161 The workers’ indoctrination in 172 military theory and their militarization eventually led to explosive confrontations between workers and soldiers. The following paragraphs will show how the early politicization of the working classes of Shanghai, discussed in Chapter Two, as well as the militarization of the workers in industrial centers such as Wuhan, came to result in spectacular displays of rebellion and organised revolt during the Cultural Revolution. The oil painting depictions of and by the working class are infused with a certain toughness and stridency that reflects both this martial dimension, and the contentious character of the workers’ political activity.

Throughout industrialized parts of China, in 1966‐67 workers seized the initiative in challenging authority. This early phase of the Cultural Revolution, referred to by Mao and Deng as the period of mass mobilization, saw the student Red Guards, workers and soldiers battling for dominance. Initially, there had been high‐level discussions as to whether or not the workers should be allowed to participate in the Cultural Revolution, as this might critically affect necessary industrial production.162 However, workers soon took matters into their own hands. By the end of 1966, Mao called for “the unfolding of nationwide all‐round civil war!”163 His wish was soon fulfilled and mighty clashes between the military and steel‐workers and members of the Red Guards erupted in Wuhan, resulting in a conflagration that threatened the safety of even Zhou Enlai and Mao.164 Clashes between workers, cadre members and the military erupted sporadically until 1970, necessitating the imposition of martial law in some areas, as well as draconian laws to maintain civil order.

In Shanghai, as discussed in relation to the painting by Chen Yifei, “revolutionary” workers took over the city from 1967 onwards. They managed to sideline the Shanghai Red Guards, triumphing over an opposing force, the “Scarlet Guards”165, as well as the municipal government. In the process, they deposed the mayor.166 In 1967, with Mao’s backing, the new government became known as the Revolutionary Committee of Shanghai Municipality.167 The successful rebels had initially sought to call themselves the Shanghai People’s Commune in honour of the Paris Commune of 1871. After long deliberation, Mao vetoed that idea, pointing out the impracticality if all of China’s major cities were 173 to call themselves communes and the difficulty in foreign affairs of changing China’s name to something like the “People’s Commune of China”.168 Consequently, the rebels settled on the name “Revolutionary Committee of Shanghai Municipality”.169

Although Shanghai’s transition from municipal government to Revolutionary Committee was fairly rapid if not exactly straightforward, the struggle for power in other industrial centres was rocky and lethal. Matters took a grave turn in 1967 when Mao, after an appeal by individuals and groups who wished to challenge the dominance of the PLA, decided to “arm the left”.170 In his own words, Mao queried Zhou Enlai, ”Why can’t we arm the workers and students,” further adding, “Arms seizures are not a serious problem”.171 Following Mao’s directive, workers were allowed to seize arms. In certain cities, such as Wuhan, something akin to civil war ensued. A pro‐establishment group of PLA members known as the Million Heroes clashed with worker and Red Guards groups172, leaving the Million Heroes with 184,000 wounded or killed in the province.173 Every city in China saw violent clashes.174 Munitions factory base Chongqing witnessed particularly lethal confrontations as the workers deployed the tanks, artillery shells, and anti‐aircraft guns that they normally produced for the armed forces.175 One of their more memorable showdowns resulted in the flattening of Chongqing’s harbour district.176 Even basic nuclear devices were produced at geological institutes based in Changchun and were detonated, but fortunately not near people.177

By late 1967, armed warfare between the workers, PLA units and the Red Guards had made China barely governable. Industrial production was disastrous, the national output of steel and pig iron was only 26% of the year’s target, and the production shortfall forced China to turn to the international market to purchase steel and chemicals that the country would normally have produced internally.178 Something had to give.

A suprising event, involving mangoes, changed the perception of workers as one amongst three red classes to taking a leadership role in the Cultural Revolution. In 1968, after Mao had successfully used the Red Guards to topple Liu Shaoqi, as 174 discussed in Chapter Two, he sought to unify the Red Guards and stop the lawlessness in the streets. Qinghua University in Beijing had become ungovernable because of battling Red Guards factions, and Mao ordered the dispatch of six factory teams headed by the army to restore order.179 Approximately 30,000 workers from factories under Mao’s personal oversight took part, along with army personnel from the 8341 army corps.180 The workers wore light summer clothing and sought to use Mao Zedong Thought to persuade the students to see reason and put down their arms.181 They had not reckoned with the students bunkered down in the Physics Department, who had developed home‐made grenades and guns, and also deployed stones, bricks and spears on the unarmed workers.182 It is estimated that 5 workers were killed, 731 wounded, and 143 taken prisoner and beaten.183 The fight lasted for a hundred days but the workers, with the assistance of the army, eventually subdued the Red Guards. Mao removed the students from the cities, and sent them to the countryside to learn from the peasantry.

In the midst of the 1968 tumult in Qinghua, Mao sent a gift of mangoes. The mangoes had been given to Mao by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mian Arshal Hussain. Mao then sent them on to the embattled workers at Qinghua. The workers seized upon the tropical fruit as a symbol of Mao’s favour, claiming that the gift showed that Mao wished to transfer leadership of the Cultural Revolution from the Red Guards to the workers.184 The tropical fruits were described as a sign of Mao’s “great concern”185. As art historian Lü Peng explains:

A mango which had been presented by foreigners to Mao Zedong was handed on to a worker’s propaganda team, and this was regarded as the expression of the transference of revolutionary power from the students to the workers, signaling another major turning point in the political situation.186

Subsequently, propaganda images of mangoes were captioned in such a way as to leave no doubt as to the role of the working class. Art historian Alfreda Murck translated a poster caption as follows: 175

Our country has a population of 700 million and the working class is the leadership class. Bring into full play the leading role of the working class in the great cultural revolution and in all fields of work. The working class also must continuously raise its political consciousness through struggle.187

The mango came to represent Mao’s transference of leadership of the Cultural Revolution from the Red Guards to the workers. The early militarization of the workers in the Daqing team and in other industrial units resulted in the emergence during this period of a thoroughly militant working class. By internalizing the authority and tactics of the PLA, the workers were remarkably successful in derailing industrial production, and wreaked mayhem in industrial centres. With the mangoes now taken to confirm Mao’s support, workers demonstrated their mastery of organisational tactics, overthrowing municipal and provincial governments, and challenging the army for the physical control of government. Production naturally suffered. The leadership attempted to restore output throughout 1967‐69 with various appeals backed by the guns of the PLA.188 However, it was only in the early 1970’s that the nation was back on track with working trains,189 grain production and grain distribution.190 The few oil paintings of this period that depict workers show them as tough, militant and purposeful: their disruptive potential is clear.

Before turning to specific paintings, it is important to remember that the workers lacked the art colleges, exhibitions halls and funding for art materials to which the armed forces had access. Consequently, representations of model workers in oil paintings are limited in number. Motifs and iconography relevant to the workers can be found in industrial products that they produced, such as textiles and enamelled tableware.191 While industrial design presents interesting lines of inquiry, it is beyond the scope of this current thesis. The different media do however demonstrate the hierarchy of power: China’s leaders are depicted in large oil paintings in a historic, epic format; workers and peasants are depicted in more humble media such as smaller format canvasses and fragile Chinese‐ink painting on paper. 176

Figure 3.21 Liaoning Provincial Museum Propaganda Troupe’s Creative Group, Mining Copper at Hukou, 1972, oil on canvas Oil paintings of model workers focus on action scenes and use a tight, illustrative style to depict men at work (and in a notable exception, a masculinised woman). The paintings feature dynamic figures engaged in action, persisting in the face of extreme weather. There is a strong and visible relationship with earlier propaganda images of “Iron Man” Wang. The images feature a performative masculinity that is specific to depicting model workers, even when the figures are female. The exception to this are images that also include Mao; these images reinforce the calm, happy and radiant quality that is meant to emanate from his 177 presence and his presence alone. However, it is the performative masculinity appearance of a model worker that dominates and characterizes this group of figure types.

Two model workers can be seen in dramatic action in Mining Copper at Hukou in Figure 3.21. Posed as if they are firing a machine gun, with backup arriving via a rope ladder behind them, the scene (however unrealistic) represents a moment of high drama. In the background to the right, two other miners seem to be studying a rock face with the aid of a flashlight. Gleaming red gold stone, an imagined representation of copper (which often appears in small fragments embedded in a stone matrix) provides a glamorous frame on the right side of the painting, and highlights the firing of the “gun” of the model worker. With gritted teeth and intent focus, his leg braced at a sharp angle to anchor his body against the force of his “gun,” everything about the model worker’s pose suggests tremendous physical effort. The sense of danger is underscored by the alert defensive pose struck by the sidekick on his left, who stands extending a metal rod in a fist formed by his left hand. Water drips from the rock face in front of the men, enhancing the sense of danger. The battling men, the atmosphere of threat and mystery, and a sense of shared dangerous endeavour, create a mood of suspense and heroism.

However, this scene is somewhat unlikely. The featured area, Hukou in Liaoning province, is not known for its copper mines. There may be minor deposits but the province is much more famous for the less glamorous but important industries of coal and iron. Copper has been mined in China since antiquity and indeed the earliest systematic coinage used copper: the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi introduced copper coins in 210 B.C.E. Most copper mines in China are open‐pit and involve the removal of enormous amounts of rock.192 Copper extraction lacks the drama evident in this scene. Copper mining is hot, dusty work. There’s nothing sexy about moving thousands of tons of rock out of a giant pit for crushing. Moreover, the sulfuric acid extraction to remove the copper from the surrounding rock stinks. Depicting the mundane reality of copper extraction was unlikely to catapult the Liaoning Provincial Museum Propaganda 178

Troupe to fame. This fanciful scene is much more exciting than picturing reality would have been.

This scene coheres to the Three Prominences that Jiang Qing so wished to emphasise as well as to aesthetic qualities that feature in the propaganda images of “Iron Man” Wang. Here stands the prominent model worker engaged in an act of danger. He works within a team, to further the advance of China, without fear of his own safety. The illusion of abundant copper gleaming around him provides a golden red glow about the entire scene, signaling revolutionary fervour in the approved and obvious manner. By making the model worker’s high‐pressure water hose resemble a gun, the model worker appears more like one of the soldiers whom the workers were so eager to emulate. Despite the leave‐taking from reality, the intense drama depicted in this scene worked its intended narrative magic on the judges in the capital.

When displayed at the 1972 exhibition to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Talks, the painting was commended for its “intricate detail and compelling strength”.193 Purportedly based on the theme of “grasping the revolution and promoting production”,194 it exemplifies the ostensible goals of Cultural Revolution painting as enumerated by Jiang Qing. It was not a painting by a committee; Chinese art historian Lü Peng identifies the artist as Wu Yunhua,195 a man who produced several other paintings of model workers.

Surveying the images of model workers, it may also be useful to look at a dynamic Chinese‐ink painting (guohua) of the Daqing oil workers. Chinese‐ink painting was undergoing a cautious revival in 1972. This painting was part of a larger movement to bring the medium into great accord with Cultural Revolution objectives.196

In 1973, a national exhibition involving Chinese‐ink paintings was organised, and finished with an unusual coda. After being accepted for display, the works by amateurs from the red classes were subjected to corrections. However, as corrections cannot be made directly onto Chinese‐ink paintings on paper in the same way as they can for oil painting, many of the paintings were completely repainted by skilled academic Chinese‐ink painters, and then displayed under 179 the name of the soldier, worker, or peasant who had submitted the original subject matter,197 making the issue of originality and attribution murky at best.

The 1973 painting correction group, which included the Chinese‐ink figure painting professor from the highly‐regarded Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art, Fang Zengxian, would have been supremely attuned as to what constituted appropriate material, since the Chinese‐ink painters had been subjected to harsh treatment during the early phase of the Cultural Revolution.198 Chinese‐ink painting had been considered part of the “Four Olds” that the Red Guards targeted,199 and many respected and highly talented Chinese‐ink teachers such as Pan Tianshou were subjected to repeated struggle sessions and torture.200 Pan, the former president of the Zhejing Academy of Fine Arts at Hangzhou, had been incarcerated in an improvised prison, an “oxshed” from 1966‐69, and died in 1971 after being released.201 Indeed, so many respected Chinese‐ink painters had been imprisoned that they had to be released to enable the revitalization of the traditional painting industry.202

History had made them wary, and, their caution was well founded. The year after the 1973 exhibition, Chinese‐ink painters were once again under attack.203 Lacking political content was enough to earn public censure,204 painters of owls and orchids were amongst those castigated.205 Jiang Qing used the apolitical Chinese‐ink paintings as a means to attack Zhou Enlai.206 Zhou had been trying to build up the Chinese‐ink painting export industry to help to revitalize the moribund Chinese economy. Jiang saw this as an intrusion by Zhou into the cultural realm, an intrusion that would erode her power.207 Zhou’s efforts were focused on presenting a cultured, orderly face to the outside world,208 a world that Mao was trying to engage, for example, during the visit of US President Nixon in 1972. For Zhou, traditional culture was an important aspect of presenting China as a civilized nation. Jiang’s 1974 attack meant that many of the Chinese‐ink painters were labelled criminals and subjected to daily criticism until Mao died in 1976 and the Gang of Four, including Jiang, were sent to prison.209 180

Figure 3.22 Zhao Zhitian, The Daqing Workers Have No Winter, 1973, Chinese‐ink on paper That brief flowering of Chinese‐ink paintings in 1973 produced work that looks dynamic and technically accomplished, but the line between the amateur artist and the correcting professional is unclear. Be that as it may, with all of the scrutiny the work had undergone, it is fairly certain that The Daqing Workers Have No Winter (Figure 3.22) depicts a model worker considered politically acceptable at the time. Zhao Zhitian’s painting depicts a lantern‐jawed man, most likely model worker Wang Jinxi, prominently featured on the right side of the painting. He stands with abundant white space behind him, allowing his form to be clearly seen. Moreover, comparing this image with the image of Wang Jingxi in Figure 3.20 reveals that Zhao’s figure has been made more handsome, his jaw now possesses a cleaner line and he appears freshly shaved, touched up to conform more closely with the ideals established in the Model Plays. A red tee‐shirt worn under his coat symbolizes his revolutionary fervour in a direct way, even as his actions, resolutely turning the oil drill machinery in the blinding snow, attest to his passionate devotion to solving their production problem. Working as part of a team, Wang demonstrates courage, technical mastery and indifference to personal comfort. These qualities coupled with the application of 181 the Three Prominences and his identity as an already celebrated model worker ensure that the chunky machismo of this model worker painting sets a new standard. The painting possesses a fresh, lively sense of action, complex figure grouping, original composition and some complexity of posing, such as the three‐ quarter profiles in dynamic poses. It also has technical specificity – no imaginary machine guns here, but rather the oil drilling equipment, more accurately depicted – these factors sets it apart from the rather tired and contrived paintings of other model workers.

The next work I am the Seagull, Figure 3.23, presents an active image of a woman presented in the model worker style. Ostensibly a picture of a female telecommunications worker, the painting instead reinforces the compulsory militant masculinity that was emphasised at this time. This work reveals some of the issues relating to gendered display, and the severely narrowed range in which people could present themselves. Anchee Min writes of an innately feminine woman who was at the same farm she was sent to as a rusticated student, a woman who “dared to decorate her beauty”210. Min describes how this woman was denigrated as “that creature full of bourgeois allure”,211 and was persecuted to the point of insanity.212

The example that women were urged to follow was set by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife. As a Shanghai actress who had enjoyed an active romantic life prior to meeting Mao,213 Jiang was well aware of the signals conveyed through dress. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, she wore pastel skirt suits and low‐heeled leather shoes to look suitably demure as the Chairman’s wife.214 However, once the Cultural Revolution began in 1966 and she was given an official role, she changed her wardrobe to “loose‐fitting jackets and trousers, so baggy they might have fit Mao.”215 While she had been gathering information prior to the Cultural Revolution Jiang described herself with false modesty as “just a plain soldier, a sentry of the Chairman patrolling on the ideological battlefront.”216 By teaming up with Lin Biao and donning masculinised plain clothing, Jiang appropriated the connotations of power associated with men and the military. 182

Jiang was also drawing upon the traditional Chinese cultural history of women who accessed the masculine worlds of warfare and scholarship by donning masculine attire. The roles of scholar and soldier, as Kam Louie and Louise Edwards argue, were “primary signifiers of a masculine world.”217 Women who temporarily entered this realm, by dressing as men and passing as men, maintained their status as “exemplary women”218 by signalling their temporary transformation into the masculine sphere. Martial hero Hua Mulan (who has entered the realm of popular culture via two Disney animated films) successfully fought barbarian invasions for over a decade in the armour of a man.219 Similarly, the capable but ill‐fated Zhu Yingtai , from the Tang Dynasty legend Butterfly Lovers, also undertook her scholarly endeavours disguised as a man.220 By dressing as a PLA soldier, Jiang behaved in a way that was consistent and visually comprehensible to the general public for a woman to enter a man’s world.

Moreover, the Model Plays developed under Jiang’s aegis developed alternative role models to traditionally feminine roles. They featured heroines who “were cast not as simpering courtesans, scheming empresses or mincing girls but as liberated muscular women who fought the Japanese as equals to their men.”221 Their aesthetic featured a “toughed beauty” that art historian Paul Clark describes as “a somewhat masculine aesthetic: broad shouldered and determined,” that encompassed both sexes.222

The cost of not following Jiang Qing’s sartorial example was terrible. Wang Guangmei, the wife of disgraced President Liu Shaoqi, had been publicly struggled against at Qinghua University and, in the cold Beijing winter, had been forced to don a silk dress and a mock necklace made of ping‐pong balls.223 The outfit had been intended to shame her for having bourgeois tastes because of her elegant attire and pearl necklace seen in a 1963 photograph taken when she accompanied her husband on a state visit to Indonesia.224 The charming and talented concert pianist Li Cuizhen from Shanghai had also been tormented to such a degree that, in 1966, she took her own life, dressed in her best clothes and wearing full makeup.225 Among the features that had made Li a target of the Red 183

Guards were her love of beauty and her pleasure in dressing up, behaviour that singled her out for persecution.226

Adopting a masculine or asexual appearance was a matter of survival. Even appearing to be interested in being sexually appealing was deemed politically unsound.227 Correspondingly in art, painters of model workers reflected the new aesthetic for women; to appear androgynous, if not masculine, and capable of work. Capacity for work was the criteria for social, economic and political status for all adults during the Cultural Revolution; this was signalled through masculine presentation and military attire. Especially in propaganda posters but also in oil paintings, women might appear as barefoot doctors (who roamed the countryside dispensing Chinese herbal medicines) and as hard‐labouring agricultural workers.228 Landsberger refers to the latter genre as “iron women”, women engaged in crushing physical labour that would previously have been deemed too demanding.229 Although this level of cultural representation of women as the equal of men may be appealing in its overt gender empowerment, it substituted one restriction on representation with another. Rather than allowing only feminine women to be represented in art, now only masculinised women could appear. Instead of liberation, this was exchanging one straitjacket for another. Not conforming would invite censure at best, persecution at worst. A mask of masculinity was a strategic imperative for survival.

Clad in an army uniform and sturdy work boots, the line worker in Pan Jiajun’s I am the Seagull performs dangerous work in repairing a telephone line during a rainstorm. Some might describe this as foolhardy, given the risk of electrocution from lightning. In the background, the nearly horizontal fronds of coconut palm demonstrate the strength of the gales. The tropical setting is reminiscent of The Red Detachment of Women, one of the Model Plays set on the lush Hainan Island, and thereby evokes the valour and magnificence imbued in the heroine of that play. Her reddened face displays her revolutionary ardour, and her singularity emphasizes her heroic prominence, ensuring that the painting coheres with the Three Prominences. Following other model worker examples, she toils in dangerous labour in threatening weather. Her army cap and flying cloak attest 184

Figure 3.23 Pan Jiajun, I am the Seagull, 1972, oil on canvas both to her military affiliations and to her resistance to fear. Her bravery and leadership are absolutely appropriate to model worker heroes, regardless of her sex. Despite all efforts to focus on her work capacity and courage, Lü relates that Pan’s painting generated much excitement over how the wet army uniform 185 clings to her torso.230 If even I am the Seagull can arouse this sort of response, it’s clear that cultural restrictions, no matter how strong or by whom ordered, cannot erase desire.

The representation of the model worker thus transcended sexed differences to encompass a universalised ideal that was masculinised, dynamic, and impervious to extreme weather, demonstrating a passion to serve the nation. The specific ways in which model workers were presented as heroic followed a template first established in the propaganda images of “Iron Man” Wang. It came to shape how model workers were depicted in oil paintings, irrespective of their sex.

Model Peasants

Out of the three red classes, the peasantry lived in the most challenging circumstances, and during this period their conditions were deteriorating. Both material and political constraints limited the amount of art that related to the peasantry, although they comprised the vast majority of the population. In 1968, 82% of the population lived in rural villages.231 Chinese citizens’ movements were strictly controlled by the hukou system that required proof of household registration and residence. Individuals were not allowed to move from their designated residence unless specifically requested by the government. (A modified version of this remains in place today.)232 Urban residents received allocated housing, a regular income and stable food rations.233 Rural dwellers received virtually no money, and were allocated only a percentage of their production team’s harvest for their food.234

In times of scarcity, rural dwellers were not legally permitted to leave their districts for more prosperous localities or to go to the cities to work. They were required to stay in their registered provinces, counties and work brigades. A poor harvest meant that they would suffer, as they were not automatically entitled to the national food stores to which urban dwellers had recourse. For rural dwellers, lacking the legal right to move freely meant that there was very little that they could do to protest any abuse by local authorities, and so local cadre members carried a disproportionate power over their lives.235 Under Mao’s governance, the income gap between the urbanites and the peasantry 186 widened substantially, in marked contrast to the situation in the Soviet Union where the urban‐rural income gap was narrowing.236 Moreover, the state exploited the peasantry to help finance industrialization.237 This was done through the central government paying out low rates for grain requisitions and extracting high prices for fertilisers and machinery, the difference going toward financing industrialization.238 Since there was no free market, the government had total control over pricing.

Clever young people had two possible routes out of the village. They could enter the army, but would then still have to return to their villages when their stint was over.239 Alternatively, they could attempt to rise via the educational system: if they worked extremely hard and were also lucky, this could lead to an urban hukou.240 However, the educational route was only available to the top 1% of the youth, and by 1962 most schools were closed, and by 1966 colleges were not accepting students because of the Cultural Revolution.241

If leaving was not an option, the one remaining path to improve one’s life was to seek a position as a local cadre. If fortunate enough to garner a local authority position, one then had to demonstrate “redness”, or revolutionary zeal when called upon, and be an enthusiastic participant in various new movements of the period; to avoid these was to risk demotion or being purged.242 Privileged positions could be gained via power struggle in times of political movements, and by toppling existing authorities who could be then labelled counterrevolutionaries or reactionary elements, or otherwise categorized among the Four Types243 to be persecuted: “landlords”, “rich peasants”, “class enemies”, and “counter‐revolutionaries”.244 During the Cultural Revolution, in a bid to discover class enemies, the children and grandchildren of landlords who had been killed in the Land Reform movement were classified as members of the “landlord” class.245 Long after the money, power and land were gone, they still had to suffer for their grandparents’ designations, ironically replicating the lack of class mobility that Communism was meant to redress. Failure to participate in political movements, or questioning the motives of such movements, were dangerous and could risk future suffering not only for oneself but for an entire family. 187

The large percentage of the population that lived in rural areas and depended on local agriculture for sustenance, in conjunction with a political system that required compliance and punished criticism, meant that any kind of “model” agriculture system would exert a tremendous impact on people’s lives. An example was the disastrous Dazhai model.

In 1963, prior to the Cultural Revolution, a week of flooding destroyed the fields, fruit trees and homes of almost a hundred and sixty families in Dazhai, Xiyang County, in the northern province of Shanxi.246 The Dazhai Brigade of the Dazhai People’s Commune declared that they would not accept government assistance and would instead rebuild using their own resources.247 Mao seized upon Dazhai’s example as a model of self‐reliance that should be applied to China as a whole, and in 1964 he declared Dazhai a national model to be emulated.248

The Dazhai model was taken to involve the manual movement of enormous quantities of earth to fill in gulleys and terrace rocky slopes to enable grain production.249 The model advocated filling in rivers and lakes with earth to turn these waterways into farmland.250 Applying such dubious practices indiscriminately throughout China resulted in the denuding of rocky hill slopes, the desertification of the Mongolian grasslands251, and the extinction of native birds and fish.252 Grain was promoted above all as the only crop to plant. Tea plantations, fruit orchards and bamboo groves were torn up in order to plant wheat on unsuitable land.253 In fact, the model presented by Dazhai turned out to be fictitious: the village had relied upon extensive PLA financial subsidies and labour assistance to make its miracle happen.254 As a national model that others were forced to emulate, this fake model engendered a tremendous waste of human energy and of scarce resources.255

Much of Dazhai’s appeal to Mao derived from the village’s brigade head, Chen Yonggui, who espoused political fervour as a force to control nature.256 Chen spearheaded an agricultural movement claiming that revolutionary faith Mao inspired provided the miraculous power that enabled these acts, such as terracing on extreme rocky slopes and turning gulleys into wheat fields by filling them with soil, to yield grain.257 Illiterate until he turned 43, he claimed to have 188 learned how to read from Mao’s Selected Works.258 Mao’s celebration of Dazhai as a national model and his solid support of Chen were a result of Chen’s usefulness in Mao’s ideological battle against Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.259 In the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) of 1964, work teams from Beijing had discovered that there were serious problems with Dazhai’s model and advocated downgrading it from “advanced unit” to one with “serious problems”.260 Mao felt that subjecting Dazhai to reforms and implementing the findings of SEM would leave him vulnerable to criticism, so he defended Dazhai and its model status ferociously.261 After that, Dazhai and its model status were beyond scrutiny and above reproach for as long as Mao lived. Criticizing Dazhai was seen as analogous to criticising Mao.262 Chen was promoted to the Politburo in 1973 and served as Vice‐Premier from 1975‐80, under Premier Zhou Enlai.263 Lest anyone forget Chen’s influence, propaganda art that featured cadre members was all henceforth to be styled on the appearance of Chen Yonggui.264

To ensure that the nation’s peasantry emulated Dazhai, every commune had to send people to visit the place. The visitors were then required to emulate Dazhai’s steep terracing, ravine‐filling and grain‐growing in their own communes, irrespective of local conditions.265 Even if their communities didn’t eat wheat and local conditions made wheat impossible to grow, they were forced to imitate Dazhai.266 Growing food, something the Chinese peasantry had been managing with limited local resources for millennia, was now subjected to revolutionary fervour: the peasants were assessed based on how closely they mimicked Dazhai, with points given for their “political showing”.267 Political points were directly linked to grain allocations, and non‐compliance meant less food.268 Foot‐dragging or refusing to implement these disastrous practices would invite criticism, and potentially the possibility of violent retribution. As scholar Judith Shapiro points out, traditional Chinese thought as expressed in Daoism advocated working with nature and cultivating a harmonious coexistence between man and nature, but what Mao sought was “victory over nature” and revolutionary transformation.269 Mao wanted to style farming as a battle to subdue and conquer nature, and that adversarial dynamic informed the agricultural practices that he advocated. 189

Following on from the ill‐conceived policies of the Great Leap Forward that led to the man‐made famines across the nation in the mid‐1950’s, the country could ill afford the bizarre agricultural policies of the Cultural Revolution. The practices of the two periods caused irreparable damage to the environment, and adversely affected China’s water resources as well as its agricultural capacity. They provide a cautionary tale about the perils of following simplistic politically‐ motivated policy formulations.

Despite understanding local conditions and how best to cultivate their land, peasants dared not speak out against the Dazhai model for fear of political retaliation.270 The situation for the peasantry became even more precarious during the Cultural Revolution, because of the vicious local battles before and following the establishment of local revolutionary councils between 1967‐71.271 The countryside was as riven by the tumultuous politics of the Cultural Revolution as the urban areas.

Much of the violence in the countryside took the form of collective killings, which sociologist Yang Su refers to as “eliminationist killing in a public place as a collective action”.272 Although the violence did not encompass all provinces, estimates of death in the countryside through collective killings are very high, ranging between 492,000–1,970,000.273 87% of the counties’ records examined by sociologist Yang Su documented attempts at “power seizures”, and 73% recorded armed battle between mass factions.274 Most of the people killed comprised members of the Four Types.275 Those who performed the killing did so in cold blood, after local authorities and community members held minuted meetings and deliberated over which families should be killed.276 The killing was typically done with blunt farm instruments277 and executed by local authorities and militia members.278 In one notable case, entire families were ordered to jump off a cliff.279 Infants, children and the elderly were sometimes but not always spared.280 In almost all cases, the killers were ordinary civilians, known to the victims, being members of the government or sometimes neighbours.281 They were not paid killers, and were not ordered to kill by a central authority. They killed for a variety of reasons, including their belief that participating would advance or solidify their political careers.282 190

Rural deaths peaked during the middle period of the Cultural Revolution, in 1968‐71. At a period when many newly‐established rural revolutionary committees were consolidating their authority and ferreting out “class enemies,” the numbers of those “discovered” provided a quantifiable measure to assess the performance of cadre members.283 The motives for the killings were myriad, including historic clan rivalries,284 and war framing by the central authorities.285 War framing refers to the signals from the Party Centre in China that indicated there was a problem and that class enemies were to blame.286 Provincial and local communities then provoked or identified events to trigger punishment and determined the nature of punishment.287 In this way, the provincial authorities could report that they had successfully responded to the problems identified by the Party Centre. Notably, the collective killings were not in response to a directive by the Party Centre. Instead, the collective killings were the provincial and local governments’ response to more abstract directives.288 In this way, responsibility for collective killings can be said to be in the hands of all involved parties: the Party Centre, provincial and local government.289 Poverty was a factor in certain districts. There was also national support to restrain violence when it erupted.290 Some remote areas saw particularly intense violence and many deaths as killers were subjected to less accountability.291

Yang Su’s book Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution provides a fine‐grained analysis of the complex coalescence of these factors that resulted in some of the worst of the organised violence of the Cultural Revolution.292 The evidence that Su has analyzed amply proved that non‐ compliance with government initiatives usually carried a high cost, often exacted not by the central government but by local power‐seekers. Implementation of Dazhai’s practices without dissent, despite any reservations the peasantry would privately have had, was a survival strategy.

Cadre privileges and power increased to unprecedented levels during the Cultural Revolution; oversight diminished. By the mid‐1970’s, cadre privileges such as state‐subsidized or even completely free housing, healthcare, travel and entertainment became expected perks of holding office.293 Additionally, because they now determined rural dwellers’ food allocation, safety and career 191 opportunities, cadres held more power over the peasantry than in any previous period.294 Moreover, since there was even less recourse to central authorities, rural dwellers were more helpless than ever in face of cadre abuses.295

In terms of imagery, peasants abound in propaganda and in New Year pictures, but curiously, very few oil paintings of peasants were made during the Cultural Revolution, in marked contrast to the representations of model soldiers and model workers. There are no famous oil paintings of model peasants. One would be hard pressed to find an oil painting that cohered with the Three Prominences and featured a peasant hero. Material considerations and access to formal art teaching were two major limiting factors. With the Communist Party closely aligned to the peasants historically, it may also have seemed less necessary to target propaganda at the peasantry. Another possibility is that Mao was already seen as the ultimate peasant hero, and that this status brooked no challenge.

As Mao was the most famous member of the peasantry, one could argue that Chen Yonggui, model peasant though he was, had more sense than to promote himself as a peasant hero. That would have led to trouble.296 Instead, paintings present model peasants as older men who do not face the viewer in a challenging manner. Paintings of model soldiers and model workers included muscled virile bodies arrayed in action poses, analogous to the model heroes portrayed in the Model Plays. However, peasants are never painted as such idealised and manly Cultural Revolution heroes. Instead, what emerged were tame mixed‐media portraits of humble, older peasant leaders, for example, Liu Zhide’s The Old Party Secretary (Figure 3.30) and cheerful oil paintings of peasants accompanying Mao, such as the Shaanxi Provincial Fine Arts Creative Group’s Bastion of Iron (Figure 3.31).

One of the most widely disseminating pictures of an idealised peasant is Liu Zhide’s The Old Party Secretary. While not an oil painting, this painting enjoyed national exposure as a creative work of the red classes.297 Reproduced in newspapers and magazines and also as a postage stamp, it circulated nationwide.298 One of the very few paintings to depicts a peasant on his own 192

Figure 3.30 Liu Zhide, The Old Party Secretary, 1973, mixed media, Collection of Huxian County Peasant Painting Museum rather than as part of a team, the work depicts an older man, sitting on a rock, studying what appears to be part of Mao’s Selected Works, with a red pencil in between the pages indicating his active engagement with the text. Clad in a spotless long‐sleeved white shirt and blue trousers rolled up to his upper calves, his clothing signals his position within a proletarianised identity in Mao’s China. 193

White clothing now symbolised professionalism and hygiene, and marked a distinct break from the dress of the labouring classes under feudalism.299 In front of the man lie logs and chains used for rolling boulders. In front of and beside him lie a mallet and a spike like a rock‐pick, rudimentary tools used in removing and breaking up rocks for land reclamation projects. These tools testify to his participation in arduous tasks and in projects such as those endorsed by Dazhai. Despite the difficult nature of his labours, the man’s absorption in the book indicates his devotion to Mao’s words.

Closer study of his satchel’s contents reveal that instead of toting food or water, he is carrying a much larger volume of Mao’s Selected Works for further consultation. Even lighting his pipe takes second place to his studies, as he is focusing on the text while his hands are striking a match. In this way, Liu’s work demonstrates that the model peasant is one who is totally devoted to Mao.

The figure is depicted in a three‐quarter profile, indicating the high figurative drawing skills of the artist. The use of black outline to denote the three‐ dimensional folds of the man’s trouser leg turn‐ups comes from the use of black outline in guohua, Chinese‐ink painting, that was developed to accord with revolutionary principles. The use of colour and value to depict a sense of volume also attests to some formal arts training. Yet this is the work of a farmer from a remote village in China’s chilly north. How could a man without arts training produce a portrait as emotive and technically skilled as this? The answer stems from politics.

Promoted as a riposte to Zhou Enlai’s attempts to bring back traditional ink paintings (guohua),300 the peasant paintings from Huxian county in Shaanxi province received an incredible amount of national support from 1972 to 1974.301 First, artist Liu Zhide and another artist were invited to view the September 1972 national painting exhibition to commemorate Mao’s Yan’an Talks.302 Yan’an is also in Shaanxi province. Huxian had already earned a reputation for creative endeavour during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950’s, because the county had benefited from some formal arts training and so its artists had some foundation upon which to build.303 Immediately after the 194

September 1972 exhibition, the Beijing People’s Art Publicity House decided to print an album of Huxian peasant paintings.304 Very soon thereafter, a powerful array of arts teachers and administrators descended upon Huxian to set up arts programmes and formal arts training. They included Li Song Tao, head of the National Art Gallery, and Gu Yuan, the head of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.305

By October 1972, the peasant artists turned out 318 works that were exhibited in the National Art Museum of China.306 A national media blitz accompanied the exhibition, including publicity in newspapers and magazines, a documentary film, commemorative stamps, and even an eight‐city tour.307 Foreign visitors were urged to visit Huxian, and a specially built exhibition hall was opened in 1975 to accommodate the various officially sanctioned tour groups.308 Between 1975 and 1982, thirteen thousand foreign tourists had visited Huxian.309 The peasant artist Liu Zhide also benefitted from the national focus on Huxian artistry. He later served as the party secretary for his village, and was appointed the chairman of Huxian’s cultural centre.310 All of this national support could only have been initiated by the leadership. It would have been impossible for Huxian on its own to have garnered this level of publicity, resources and access. Indeed, the Huxian peasant paintings were presented as “visible proof of the power of ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ and the Cultural Revolution’s new‐born things”311. As historian Ralph Croizier observed, emphasizing the innate power of Mao Zedong Thought to unleash spontaneous creative ability implied criticism of Zhou Enlai and his supporters, who stressed education and technical skill.312 Yet the huge orchestrated effort to teach art skills to the Huxian peasants, and the publicity machinery that swung into action to promote their work, testifies to the deliberate, constructed identity of Huxian peasant paintings.

As with the Dazhai agricultural model, Huxian peasant paintings benefited from appearing to conform with Mao’s emphasis on the miraculous power of revolutionary fervour. Yet redness wasn’t everything. As history has subsequently uncovered, it took army labour and machinery to make Dazhai fertile, and it took Beijing‐based arts administrators and instructors to make Huxian peasant paintings skillful. 195

Figure 3.31 Shaanxi Provincial Fine Arts Creative Group, Bastion of Iron, 1972, oil painting, Collection of National Art Museum of China

The final painting to be discussed in this chapter is Shaanxi Provincial Fine Arts Creative Group’s Bastion of Iron (Figure 3.31), which was also produced for the 1972 exhibition. This oil painting was actually painted by a woman artist, Zhang Ziyi but following convention at the time, the painting is named as the product of her collective and is still credited in that manner today.313 Zhang was able to draw upon peasants’ memories of Mao when he lived amongst them in the 1940’s.314 That may account for the sense of unity and warmth in the painting.

Here stands a cheerful and down‐to‐earth Mao, wearing his army cap and with a peasant’s straw hat hanging behind him, identifying Mao as a past peasant and current soldier. On the left, long queues of peasants have trekked over to see Mao. He stands in front of his camp. On the right, some members of the army stand casually but attentively behind him. A soldier holds the reins for a white horse, clearly Mao’s. He appears to have dismounted to greet the peasants on their level, indicating his humility and interest in their lives. The farmers arrive holding an A‐frame, a simple tool used to determine horizontal levels in order to create effective terracing on hillslopes. The A‐frame suggests large‐scale topographical remodeling, and the peasants’ adherence to Mao’s directive to follow Dazhai. This presents an interesting coalescing of time as Dazhai was far from being a model during Mao’s Yan’an days. Rather than representing a single period in history, everything is conflated into this cheerful portrait of mutual 196 affection between Mao and the peasantry. The work also displays a general adherence to the Three Prominences by emphasizing the positive and making the hero prominent, in this case, Mao.

In terms of composition, the work is divided into thirds. The centre is taken up by the three men standing in the A‐frame; the right by Mao, his men and buildings; and the left by the streaming lines of peasants coming from far across the land. The three peasants within the A‐frame span several generations, including an older man, a young man in his twenties and a boy, suggesting a multi‐generational family unit or perhaps the past, present and future. Notably, Mao and the young peasant in his twenties are standing on the same level and looking at each other with mutual regard. The strong, virile young man displays open and handsome features, eclipsing Mao in aesthetic appeal. Yet any hint that the young peasant might pose a threat to Mao’s power is deflected by his containment within the A‐frame. Bound by the land and his class designation, the young man represents his class rather than an individual threat.

It’s a fairly congested painting with most of the action happening in the foreground, with little of interest in the mid‐ground, and a distant background. The only figure with space around him is Mao, allowing the eye to focus on him. The space in front of Mao allows the viewer to feel closer to Mao as no one blocks access to him. Moreover, the use of a unified light coloured shape for Mao’s clothing makes him the most prominent figure in the painting.

In front of the A‐framed group and behind it are men bearing a rifle and spears, respectively, suggesting that the peasants masses are coming to join Mao’s fight. The A‐frame serves several purposes. Not only does it indicate support for the Dazhai relandscaping models, but it also groups the central figures together so that they represent a red class unified across the decades, rather than standing alone as individuals. In terms of the structure of the painting, the A‐frame also leads the eye behind the central group to indicate the streaming lines of peasants who are coming from behind them, emphasizing the broadly based support of the peasantry for Mao. 197

Colour, particularly red, is deployed in a symbolic way and value is used to unify the work. Red is used for all the faces in the painting in a heavy handed manner. The contrast between Mao’s red face and the cool grey of his army uniform is jarring, but it coheres with the ideological imperative that all positive figures should literally appear red. In terms of value, the artist weaves black and white in a horizontal pattern so that it binds the figures together. For example, on the left, the dark hair on the donkeys begins a line of black that continues on to the shirt of a peasant on the left, follows through the rifle of the young man in the front and then stops at the shirt of the boy standing in front of Mao, bringing the viewer’s focus to the space in front of Mao.

White is used similarly. From the white horse in the back right side of the painting, the eye is drawn to the sharp V‐shape formed by the string holding Mao’s hat. The white on the inside of Mao’s uniform sleeve then flows to the white shirt worn by the older man in the A‐frame., continuing on to the brilliant white of the young heroic peasant and then on to the cream coloured sleeve of the rifle‐toting young man in the front. Bits of white from the towel‐like headdress continue the eye’s focus to the lines of the peasants streaming in behind to the left back of the painting.

Overall the painting conveys an affectionate regard for Mao. Although ahistorical, the work conveys a subtle nod to Dazhai, and clearly was produced with an eye on the Three Prominences. It is also an unusual picture that seeks to portray Mao as both peasant and soldier.

The development of Worker‐Peasant‐Soldier art was part of a deliberate attempt to broaden artistic production away from images of the leadership. Following the death of Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai had much more latitude to normalize creative production. The initiatives and counter‐initiatives that emerged greatly enhanced creative life in China. The plethora of paintings that emerged after 1972 attests to the release of artists from literal and metaphorical imprisonment and the partial revitalization of creative endeavour. 198

Conclusion

The images that emerged of model soldiers, workers and peasants all reflected very specific conditions of their production. For model soldiers, the theatrical emphatic quality of Shen Jiawei’s Standing Guard for the Motherland reveals the artist’s sophisticated understanding of the politics of the time. Shen’s painting contrasts with the anxious pandering to Jiang Qing and the Shanghai revolutionary committee leadership evinced in Chen Yifei’s Eulogy to the Yellow River, which again differs markedly from the ease expressed in career soldier Shang Ding’s Continue the Fight. The paintings of model soldiers reveals a startling range of moods and messages linked to each artist’s individual ambitions and experiences. Equipped with art schools, exhibition halls and salaried arts workers, the military was in the best position of all of the red classes to produce oil paintings.

On the other hand, paintings of model workers convey a forced machismo. Self‐ consciously militant, the hard bodies that populate these paintings display superhuman strength. This nascent class betrays its anxiety through the required uniform and toughness of the figures, insisting that even the female workers embody fierce dedication, overwhelming strength, and rock‐solid commitment.

Model peasants, arising from the great majority of the population, are harder to find. Not wishing to compete with Mao visually, and lacking the resources lavished on the soldiers and the workers, the peasantry chose instead to emphasise their unity and support for Mao. A notable exception is Liu Zhide’s The Old Party Secretary (Figure 3.30). Although a recognisable individual is featured, the modesty of the figure and his focus on studying Mao’s writings also serve to reinforce his devotion to Mao. Once a national campaign began to promote peasant art, the work that eventually emerged reveals much about the peasants’ caution in not overstepping their role in society. Given the violence that the countryside had experienced, this reticence becomes understandable.

There was no single formula for model figures. The paintings discussed in this chapter attest to the specific conditions that shaped the appearance of the male 199 figures, their surrounding narratives, and even their varying levels of anxiety or confidence. The tremendous scrutiny applied to each work at every stage, from sketch to finished oil painting, shows that nothing was left to chance. All aspects of each painting were queried by the artist, their work group, the supervisory body that commissioned the painting, and the committee responsible for the exhibition’s contents. Everyone was anxious not to fall foul of shifting political winds. The model Worker‐Peasant‐Soldier paintings reveal the inherent instability, unpredictability and insecurity surrounding the creation of model citizens through art. 200

1 Li, Private Life, 543. 2 MacFarquhar, “The Cultural Revolution,” 49. 3 Li, Private Life, 544‐546. 4 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 351. 5 Julie Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, “Light Before Dawn,” in Light Before Dawn: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974­1985, (Hong Kong: Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 2013), 20. 6 A notable category of paintings depicts Mao with members of the red classes. In these paintings, model worker‐soldier‐peasants do not make a competing heroic appearance. Instead, they feature masses of euphorically happy workers, soldiers, and peasants. As the effects are rather predictable, I have discussed few of these paintings. many of which already appear in Chapter One in discussing paintings that feature Mao. (There is one notable exception because the work incorporates specific elements that refer to Dazhai, the model agricultural project.) 7 Landsberger, “Paint it Red,” 28. 8 Lü, 20th Century China, 672. 9 Shen Jiawei, “The Fate of a Painting” in Chiu, and Zheng Art and China’s Revolution, 144‐145. 10 Ibid, 133. 11 Ibid, 133‐134. 12 Ibid, 134 and John McDonald, “Shen Jiawei: From Mao to Now,” Sydney Morning Herald, November 13, 2010, http://johnmcdonald.net.au/2010/shen‐ jiawei‐from‐mao‐to‐now/. 13 Shen, “Fate of a Painting,” 133. 14 Ibid, 134. 15 Ibid, 133. 16 Ibid, 136. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid 19 Ibid, 137. 20 Ibid, 140. 21 Ibid, 140. 22 Ibid, 140. 23 This issue of romantic love in the Cultural Revolution is a very interesting one. As mentioned in Chapter One, romantic love was seen as an unnecessary and bourgeois distraction from revolution and as frivolous and enervating. Yet, as numerous personal accounts demonstrate, for example Anchee Min’s Red Azalea and the acclaimed film In the Heat of the Sun, love and romantic exploration flourished in this period in which young people were almost uniformly free from parental control. Perhaps the very hysteria that surrounds the eradication and punishment of these inconvenient eruptions of passion reveals the anxiety and fear that popular love and sex aroused in the Party leadership. 24 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 393. 25 Ibid. 201

26 Hung, Mao’s New World, 223. 27 When individuals realised the blatant falsity of these claims, their fall from innocence was crushing. Please see Anchee Min’s Red Azalea for a personal account of a young revolutionary’s gradual and irrevocable realisation that the Party had conned her. By end of the book, her disillusionment was complete. 28 Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944­1956 (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 2012), 317. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid, 317‐319. 32 Ibid, 319. 33 Hung, Mao’s New World, 213. 34Ibid. 35 Mao Zedong, “Serve the People,” speech quoted in Hung, Mao’s New World, 213. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Hung, Mao’s New World, 214‐217. 39 Ibid, 214. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid, 221. 43 Ibid, 217. 44 “Summary of the Proceedings of the Forum on Literature and Art in the Armed Forces, Convened by Comrade Jiang Qing with the Endorsement of Comrade Lin Biao,” PLA Daily, April 18, 1966. Reprinted in Chiu and Zheng, Art and China’s Revolution, 226. 45 Ibid. 46 This list was drawn from a 1990 quotation about the soldier Lei Feng by Yang Baibing, an elderly man who looks after political controls within the PLA. Although not contemporaneous with the Cultural Revolution, it aptly summarises the emphases evident in the model plays of the Cultural Revolution as well as the propaganda material about the model soldier‐worker‐peasants. Holley, David, “The Foolish Old Man and Other Heroes: Although Some Sneer at the Stories, All Chinese Are Fed an Endless Diet of Role Models. The Government Uses These Folk Sagas to Educate, Entertain – and Control,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1990, 4. http://www.morningsun.org/living/heroes/latimes.html. 47 Landsberger, Paint it Red, 5. 48 Li, Private Life, 403‐405. 49 A very powerful reenactment of one of the criticism sessions held against Beijng Opera was portrayed in Chen Kaige’s film Farewell My Concubine. 50 Lu Xing, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication (University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina) 2004, 115 and Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, “Why This Nostalgia for Fruits of Chaos?” New York Times, October 20, 2000, 1, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/arts/why‐this‐nostalgia‐for‐fruits‐of‐ chaos.html (accessed 26 July 2013). 202

51 Lu, ibid. 52 Ibid, 116. 53 Ibid. 54 Arendt, Hannah, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (Penguin Books, New York and London, 1960, 2006), 202. 55 Ibid, 199. 56 Ibid, 204. 57 Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2008, 9. 58 Landsberger, Chinese Posters, 6. 59 Ibid. 60 There was, however, a strange incident in Wugang County, Hunan during the Great Leap Forward in which this call to equality led to women labouring topless. After much teasing during a boring meeting to motivate collective workers, a peasant worker named Zhou Jinsheng told his female fellow workers, “You women only talk about challenging us men, but we work without our tops on. Why don’t you?” This led to entire female work regiments working topless, and then also officials calling in girls from a middle school who were cajoled into working topless. To encourage the women, officials cited the need to “respond to the call of the Party” to work hard. Needless to say, this was an experiment too far for the conservative leadership, and was neither adopted throughout the country nor repeated in the Cultural Revolution. “Document 11,” in The Great Famine in China, 1958­1962: A Documentary History, ed. by Zhou Xun (Yale University Press, New Haven and London), 39‐41. 61 Maria Galikowski, Art and Politics in China 1949­1984 (Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998), 164‐165. 62 Ross Terrill, Madame Mao: The White Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong rev. ed. (1984; repr., Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1999), 222. 63 Lu, Rhetoric, 117 and the original materials has been identified by Galikowski, 165 as originating from Yu Hui‐jung, “Let Our Theatre Propagate Mao Tse‐Tung’s Thought for Ever,” Chinese Literature, 1968, No. 7/8, 111. I’ve used Lu’s translation because of clarity. 64 Ibid, 662. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid, 437. 67 Mao Zedong, “Introduction: May 2, 1942,” Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 69, http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/YFLA42.html. 68 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 160. 69 Sheila Melvin, “Chinese Army Exposes Its Artistic Side,” The New York Times (New York), August 2, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/arts/03iht‐ melvin03.html?pagewanted=all&r=0. 70 Landsberger, “Paint it Red,” 28. 71 Holley, “The Foolish Old Man,” 4. 203

72 Andrew Higgins, “Out of China: Such is the Stuff Heroes are Made of in China,” The Independent (London), March 10, 1990, 13. http://www.morningsun.org/living/heroes/higgins.html. 73 Landsberger, “Paint it Red,” 28. 74 Ibid. 75 Holley, The Foolish Old Man, 4. 76 Clark, Chinese Cultural Revolution, 208. 77 Ibid, 253. 78 Yang, Tombstone, 430. 79 Ibid, 20‐21. 80 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 349. 81 Ibid, 350. 82 Ibid, 350‐351. 83 Ibid, 349, 353. 84 Ibid, 350. 85 Ibid, 350. 86 Ibid, 352. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid, 349. 89 In collections of images from the Cultural Revolution it’s interesting that there are several Chinese ink paintings and propaganda posters of attractive women alone, sewing, holding up a lantern in a famous theatrical pose or performing other tasks. This suggests an entirely different research topic about desire, the gaze and gender that is beyond the scope of the current inquiry. 90 Richard Dyer, “Don’t Look Now: The Male Pin‐Up,” in The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality, eds. John Caughie and Annette Kuhn (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 267. 91 Andrews, Painters and Public Lives, 349. 92 In 2011 I traveled to Qinghai and viewed part of the headwaters of the Yellow River. The PLA sentry posts there resembled Shen’s in their angular utilitarian quality. Given the sub‐zero temperatures, the soldiers were quite sensibly staying indoors with their thermoses of tea, much as one soldier does in Shen’s work. No one was standing to attention outside in the freezing wind. 93 MacFarquhar, Mao’s Last Revolution, 170. 94 Ibid, 169. 95 “Chen Yifei,” Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute, http://www.youdiao.com.cn/ysj.asp?id=32&showid=26 (accessed 25 April 2013). (Chen Yifei, shanghaiyouhuadiaosuyuan). 96 Richard Kraus, The Party and the Arty in China (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004), 74. 97 Ibid and Lü, 20th Century China, 643. 98 Andrews, Painters and Public Lives 346. 99 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 160. 100 Ibid. 101 Everyone in China who had a job in this time earned the same salary. Novelist Yu Hua switched from being a dentist to being a writer who worked at the 204

cultural centre of his hometown and the salary was exactly the same. Yu Hua, China in Ten Words (London: Duckworth Overlook,), 87. 102 Andrews, Painters and Public Lives, 346. 103 Ibid, 347. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid. 106 Zhang Mingcun, “Aged 26 Chen Yifei Created the ‘Ode to the Yellow River,’” Dalian Evening Newspaper, 12 April 2005 (“26shui Chen Yifei chuangzuo ‘huanghesong’”), 1. http://news.xinhuanet.com/collection/2005‐ 04/12content_2818785.htm and Andrews, Painters and Politics, 349. 107 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 162. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid, 169. 112 Sophie Roell, “Rod MacFarquhar on The Cultural Revolution,” Five Books Interviews, June 22, 2010, fivebooks.com/interviews/rod.macfarquhar‐on‐ cultural‐revolution. 113 Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004), 123. 114 Ibid, 166. 115 Ibid, 166. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid, 262. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid, 263. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid. 124 Zhang, “Aged 26 Chen Yifei,” 1. 125 Ibid. Notably the word for “ode” and “eulogy” in Chinese is the same. Although the piano concerto’s movement is usually translated as “Ode to the Yellow River,” I have followed Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian’s Art and China’s Revolution in their translation of Chen’s painting title. 126 Andrews, Painters and Public Lives, 349. 127 Ibid, 360. 128 Ibid, 353. 129 Liu Hsung Shing and Karen Smith, Shanghai: A History in Pictures (Camberwell, Australia: Penguin Group, 2010), 42‐43. 130 Shen, “Fate of a Painting,” 138. 131 Ibid, 142. 132 Shen, “The Fate of a Painting,” 133 Ibid. 134 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 366. 135 Shen, “Fate of a Painting,” 144. 136 Ibid. 205

137 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 359‐360. 138 Ibid, 360. 139 Shen, “Fate of a Painting,” 145. 140 Ibid, 145‐146. 141 Lü Peng and translator Bruce Doer refer to this painting as Continuous Battles which is the direct translation of the Chinese title 连续作战 (Lianxu zuozhan), but the artist’s own translations is Continue the Fight so I have deferred to that. 142 “Shang Ding,” Baidu_Baike, http://baike.baidu.com/view/1410374.htm1. 143 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 347. 144 Hung, “Oil Paintings and Politics,” 808. 145 Ibid. 146 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 142‐144. 147 “Daqing” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/daqing.php. 148 Ibid. 149 “Wang Jinxi,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/wangjinxi.php. (accessed June 3, 2013). 150 “A Brief Introduction to the Deeds: Iron Man Wang Jinxi Memorial,” http://www.wangjinxi.com/cn/story.asp. (accessed June 3, 2013). 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid. 154 “Wang Jinxi,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/daqing.php. (accessed June 3, 2013) 155 “Daqing,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/daqing.php. (accessed June 3, 2013). 156 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 437. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 Murck, “Golden Mangoes,”4. 162 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 143,. 163 Ibid, 155. 164 Ibid, 199‐215. 165 Ibid, 162. 166 Ibid, 165‐167. 167 Ibid, 169. 168 Ibid, 168. 169 Ibid, 169. 170 Ibid, 215. 171 Ibid. 172 Ibid, 199‐214. 173 Ibid, 214. 174 Ibid. 175 Ibid, 217. 176 Ibid. 206

177 Ibid, 220. 178 Ibid. 179 Li, Private Life, 499. 180 Ibid, 499‐500. 181 Murck, Golden Mangoes, 2. 182 Ibid. 183 Ibid. 184 This usage of the mango as a symbol of authority for a brief moment in time has been explored in depth in an exhibition and catalogue by Dr. Alfreda Murck, former curator at the Palace Museum, Beijing and formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Please see Alfreda Murck, ed., Mao’s Golden Mangoes and the Cultural Revolution (Zurich: Museum Rietberg Zürich and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2013). 185 Murck, Golden Mangoes, 4. 186 Lü, 20th Century China, 666‐667. 187 Ibid, 1. 188 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 174, 178‐183, 268‐270. 189 Ibid, 268. 190 Ibid, 271. 191 Please see Alfreda Murck’s “Golden Mangoes” for a marvelous discussion of the mango issue and to see her photographs of some wonderfully wacky industrial objects produced to commemorate this act of Mao’s. 192 Growing up in Hawaii, the school run with my father featured daily conversations about mining as my father was a professor in the Geology Department at University of Hawaii. He spent almost forty years of his life there and he specialized in the mineral resources of China. I was babysat by geology graduate students and often sat on deep‐sea core samples in lieu of a bench while they were crunching data through the ancient computer systems. As children, we spent much of our time looking at quarries, rock samples and eating dinner with visiting Chinese geologists. This picture of model miners captured my attention but seemed unrealistic. Further general research about 20th century mining practices in China revealed that this scene is somewhat fanciful. 193 Ibid. 194 Ibid. 195 Lü, 20th Century China, 670. 196 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 362‐364. 197 Ibid, 362. 198 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 373‐376. 199 Ibid, 362. 200 Ibid, 426. 201 Pan Gongkai, Noble Winds and Strong Bones Meet Their Spirit: The Art of Pan Tianshou, in Art and China’s Revolution, eds. Chiu, Melissa and Zheng Shengtian (New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008), 83. 202 Ibid, 368. 203 Andrews, Painters and Politics, 373. 204 Ibid, 374. 207

205 Ibid, 373. 206 Ibid. 207 Ibid, 376. 208 Ibid, 368. 209 Ibid. 210 Anchee Min, Red Azalea, 51. 211 Ibid, 52. 212 Ibid, 51‐63. 213 Pantsov, Mao: The Real Story, 327‐328, Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 366. 214 Li, Private Life, 137. 215 Ibid, 479. 216 Ibid, 405. 217 Kam Louie and Louise Edwards, “Chinese Masculinity: Theorizing Wen and Wu,” East Asian History, 8 (1994), 140. http://search.infomit.com.au.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/fullText;dn=961 009530;res=APAFT (accessed 29 July 2013). 218 Ibid. 219 Ibid, 141. 220 Ibid. 221 Jasper Becker, City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China (London and New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008), 230. 222 Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 37. 223 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 343. 224 Ibid. 225 Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 233. 226 Ibid, 297. 227 Harriet Evans, “Defining Difference: The ‘Scientific’ Construction of Sexuality and Gender in the People’s Republic of China,” Signs, 220: 2 (Winter, 1995), 358. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174953 (accessed June 1, 2013). 228 Landsberger, Paint it Red, 7. 229 Ibid. 230 Lü, 20th Century China, 672. 231 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 270. 232 Su, Collective Killings, 132. 233 Ibid. 234 Ibid. 235 Andrew Walder, “Actually Existing Maoism,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 18 (July 1987), 164. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2158588 (accessed June 14, 2013). 236 Ibid, 164. 237 Ibid, 163. 238 Ibid. 239 Su, Collective Killings, 133. 240 Ibid. 241 Ibid, 133. 242 Ibid, 138. 208

243 Ibid 134‐138. 244 Su, Collective Killings, 40. 245 Ibid, 99. 246 Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 95. 247 Ibid. 248 “Dazhai,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, 2, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/wangjinxi.php. (accessed June 18, 2013). 249 Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, 95. 250 Ibid, 97. 251 Ibid, 104. 252 Ibid, 101, 132. 253 Ibid, 101. 254 Ibid, 106. 255 Ibid, 105. 256 Ibid. 257 Ibid. 258 “Chen Yonggui,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, 2. http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/chenyonggui.php. (accessed June 17, 2013). 259 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 423. 260 Ibid, 409. 261 Ibid, 423‐425. 262 Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, 99‐100. 263 “Chen Yonggui,” Chinese Posters, 2. 264 Landsberger, “Paint it Red,” 6. 265 Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, 112. 266 Ibid. 267 Ibid, 104. 268 Ibid, 109. 269 Ibid, 110. 270 Ibid, 114. 271 Both Andrew Walder and Yang Su offer subtle and nuanced discussions of the conditions that produced the explosion of collective killings in the countryside. Walder’s account looks at the power dynamics of Stalinism and Maoism in seeking out class enemies and how they feed into a vicious cycle of witch‐hunting and retribution, each movement sowing the seeds for more extreme action in the next. Yang Su’s Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution provides a fine‐grained analysis of the specific conditions in the countryside between 1968‐71 that resulted in the explosion of violence. Yang’s text is harrowing and not for the faint‐hearted. Andrew Walder, “Collective Behavior Revisted: Ideology and Politics in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Rationality and Society, 6:400 (1994): 400‐421. http//rss/sagepub.com/content/6/3/400 (accessed June 20, 2013). 209

272 Yang Su describes this model with great rigor. I have summed it up to the best of my ability as succinctly as I could. For a much more precise and detailed discussion of his terminology, please see Yang Su, Collective Killings, 19‐24. 273 Andrew Walder and Yang Su, “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside: Scope, Timing and Human Impact,” The China Quarterly, 173 (March 2003): 95. http//journals.cambridge,org/abstract_S0009443903000068. (accessed June 14, 2013). 274 Walder and Su, “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside,” 84. 275 Su, Collective Killings, 64. 276 Ibid, 65. 277 Ibid, 4. 278 Ibid, 125. 279 Ibid. 280 Ibid, 61, 65. 281 Ibid, 4. 282 Ibid. 283 Walder and Su, “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside,” 99. 284 Su, Collective Killings, 225‐226. 285 Ibid, 220. 286 Ibid. 287 Ibid. 288 Ibid. 289 Ibid. 290 Ibid, 222. 291 Ibid, 230. 292 Ibid, 68‐242. 293 Walder, “Actually Existing Maoism,” 164. 294 Ibid. 295 Ibid. 296 It’s interesting to note that Mao himself would have been persecuted as one of the “Four Types” since his father had been a rich peasant. Indeed, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng and Zhou Enlai would all have become targets of the Cultural Revolution had they not been in the leadership. Kang and Zhou’s families were influential establishment figures and included Confucian scholars. Kang’s family were also landlords. Jiang’s full‐blooded engagement with theatrical and film life in Shanghai in the 1930’s would have made her vulnerable, as would her questionable contacts with the Kuomintang at the same time. 297 Ibid. 298 “Liu Zhide,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, 2, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/liuzhide.php. (accessed June 28, 2013). 299 Tina Mai Chen, “Proletarian White and Working Bodies in Mao’s China.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 11:2 (Fall 2003): 363. Httpmuse.jhu.ed/journals/pos/summary/v011/11.2chen02.html (accessed January 20, 2014). 300 At this moment, the archives that detail this decision are not open but the group directly behind attacking Zhou Enlai was spearheaded by Jiang Qing. It 210

would not be a stretch to say that she was most likely involved in this scheme. Ibid, 142. 301 Ibid, 142‐145. 302 Ralph Croizier, “Hu Xian Peasant Paintings,” in Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966­76, ed. Richard King (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 143. 303 Ibid, 138. 304 Ibid, 143. 305 Ibid. 306 Ibid, 143. 307 Ibid. 308 Ibid, 144. 309 Ibid. 310 “Liu Zhide,” Chinese Posters, 2. 311 Croizier, “Hu Xian Peasant Paintings,” 145. 312 Ibid. 313 Lü, 20th Century China, 670. 314 Ibid. 211

Chapter Four: Cultural Heroes

After the mass mobilization phase of 1966‐67 that destroyed traditional culture and the second 1968‐1971 phase that reduced cultural production into deifying Mao, the remaining challenge was how to create a genuinely new revolutionary culture. The only sanctioned cultural forms were Jiang Qing’s Model Plays and isolated works in other fields. Could the Model Plays provide the complexity and emotional multidimensionality to fill the void left by the removal of all other forms of culture? A fundamental question to consider was, what cultural heroes remained by the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Ironically, as the architect of the Cultural Revolution, Mao felt the absence of culture acutely. An avid reader, Mao peppered his speeches with Chinese literary references. He routinely drew positive and negative examples from books such as the Dream of the Red Chamber1 and the Water Margin,2 and even praised the taut concision of the 1,000‐character Chinese transcription of the Diamond Sutra.3 With an entire nation’s cultural experiences largely restricted to the Model Plays, who could now understand his references? Towards the end of the Cultural Revolution and nearing his own death, Mao complained about the lack of cultural vibrancy to Jiang Qing saying, “There is no poetry, fiction, essays or even literary criticism”4.

The first two phases of the Cultural Revolution had provided murderous real‐life street theatre with daily struggle sessions and eruptions of violence. Author Yu Hua, a child during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, relates that although daily life was “basically dull and confining,” executions would make the town “buzz with excitement”5. However, by 1973, after the victims had been killed or sent to labour camps, life without culture was oppressive. Hua states:

Cruelties perpetuated in the name of the revolution seemed to have worn themselves out, leaving life in our small town in a quiescent state, stifled and repressed… although the newspapers and radio broadcasts carried on promoting class struggle day after day, it seemed ages since I had seen a class enemy.6 212

Cultural life had been so reduced during the Cultural Revolution that there were few characters to identify with. The heroes featured in the Model Plays lacked the complexity to help young people nurture their inner lives. Doing battle with class enemies was a one‐dimensional challenge and as Hua points out that, there is not much left to go for after the “enemy” has been vanquished. By contrast, heroic characters and dramatic scenes from Chinese traditional tales such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dream of the Red Chamber fuelled imagination for centuries. For Mao and Zhou, these tales helped them to summon the willpower to repel foreign invaders, to organize a successful revolution and to remould China. By 1971‐1976, the last phase of the Cultural Revolution, it became clear that the Model Plays were not enough to sustain the imagination and passions of the Chinese people.

To understand more precisely the kind of heroes the Cultural Revolution was meant to produce, we must first discuss those who were considered heroes prior to the Cultural Revolution. This chapter will first discuss what traditionally constituted a hero in Chinese literature and then discuss the role of Lu Xun as he was projected to be an ideal cultural hero during the Cultural Revolution. By looking at examples of past heroes as well as the models attempted during the Cultural Revolution, it becomes apparent that propaganda was ultimately unable to create cultural heroes.

The heroes that populated China before the Cultural Revolution China were many and various. Just one tale, the Water Margin, famously registered one hundred and eight heroic rebel outlaws. A tale of romantic heroes such as Jia Baoyu from the Dream of the Red Chamber had a cast of over five hundred characters. The range of personality types in Chinese literature, and the vignettes linked with these stories,7 are so wide that they provide an almost infinite number of characters and conflicts for the imaginative person to ponder. Moreover, their expression in culture was not confined to text. Local opera troupes performed scenes drawn from stories such as the Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Heroic characters filled popular life, through acrobatic pantomime performances, opera performed in vernacular languages, and folk art. Even in 1957, almost a decade after the 213 founding of the PRC, there were still over 350 regional styles of theatrical performances in a range of vernacular dialects,8 ensuring that knowledge of these tales was not limited to the literati, or even the literate. There was Shanghainese opera (kunqu),9 Sichuanese opera, and Cantonese opera: the proliferation of performances in dialect ensured that the many people who couldn’t speak Mandarin had access to the performing arts.

The atmosphere of opera performances in China is much less rarefied than in Europe.10 In Chinese opera houses, people used to come and go as they pleased, while eating, drinking, and chatting with their friends, seated in chairs clustered around small tea tables rather than in rows of seats as in Western opera houses. Attending Chinese opera involved lively audience participation. It was akin to dropping in on the Globe in the time of Shakespeare, rather than attending Wagner’s Ring cycle in Bayreuth today.11 The integration of opera into the normal rhythms of life can be seen in the Dream of the Red Chamber, where the ladies of the Jia family arrange for operas to be performed at Taoist festivals as well as for elegant home entertainment.12 Watching opera was a regular pleasure that provided a harmless break from reality. In a land where only a few could read and for whom the Classical Chinese used in most classic novels was unintelligible, operas were an important form of transmitting cultural values.13 The popular appeal of these tales continue to find audiences today in the form of video games, manga (graphic novels), and feature films based on exciting episodes. A recent example is the film Red Cliff which is based on a famous battle that took place in 208‐209 A.D. as described in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The live performance aspect of cultural tales is important when considering what constitutes a hero in Chinese culture. For classic novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Water Margin, Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber, their live performances were as, if not more, important than the texts.14 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin were told as stories and performed as plays and operas for centuries before they were committed to writing, leading to multiple written versions. For Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so many episodes have become part of cultural life that they have their own titles, such as the “Oath of the Peach Garden”. 214

An example of the deep‐rooted nature of these tales and the importance of performances, can be found in my childhood experience of Journey to the West as well as the enduring resonance for my mother of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms. As a child growing up in America, our Chinese community was subtly riven by competition between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China based in Taiwan. This competition came to a fore each October. The Taiwan‐based Republic celebrated the ‘double tenth” on October 10th, the anniversary of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. Meanwhile, the PRC celebrated on October 1st the overthrow of the Republic. Both governments used cultural performances to mark their date. My parents had ties to both mainland China and Taiwan, and we diplomatically attended both nights.

A cherished childhood experience for me was watching the acrobatic pantomime performances (gongfu biaoyan) featuring the Monkey King, a mischievous divine being who stole the peaches meant for a heavenly banquet held every 10,000 years. After watching these performances with tremendous enjoyment throughout my childhood, I discovered only at university that the Monkey King was a heroic character in Journey to the West, a 16th century tale about the transporting of Buddhist texts from India to China. The acts about this trickster hero that we saw were exciting, dynamic and funny, with no overt moralising attached. No language was used: the narrative was expressed completely through acrobatics and music. I loved it. If anyone had asked whether I wanted to attend a cultural performance about Buddhism, I would not have gone willingly. But, through humour and pleasure, the values expressed in the tale gently lodged in my subconscious to shape my moral compass.

For my mother, who grew up in a scholar‐official family, the operas based on the classic novels were building blocks of her identity. As an adult, she would sing parts from the Romance of Three Kingdoms operas while cooking. Before the 1949 revolution in China, she and her siblings would regularly stage performances of their favourite scenes, and memorised the poems in the text. Decades later, watching the 2008 film Red Cliff directed by John Woo, my mother would stand up to declaim key poems from the opera. Half a century after leaving China, despite having survived a stroke, the poems remain fresh in her 215 mind and continue to influence her expectations of chivalry and gentle behaviour.

An important distinction in translating the word hero from Chinese to English relates to the various types of heroes identified in Chinese literature. In Chinese, there are three types of heroes: martial heroes, talented scholar heroes (caizi) and moral heroes.15 For the purposes of examining characters who resonated with the Chinese leadership, just the first two categories will be discussed, the function of moral heroes having been delegated to the state.16 For martial heroes, Chinese actually uses two specific terms, namely yingxiong and the more specific term haohan.17 In the Water Margin, the appendix lists the names of all one hundred and eight heroes and uses both terms, namely yingxiong haohan in the register’s title.18 The term yingxiong translates directly to “hero” whereas haohan translates as “brave man” and “true man.” Haohan is more akin to a description of character rather than implying any action. Yingxiong, however, has connotations of participating in events that change history. Hence yingxiong and haohan are both used to describe the characters in the Water Margin and also in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Caizi, the talented scholar hero, is a more subtle character: a classic example is Jia Baoyu from Dream of the Red Chamber. Jia Baoyu is the literary figure that Mao most appreciated, paradoxical as this might be for a ruthless guerilla leader and the originator of several brutal ideological rectification campaigns.19

Of the many novels, operas and folk tales about heroic acts, the two novels that chronicle the most important archetypes of martial heroism are the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin.20 The novels were based on folk tales and historic events, embellished into stories of men who fought corrupt officials, protected the weak and helped to establish new dynasties. They are tales of dashing feats, the avenging of honour and righting of wrongs. Acts of derring‐do are driven by an overriding sense of loyalty to one’s leader and to blood brothers. Romance of the Three Kingdoms provides a hero so potent that he has become a god: Guan Yu. 216

Published in the 16th Century Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a historical novel describing a period of over a century, beginning in 168 C.E. as the Han Dynasty starts to disintegrate and ending with reunification in 280 C.E.. The novel relates the historic struggle for dominance between three major contending states, and lionises the deeds of the warrior Guan Yu who has been upheld as the “archetypal yingxiong.”21 Scholar Kam Louie describes this hero as “the most glorified and worshipped of all characters in Chinese history and literature.22 Lauded as king and a god, Guan Yu is worshipped to this day in temples and homes throughout the Chinese‐speaking world.23 His qualities include an imperviousness to the influence of women and the lure of treasure, consummate bravery, and incorruptibility.24 Yet what makes Guan Yu exceptional is his transcendent fidelity.25

The first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms establishes the bonds of loyalty that Guan Yu symbolises. Here the reader is introduced to Guan Yu, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. Liu is a distant relative of the threatened Han ruler and becomes the leader of their group, the king that they protect. Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei take a blood oath in Zhang Fei’s Peach Garden, forming a bond that transcends family ties, to protect each other unto death.26 It is this scene as well as the intensity of their devotion to each other than has become celebrated in Chinese literature and chronicled in the performance piece, “Oath of the Peach Garden”27. Their bond is said to “symbolize brotherhood in all its proper glory”28.

Guan Yu also possessed a startling and imposing physique. He is said to be extremely tall and to possess a long and beautiful beard.29 His face was red and “with lips that were red and plump; his eyes were like that of a crimson phoenix, and his eyebrows resembled reclining silkworms. He had a dignified air, and looked quite majestic.”30 His red complexion is not the result of a sanguine temperament, but rather of divine intervention. Folklore ascribe the redness to a reward from the Heavenly Queen Mother.31 Guan Yu prevented a woman from being raped by killing her assailant.32 The Heavenly Queen Mother provided sacred water for him to wash his face, and the contact with the divine water turned his complexion red.33 His unusual complexion became a characteristic of 217 the god of war, but it had also traditionally symbolized the masculine hero in Chinese operas.34

Romance of the Three Kingdoms traces most of Guan Yu’s adult career, from his origins as a criminal on the run to his eventual rise as a powerful establishment political figure. His character appears at times to be contradictory and ambiguous.35 Many of the scenarios in which he is placed feature temporary alliances and pragmatic retreats, yet ultimately what is upheld is Guan Yu’s loyalty. This ambiguity enables the storyteller to tailor interpretations of his character to the requirements of the time36 while continuing to uphold loyalty as a key value and thus avoid official wrath.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms operates as a text but also as a living tradition. Different aspects of the story come out in performances, particularly violence and more salacious facets.37 This is one of the benefits of having a cultural form live on in an oral tradition, not restricted to a written text. According to anthropologist James Scott, oral traditions offer the flexibility of “selective emphasis and omission, as certain accounts seem more important or relevant to current condition.”38. Moreover, he argues that oral traditions benefit those whose “welfare and survival depend on a fleet‐footed adjustment to a capricious and menacing political environment”39. The flexibility of having an oral vernacular tradition for Romance of the Three Kingdoms means that performances can veer from centralized control. Different localities prefer different scenes. Unlike a western performance of The Magic Flute, traditional vernacular operas are often not performed from beginning to end. Typically, favoured scenes are featured, those that will attract an audience or are requested by patrons. In this way, the performed versions of tales such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin have a certain flexibility that text‐based works lack. For audiences, the question of what constitutes an ideal hero is open to personal interpretation.

Baoyu, Scholar­hero of Dream of the Red Chamber

Turning to the scholar‐hero, the caizi, there is no more famous example than Jia Baoyu. The story that featured him, Dream of the Red Chamber40 is one of China’s 218 most famous novels. Published in part in 1792, decades after the death of author Cao Xueqin, it is widely accepted to be a semi‐autobiographical story about his family’s zenith and decline. Comprising one hundred and forty chapters, published in two substantial volumes in Chinese and five in English, controversy surrounds the gripping conclusion of the tale.41 The novel chronicles a wealthy and aristocratic Qing dynasty family. Notably, it is also a tale of redemption. The hero, Baoyu, has to overcome his passionate and indulgent nature to fulfill his destiny as a Buddhist/Taoist divine being, as well as to succeed in the Imperial Examinations to bring glory and honour to his family in accordance with Confucianism. Although the novel provides a fascinating look at the broad spectrum of life in the Qing Dynasty, it emphasises that spiritual and ethical matters are as important as social and historical features. Taoist mystical elements are intertwined in the book with Buddhist and Confucian values, providing an understanding of how during this period the three faith systems together shaped Chinese life.42

Both Mao and Zhou Enlai held the novel in high regard. Mao stated that the Dream of the Red Chamber was one of China’s great contributions to the world43, and Zhou Enlai on his deathbed repeatedly listened to two famous opera scenes from the Dream of the Red Chamber.44 The characters and ideals that shaped these tales informed the values that Mao and Zhou held dear to them throughout their lives, even though the novel was banned during much of the Cultural Revolution.

The world described in Dream of the Red Chamber is, at first glance, a world apart from Mao’s China. Luxuriant gardens and exquisite cuisine provide an opulent setting for cultured games of poetry composition and the watching of plays (the Jias had an in‐house Suzhou opera troupe). The hero and many heroines of this novel are educated, kind and complex. Their interactions make for lively reading, against a tumultuous backdrop in which the menfolk administer the Chinese Empire by subduing pirates in the South, garrisoning the Mongolian frontier, keeping corruption in check, and parrying jealous colleagues in the capital. The dissolute ways of the younger males in the family also tell of 219 the difficulties of maintaining family honour and prosperity over several generations.

The talented scholar hero Baoyu makes for an unusual example of manhood. For one thing, his physical description sounds better suited to that of a girl. The author compares Baoyu’s face to the moon, his complexion to “flowers at dawn”, with eyebrows like those “painted by an artist’s brush” and “eyes clear as limpid pools” that “beamed tenderness”45. Further developing Baoyu’s gentle nature, he describes Baoyu as having a soulful glance, “yet from his lips the laughter often leaped;/a world of charm upon that brow was heaped;/a world of feeling from those dark eyes peeped.”46 What a beauty! His grandmother and other senior female members of the family doted on him. Baoyu was deemed by his older sister, the Imperial Concubine, to be “different from other boys” and trusted to live amidst his beautiful and clever female cousins in an idyllic garden setting,47 a privilege accorded to no other boys of his generation. Several times his room is mistaken for a girl’s,48 and he is said to have an unusually clear understanding of how girls think.49

Secondly, Baoyu had many personal flaws, including being driven by desire. In the first volume, Baoyu’s ducal ancestors plead for divine intervention because of Baoyu’s “perverse, intractable nature”50. They declare him to be “eccentric and emotionally unstable” although highly intelligent.51 The divine being who intercedes on behalf of Baoyu’s ancestors is the Fairy Disenchantment who pronounces that Baoyu is “the most lustful person I have ever known in the whole world”52. All this is declared in a prophetic dream that precipitated Baoyu’s first sexual encounter.53

Baoyu turns out to be drawn to both men and women. The artform of Peking Opera featured an all‐male cast and the men who played beautiful women were very popular amongst the aristocracy and the wealthy. Baoyu politely clashes with his friend the Prince of Beijing over the attentions of Bijou, a charming and kind opera star.54 When Bijou disappears from the Prince’s life, blame is ascribed to the irresistible Baoyu, and the chamberlain of a high‐ranking aristocrat comes to the Jia home to find Bijou.55 The shame of attracting royal ire 220 mortified Baoyu’s father and led to a severe beating that almost threatened Baoyu’s life.56 It was only the intercession of Baoyu’s mother that halted the bloody thrashing.57 As regards women, at home Baoyu is always flirting with the legions of maids who look after him and his female relations. His heart is also the subject of competition between two beautiful, clever and well‐educated young female relations of the Jia family, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai.

What Baoyu represents is a certain sort of purity. By the end of the novel, he is beset with suffering from unexpressed love, betrayal and deep disappointment as his family tricked him into marrying a woman that he cared for but who was not his great love. At the same time, the status and wealth of his family is being devastated by the loss of Imperial favour, and they were subjected to a traumatic confiscation by the command of the Emperor. Baoyu’s deep melancholy is exacerbated by the suicides, untimely deaths, early widowhood and removal to monasteries of various beloved female relations, leaving him listless and, most of the time, in a catatonic trance. All of these experiences coalesce to reveal to him the transient nature of all earthly things, and he breaks through to another level of consciousness, one that aspires to “quitting the world and rising above the mortal plane”58. An argument with his wife reveals his advocacy of having the “heart of the new‐born child” that possesses “complete absence of knowledge, of consciousness, of greed, of envy”, a heart that is free of the “quagmire of greed, hatred, folly and passion”59. That spiritual purity is a state that Baoyu seeks and eventually attains.

Resolved to demonstrate his loyalty to his ancestors, he studies diligently and attains a remarkable score in the Imperial examinations, resulting in the reinstatement of the family positions that had been stripped during the confiscations. However, after the exams, Baoyu disappears in the company of a Taoist and a Buddhist monk. He is said to have discharged his mortal responsibilities and returned to his original nature as an Immortal.60

What does this fascinating and curious novel reveal about the nature of the Chinese hero? With his delicate femininity and monkish destiny, Baoyu seems the antithesis of the macho, loyal Guan Yu and this is the key to his appeal. 221

Baoyu as a heroic example enlarges the criteria of heroism, to encompass ideal moral behaviour and attributes that had been seen as more feminine. Baoyu enjoys a continued presence in Chinese cultural life. If not for the great popularity of the novel amongst the literati, the general population, and the Communist leadership, the novel would not have reached iconic status. As far as is known, the author Cao Xueqin didn’t seek to publish the book in his lifetime.61 It was written and copied for circulation only amongst his relatives and friends.62 The appeal of the novel has nothing to do with promotional activities or official support; rather, it has appealed directly to readers over the ages. As Marcel Duchamp has stated, “Society takes what it wants”63. In Duchamp’s view, what the artist does has little or no impact on its popularity; instead a work of art is “grabbed by society, which made it its own”64. The hero that emerges from the Dream of the Red Chamber is a man who has great natural intelligence, eventually becomes conscious of his family obligations, and possesses a sensitive soul, beauty and kindness. He struggles to control himself, and to deepen his understanding of the profound aspects of man’s state of being.

The dichotomy between the tough martial hero and the soft, cultured hero goes to the heart of what constitutes ideal heroism in traditional Chinese culture. Scholars Louise Edwards and Kam Louie explain the balance between wen (culture) and wu (the martial),65 complementary but different dimensions of ideal manhood. Either one is a viable expression of Chinese masculinity and as Edwards and Kam state, “a scholar is considered to be no less masculine than a soldier”66. The most perfect leader, however, strikes an ideal balance between cultured and martial qualities.67 This can be seen in the four‐character saying that “Wen and wu are complete in every respect” (wenwu shuang quan).68 The placement of the Emperor at court reflects his ideal status as the apogee and fulcrum of the heroic dichotomy of wen and wu.69 Historical annals from the Han Dynasty record that the wen officials were placed at the east side of the court and the wu officials on the west, with the Emperor placed in the middle and higher than both. This practice was followed until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the twentieth century.70 222

It was against this rich cultural world that Jiang Qing took up arms. The direction had been set by Mao in 1963, when he took the Ministry of Culture to task for not thoroughly changing culture to reflect socialist values.71 He grumbled that it should be renamed the “Ministry of Emperors, Princes, Generals, and Ministers” or the “Ministry of Gifted Scholars and Beautiful Ladies” or the “Ministry of Foreign Dead People”72. As discussed in previous chapters, Jiang Qing, Marshal Lin Biao and Kang Sheng all benefited from the concentrated attack on culture, traditional values and existing establishment figures that ensued.

Despite her attempt to revolutionise the arts, Jiang Qing’s Eight Model Plays created only a few heroes and heroines. These were all cut from the same peasant‐worker‐soldier cloth, and followed predictable paths to a victory which always included the destruction of their enemies. This plotline was followed faithfully in countless class struggles in the cities and countryside. Art imitates life and in this case, it also provided the forms and signalled acceptable action. Unfortunately, this course of action was of limited help with the difficulties that people faced on a daily basis, such as scant food supplies, even more restricted work options, and official abuse. The problems remained even when the class enemies were gone. Now, there wasn’t even the previous diversity of performing arts and diversionary novels to alleviate distress or boredom.73

Lu Xun, The Solitary Cultural Hero

The only cultural hero whose stature remained unassailed during the Cultural Revolution was Lu Xun. This cosmopolitan and ethical man of letters had been prominent in the May Fourth Movement and died in 1936. During the Cultural Revolution, his legacy was distorted and used by Mao and Jiang Qing to bolster several high‐level political campaigns, and even to justify extreme violence and to foster hatred of class enemies.74

Lu Xun’s creative, literary and artistic impact reverberated through China in the early decades of the 20th century. His energetic championing of a vernacular form of writing (baihua) over literary Chinese (wenyan) contributed to a transformation in prose and literature, making these forms accessible to all 223 reasonably literate people.75 Rather than merely advocating baihua, Lu Xun helped to devise a vernacular written form of Chinese that he used in his short stories. He had planned to write several novels and had saved this project for a later stage in his life that he did not manage to reach.76 However, his short stories have become widely known throughout China.77 Fluent in Russian, Japanese, and German, Lu was also an important translator of European, Russian and Soviet literature into Chinese. Writers introduced to China by Lu Xun include Balzac, Chekhov, Ibsen,78 Gogol, Gorky, Turgenev and Zola.79

His lectures on literary criticism exemplified scholastic courage and continue to inspire. For example, he used history to convey veiled but powerful critiques of the excesses of the Nationalist government. These lectures examined the political turmoil in the Wei‐Jin Dynasty (220‐420 C.E.) to criticise indirectly the violent excesses of the Kuomintang and the hypocrisy of using Sun Yat‐sen’s name without respect for Sun’s principles.80 His satirical criticism was brave, uttered with a clear awareness of the dangers it involved.81 Delivered during the anti‐Communist purges of 1927, just days after the leftists had been denounced by government officials, Lu Xun delivered his words with “stumbling words, uttered indirectly and in fear”82. These trenchant and influential lectures received a wider audience when they were also printed in the Shanghai journal Beixin.83

From 1927 until his death in 1936, Lu Xun lived in Shanghai, contributing vigorously to the nation’s literary life and its engagement with politics. His literary arguments with intellectuals such as Lin Yutang, rousing essays on language and literature, and sabre‐like attacks on the closure of teaching institutions such as the Peking Women’s Normal College helped to enlarge the debate on the systems and institutions that disseminated and created knowledge.84 His passionate advocacy of an independent left‐wing perspective and the importance of criticism pointed the way to a critical but supportive view of Communism85 that remained far from the total compliance demanded by Mao and Stalin. Scholar Gloria Davies usefully distinguishes between the “voluntary revolutionary discourse” of Lu Xun’s 1928 Shanghai with the “mandated revolutionary discourse of 1940s Yan’an”86. Although Lu Xun firmly believed in 224 creating a “literature of the masses”87, he also consistently sought to preserve the independence of the author, and decried slavish compliance with a party line.88 More stridently, Lu Xun was unequivocal in his denunciation of the Kuomintang violence from which his students and fellow writers suffered.89 Fundamentally, Lu Xun was a humanist who upheld the importance of “moral constancy”90 and who saw “the will to revolution as an act of conscious altruism.”91

With the increasingly polarized political atmosphere within the Communist Party, it was perhaps inevitable that Lu Xun would clash with the rigid demands for unquestioned compliance with Party directives. Conflict arose in a tussle for leadership of the leftist writers. Writers Feng Xuefeng and Qu Qiubai who acted on the instructions of the Chinese Communist Party’s Cultural Committee had asked Lu Xun to head the nascent League of Left‐wing Writers.92 Although he never joined the Party, Lu Xun was happy to lend his stature to the venture. He headed the organization from 1930‐33, and authors such as Hu Feng, Ding Ling,93 Mao Dun and Hu Yeping played an active role in the League. However, once the Kuomintang and the Communists had agreed on the United Front against Japanese aggression, the literary theorist Zhou Yang received an order from Wang Ming, the head of the Moscow‐based Chinese Communist Party, to dissolve the League and instead set up a another organization that would include any writers who were against Japanese occupation.94 Lu Xun bitterly resented the high‐handed manner in which the decision had been taken.95 He had not even been consulted, even though he was the head of the League, and he was told of the dissolution after the event.96 Moreover, Lu Xun recognized the danger of working with the Kuomintang97, as previous alliances had ended with fatal purges. To make matters worse, Zhou and his supporters began to disparage and attack Hu Feng, who defended Lu Xun’s point of view.98 They came to visit Lu Xun and claimed that Hu was a traitor who served the Kuomintang.99 Lu Xun’s outrage took the form of biting letters and a polemical essay dictated on his sickbed, in which he called Zhou and his men “slave foremen” whose actions would promote a “cowed obedience” that would deprive intellectual life of its remaining “traces of human decency”100. The lack of consultation and of even pretences of discussion made it clear that leftist writers were expected 225 henceforth to toe the Party line and to obey directives without question. The slanderous falsehoods used by Zhou and his men provided, in retrospect, an ominous warning as to the future of literary life under the Chinese Communist Party.

Developing visual imagery to awaken the consciousness of the people was part of Lu Xun’s legacy. From 1930 to the end of his life in 1936, Lu Xun became active in promoting accessible and inexpensive woodblock prints and realist painting,101 that reflected the life of the masses. This was the outcome of Lu Xun’s interaction with young artists, which led to a larger movement linking art to social issues.102 The considered and systematic process that Lu Xun used to introduce ideas, teach skills and support the production of images remains relevant to cultural practitioners today and is a useful example of the transmission of knowledge leading to positive outcomes.

Invited to address the Epoch Art Society, Lu Xun spoke of the importance of paying attention to the lives of common people and to representing their concerns.103 He urged them to “serve society with their art”104. Following the lecture, Lu Xun organised the Exhibition of Revolutionary Visual Art of the Soviet Union, displaying his collection of Soviet propaganda posters, woodcuts, caricatures, prints, cartoons and military paintings to inspire his audience.105 Following the interest aroused by the exhibition, Lu Xun arranged for a teacher to come from Japan to teach woodcut printing in a six‐day course to a small group of selected students.106 The resulting prints from the workshop were exhibited and bound in a small volume.107 He continued to contribute articles for woodcut exhibitions, to visit exhibitions and to purchase work.108 Woodcut prints came to be perceived as the “tool of the revolution and of the spirit of revolt”109 for young artists who wished to register their dissatisfaction with the Kuomintang government. Among the many members of the numerous woodcut societies that emerged in Shanghai in 1932 was Ai Qing (whose name at the time was Jiang Haicheng), a poet recently returned from France,110 who later came to be the father of artist Ai Weiwei. 226

Given Lu Xun’s compassionate, intelligent, varied and dynamic cultural legacy, how could his work come to be used like a whip to justify violence and incite hatred during the Cultural Revolution? During that time, Lu Xun’s words were recited before public executions,111 a selection of his stories and essays were the only school texts taught alongside the Quotations of Chairman Mao,112 and a metaphor used in a literary exchange about fair play, “to beat a drowning dog” was taken out of context by Mao to justify mob brutality.113 Politically, Jiang Qing used selected quotations by Lu Xun to justify attacks on Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai.114 In a particularly clever move, Zhou Enlai parried Jiang by ordering a reprint of the complete works of Lu Xun.115 Included in this publication were the papers relating how Lu Xun had clashed with members of the Shanghai group who backed Jiang Qing116, which held his detractors at bay for a little while. The battle for control over Lu Xun’s papers became fraught. In a dramatic incident sparked off at the 1968 funeral of Lu Xun’s widow Xu Guangping, her son asked Zhou Enlai to help track down some missing manuscripts.117 They were meant to be part of the publication of Lu Xun’s Complete Works and had been commandeered by the old Ministry of Culture in 1966.118 Zhou put the Beijing Garrison Command in charge of finding the documents, which were subsequently discovered through signed receipts to be in the possession of Jiang Qing. Fu Chongbi, head of Beijing Garrison Command went to report to Jiang in her private quarters, which left her no choice but to hand over the relevant documents, apparently fuming throughout.119 The Shanghai group covered themselves by insisting on extensive annotations of the text that criticized them and their family members, and also by delaying publication120 of Zhou’s authorized version of The Complete Works of Lu Xun. In this milieu, the words of Mao and Lu Xun, who had by now been dead for thirty years, carried the potential to destroy even the most powerful.

In light of the tremendous effort expended on creating Mao as a god‐like hero during the Cultural Revolution, it may be useful to consider how Lu Xun was deified by the Chinese Communist Party after his death. It all began with falsely attributed praise of Mao and turned into a powerful campaign to legitimise Mao’s cultural authority. Lu Xun, when nearing death, was credited with writing an 227 open letter praising Mao.121 Feng Xuefeng, the writer and close friend of Lu Xun was a devoted member of the Party and he penned the words about “the proposal of Mr. Mao Zedong and others to unite against Japan.”122 This was the only mention of Mao ostensibly made in print by Lu Xun .123 During the 1980’s, it became clear that the letter had been written by Feng, and that in the period leading up to his death, Lu Xun had given his consent to have his name attached to it.124 This slender support led to Mao serving on Lu Xun’s funerary committee, even though Mao was in Yan’an at the time and couldn’t risk attending the funeral without fear of Kuomintang capture.125 The Chinese Communist Party also telegraphed the Kuomintang government and demanded that Lu Xun be given a state funeral, that the ban on his books be removed, that publication of his complete works be permitted, and bronze statues of Lu Xun be raised in all the cities he had inhabited.126 The Party indisputably claimed him as their own.

At Yan’an itself, the Lu Xun Art Academy, formed on Mao’s orders in 1938, came to exert a powerful influence in the production of art during this period.127 The naming of the art academy after Lu Xun was recommended by Mao himself; Mao credited Lu Xun with being “China’s greatest writer”, and “our great teacher”.128 Moreover, Mao claimed that he wished “to show that we wanted to advance with giant steps along the road which he had pioneered”.129 In serving on Lu Xun’s funerary committee and publicly aligning himself with the respected writer, Mao positioned himself as the inheritor of Lu Xun’s legacy.

In 1940, Mao’s hagiographic treatment of Lu Xun reached a new level in his speech “On Democracy”. He declared:

Lu Hsun was the greatest and the most courageous standard‐bearer of this new cultural force. The chief commander of China's cultural revolution …. Lu Hsun was a man of unyielding integrity, free from all sycophancy or obsequiousness …. Representing the great majority of the nation, Lu Hsun breached and stormed the enemy citadel; on the cultural front he was the bravest and most correct, the firmest, the most loyal and the most ardent national hero, a hero without parallel in our history. The road he took was the very road of China's new national culture.130 228

Lu Xun the nuanced, considered and vital contributor to Chinese literary life of the 1920’s and 30’s now became reduced to a series of “mosts”, a propaganda device for Mao’s credibility. Acclaimed as “a hero without parallel in our history”, it is not entirely surprising that he was turned into a god‐like figure during the Cultural Revolution. If Mao had pronounced Lu Xun a hero, it was safe for others to uphold this.

Following Lu Xun’s independent spirit proved dangerous for his followers Hu Feng, Ding Ling and Ai Qing. For Hu Feng, a critical thinker and prolific writer, the enforced orthodoxy of Maoism proved impossible to endure. He wrote a series of letters to friends between 1944 and 1951, that privately expressed his discomfort with Mao’s requirements for artists and writers to adhere to the Party line, set out in Mao’s Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and the Arts.131 In July 1954, Hu presented the Central Committee a mammoth 300,000 word essay protesting against the insistence on conformity by writers.132 A gathering storm mounted, with an early warning signaled by the veteran writer and senior Party authority Guo Moruo in December 1954.133 Hu wrote a self‐ criticism but to no avail.134 The government collected evidence to damn Hu, including the private letters he had written that criticized Mao’s Yan’an Talks.135 These letters and a selection of Hu’s writings taken out of context were printed in a booklet with a preface by Mao who had taken personal affront at Hu’s dissent.136 Devastating nation‐wide attacks were coordinated for the middle of 1955.137 “The Movement for the Suppression of Counter‐Revolutionaries” involved sweeping purges in universities and intellectual communities throughout the nation. 81,000 people were accused and sentenced for being “counter‐revolutionaries” and sent to prisons and labour camps.138 The charges against Hu were filed by Mao himself.139 However, the judge found it difficult to sentence Hu as writing literary criticism was not a crime.140 The writing of the verdict was referred to the Central Propaganda Department, specifically to the Vice Minister Lin Mohan and to Zhou Yang, the official responsible for the literary world who had clashed with Lu Xun over the dissolution of the League of Left‐wing Writers.141 Hu was eventually sentenced to fourteen years in prison and then to a labour camp.142 During the Cultural Revolution, Hu’s sentence was 229 extended to life imprisonment.143 After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Hu was rehabilitated in 1980 and given his freedom.144

The purge of Hu Feng took place in the years leading up the even larger Anti‐ Rightist Campaign of the late 1950’s, which eventually swept up 300,000‐ 550,000 victims.145 During this campaign, Zhou Yang took the opportunity to remove those who had been prominent followers of Lu Xun and party to his clash with Zhou over the League of Left‐wing Writers.146 Zhou purged Lu Xun’s close friend Feng Xuefeng, who had earlier been purged with Hu Feng but had the privilege of being purged again. Zhou also purged Ai Qing and Ding Ling,147 who had edited the literary magazine attached to the League. Both Ai Qing and Ding Ling had spoken out publicly at the 1942 Yan’an Talks on Art and Literature, asserting the right of artists and writers to express their own ideas, against Mao’s insistence on following the Party line.148 They were each sentenced to imprisonment and labour camps for over twenty years. Ding Ling was rehabilitated only in 1978. Ai Qing spent many years in a prison camp in frosty Heilongjiang, and was then transferred to remote Xinjiang where his son Ai Weiwei grew up.149

The campaigns that removed Lu Xun’s followers paradoxically made possible the deification of Lu Xun. By removing those who had contributed to the League of Left‐wing Writers, Zhou Yang was free to rewrite Lu Xun’s legacy in a way that would protect himself, and he promptly did this in 1958.150 Scholar Merle Goldman points out that the campaign to target Hu Feng had been driven by Mao.151 However, the use of the Anti‐Rightist Campaign to remove Ai Qing and Ding Ling, was determined by Zhou Yang,152 who wanted to erase any connection between Lu Xun and his followers.153 (These acts were later to boomerang on Zhou during the Cultural Revolution when Jiang Qing unearthed Lu Xun’s omitted words to persecute Zhou.154) Elevating Lu Xun alone, after isolating him from any social and historical context, would allow him to be presented as divine – in need of no support, an inspired being who offered spiritual guidance to the revolution. As the spiritual heir of Lu Xun, Mao would also be elevated to the empyrean. 230

Mao personally was intensely cynical about his use of Lu Xun. When asked what would have happened to Lu Xun if he had been alive during the Anti‐Rightist Campaign of 1957, Mao stated that Lu Xun would have had two choices, “either remain silent or go to prison.”155

Visual Representation of Lu Xun During the Cultural Revolution

The representation of Lu Xun during the Cultural Revolution was highly politicized, in visual art as well as in the promotion of selected short stories. An important painting of Lu Xun was displayed in the 1972 exhibition commemorating Mao’s Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and the Arts.156 Coming after the fall of Lin Biao, the exhibition was an occasion to broaden the spectrum of ideal heroes, and certainly Lu Xun merited inclusion.

Tang Xiaoming’s The Eternal Battle (Figure 4.1) presents Lu Xun on his sickbed, penning his excoriating polemic against Zhou Yang.157 Sitting upright in his bed, he wears the long scholar’s robe that he favoured, with a brown blanket covering his legs. Although Lu Xun was suffering from tuberculosis at the time, the portrait surprisingly includes a ruddy complexion. The hue used for Lu Xun may be more subdued than that usual for the red cheeks of Mao, but nonetheless, Lu’s red cheeks are appropriately revolutionary. To his left are stacks of books and papers, attesting to his life of letters. The books rest on a bureau, with a mirror in an art deco frame behind. The furniture indicates the setting as Shanghai, one of the few cities in China that would have had this style of furniture. Lying against the mirror are two framed images, suggesting photographs of family 158 or of artwork. Small glass bottles, perhaps containing medicine, stand in front of the pictures, placed up to the edge of the right side of the picture plane. This dense, close composition of objects represents Lu Xun’s life as one with affectionate ties, literary endeavour, and constant reflection on the state of man.

The representation of Lu Xun is similar to that in many photographs taken during his lifetime. His emphatic eyebrows bring to mind the “fierce‐browed” expression that Lu Xun wrote about in a classical poem.159 His neat, brush‐cut 231

Figure 4.1 Tang Xiaoming, The Eternal Battle, 1972, oil painting, Collection of the National Art Gallery of China hair attests to a practical lifestyle, in contrast to the stereotype of dilettantish, dandified wealthy young men of letters from Shanghai.160 Lu Xun’s hair and eyebrows create the frame for his eyes which are somewhat narrowed and hard but also express deep concern. His eyes seem to be focused inwards rather than on an object in the room. A square jaw conveys a sense of tough resolution. Although the focus is clearly meant to be on Lu Xun’s face and hands, it is notable that he has a figure‐type more akin to a robust model worker than to a writer on the brink of succumbing to tuberculosis. The wearing of a scholar’s gown reflects Lu Xun’s classical education, despite his denunciation of the “cannibalistic Confucian mores”,161 and his disinclination to posture in Western dress. Long sensitive fingers hold the paper on which he writes his condemnation of Zhou Yang,162 and paradoxically for a work painted during the Cultural Revolution, his defence of Hu Feng.163 His right hand holds a writing brush horizontally, indicating along with his expression that he is pondering the phrasing of his argument. 232

As with Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao in Anyuan, Tang Xiaoming’s The Eternal Battles uses traditional scholar’s dress to convey Lu Xun’s elevated status. This would be perfectly in keeping with the position accorded to Lu Xun by Mao as “our great teacher”164 as well as a “great author, great thinker and great revolutionary”.165 In this way, the propaganda value of the work could reach a much broader audience, the masses who would instinctively read Lu Xun as a teacher when dressed in this manner. This had worked successfully for Liu Chunhua’s portrait of Mao, as discussed in Chapter One, and was also historically accurate in depicting Lu Xun. Similarly, only Lu Xun was accorded the prefix “Mr.” (xiansheng), a traditional address of respect that the Communists had withdrawn from common usage after deciding that it smacked of feudal/bourgeois decadence.166

The Eternal Battle features wonderful control of brushstrokes. The handling of paint indicates the status of the different components of the painting. Lu Xun, in accordance with the principles of model paintings discussed in Chapter Three, is in sharp detail with clear features and reddened cheeks. As the central and indeed only figure, he is the most prominent in the work and this is underscored by the detailed, fine brushstrokes used to depict his face and hands. The artist has more freedom in depicting the supporting objects in the work and for these Tang displays confident and expressive brushwork. The two stacks of papers, journals and books are particularly lovely. The most prominent stack on the right is lit with a soft light and recedes into some shadow. Historically, this literal highlight on the stack of paper and journals is also relevant as Lu Xun never completed a novel but wielded tremendous influence through his essays, literary ripostes, and short stories. Accordingly, the stack of books behind Lu Xun and to the left are kept in shadow and dissolve into a textural abstract haze. As they would have been the supportive research material for his work, they deserve a place in the painting, but not perhaps a starring role.

Tang’s treatment of glass also indicates his prioritizing of objects within the painting. There are three types of glass included in the work: the glass used in the mirror, the picture frames, and the vessels standing on the bureau. The reflections from the mirror are indistinct, forming an abstract grey background 233 with light highlights. The photographs also become indistinct, with the same device of white streaks used to convey reflection. The glass bottles are treated skillfully with a sense of transparent three‐dimensionality emerging in the handling of the front bottle that resembles an apothecary’s medicine bottle. The detailed medicine bottle reminds viewers that in the scene depicted Lu Xun was only two months away from his death,167 and enhances the sense of narrative drama.

The painting was a success when displayed and was selected for wider dissemination via propaganda posters.168 In 1973, an article was written by Chen Yifei, the artist who painted Eulogy of the Yellow River discussed in Chapter Three. This was the same year in which the propaganda posters of the painting were released. Using the hyperbolic language of the times, Chen states:

Confronting Zhou Yang’s band of four cronies who represented an encirclement and suppression operation by the counter‐revolutionary black line in literature and art of the 1930s, confronting heavy persecution from the reactionary authorities and confronting the torment of serious illness, Lu Xun felt neither fear nor discouragement.… Lu Xun wrote his declaration of war on the band of four when he was seriously ill, and he boldly announced his warm and unconditional support for the Communist Party’s united front in the war of resistance against the Japanese. He mercilessly tore the masks from Zhou Yang’s band of four and angrily exposed their vicious faces as traitors, spies, and fifth columunists.169

Lu Xun had been invoked for political purposes since his death. Missing from Chen’s diatribe was the criticism that Lu Xun had applied to Party functionaries who sought to quell dissenting voices, even those on the left.

Lu Xun’s image was used again in 1974 in the “Criticise Lin Biao, Criticise Confucius” campaign designed to denigrate Premier Zhou Enlai. Following Lin Biao’s death in 1971, a power vacuum had emerged, and Zhou was taking a more 234

Figure 4.2 Study the Revolutionary Spirit of Lu Xun, Become a Pathbreaker in the Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius, 1974, propaganda poster, IISH‐Landsberger Collection influential role in directing national and international policy.170 This situation made Mao uneasy171, so he encouraged Jiang Qing to attack Zhou172, in the hope of developing a power structure more aligned with Mao’s perception of his Cultural Revolution legacy.173 Since the resumption of ties between the United States and China in 1972, a normalization process had started with some relaxation of restrictions on science, technology, and sports, as well as arts, music and literature.174 The reduced level of controls on culture threatened Jiang’s grip. The health of the existing leadership was another great concern. Since Lin Biao’s death, Mao’s own health had begun to decline in fits and starts.175 Zhou’s health was also poor, as he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1972.176

Knowing about Zhou Enlai’s illness, Mao used Jiang Qing to harry him.177 The first major salvo came in the form of the “Criticise Confucius” campaign proposed by Mao in May 1973.178 Over two years, this campaign took on increasingly bizarre and obscure forms. Initially, Jiang attempted to turn the military against Zhou179, but he had deep‐rooted support in the PLA dating back to pre‐liberation 235 days when he served as the Director of the Political Department at the Whampoa Military Academy.180 Jiang secured little response in her favour from the PLA.181

Following that attempt, in 1974 Jiang initiated a variation on Mao’s campaign title, amending it to “Criticise Lin Biao and Criticise Confucius.”182 The propaganda poster depicted in Figure 4.2, Study the Revolutionary Spirit of Lu Xun, Become a Pathbreaker in the Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius attests to Jiang’s desperate attempts to drum up support. By including Lu Xun in the picture with a model worker, soldier and peasant arming themselves with pen and paper, Jiang sought to invoke Lu Xun’s well‐known opposition to following a feudal Confucian regime to attack Zhou. As a campaign slogan, lumping Lin Biao with Confucius and using Confucius as a stand‐in name for Zhou caused confusion.183 Moreover, including Lu Xun in criticising Lin Biao could only make matters more muddled.

Other initiatives by Jiang to thwart Zhou Enlai included a fuss about glass snails that had been given as a gift by the U.S. based Corning Corporation,184 and the persecution of painters of traditional ink paintings discussed in Chapter Three. Jiang also attacked the resumption of publication of a sports magazine authorized by Zhou,185 and initiated a campaign against “absolute music”, meaning classical western music without a clear class concept.186 From the resumption of international ties in 1972, Zhou had been vitally involved in restarting the classical music programme and cared personally about it.187 In 1973, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado and the Philadelphia Orchestra toured Beijing and Shanghai.188 Although Jiang had meddled slightly at an earlier stage, once the “Criticise Lin Biao, Criticise Confucius” campaign took hold, she and her supporters increased their attacks on classical music.189 These aspects of the campaign collectively signalled the increasingly desperate nature of Jiang’s machinations.

The end result of the muddled “Criticise Lin Biao, Criticise Confucius” campaign, along with the daily irritations generated by coal shortages, disrupted trains and a drop in agricultural production was an increasing rumbling of dissatisfaction 236 and public criticism about Jiang and her supporters.190 One of the reasons behind the disruption in industrial production was found to be the alarm created by the campaign and its martial overtones. Some supervisors who had survived the earlier years of the Cultural Revolution fled their posts and failed to show up for work rather than face potential violence for uncertain causes.191 With Zhou desperately ill, Mao decided to reinstate Deng Xiaoping to put the nation back to work. Returning in 1973, Deng managed to restart the trains, reorganize the military, start the reform of the science and technology sectors, bring iron and steel production back to targeted levels, and generally put industrial production back on track.192 Deng’s efficiency, along with the recognition that Deng would not work with Jiang and did not wish to carry on the Cultural Revolution, led Mao to initiate a campaign to criticise Deng at the end of 1975.193 Once Zhou succumbed to cancer in 1976, Deng’s last official task in this stage of his career was to read Zhou’s eulogy, after which Deng was removed from his official duties yet again.194

Jiang Qing’s frantic machinations to secure a powerful position195 took on an increasingly desperate quality that pitted propaganda against sincere, deep emotion. Following Zhou Enlai’s death, she stepped up her slanderous campaigns against the memory of Zhou and to discredit Deng nationwide.196 All of the propaganda efforts, the newspaper articles, the university meetings and public proclamations devised by Jiang and her supporters came to no avail. Although Zhou had died on January 8, 1976, spontaneous mass national mourning reached a peak on Qingming, the traditional day of remembrance for the dead, which fell on April 4th, with up to two million people convening in Tiananmen Square.197 Nothing that Jiang and her supporters could do was effective to staunch the sheer numbers turning up to express their sorrow, the flow of poems that commemorated the Premier, or the numbers of memorial wreaths that continued to arrive.198 Force was deployed twice to clear the square, as Mao had been led to believe that the spontaneous gathering had its origins in a planned coup.199 Nationally organised public propaganda rallies were held, using the extreme language of the period to malign Deng, who was now accused of using Zhou’s death to stir up support for himself.200 All this came 237 to an end with the death of Mao on September 9th and, a month later, the arrest of Jiang Qing and her three close associates, henceforth known as the Gang of Four. The last phase of Cultural Revolution propaganda activities proved to be an empty hysterical frenzy, useless in the end to garner political power for Jiang and her supporters.

In terms of cultural heroes, the Cultural Revolution produced few memorable heroes, and none so enduring as traditional heroes such as Guan Yu and Jia Baoyu. One can see that selected elements of traditional culture were absorbed into Cultural Revolution oil paintings. For example, the use of a red face to identify Guan Yu and to signify other heroic figures in Chinese opera was adapted to designate the new heroes in the oil paintings of the Cultural Revolution. The celebration of the scholar‐hero (caizi) continued in the representation of Mao and Lu Xun as traditionally garbed scholars. In Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan and Tang Xiaoming’s The Eternal Struggle, both Mao and Lu were associated with the heroic and gentle qualities traditionally embodied in the talented scholar‐hero.

Despite the large numbers of writers, musicians and painters who populated China prior to the Cultural Revolution, and even more so before the Anti‐Rightist Campaign, only Lu Xun featured in a widely‐reproduced oil painting. Even then, his legacy was grossly distorted to suit Mao’s purpose. From Jiang Qing’s Eight Model Plays, the ones that remain popular are The Red Detachment of Women and The White­Haired Girl, now staples of the Central Ballet and the Shanghai Ballet.201 By enforcing conformity to a narrowly defined criteria of what constituted acceptable cultural work, the Cultural Revolution produced a recognisable style at the expense of diversity. The main outcome of the Cultural Revolution was a painful temporary severance of the Chinese people from their rich artistic, theatrical and literary heritage.

1 Mao Zedong, “Talks at the Chengdu Conference March 1958: Against Blind Faith in Learning, Talk of 22 March,” in Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters: 1956­1971, ed. Stuart Schram, trans. John Chinnery and Tieyun (New York, Pantheon Books, 1974), 117 and “Talks at an Enlarged Central Work 238

Conference, 30 January 1962,” Chairman Mao Talks, 174 and “Remarks at the Spring Festival, Summary Record. 13 February 1964,” Chairman Mao Talks, 205. 2 Lü, 20th Century China, 688. 3 Mao Zedong, “Remarks at the Spring Festival,” Chairman Mao Talks, 210. 4 Lü, 20th Century China, 687. 5 Yu Hua, China in Ten Words (London: Duckworth Overlook, 2012), 90. 6 Ibid, 36. 7 Major traditional tales such as Romance of Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, the Water Margin and Journey to the West were represented as texts but also in vernacular operas and, for the martial tales, kungfu narratives (gongfu biaoyan). 8 Bell Yung, “Introduction,” in The Flower Princess: A Cantonese Opera, by Tong Dik Sang (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010), 1. 9 Kunqu was the foundation for most of classical Chinese opera, first appearing in the 14th century. By comparison, Peking Opera only emerged in the late 1700’s, its popularity rising with the power of the Beijing‐based Qing Dynasty and peaking in the 18th century under the patronage of Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736‐ 1795). Ibid, 4‐5. 10 In Chinese, the term for opera is zaju which means variety plays, and it encompasses a broad diversity of forms. Within zaju there are grand opera (daxiI) and minor operas (xiaoxi). Minor operas are limited to a small area whereas grand operas involve complex sets and many performers, such as the works discussed in this section. Ibid, 2‐3. 11 The environment for watching Chinese opera has changed today. If viewing opera at a formal performance venue, Chinese opera receives the same treatment as a Western performance, and is conducted in a focused and respectful fashion. However, if viewing a performance at a temple or village festival or in a traditional opera house, the atmosphere is often noisy and cheerful. 12 Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, vol. 2. (1977), trans. David Hawkes. (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977), 68. 13 Kam Louie, “Sexuality, Masculinity and Politics in Chinese Culture: The Case of the ‘Sanguo’ Hero Guan Yu,” Modern Asian Studies, 33:4 (October 1999): 838. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid, 836. 16 In accordance with Confucian ethics, the foundation of society had been the family. However, the Communists replaced the family with the state and so all of the responsibilities for education, feeding and housing the population devolved to the state. Correspondingly, the state was then also responsible for policing morality. This can be seen in the role of work units in allowing or not allowing people to marry, divorce and have children. This role of the state applied during the Cultural Revolution and into the 1980’s when the state was the employer of most citizens. With the opening up of the economy, many things have changed, but the state remains much more involved in the private lives of citizens than in Western countries. 17 Ibid. 239

18 Pictorial Stories of Chinese Classics: Water Margin, vol. 1. (1978), trans. and edited C.C. Low & Associates. (Reprint, Singapore: Canfonian Pte. Ltd., 1990), 366. 19 Li, Private Life, 83. 20 Louie, “Sexuality, Masculinity and Politics,” 838. 21 Ibid, 839. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid, 839‐840. 24 Ibid, 839, 841, 25 Robert E. Hegel, “Introduction,” in Lo Kuan‐Chung, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, vol. 1. (1959), trans. C.H. Brewitt‐Taylor. (Reprint, Tokyo and Rutland: Tuttle Publishing, 2002),vi. 26 Lo Kuan‐Chang, Three Kingdoms, 7. 27 Louie, “Sexuality, Masculinity and Politics,” 849. 28 Ibid. 29 Lo Kuan‐Chang, Three Kingdoms, 287. 30 Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, trans. Wikisource, En.wikisource.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms/Chapter_1#12 (accessed 4 July 2013). 31 Louie, “Sexuality, Masculinity and Politics,” 842. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 In Chapter 25, Guan Yu surrenders to his blood brother’s sworn enemy Cao Cao because Guan Yu has been tasked with protecting the town in which Liu Bei’s sisters live. Cao Cao dreams of turning Guan Yu’s loyalties and tempts him with women, wealth, and position. Guan Yu serves Cao Cao, and even kills for him, but serves on the condition that Cao Cao guarantees the safety of Liu Bei’s sisters and that Guan Yu be allowed to leave as soon as he hears word from Liu Bei. Later, in Chapter 50, Guan Yu lets a defeated Cao Cao escape an ambush meant to kill him, out of gratitude for his past generosity. This scene has occasioned debate as to whether or not Guan Yu was truly loyal to Liu Bei, in letting his great enemy live and in violating a direct order. 36 Ibid, 858. 37 Ibid, 843, 845, 38 James Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 233. 39 Ibid, 237. 40 The book has five titles, all mooted as potential titles by the author. They include The Story of the Stone which is the title used by David Hawkes, translator of the English edition that I refer to in this chapter. I use the title Dream of the Red Chamber because it is the one that is used in Chinese (hong lou meng). 41 There has been much debate about the authorship of the last forty chapters but it is believed that they were compiled from an assortment of notes provided by a relative of Cao, who died before the age of fifty without completing the novel. David Hawkes, “Introduction,” in Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, vol. 1 (1973), trans. David Hawkes. (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), 40‐43. 240

42 Dore J. Levy, Ideal and Actual in The Story of the Stone (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 3. 43 Li, Private Life, 82. 44 Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 301. 45 Cao, Story of the Stone, 100‐101. 46 Ibid, 101. 47 Ibid, 455. 48 Ibid, 526, 322. 49 Ibid, 375. 50 Ibid, 137. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid, 145. 53 Ibid, 150. 54 Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, vol. 2 (1977), trans. David Hawkes (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977), 143. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid, 148. 57 Ibid, 149. 58 Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, vol. 5 (1986), ed. Gao E, trans. John Minton (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986, 329. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid, 363. 61 Cao, Story of the Stone, vol. 1, 1. 62 Ibid. 63 Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews (Brooklyn: Badlands Unlimited, 2013), 30. 64 Ibid. 65 Louise Edwards and Kam Louie, “Chinese Masculinity: Theorising Wen and Wu,” East Asian History 8 (1994): 139. http://search.infomit.com.au.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/fullText;dn=961 009530;res=APAFT (accessed July 21, 2013). 66 Ibid, 140. 67 Ibid, 143. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 MacFarquhar, Origins 3, 385. 72 Ibid. 73 Yu Hua’s chapter “Reading” in his China in Ten Words presents an engrossing view into life without novels and describes the mounting excitement when the ban on foreign books tentatively lifts. It is a moving argument for freedom of cultural expression and access expressed in a wholly original and unexpected way. Yu, China in Ten Words, 36‐61. 74 Merle Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” The China Quarterly 91 (September 1982): 446, 448‐455. 241

http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305741000000655 (accessed August 7, 2013). 75 Gloria Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution: Writing in a Time of Violence (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2013), 26‐27. 76 Ha Jin, “Introduction: Lu Hsun as a Man,” in Lu Hsun: Selected Stories (1881‐ 1936), trans. Yang Hsien‐yi and Gladys Yang (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003), xv. 77 Yu, China in Ten Words, 98. 78 Ibid, 96. 79 Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” 452. 80 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 81‐82. 81 Ibid, 82. 82 Lu Xun qtd. in Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 81. 83 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 80‐82. 84 Ibid, xii‐xiii. 85 Ibid, 149. 86 Ibid, 186. 87 Ibid, 161. 88 Ibid, 162. 89 Ibid, 129‐130, 166‐169, 90 Ibid, 190‐191. 91 Ibid, 189. 92 Ibid, 158. 93 Tani E. Barlow, “Introduction,” in I Myself am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling, eds. Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge, 29 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989) and Lü, 20th Century China, 335. 94 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 158. 95 Ibid, 212. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid, 159. 98 Ibid, 212‐215. 99 Ibid, 214. 100 Ibid, 215‐216. 101 Lü, 20th Century China, 341. 102 Ibid, 338. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid, 339. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid, 341. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid, 342. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid, 341. 111 Yu, Ten Words, 91. 112 Ibid, 99. 113 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 225. 114 Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” 454. 242

115 Ibid, 455. 116 Ibid. 117 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 243. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid, 243‐244. 120 Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” 456. 121 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 226. 122 Ibid.. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 125 Ha Jin, “Introduction: Lu Hsun as a Man,” vii. 126 Ibid. 127 Lü, 20th Century China, 360. 128 Mao qtd. in Lü, 20th Century China, 361. 129 Ibid. 130 Mao Tse‐tung, “On New Democracy, January 1940,” Selected Works of Mao Tse­Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 2004), www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected‐works/volume‐ 2/mswv2_26.1 (accessed August 7, 2013). 131 Andrew Endrey, “Hu Feng: Return of the Counter‐Revolutionary,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 5 (Jan 1981): 74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2158616 (accessed August 16, 2013). 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid, 75. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid, 75 and Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” 449. 137 Li, Private Life, 198. 138 Endrey, “Hu Feng,” 73. 139 Ibid, 77. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid. 143 Hu Feng’s wife’s memoirs, F. Hu Feng’s Prison Years presents a fascinating glimpse into the mercurial world of Chinese incarceration. With sentences constantly changing depending on the political mood and conditions wavering between the barbaric to a more civilized house arrest and back again to a sort of incarceration, the constant instability and lack of control over the conditions of daily life becomes painfully clear. Mei Zhi, F. Hu Feng’s Prison Years, trans. Gregor Benton (London and New York: Verso, 2013. 144 Ibid, 324. 145 Jerome Silbergeld with Gong Jisui, Contraditions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1993), 22 146 Goldman, “The Political Use of Lu Xun,” 449. 147 Silbergeld with Gong Jisui, Contradictions, 22. 148 Ibid. 243

149 Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks with Hans Ulrich Obrist (London and New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 11. 150 Goldman, The Political Use of Lu Xun, 450. 151 Ibid, 449. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid. 154 Ibid, 450. 155 Ha, “Introduction,” xiv. 156 Lü, 20th Century China, 668‐672. 157 Ibid, 672. 158 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 88. 159 Ibid, 19. 160 Ibid, 113. 161 Ibid, 10. 162 Lü, 20th Century China, 672. 163 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 215. 164 Mao qtd. in Lü, 20th Century China, 361. 165 Yu, Ten Words, 98. 166 Ibid, 99. Another respectful traditional form of address that was withdrawn from use was xiaojie or “Miss.” I was surprised when first arriving in Beijing to discover that this now refers to prostitutes. This made ordering in restaurants challenging as I unthinkingly called waitress xiaojie and received filthy looks in return. In parts of the south, such as Guilin, waitresses and female customers alike are referred to as “beautiful girl,” (mei nü) regardless of age, and this initiates interactions more gracefully. 167 Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution, 214. 168 Cushing and Tompkins, Chinese Posters, 92. 169 Chen qtd. in Lü, 20th Centurty China, 1211. 170 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 422. 171 Ibid. 172 Ibid, 422‐427. 173 Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 236. 174 Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 267‐277. 175 Ibid, 232. 176 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 412. 177 Ibid, 430‐452. 178 Ibid, 433. 179 Ibid, 431. 180 Gao, Zhou Enlai, 52. 181 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 431‐432. 182 Ibid, 433. 183 Ibid, 439. 184 In 1973, China decided to import a color kinescope production line, essential machinery for producing colour televisions, from the U.S. Corning Corporation. A fact‐finding mission was dispatched to the States and, as a memento of the visit, each visitor was given a small glass snail. Once the “Criticise Lin Biao, Criticise 244

Confucius” campaign was announced, a worker in the Chinese factory wrote to Jiang Qing complaining that the snails maligned China by implying that Chinese industrisation was slow. Jiang swooped down to investigate, denounced the snails, and ordered them to be collected and sent to the U.S. Liaison Office in China. After investigations by Zhou Enlai and the Foreign Affairs Office, it was decided that the snails were considered a form of art and no insult was intended. Jiang then quietly returned the snails and dropped the issue. Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 433‐34. 185 Ibid, 435. 186 Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 276‐279. 187 Ibid, 193. 188 Ibid, 268‐269. 189 Ibid, 276. 190 Ibid, 450‐452. 191 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 450. 192 Ibid, 463‐470. 193 Ibid, 479‐481. 194 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 416. 195 Yan and Gao, Turbulent Decade, 487. 196 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, 417‐421. 197 Ibid, 424. 198 Ibid. 199 Ibid, 425. 200 Ibid, 431‐433. 201 Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, “Why This Nostalgia for Fruits of Chaos?” The New York Times, October 29, 2000, httpwww.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/arts/why‐this nostalgia‐for‐fruits‐of‐ chaos.html (accessed 26 July 2013). 245

Conclusion

Representation of the male figure in oil paintings during the Cultural Revolution was strongly correlated to shifting political objectives. Through the selection of context, and dress and the inclusion or exclusion of political figures, indications about policy could be discerned. This was not true of all oil paintings produced, but it was true of those that received official approval and were thus more widely seen. Images considered in this thesis are works that passed official scrutiny and so can be assumed to cohere with policy at the time. A few of these paintings were selected to be disseminated in the form of a propaganda poster. Aspects of them corresponded to policy directions being advocated at that time, and such paintings would have been considered ideal works to be emulated in spirit and form.

An important aspect to remember is that many of the Cultural Revolution paintings were not commissioned. This was a major change from the government practice in the 1950’s when major history paintings were commissioned to commemorate important moments in the Party’s history. Instead, during the Cultural Revolution, the process by which works were selected for praise was almost haphazard. For example, Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (Figure 1.18, discussed in Chapter One, Forced Heroes) came to the leadership’s attention in a roundabout fashion. A rebel Red Guards faction organised the exhibition, in 1967 the Museum of the Revolution hosted the display, a fellow artist’s sister worked for People’s Pictorial, and because of the popularity of Liu’s work with the audience, the magazine decided to reprint Liu’s painting.1 During a review meeting, the painting was brought to Jiang’s attention as the publication was under the purview of the Central Cultural Revolution Group.2 Jiang did not see the original painting.3 Her approval came from her viewing of the colour proof.4 When she saw the image, she identified the painting as suitable for mass reproduction, and it was then made into a propaganda poster.5 Although the work was not painted as a deliberate attempt to signal Mao’s desire to send the Red Guards factions to the countryside, it works beautifully in that context as Mao is depicted striding into the countryside, clad in the garb of a scholar, with a soft wind blowing in his hair. The timing of 246 the printing of this poster and of the students’ dispersal to the countryside indicates the close relationship between propaganda and policy. The propaganda poster was printed in July 1, 1968.6 Mao confronted the leaders of the Qinghua Red Guards on July 28, and the students were sent to the countryside in large numbers shortly thereafter.7

While much is made of the top‐down direction of the Cultural Revolution, a closer view indicates how much happened because of chance, an administrator’s or artist’s initiative, or the desire of an individual to improve a personal situation. In fact, when the leadership sought to create cultural objects that reflected their view of history, the very mutability of the leadership hierarchy became problematic.

This became amply clear in Chapter Two, Fallen Heroes, as commissioned history paintings depicting important events in Party history were altered or destroyed because of changes in the leadership. Dong Xiwen’s Birth of a Nation (Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2) suffered from several repainting sessions as first Gao Gang and then Liu Shaoqi were purged. In some cases, even the painters were punished because the subjects they portrayed fell from power. This was the case for Hou Yimin who had painted Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners (Figure 2.0). A senior Party member and a respected teacher, Hou was isolated and persecuted because the Party line had changed, and now Mao rather than Liu was credited with the Anyuan strike. Notably, Hou’s painting had been commissioned for the Revolutionary History Museum in the 1950’s to depict the official narrative of the Party and to promote the personality cult of Liu. Ironically, as history has subsequently revealed, the promotion of Liu turns out to have been at the expense of Li Lisan, the actual organiser of the Anyuan strikes.

A significant policy shift also occurred after the death of Lin Biao in 1971. As discussed in Chapter Three, Model Heroes, the deification of Mao lessened, and there was a conscious move to bolster the profile of the red classes comprising workers, peasants and soldiers. In 1972, the thirtieth anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Literature and Art Talks occasioned a major art exhibition which brought many young artists a degree of fame. A direct line of command was established 247 and flowed from Jiang Qing downwards to ensure the success of the exhibition. Administrators visited every province and all arts institutions to find artists. Many artists were rehabilitated at this time, so that they could either submit paintings themselves or help those with more suitable class backgrounds and less skill in painting. The exhibition provided breakthrough opportunities for young artists in the provinces such as Shen Jiawei. His Standing Guard for the Motherland (Figure 3.0) garnered Jiang’s praise, and Shen was catapulted to national fame.

In terms of composition, these paintings of the model worker, peasant, and soldier incorporate a new sense of narrative theatricality derived from applying the Three Prominences promoted in Jiang Qing’s Model Plays. The use of light to highlight the main figure, the prominent placement of the hero, and the use of bright colour distinguish these works from the more moody and atmospheric Soviet‐influenced paintings of the 1950’s such as Hou Yimin’s Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Miners (Figure 2.0).

Another outcome of this period is the emergence of a more physically robust heroic worker. Tough enough to drill oil in a blizzard or to handle a water jet in a copper mine, the worker embodied a rugged, macho hero that hadn’t been seen in Chinese art since 1950’s propaganda posters from the Soviet friendship era (Figure 1.0). This aesthetic also included the depiction of female workers, known as “iron girls”, as seen in Pan Jiajun’s I am the Seagull (Figure 3.23). The newly hunky figures tipped the physical appearance of heroic worker into one of almost threatening physicality, commensurate with contemporary outbreaks of violence among factory communities, such as the outburst in Wuhan. Notably, this figure type is not regularly found in other paintings of the Cultural Revolution.

Chapter Four compared the cultural heroes of the past with those of the Cultural Revolution. Examples of heroic types such as Guan Yu and Jia Baoyu, from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dream of the Red Chamber respectively, provide insights into the martial hero and the talented scholar hero. They provide a useful backdrop to examine the recasting of the May Fourth literary 248 figure Lu Xun into a revolutionary cultural hero. Significantly, both Mao and Lu Xun are variously depicted as having both martial and cultural heroic qualities. Possessing unassailable revolutionary credentials, they are the only figures who were depicted in traditional scholar’s dress in Cultural Revolution oil paintings.

Despite the heroic poses and presentation, closer inspection of the oil paintings discussed in this thesis reveals that the idealised leaders and model heroes of the red classes fell far short of their projected perfection. The historic reality behind the painted figures is often of falsity, violence and treachery. The Party’s efforts to shape history according to political objectives resulted in the erasure of the actual record of the Anyuan miner’s strike. Organised by Li Lisan and orchestrated by Mao, Liu’s role was to consolidate Li’s achievements in the aftermath of the strike. It was their collaborative effort that led to a successful strike action. By adhering to Lenin’s practice of promoting personality cults, the historic reality of Anyuan and its useful lessons have been obscured and falsified. Because so many propaganda images were produced with Liu Shaoqi leading the Anyuan miners, the history of this propaganda campaign is on record even though the painting itself had been destroyed. Through the efforts of dedicated scholars in China and the rest of the world, a more accurate historical record is now emerging.

These paintings provide evidence of political shifts and many examples of unstable heroes. The erasure of political figures in history paintings, as seen in the case of Dong Xiwen’s Founding Ceremony (Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2), calls into question the judgment of the leadership, as did the toppling of Liu Shaoqi, and of Lin Biao who was meant to be Mao’s successor. The attempts to change the historical record by editing and destroying paintings, even those that had been commissioned to depict the Party’s history, indicate that the nation’s leadership was far from omniscient and omnipotent.

Playwright and former First President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel explains beautifully the dawning awareness of the vulnerability of a totalitarian state. He explains: 249

For the crust presented by the life of lies is made of strange stuff. As long as it seals off hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one place, when one person cries out, “The emperor is naked!” – when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game ‐ everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably.8

By looking at the representation of the male figure in Chinese Cultural Revolution oil paintings, it becomes evident that even the highest levels of Party leadership underwent periods of instability and tumultuous change during the Maoist era. Efforts to establish an official history of the Party through paintings ran into difficulty when the leadership underwent radical changes, an upheaval that threw the entire nation into turmoil. The heroes projected in oil paintings of this era were unable to fulfill the expectations of a fair, equal and prosperous life that the Party had promised to deliver.

Mao Loses Control of Image After Death

Mao’s image lives on as an international icon, far removed from the goals of Chinese propaganda under his control during his lifetime. Even at the time of his death, Mao lost control over the display of his body. Dr. Li, Mao’s personal physician was told to preserve Mao’s body for posterity, despite Mao’s previously written desire to be cremated.9 As with Lenin, Stalin and Ho Chi Minh, Mao’s body was to represent a site of eternal pilgrimage for the revolutionary faithful.10 As scholar Geremie Barmé states, “In death, Mao’s body belonged to the nation.”11 Today, in a mauseoleum in the midst of Tiananmen Square, Mao’s body rests in line with the Forbidden City, aligned with the central axis that runs through Imperial Beijing. The strict security and control that he implemented in his lifetime is maintained at his tomb. However, the representation of Mao in visual art has slipped away from state control.

In the early 1990’s, after Deng Xiaoping’s socio‐economic reforms and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, artists who had grown up during the Cultural Revolution incorporated Mao’s image into many of their ironic paintings. 250

Figure 5.0 Bayreuther Festspiele/Enriquo Nawrath, Stage design for Siegfried, Spiegel Online, July 25, 2013

Artists such as Cynical Realists Fang Lijun and Liu Wei12 used elements of Cultural Revolution paintings and propaganda images in disturbing and powerful ways.13 Born in the late 1960’s, they came of age in a time of change and uncertainty.14 Their paintings in the early 1990’s juxtapose the icons and settings of Cultural Revolution paintings with figures that convey a nihilistic view of Chinese society, to devastating effect. Their paintings reveal a complex interaction between the Cultural Revolution’s idealised images of utopian revolutionary society and the reality of early 1990’s oppression, lack of opportunity, and suppression of dissent, to produce an explosive body of work beyond the scope of this current discussion but offering fertile ground for future investigation.15

Mao’s image continues to exert a powerful frisson in the international performing arts scene. In 2013 the Bayreuth Festival featured Mao’s image (Figure 5.0) in Wagner’s The Ring of Nibelung. Controversial East German theatre director Frank Castorf used Mao’s image for the set of Siegfried, the third of the four operas in the cycle. In this section of the epic, Siegfried (he who knows no fear) forges an invincible sword, slays a dragon, and wins Brünnhilde, 251 a beautiful divine being cursed to live as a mortal. Their union marks a transition: the end of the reign of the gods and the beginning of the dominance of man.

Castorf has used a transformed Mount Rushmore as his backdrop. Instead of American Presidents, he uses the faces of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.16 The sculpture is surrounded with temporary structures. Castorf explains, “The scaffolding could mean that the heads are being destroyed or repaired. Most of all, they show that someone is still working on the project”.17 By placing these icons of Communism as the backdrop for the trials and triumph of a great hero who changes the world, Castorf challenges his audience to think about the impact these men had on history. In an era after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of commercial China, Castorf urges contemplation of what has been gained and lost in the 20th century’s engagement with Communism as well as in the headlong pursuit of capitalism.

The Curious Case of Ai Weiwei

In the course of writing this dissertation, a fascinating drama played out in the cat‐and‐mouse game played with the authorities by artist Ai Weiwei. A prominent maverick and jack‐of‐all‐trades, Ai possesses the free spirit of a creative personality combined with the courage of a May Fourth intellectual. His insistence on expressing his views about national issues have parallels in Lu Xun’s determination to speak out in the face of great danger. The memory of Ai’s father, Ai Qing, has shaped Ai Weiwei’s approach. Ai’s situation raises important questions about propaganda, the May Fourth legacy of intellectual curiosity, and the right of Cultural Revolution survivors to draw lessons from their experiences.

Ai Weiwei has a strong international presence through his varied art and architecture projects, coupled with a critical and outspoken personality honed in over a decade spent living in Greenwich Village, New York City. He worked with Herzog & de Meuron on their 2008 Beijing Olympic stadium, and publicly spoke of his disappointment over government restrictions on its use by Chinese citizens.18 An installation work displayed at Tate Modern in 2010 involved 252 stepping on and slowly reducing to dust 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds,19 a metaphor that can be said to represent the Chinese state’s treatment of its citizens. Additionally, his performance art piece in the form of a Shanghai dinner party featuring crabs made the international news because of the wordplay20 involved and its engagement with politics and censorship.21

Ai tackles controversial subjects such as the death of five thousand children in the 2008 earthquakes in Sichuan. The children had been in local government schools in which buildings had collapsed; both the deaths and the recovery efforts continue to raise troubling questions.22 In 2006, Ai was invited to start a blog for a Chinese internet company.23 He started to tackle national issues, along with details of his breakfasts,24 turning his life and thoughts into a continuous form of performance art. For unspecified reasons, in April 2011 the government detained Ai for 81 days. It did so by stopping Ai at Beijing International Airport when he was about to embark for Hong Kong, placing a black hood over his head, restraining him with handcuffs, and holding him in an unspecified location.25 After being held in this arbitrary detention, Ai was released after international protests,26 and has been charged with not paying his taxes.27 “Tax crimes should be investigated by the tax bureau, not through secret police detention”, Ai noted.28

A remarkable aspect of Ai’s detention is the manner in which it has been publicly documented through Ai’s interviews with the international media, in Chinese local media, and the internet. The level of access allowed to Ai is remarkable given the suppression and near‐total censorship faced by many other dissidents.29

In fact, Ai’s detention highlights his legacy as an artist influenced by May Fourth values on the freedom of creative expression, as well as the systems of repression and control that remain from the Maoist period. The system that allows for detention without trial for up to four years is known as re‐education through labour (laojiao).30 The detention of citizens is at the discretion of local security forces.31 The labour camps were created to house the massive numbers of people who were rounded up in the 1955 campaign32 that accused Hu Feng of 253 being a counter‐revolutionary, and the labour camps have remained in use since.33

Ai’s values are strongly influenced by his father, Ai Qing. Ai Qing had been swept up in the Anti‐Rightist purges, as discussed in Chapter Four. Sentenced for six years, Ai Qing was allowed to keep his books, so Ai Weiwei grew up reading poetry by “Mayakovsky in Russian and Rimbaud and Whitman and Tagore and Baudelaire.”34 During the Cultural Revolution, Ai Qing was exiled for twenty years and the family’s books were burnt.35 Ai Qing was later rehabilitated; Ai Weiwei left for the States in 1981 and proclaimed he would never return.36 However, when he heard his father was gravely ill, he came home in 1993.37 In many interviews he invokes his father’s influence. In one, Ai Weiwei states that “My father fought for justice his entire life… When I returned, he convinced me to stay. He told me this is my nation and that I shouldn’t be so polite, that I should do what I think is right.”38

The ways in which Ai Weiwei expresses himself are a world apart from the high‐ minded seriousness usually deployed by May Fourth intellectuals. Instead, Ai uses a colloquial, naive way of discussing serious matters. For example, in talking about the impact of Mao’s Yan’an Talks, Ai states that “basically, because of the Yan’an forum, art and literature were damaged and became almost lacking in personal or human conditions, even becoming very brutal later. Many people have been damaged by the ideas that came out of the Yan’an forum.”39 By using such direct language, Ai can initiate discussion about the origins of repression much more widely than would be possible with a more academic approach.

Another example of using direct language to talk about state control is Ai’s commentary on his own persecution by the state. He explains, “They have to have an enemy. They have to create you as their enemy in order for them to continue their existence. It’s very ironic.”40 In this simple and clear way, Ai addresses the limited perspective of the authorities who view citizens as either with the nation or against it. This evokes the psychology of the Cultural Revolution in which people were considered either good citizens or class enemies. In the imprisonment and eventual rehabilitation of his father and 254 family friends, Ai saw how this polarized classification of society limited creativity and constrained the full expression of humanity. By insisting that as a Chinese citizen and artist, he has the right to comment on Chinese life, Ai Weiwei harkens back to the calls for critical engagement with life and politics advocated by Lu Xun, of whom Ai’s father was a well‐known supporter.

The Importance of Historical Memory

Although it is difficult to pursue research on the Cultural Revolution in China, efforts by influential survivors ensure that the Cultural Revolution is not forgotten. As many of those persecuted came from influential revolutionary families or subsequently came to serve in office, their insistence on speaking about their experiences and the lessons that can be learned have proved difficult for the government to ignore or suppress.

For example, a prominent survivor of the Cultural Revolution, author Ba Jin, eloquently and movingly argued for a permanent repository to remember and acknowledge the Cultural Revolution. In a powerful article from 1986 entitled “A Museum of the ‘Cultural Revolution’”, he explained that he wished to ensure that “’Let history not be repeated’ must not be an empty phrase.”41

In 2005 two museums opened that addressed this need to remember: the Jianchuan Museum Cluster in Sichuan42 and the Museum of the Cultural Revolution in Guangdong Province.

In the small town of Anren, about an hour by car from Chengdu, the Jianchuan Museum Cluster occupies a plot of 80 acres. When completed, the complex is planned to include twelve buildings; several are now open to the public. A private museum founded and driven by Fan Jianchuan,43 the institution displays a remarkable array of objects, many of them from the Cultural Revolution.44 The quantities of some artefacts, such as Mao badges, are measured by the ton.45

A successful businessman who began his career as a former teacher at a military college and who had also served as a vice‐mayor, Fan understands the importance of careful phrasing.46 His judiciously named Red Era Daily Necessities Museum cleverly avoids the use of the word Cultural Revolution and 255 uses objects to convey a sense of the values, constraints and conflicts of that era.47 For example, thousands of wall mirrors line a corridor endlessly dazzling the viewers while framing them in Mao’s sayings, reinforcing the sense that even private moments must be defined by politically sanctioned words and thoughts.48 Fan’s museum focuses on objects from the Cultural Revolution period and allows viewers to draw their own conclusions.

The Museum of the Cultural Revolution is on a mountain peak fifteen miles from the industrial city of Shantou in Guangdong Province. In 2012, I paid a visit to this museum (of which my hotel in Shantou had not heard), hiring a car for the day. Lining the dusty highway to the museum are middens of rejected toilet bowls, three feet high, testament to the export industry of the region. After passing a checkpoint that charges RM10 a person, high enough to deter casual visitors, the road becomes more beautiful as it winds up the mountain, passing crumbling improvised shacks and mango and laichi orchards. The location is remote from public transport and little visited.

By 2012, the museum had been closed ‐ at least, the exhibitions of photographs and other detailed artefacts placed within its small pagodas. Nothing indicated when it had closed, or whether it would reopen. However, the founder of the museum, Peng Qian, has a sophisticated understanding of how the government works. He has structured the memorial park so that even if the pagodas are locked, there is much to see. During the Cultural Revolution, Peng Qian was on a list of five officials destined for public execution; for reasons unknown, his name was crossed off, and he survived.49 Although not executed, he was subjected to over a hundred struggle sessions. His brother, a middle school principal, was not so fortunate, and was beaten to death.50 After the Cultural Revolution, Peng served as Shantou’s former deputy mayor. A devoted Party member, he publicly states:

I myself feel grateful for the Party. I could have died 45 years ago, but I survived, served as an official and earned 8,000 yuan a month even after I retired. Nowadays, in times of economic prosperity, I still want to remind the public never to forget the tragedies of the past.”51 256

By including testimonials from many prominent political figures such as President Hu Jintao on the importance of using evidence to examine history in a scientific way, and having these testimonials carved into large stone tablets, Peng has ensured that no one will completely destroy or shut down the space without signalling partisanship and dangerously treasonous thoughts towards at least sections of the Party leadership. He has provided some means for leeway for official closures of the museum during sensitive periods, while still allowing access to important information by building the museum on a monumental scale in the open air.

The museum has several parts, spread across the tops and sides of hills and the valleys in between. Significantly, the museum sits amidst a graveyard that had been used to bury the remains of seventy‐one local people who had been beaten to death during the Cultural Revolution, some of whom were buried in mass graves.52

At the point where most people will enter, there is a huge display in ceramic tile, setting out in both words and pictures the purpose and layout of the museum. To right and left are large portraits of Mao and Deng, with tiny figures below them holding up signs with representative slogans. Between them is the official verdict on the Cultural Revolution, admitting grievous errors committed by individuals and by the Communist Party.

Nearby, a statement carved in stone discusses the importance of acknowledging and addressing the errors made in the 1950’s and during the Cultural Revolution. It emphasizes the importance for future generations of remembering the lessons of history.

The ‘reflecting mirror’ section presents quotations from a large number of prominent figures, each on its own lectern. Many different views are presented: some decry the urge to unearth painful memories and assert the need to focus on the future; others insist on the value of examining the past. The broad spectrum of leading cultural and political figures represented, and the complexity of alliances and loyalties, would make it hard to erase any one part of the record. 257

Atop a high peak is the pagoda housing the photographs. Facing it, on a large stone wall which can still be examined when the pagoda is closed, is a long list of the hundreds of crimes for which people could be accused, from the dramatically serious to the apparently trivial.

A poignant section lies on another hill, dominated by a statue of Liu Shaoqi, who points across the valley to the pagoda. This section lists the names of those who died and those who were tortured during the Cultural Revolution, as well as individual testimonials to beloved educators and revolutionaries who suffered. Text and photographs describe their many contributions to the nation. In a chilling juxtaposition, the surrounding walls describe the various forms of torture used upon the victims.

Every year on August 8th, a memorial service is held in front of Liu Shaoqi’s statue, to commemorate those who suffered during the Cultural Revolution.53 The date marks the anniversary of the launching of the Cultural Revolution by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

This multi‐faceted commemorative museum provides a layered and sophisticated display of the Cultural Revolution. In its design, it attests to the juggling act that is required to address controversial periods in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. It is in acknowledgement of the suffering of those who have gone before that scholars, writers, artists and family members urge people to confront the past and look closely at the historical record, the better to understand what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

In the fictive idealised world populated by the perfect shining red heroes of the Cultural Revolution, everyone was either a class enemy or a potential hero. Yet, even in the midst of the Cultural Revolution there were moments when state notions of heroism were challenged.

For example, on June 20, 1968, Ba Jin’s struggle session was broadcast nationally from Shanghai. When forced to kneel on broken glass to hear accusations that he was a traitor and enemy of Mao, Ba shouted, “You have your thoughts and I have mine. This is the fact and you can’t change it even if you kill me.”54 Ba’s courage 258 provided a living example of heroism that could neither be willed forth nor erased by a propaganda campaign or oil painting.

More and more testimonials are emerging from survivors of the Cultural Revolution, and from the children of survivors. These individuals are insisting on their right to address their experiences, and on the importance of historical memory. Their insistence on freedom of expression clashes with Maoist notions of authoritarian control and of subordination to the state. Such insistence therefore requires courage, and it helps to have a dose of cunning. In the actions of those who refuse to buckle under persecution and those who champion accurate history lie examples of true heroism that continue to reveal the limits of propaganda.

259

1 Liu qtd. in Zheng Shengtian, “Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 122‐128. 2 Ibid, 127. 3 Ibid, 128. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 250‐251. 8 Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” in The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe (1978), ed. J. Keane, trans. P. Wilson (London: Hutchinson, 1985), 12. http://vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=eseje&val=2_aj_esje.html&typ=HTML. 9 Li, Private Life, 17‐18. 10 Ibid, 18, 22‐23. 11 Geremie R. Barmé, “The Irresistible Fall and Rise of Mao Zedong,” in Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (Armonk, New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 25. 12 Lü, 20th Century China, 941. 13 Ibid, 941‐948, 953‐959. 14 Ibid, 941. 15 Strangely enough, the late 1980’s ushered in what Geremie Barmé states Chinese official media called a “Mao Craze” that was not an official exercise but a spontaneous popular enthusiasm for the cult of Mao. Barmé, “Irresistible Fall and Rise,” 4‐5. 16 Wolfgang Höbel, “Wagner’s Ring Gets a Brash Reboot,” Spiegel Online, 25 July 2013, 2, www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bayreuth‐festival‐director‐ castorf‐takes‐on‐wagner‐ring‐cycle‐a‐912832‐2‐html (accessed 26 July 2013). 17 Ibid. 18 Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks with Hans Ulrich Obrist (London and New York: Penguin Group, 2011, 32‐33. 19 Jamil Anderlini and David Pilling, “A Cultural Revolutionary: Ai Weiwei,” Financial Times, November 13/14 , 2010, 7. 20 The word for crab, “he xie” is a homonym for the word “to harmonise” which is a euphemism used to describe compliance with official requests to stop saying or doing what it is that they find troublesome. 21 Ibid, 7. 22 Peter Schjeldahl, “Challenging Work,” The New Yorker, October 22, 2012, 84. 23 Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks, 1‐6 24 Ibid. 25 Jamil Anderlini, “Rooms with a Viewpoint,” Financial Times, February 25/26, 2012, House & Home 2. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Kathrin Hille, “Beijing’s Gulags Pose Test for the Rule of Law,” Financial Times, February 19, 2013, 3. 30 Ibid. 260

31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 The pace of change in China can be very sudden. In November 2013, during the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress, the Party abolished the programme of reform through labour. As this occurred between the date that I submitted my dissertation and the date that I submitted the edited version, I have included the welcome news in this endnote. However, there are indications that certain categories of people, such as Falun Gong adherants and drug offenders will continue to be held under different, less defined forms of detention. “Changing the Soup but Not the Medicine?” Abolishing Re­Education Through Labour in China, (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2013), 5‐6, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/042/2013/en/f7e7aec3‐ e4ed‐4d8d‐b996‐f6ff6sec860db/asa17422013ed.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014). 34 Obrist, “Ai Weiwei Speaks,” 49. 35 Ibid. 36 Anderlini and Piling, “A Cultural Revolutionary,” 7. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Obrist, “Ai Weiwei Speaks,” 11. 40 Jake Hamilton, “My Position Gives People Hope Through the Darkness,” Time Out, August 2011, 30. 41 Ba Jin, “A Museum of the Cultural Revolution (June 15, 1986), Virtual Museum of the ‘Cultural Revolution,” http://www.cnd.org/cr/english/articles/bajin.html (accessed March 26, 2013). 42 Thanks are due to Dr. Alfreda Murck for directing my attention to this museum in her external examiner’s notes. 43 The founder of the museum is not a relation of mine, or not as far as I am aware of. 44 Ibid. 45 Julie Makinen, “China Museum Builder Lets History Speak,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/nov/07/world/la‐ fg‐china‐museums‐20121108 (accessed February 17, 2014). 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Edward Cody, “Chinese Museum Looks Back in Candor,” Washington Post Foreign Service, June 3, 2005, www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐ dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR200506020191 (accessed August 25, 2013). 50 Ibid. 51 Zhou Yan, Lai Yuchen and Chen Ji, “Xinhua Insight: Museum Keeps Cultural Revolution Memories Alive,” SINA English, August 2, 2013, English.sina.com/2013/0802/614724.html (accessed August 25, 2013). 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 261

54 Olga Lang, “Introduction,” in Family (1931), trans . Sidney Shapiro (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972) xxv. 262

Bibliography

Aldrich, M.A. The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China’s Capital Through the Ages. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006.

Anderlini, Jamil. “Confucian Confusion,” Financial Times, June 3, 2011. 9.

Anderlini, Jamil and Kathrin Hille. “A Sharper Focus,” Financial Times, May 11, 2011. 11. Anderlini, Jamil. “Storm Hits China Leadership Change,” Financial Times, February 14, 2012. 3. Anderlini, Jamil. “Wen Raises Fears Over Return of the Cultural Revolution.” Financial Times, March 15, 2012. 1.

Andrews, Julia Frances. A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth­Century China. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998.

Andrews, Julia and Kuiyi Shen, “Light Before Dawn.” In Light Before Dawn: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974­1985, 16‐29. Hong Kong: Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 2013.

Andrews, Julia Frances. Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949­1979. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1994.

Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944­1956. New York and Toronto: Doubleday, 2012.

Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. 1954. New York and London: Penguin Group, 1977, 2006. Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian. New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008. Avakian, Bob. “Bob Avakian: The Making of a Revolutionary.” Revolutionary Worker 1212 September 13, 2003 http://www.rwor.org/a/1212/baback.html.

Ba Jin. “A Museum of the Cultural Revolution (June 15, 1986). Virtual Museum of the ‘Cultural Revolution.” http://www.cnd.org/cr/english/articles/bajin.html (accessed March 26, 2013).

Barlow, Tani E. “Introduction.” In I Myself am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling, edited by Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge, 1‐48. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. 263

Barmé, Geremie. “The Irresistible Fall and Rise of Mao Zedong,” in Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader. Armonk, New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 3‐73.

Becker, Jasper. City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China. London and New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008.

Berghuis, Thomas J. Performance Art in China. Hong Kong: Timezone8, 2006. “A Brief Introduction to the Deeds: Iron Man Wang Jinxi Memorial.” http://www.wangjinxi.com/cn/story.asp. Brownell, Susan, and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities: A Reader. University of California Press, 2002.

Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone, vol. 1. (1973). Translated by David Hawkes. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973.

Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone, vol. 2. (1977). Translated by David Hawkes. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977.

Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone, vol. 5. (1986). Edited by Gao E. Translated by John Minford. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986. Chan Hui. “An Art Programme Serving the Restoration of Capitalism” Chinese Literature, 1967, No. 4, 124. “Changing the Soup but Not the Medicine?” Abolishing Re­Education Through Labour in China. London: Amnesty International Publications, 2013. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/042/2013/en/f7e7aec 3‐e4ed‐4d8d‐b996‐f6ff6sec860db/asa17422013ed.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).

Chao Getu. “Does the History Teacher Deserve to be a Criminal? (lishi laoshi, haidang hezui)” Southern Metropolitan Weekend, May 20, 2010, 1‐2.

Chao Getu and Yang Jibin. “History’s Deep Areas Send a Letter (lishi shenchude laixin),” Southern Metropolitan Weekend, November 4, 2010, 1. Chen, Tina Mai. “Proletarian White and Working Bodies in Mao’s China. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 11:2 (Fall 2003): 361‐393. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pos/summary/v011/11.2chen02.html (accessed January 20, 2014).

“Chen Yifei.” Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute. http://www.youdiao.com.cn/ysj.asp?id=32&showid=26 (accessed April 25 2013). (Chen Yifei, shanghaiyouhuadiaosuyuan).

Chia Chih‐pu, “Workers of Anyuan Will Always Be Faithful to Chairman Mao,” China Pictorial, 1968, n. 9, 16‐17. reference.http://chineseposters.net/resources/chia‐workers‐of‐ anyuan.php. 264

Chiu, Melissa. “Introduction: The Art of Mao’s Revolution.” In Art and China’s Revolution, edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian. 1‐17. New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008.

Clark, Paul. The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Clark, Paul. “Model Theatrical Works and the Remodelling of the Cultural Revoution.” In Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966­1976, edited by Richard King, 167‐187. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Cody, Edward. “Chinese Museum Looks Back in Candor.” Washington Post Foreign Service, June 3, 2005. www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐ dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR200506020191 (accessed August 25, 2013). Croizier, Ralph. “Hu Xian Peasant Paintings.” In Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966­76. Edited by Richard King, 136‐163. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Cushing, Lincoln. “Revolutionary Chinese Posters and Their Impact Abroad.” In Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Edited by Lincoln Cushing and Ann Tompkins, 7‐23. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007.

“Daqing.” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art. http://chineseposters.net./themes/daqing.php.

Davies, Gloria. Lu Xun’s Revolution: Writing in a Time of Violence. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2013. “Dazhai,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/wangjinxi.php. (accessed June 18, 2013). Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Black and Red. 1970, 1977. First published as La Société du Spectacle by Editions Buchet‐Chastel, 1967. http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/19. Dikötter, Frank. The Discourse of Race in Modern China. London: Hurst & Company, 1992. Dikötter, Frank. Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects, and Eugenics in China. London: Hurst & Company, 1998.

Dikötter, Frank. Mao’s Great Famine. London, Berlin, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2010.

Dittmer, Lowell. Liu Shao­Ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1974. 265

Donald, Stephanie Hemelryk. “Making Light: Animation and the Invitation to Laugh Out Loud at Absurdity.” In Poster Power: Images from Mao’s China Then and Now, 18‐20. London: University of Westminster, 2011.

Dyer, Richard. “Don’t Look Now: The Male Pin‐Up,” in The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality. Edited by John Caughie and Annette Kuhn, 265‐ 276. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Endrey, Andrew. “Hu Feng: Return of the Counter‐Revolutionary.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 5 (Jan 1981): 73‐90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2158616 (accessed August 16, 2013). Edwards, Louise. “Dressing for Power: Scholar’s Robes, School Uniforms and Military Attire in China.” In The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas. Edited by Mina Roces and Louise Edwards, 42‐64. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2007. Edwards, Louise and Kam Louie. “Chinese Masculinity: Theorising Wen and Wu.” East Asian History 8 (1994): 135‐148. http://search.infomit.com.au.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/fullText;dn =961009530;res=APAFT (accessed July 21, 2013).

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture. Edited by Edward L. Davis. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Evans, Harriet. “Defining Difference: The ‘Scientific’ Construction of Sexuality and Gender in the People’s Republic of China,” Signs, 220: 2 (Winter, 1995): 357‐394. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174953 (accessed June 1, 2013).

Fan Yin, “Shi Cuowude Lishi Haishi Lishide Cuowu,” Fine Art (Meishu), 1983, No. 7, 13.

Fenby, Jonathan. The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power 1850­2009. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008 and 2009. Fischer‐Schreiber, Ingrid. “Yin‐yang.” In The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Edited by Stephan Schuhmacher and Gert Woerner. Translated by Michael H. Kohn, Karen Ready and Werner Wünsche. 428‐429. Boston: Shambala Publications, Inc., 1986.

Foucault, Michel. Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974­1975. Edited by Valerio Marchetti and Antonella Salomon. Translated by Graham Burchell. London and New York: Verso, 2003.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Allen Lane. London: Penguin Books, 1977. First published as Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison by Éditions Gallimard 1975, 1991.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, Volume 1. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin Books ltd., 1976, trans copyright, 1978. 266

Galikowski, Maria. Art and Politics in China 1949­1984. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998.

Gao Wenqian. Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary. New York: Public Affairs, 2007.

Gapper, John. “Instant Messengers,” Financial Times, October 1/October 2 2012, Life & Arts, 1. Garrahan, Michael. “Made in China,” Financial Times, December 31/January 1 2012, Life & Arts, 8. Garrett, Valery. Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present. Rutland, Vermont and Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2007.

Gao Ming Lu. The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art. New York and Beijing: The Albright Knox Gallery, University of New York at Buffalo Art Galleries and the Millenium Art Museum, 2005. Goldman, Merle. “The Political Use of Lu Xun.” The China Quarterly 91 (September 1982): 446‐461. http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305741000000655 (accessed August 7, 2013). The Great Famine in China, 1958­1962: A Documentary History. Edited by Zhou Xun. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2012. Grunchec, Philippe, “The Painting Curriculum at the École des Beaux‐Arts 1797‐ 1863.” In The Grand Prix de Rome: Paintings from the École des Beaux­Arts 1797­1863. Washington D.C.: The International Exhibitions Foundation, 1984. 23‐28. Golden, Daniel and Oliver Stanley. “China Banning U.S. Professors Elicits Silence From Colleges Employing Them.” Bloomberg News, August 17, 2011, 1‐6. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011‐08‐11/china‐banning‐u‐s‐ professors‐elicits‐silence‐from‐colleges.html.

Ha, Jin. “Introduction: Lu Hsun as a Man.” In Lu Hsun: Selected Stories (1881‐ 1936). New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. vii‐xvi.

Hamilton, Jake. “My Position Gives People Hope Through the Darkness.” Time Out, August 2011, 30. Havel, Václav. “The Power of the Powerless.” In The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe. 1978. Edited by J. Keane. Trans. P. Wilson. London: Hutchinson, 1985. http://vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=eseje&val=2_aj_esje.html&typ=H TML.

Hayashi, Nozomu. “Chinese Authorities Ban Human Rights, Political Discussions at Universities.” Asahi Shimbun, May 12, 2013. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201305120046. 267

He Rong, “Jiang Rensheng you Jiazhi de Dongxi Huimie gei Renkan – Du Lian Huan Hua Feng Hexiang Daode Yixie Wenti,” Fine Art (Meishu), No. 8, 1979. 13‐17.

He Zeren. The Stories Behind 100 Chinese Idioms. Beijing: Sinolingua, 2010.

Higgins, Andrew. “Out of China: Such is the Stuff Heroes are Made of in China.” The Independent (London), March 10, 1990, 13. http://www.morningsun.org/living/heroes/higgins.html.

Hille, Kathrin. “Beijing Censors Microblog Sites Over Coup Comments.” Financial Times, April 2, 2012. 3. Hille, Kathrin. “Beijing’s Gulags Pose Test for the Rule of Law.” Financial Times, February 19, 2013, 3. Höbel, Wolfgang. “Wagner’s Ring Gets a Brash Reboot.” Spiegel Online, 25 July 2013, 2. www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bayreuth‐festival‐ director‐castorf‐takes‐on‐wagner‐ring‐cycle‐a‐912832‐2‐html (accessed 26 July 2013).

Holley, David. “The Foolish Old Man and Other Heroes: Although Some Sneer at the Stories, All Chinese Are Fed an Endless Diet of Role Models. The Government Uses These Folk Sagas to Educate, Entertain – and Control.” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1990, 4. http://www.morningsun.org/living/heroes/latimes.html.

Hsü, Immanuel C.Y. The Rise of Modern China. Sixth Edition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Hung Chang‐Tai. Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Hung Chang‐Tai. “Oil Paintings and Politics: Weaving a Heroic Tale of the Chinese Communist Revolution.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49:4 (October 2007): 783‐814. http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S001041750700076X.

Jiang, Jiehong. “The Revolution Continues.” In The Revolution Continues: New Art from China. London: Random House and the Saatchi Gallery, 2008.

Jiang Qing, “Jiang Qing’s Discussion with Arts Workers.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 220. New York: Asia Society, 2008.

Jiang Qing. “Reforming the Fine Arts.” In China’s Cultural Revolution, 1966­1969. Edited by Michael Schoenhals, 197‐202. Armonk, New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.

Johnson, Ian. “At China’s New Museum, History Toes Party Line.” New York Times, April 3, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04museu.html?pagew anted=all&_r=0. 268

Kraus, Richard Curt. The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture (State and Society in East Asia). Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronton and Oxford: Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004.

Lang, Olga. “Introduction,” in Family (1931). Translated by Sidney Shapiro, vii‐ xxvi. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972.

Landsberger, Stefan. Chinese Posters: The IISH­Landsberger Collections. Munich, Berlin, London and New York: Prestell, 2009.

Landsberger, Stefan. “Paint it Red. Fifty Years of Chinese Propaganda Posters.” Groningen: Intermed Publishers. 1998. 23‐37. http://chineseposters.net/resources/landsberger‐paint‐it‐red.php.

Levy, Dore J. Ideal and Actual in The Story of the Stone. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Li, Cunxin. Mao’s Last Dancer. Camberwell: Penguin Group (Australia), 2003. Li, Zhisui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao. Translated by Tai Hung‐Chao. London: Arrow Books, 1996.

Liu Chunhua, “Painting Pictures of Chairman Mao is Our Greatest Happiness.” China Reconstructs, October 1968. 2‐6. http://chineseposters.net/resources/liu‐ chunhua‐painting‐pictures‐of‐chairman‐mao.php.

Liu Chunhua, “Singing the Praises of Our Great Leader Is Our Greatest Happiness.” Chinese Literature, 1968. 32‐40. http://chineseposters.net/resources/liu‐ chunhua‐singing‐the‐praises.php.

Liu Heung Shing, ed. China: Portrait of a Country. Hong Kong: Taschen, 2008.

Liu Hsung Shing and Karen Smith. Shanghai: A History in Pictures. Camberwell, Australia: Penguin Group, 2010.

Liu Xiaobo. “The Erotic Carnival in Recent Chinese History.” In No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, 150‐174. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.

“Liu Zhide.” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art. 2, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/liuzhide.php. (accessed June 28, 2013).

Lo Kuan‐chung. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, vol. 1. 1959. Translated by C.H. Brewitt‐Taylor. Reprint, Tokyo and Rutland: Tuttle Publishing, 2002.

Louie, Kam and Louise Edwards. “Chinese Masculinity: Theorizing Wen and Wu.” East Asian History, 8 (1994), 135‐148. http://search.infomit.com.au.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/fullText;dn =961009530;res=APAFT (accessed 29 July 2013). 269

Louie, Kam. “Sexuality, Masculinity and Politics in Chinese Culture: The Case of the ‘Sanguo’ Hero Guan Yu.” Modern Asian Studies, 33:4 (October 1999), 835‐859. http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0026749X99003558 (accessed July 1, 2013).

Lü Peng. A History of Art in 20th­Century China. Translated by Bruce Doer. Milano and New York: Charta Books Ltd., 2010. Lu Hsun. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. 1972. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2003.

Lu, Tonglin. “Fantasy and Ideology in a Chinese Film: A Zizekian Reading of the Cultural Revolution.” Positions, Duke University Press, 12.2 (2004): 539‐ 564.

Lu Tonglin. “Allegorial and Realistic Portrayals of the Cultural Revolution.” In Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China, 58‐92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Lu Xing. Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication. University of South Carolina: Columbia, South Carolina, 2004.

MacFarquhar, Roderick. “The Cultural Revolution.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 41‐54. New York, New Haven and London: Asia Society and Yale University Press, 2008.

MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao’s Last Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2006. MacFarquhar, Roderick. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961­1966. New York: Columbia University Press and London: Oxford University Press, 1997. Makinen, Julie. “China Museum Builder Lets History Speak.” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/nov/07/world/la‐fg‐china‐ museums‐20121108 (accessed February 17, 2014). Malkani, Gautam. “Quite Right, China, Not ‘To Want to be a Millionaire.’” Financial Times, 5‐6 Nov. 2011: 7. Mao Tse‐tung, “On New Democracy, January 1940.” In Selected Works of Mao Tse­Tung. Peking: Foreign Language Press. Vol. 2. 2004 www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected‐works/volume‐ 2/mswv2_26.1 (accessed August 7, 2013).

Mao Tse‐Tung. “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, March 1927.” In Selected Works of Mao Tse­Tung. Peking: Foreign Language Press. Vol. 1. 2004 http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected‐ works/volume‐1/mswv1_2.htm. 270

Mao Tse‐Tung. “A Study of Physical Education: April 1917. ” In The Political Thought of Mao Tse­tung. Edited and translated by Stuart Schram, 152‐160. 1963. New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1969.

Mao Tse‐Tung. “Talks at the Chengtu Conference March 1958.” Edited and translated by Stuart Schram, 96‐124. 1974. Pantheon Books. 1974.

Mao Tse‐Tung. “Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and the Arts, May 22, 1942.” In Selected Works of Mao Tse­Tung. Peking: Foreign Language Press. Vol. 1. 2004 http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected‐ works/volume‐3/mswv3_08.htm. Mao Tse‐Tung, “The Role of Youth in the Revolution.” In The Political Thought of Mao Tse­tung. Edited and translated by Stuart Schram, 354‐356. 1963. New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. 1969. Mao Zedong, “A Talk to Music Workers.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 216‐219. New York: Asia Society, 2008. Melvin, Sheila. “Chinese Army Exposes Its Artistic Side.” The New York Times (New York), August 2, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/arts/03iht‐ melvin03.html?pagewanted=all&r=0. Melvin, Sheila and Jindong Cai. “Why This Nostalgia for Fruits of Chaos?” New York Times, October 20, 2000. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/arts/why‐this‐nostalgia‐for‐fruits‐ of‐chaos.html (accessed 26 July 2013).

Melvin Sheila and Jindong Cai. Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese. New York: Algora Publishing, 2004.

Menand, Louis. “Bloc Heads: Life Behind the Iron Curtain.” New Yorker (November 12, 2012): 77‐84. Murck, Alfreda. “Golden Mangoes – The Life Cycle of a Cultural Revolution Symbol.” Archives of Asian Art. 57 (2007): 1‐21. Murck, Alfreda, ed. Mao’s Golden Mangoes and the Cultural Revolution. Zurich: Museum Rietberg Zürich and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2013.

Norman, Andrew. Robert Mugabe and the Betrayal of Zimbabwe. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. Inc., 2004.

Obrist, Hans Ulrich. Ai Weiwei Speaks with Hans Ulrich Obrist. London and New York: Penguin Group, 2011.

Pan, Philip P. Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2008. Pantsov, Alexander V. and Steven I. Levine. Mao: The Real Story. Translated by Steven I. Levine. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. 271

Perry, Elizabeth J. Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition. Berkeley, New York and London: University of California Press, 2012.

Perry, Elizabeth J. “Red Literati: Communist Educators at Anyuan, 1921‐25.” In Twentieth­Century China (April 2007): 111‐134. http://web.ebscohost.com.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/ehost/detail? vid=4&sid=2592d0c8‐a7ce‐4e31‐a77b‐ 962c7a631488%40sessionmgr4&hid=1&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3Q+bG12 ZQ%3d%3d (accessed 28 July 2013).

Pictorial Stories of Chinese Classics: Water Margin, vol. 1. Translated and edited by C.C. Low & Associates. 1978. Reprint, Singapore: Canfonian Pte. Ltd., 1990.

Ricard, Matthieu. Happiness. New York and Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003. Rittenberg, Sidney and Amanda Bennett. The Man Who Stayed Behind. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. Roell, Sophie. “Rod MacFarquhar on The Cultural Revolution.” Five Books Interviews, June 22, 2010. fivebooks.com/interviews/rod.macfarquhar‐on‐ cultural‐revolution. Saatchi Gallery. The Revolution Continues: New Art from China. London: Random House and the Saatchi Gallery, 2008.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Inside/Out: New Chinese Art. Edited by Gao Minglu. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New York: Asia Society Galleries; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Sakamoto, Hajime. “The Cult of ‘Love and Eugenics’ in May Fourth Movement Discourse.” Positions, Duke University Press. 12:2 (2004): 329‐376.

Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Schjeldahl, Peter. “Challenging Work,” The New Yorker, October 22, 2012, 84.

Schneider, L.A. “Learning from Russia: Lysenkoism and the Fate of Genetics in China 1950‐1986.” In Science and Technology in Post­Mao China. Eds. Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1989. 45‐65. Schram, Stuart R. The Political Thought of Mao Tse­tung. 1963. New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969. Schrift, Melissa. Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Scott, James. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009. 272

“Shang Ding,” Baidu_Baike, http://baike.baidu.com/view/1410374.htm1.

Shapiro, Judith. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Shen, Jiawei. “The Fate of a Painting.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian. New York: Asia Society, 2008, 133‐147. Shen, Kuiyi, “Propaganda Posters and Art during the Cultural Revolution.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 149‐ 163. New York: Asia Society, 2008. Shen, Kuiyi. “Propaganda Posters in China.” In Chinese Posters: The IISH­ Landsberger Collections. Edited by Stefan R. Landsberger and Marien Van Der Heijden, 8‐20. Munich: Prestel, 2009. Shue, Vivienne. The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Silbergeld, Jerome with Gong Jisui. Contraditions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1993. Smith, Karen. “Picture This.” In China: A Country in Pictures. Edited by Karen Smith and T.S. Liu, 55‐67. Hong Kong, Köln, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo: Taschen, 2010.

Snow, Edgar. Red Star Over China. 3rd ed. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972.

Spence, Jonathan. Mao Zedong: A Life. New York: Penguin Group, 1999.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. 2nd ed. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd., 1999, 1990. Su, Yang. Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Sullivan, Michael. Art and Artists of Twentieth­Century China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.

“Summary of the Proceedings of the Forum on Literature and Art in the Armed Forces, Convened by Comrade Jiang Qing with the Endorsement of Comrade Lin Biao.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Eds. Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian. New York: Asia Society, 2008, 222‐227.

Suttmeier, Richard P. “Science, Technology, and China’s Political Future – A Framework for Analysis.” In Science and Technology in Post­Mao China. Eds. Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University, 1989. 375‐396.

Walder, Andrew. “Actually Existing Maoism.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 18 (July 1987): 155‐166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2158588 (accessed June 14, 2013). 273

Walder, Andrew. “Collective Behavior Revisted: Ideology and Politics in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Rationality and Society. 6:400 (1994): 400‐ 421. http://rss/sagepub.com/content/6/3/400 (accessed June 20, 2013).

Walder, Andrew. Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Walder, Andrew and Yang Su. “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside: Scope, Timing and Human Impact.” The China Quarterly. 173 (March 2003): 9574‐94. http//journals.cambridge,org/abstract_S0009443903000068. (accessed June 14, 2013). Wang, Helen. Chairman Mao Badges: Symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution. London: British Museum, 2008. “Wang Jinxi.” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art. http://chinesweposter.net/themes/wangjinxi.php.

Wang Mingxian and Yan Shanchun. 1966­1976: The Art History of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing: China Youth Publishing Society, 2000.

“Wang Jinxi,” Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art, http://www.chineseposters.net/themes/daqing.php.

Wang Youqin. “’Heading to a Good Place:’ Red Guards Apologise (dailege haotou: hongweibing daoqian)” Southern Metropolitan Weekend. October 21, 2012, E23.

Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. “Keeping Mao Company.” In Poster Power: Images from Mao’s China, Then and Now. London: University of Westminster, 2011. 10‐ 13.

Wugang County Supervision Committee, [Hunan Province], “Document 11: A report regarding the incident in which female workers from Numbers 3, 4, 5, and 7 regiments of the Red Flag people’s commune were encouraged to work topless during their supportive work in steel production, and regarding as well the negative feelings it caused among the general public, December 18, 1958. In The Great Famine in China, 1958­1962, ed. Zhou Xun. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012. 39‐42.

Wu Hung. Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao. Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution. Trans. D.W.Y. Kwok . Honolulu: School of Hawaiian, Asian & Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, 1996.

Yan Shanchun. “Painting Mao.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 91‐101. New York: Asia Society, 2008. 274

Yang Jisheng. Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao’s Great Famine. Eds. Edward Friedman, Guo Jian and Stacy Mosher. Translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian. London: Allen Lane, a division of Penguin Books Ltd., 2012.

Ye Qianyu, Fleeting Years of Dramatic Change (xixucangsang jiliunian). Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House, 2006.

Yung, Bell. “Introduction,” in The Flower Princess: A Cantonese Opera by Tong Dik Sang, 1‐23. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010.

Zhang Mingcun. “Aged 26 Chen Yi Fei Created the ‘Ode to the Yellow River.’” Dalian Evening Newspaper 12 April 2005 (“26 shui Chen Yifei chuangzuo ‘huanghesong’”), http://news.xinhuanet.com/collection/2005‐ 04/12content_2818785.htm.

Zheng Shengtian. “Art and Revolution: Looking Back at Thirty Years of History.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 19‐39. New York: Asia Society, 2008.

Zheng Shengtian. “Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan: A Conversation with the Artist Liu Chunhua.” In Art and China’s Revolution. Edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian, 119‐131. New York: Asia Society, 2008.

Zhi, Mei. F. Hu Feng’s Prison Years. Translated by Gregor Benton. London and New York: Verso, 2013.

Zhou, Yan, Lai Yuchen and Chen Ji. “Xinhua Insight: Museum Keeps Cultural Revolution Memories Alive.” SINA English, August 2, 2013, English.sina.com/2013/0802/614724.html (accessed August 25, 2013).