The Photo Network: Visual Communication in the Media of the People’s Republic of China, 1942—1981 Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades des Doktors der Philosophie der Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften, Fachbereich Sinologie der Universität Hamburg vorgelegt von Bernd Spyra aus Kiel Hamburg, 2020 Vorsitzender der Prüfungskommission: Prof. Dr. Michael Friedrich Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Michael Friedrich Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Margit Kern Datum der Disputation: 19.11.2020 Contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Photo Network .................................................................................................................. 3 1.2 Photography as Visual Communication within the Photo Network ........................................ 5 1.3 Previous Scholarship on the Photo Network and Chinese Photography.................................. 7 1.3.1 Western Scholarship ......................................................................................................... 7 1.3.2 Chinese Scholarship ......................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Scholarly and Technical Remarks ......................................................................................... 10 1.5 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 11 2 Prologue ........................................................................................................................................ 12 2.1 Sha Fei ................................................................................................................................... 13 2.2 The Black and White Photo Society ...................................................................................... 14 2.3 Sha Fei’s Breakthrough as a Photojournalist ......................................................................... 16 2.4 Wu Yinxian ............................................................................................................................ 21 2.5 The Flight from the Cities ...................................................................................................... 24 2.6 The Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area ...................................................................................................... 27 2.7 Deng Tuo’s and Sha Fei’s Introductions for Wu Yinxian’s Textbook on Photography ........ 31 2.8 The Jin-Cha-Ji Illustrated...................................................................................................... 36 2.9 Publications in other Communist Base Areas ........................................................................ 39 2.10 Wu Yinxian’s Activities in Yan’an and the Yan’an Film Group ......................................... 41 2.11 The War’s End and the Death of Sha Fei............................................................................. 47 2.12 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 47 3 The Photo Network ....................................................................................................................... 49 3.1 The Beginnings of the Photo Network ................................................................................... 50 3.1.1 The First Department of News Photography .................................................................. 52 3.1.2 Shi Shaohua, Director of Xinhua’s Photography Department ........................................ 55 3.2 The Photography Department of Xinhua and its Local Branch Departments........................ 57 3.3 Distribution Media: Illustrated Magazines ............................................................................ 72 3.3.1 Illustrated Magazines Published by Central Organizations ............................................ 74 I 3.3.2 Illustrated Magazines Published by Regional and Local Organizations ........................ 76 3.4 Vocational Magazines and Newsletters ................................................................................. 82 3.5 Exhibitions and other Means of Photographic Publication .................................................... 84 3.6 The Photography Association ................................................................................................ 88 3.7 Civilian Training and Education of Photographers at Universities ....................................... 91 3.7.1 Textbooks on Photography ............................................................................................. 95 3.7.2 The Case of Lin Zecang.................................................................................................. 98 3.8 International Influences and Exchange ................................................................................ 111 3.8.1 Cameras and Equipment ............................................................................................... 112 3.8.2 The Soviet Model ......................................................................................................... 115 3.9 Establishment of Full CCP Control of the Photo Network in the Late 1950s ..................... 127 3.9.1 The Free Airing of Views under the Policy of a “Hundred Flowers” .......................... 131 3.9.2 The Rectification Movement of 1957 and Campaigns against “Old Photographers” .. 138 3.9.3 Wei Nanchang, an “Old Photographer” as a Model-“Rightist”.................................... 145 3.9.4 Further “Rightists” ........................................................................................................ 152 3.9.5 The Failed “Great Leap” and the Establishment of Orthodoxy .................................... 157 3.10 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 166 4 The Depiction of Leaders through the Photo Network ............................................................... 170 4.1 Introduction to the Photographic Representation of Power in 20th-Century China ............. 172 4.2 Mao as a Symbol for the Party and State ............................................................................. 173 4.3 The Standardized Depiction of Power ................................................................................. 178 4.4 Visibility Equals Power: Mao’s Personality Cult and Non-Administrational Visibility ..... 182 4.4.1 Jiang Qing and the Cave of the Immortal on Lushan ................................................... 188 4.4.2 Displaying Loyalty ....................................................................................................... 196 4.5 Invisibility and the Negation of Visibility ........................................................................... 215 4.6 Imitating Power: The Case of Hua Guofeng ........................................................................ 222 4.7 Reversing the Visual Program: Invisible Power and Visible Powerlessness ....................... 226 4.7.1 Hua Guofeng ................................................................................................................ 226 4.7.2 Peng Dehuai, Tao Zhu and Liu Shaoqi ......................................................................... 227 4.7.3 The Trial of the Gang of Four ...................................................................................... 230 II 4.8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 234 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 235 6 Appendix: List of Illustrated Magazines Published in the PRC 1945—1980 ............................. 240 7 List of Figures and Pictorial Sources .......................................................................................... 251 8 List of Sources ............................................................................................................................. 254 Sources Published in China ....................................................................................................... 254 Sources Published in Western Countries ................................................................................... 263 9 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 266 Zusammenfassung .......................................................................................................................... 267 III Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life- process.” Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology: Parts I & III, Lawrence & Wishart, 1939 (manuscript 1845-46). 1 Introduction When