Moving Labor Heroes Center Stage: (Labor) Heroism and the Reconfiguration of Social Relations in the Yan'an Period
Journal: Journal of Chinese History
Year: 2020

Abstract Labor heroes are an important phenomenon in the history of socialist China, but they have received only little attention in Western scholarship. This article investigates the labor heroes of the Yan'an period as the pivot in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) attempt at reconceptualizing society, establishing new social relations and creating a socialist subjectivity. It reveals the new symbolic order constructed in the official media, primarily Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily), and hi