Red Souvenirs
Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

Yoko Takayama
Introduction“Red souvenirs,” including key rings, cell phone straps, and postcards, are the mostrecognized of all contemporary Chinese souvenirs with their vibrant images of communist leadersand martyrs. In China, the color red is a symbol of socialism and traditionally an auspicious color.
The motif of Red souvenirs is mainly based on the “Red spirit,” that is, the collective memory of
revolutionary history, which is particularly embodied in Propaganda art and martyr memorials
embellishing public squares. During 1942 and 1976, “Red” memorials were built all over thecountry in an official art style called the “Mao style.” After the end of the Cultural Revolution, theMao style faded with enormous hatred directed toward this turbulent movement. However since1978, this hostility has gradually receded with the implementation of reform and the adaption of amore open policy, and the Mao style increasingly began to decorate souvenirs.
What accounts for this successful reevaluation of the Chinese propaganda posters? How did
they change their functions from means of propaganda to souvenirs? Focusing on “Red series”
playing cards, this paper demonstrates the commodification process of the Chinese propaganda art
accompanied by the revival of the Mao Cult and the increasing popularity of “Red tourism.”

Rise of the Red Spirit
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921 by Chen Duxiu with the supportof the Soviet Union in an initial collaboration with the Kuomintang (KMT). After the death of Sun
Yat-sen, the founder of the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek gained control after a power struggle within theparty. He struck out against the communists in March 1927, resulting in the death of many
communists in Shanghai, Guangdong, and Changsha. In response, on 1 August 1927, the CCP
launched an armed uprising against the Wuhan Nationalist Government, in Nanchang, the capitalof the Jiangxi Province. From the struggle, Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting, and Lin Bocheng emerged as the
new leaders of the party. On 9 September 1927, another uprising led by Mao Zedong occurred in
the border area between the Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. Because of the failure of these two
urban uprisings, the CCP were forced to withdraw to the hinterland to reorganize their troops.
They eventually grouped in Jinggangshan, located in the Luoxiao Mountains. In 1931, the Chinese
Soviet Republic was established under Mao Zedong’s leadership in Ruijin in southeast Jiangxi.
After an attack from Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, Mao Zedong decided to leave Ruijin and launchedthe Long March, a massive military retreat from Ruijin to Yan’an, located in Shanxi Province.
Although many soldiers died on the 12,500-kilometer trek, in 1937 the Red Army finally arrived at- 85 -

Yoko Takayama

Yan'an in western Shanxi Province (Figure 1), where the new headquarters of the CCP was later
established. Subsequently, the Long March has been considered as one of the most important
historical events that younger generations born after 1949 should learn about to gain the proper
appreciation of the Red spirit.
It was in Yan’an that Mao Zedong further developed his revolutionary thought, which later
became the basis of The Little Red Book, a selective collection of Mao texts, and declared Yan’an
Talk after the Conference on Literature and Art in May 1942. The latter conference was assembled
to resolve the tension between the two groups of artists: one was those who had learned western art
styles in the newly built art academies in Shanghai and Hangzhou, and moved to Yan’an to work at
the Luxun Academy of Fine Art founded in 1938, after the anti-Japanese war intensified; the otherwas the local artists with Chinese traditional art styles of wood-cuts and ink-painting. At thisconference, Mao Zedong pronounced that the artists should create works to awaken and inspire themasses to rise, urging them to unite and struggle, and to participate in transforming their own
environment, which determined the official art style of the forthcoming period.

Figure 1.

Map 1.

Socialist Realism in China
Since the defeat in the Opium War in 1842, modernization project including adoption of thewestern art styles had run parallel with the anti-imperialist movement in China. Both artists withtraditional styles and those with newly introduced western styles have groped for the best way toraise the patriotic feelings of people through their works. Traditional painters, such as Zheng
Mantuo (1885–1961), Xie Zhigguang (1900–1976), and Hang Zhiying (1900–1947), switched the
motifs from beautiful women with coquettish smile on Yuefenpai, calendars advertising modern
products such as soap, tobacco, and cosmetics, first published in Shanghai, to fighting women inorder to support the anti-Japanese struggle after the outbreak the war in 1937. Hang Zhiying, forinstance, depicted fighting heroines such as Hua Mulan, a legendary female soldier who fought inplace of her aged father, Hong Niangzi, who joined the army of Li Zicheng to overthrow the Ming
Dynasty, and Liang Hongyu, the wife of General Hang Shizhong, who fought against the Jin Army

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Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

in the thirteenth century. Female warriors were often deployed as heroines, as they represented amore dramatic and striking appearance than male warriors, being more effective in cultivating
patriotic feelings among the populace.1
On the other hand, Jin Meisheng (1902–1989) and Li Mubai (1913–1991), who learned oil
painting under the influence of the Socialist Realism of the Soviet Union, which was establishedby Joseph Stalin in 1934,2 created posters using oil paints. After the Russian Revolution in 1917,
Russian propaganda posters mainly depicted workers and peasants in accordance with the official
style of Socialist Realism, with stereotypical themes including revolution, kolkhoz (collectivefarm), army, sports, victory of socialism, and revolutionary heroes.3 The stimulus for poster
creation can be traced to the State Electric Campaign, which was launched by Lenin to evoke thespread of light, power, and energy all over the country. The poster Higher and Higher (Figure 2),
for instance, depicts two young workers climbing a pylon high above the countryside, representing
the development of an electricity network. Although this dramatic touch may seem
Hollywood-esque, the woman is not depicted in a sexual or erotic way. She looks purposefully
upwards; one of the rules of Socialist Realism implies that the contemporary world is ideallyconnected to the Socialist future.4
As a result of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance signed in
February 1950, Socialist Realism was passively introduced into China through plastic art. In
October 1954, an exhibition designed to highlight the “economic and cultural achievement of theSoviet Union” took place in Beijing, where 11,300 exhibits were displayed in sixteen buildings,
including a model of the Moscow University built in the Stalin style. The president of the Soviet
Art Academy, Aleksandr Gerasimov, also visited Beijing. 5 In February 1955, Konstantin
Maksimov came from Moscow as an advisor at the China Academy of Art. His primary mission
was to teach oil painting as it was considered an effective medium to convey revolutionary history.
Maksimov instructed students how to create revolutionary art, both politically and aesthetically.6
Through Maksimov’s lessons, some Chinese oil painters learned the techniques of former Russian
artists such as Bassuly Surikov and Ilya Repin.7

1

Hung Chang-tai, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945 (Berkley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1997), p. 77.
2
Caradog Vaughan James, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory (London: Macmillan, 1973).
3
Igor Golomstock, Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the People’s Republic ofChina (Translated from Russian by Robert Chandler) (London: Collins Harvill, 1990).
4
Toby Clark, Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century: Political Images in the Age of Mass Culture.
(London: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1997), pp. 89-90.
5Chen Lin, 1954, “Development of the Soviet Union’s Culture and Education,” Peoples’ Daily (30 September
1954) (in Chinese).
6
Zhou Yuejin, A History of Chinese Fine Art: 1949-2000 (Shenzhen: Hunan Art Press, 2002), p. 80. (in Chinese)
7
Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p.
137.

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Yoko Takayama

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

The strong influence of Soviet Socialist Realism is particularly noticeable in two posters,
Another Good Harvest (Figure 3)8 and Steeling Ourselves Against the Strength of the Wind andStorms (Figure 4)9. According to the theme of abundant harvest, the posters depict young women
working in farms and factories and on high-tension wires and water-storage dams. The poster
Together the Workers and Peasants Sing the Song of the Plentiful Harvest is also typical, depicting
two women singing while looking upwards, one with her hair in plaits and wearing a straw hat andthe other with a white towel wrapped around her neck. Their tanned faces and plump red cheeks
are distinctly different from the pale faces expressing ennui in Yuefenpai. The emphasis on womenin Chinese propaganda art is attributed to Mao Zedong’s slogan “Chinese women hold up half thesky” and the underlying influence of Socialist Realism. Using this slogan in his oil painting, Wang
Jinglan (1942–) depicted women holding a shovel, hoe, and yoke. Liu Hulan (1932–1947) andZhao Yiman (1905–1932), both female revolutionary heroines, replaced the previous fighting
female soldiers such as Hua Mulan and Liang Hongyu in posters. Liu Hulan, who was captured
and killed by the KMT army in a small village of Shanxi Province, became dramatically popular,
after Mao Zedong published the slogan “A Great Life and a Glorious Death.” When her life wasdramatized at the Tianqiao Theater in 1954, her status was elevated from a mere village secretary
to a CCP member, and her hardships were amplified in the drama by her grandmother and a farmer
informing against the KMT, and a female comrade betraying her. These embellishments reinforced
an image of her allegiance to the CCP, thereby illuminating her as an exemplary heroine.10 In
1957, a monument to commemorate her sacrifice was established in her hometown of Wenshui in
the Shanxi Province.
Thus, revolutionary heroes and heroines were created under the influence of Socialist Realism.
8

Lu Pan and Pan Honghong, People’s Art Publishing House, 1972.
Ying Xiaohe and Mu Li, People’s Sports Publishing House, 1976.
10
Seki Hiroshi, “A Form and Change of Hero: An Image of Liu Hulan before and after 1949,” China-Society andCulture 20 (2005), pp. 258-265. (in Japanese).
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Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev condemned Stalinist architecture as excessive, which led to an
ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and China. As a result, the Soviet influence on
Chinese art gradually waned and a unique style of art emerged.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

The Cultural Revolution and the Mao Cult
The start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 pushed Mao Zedong forward as the mostfrequently portrayed predominant figure in propaganda posters. He was depicted as a great leader,commander, teacher, and father, which would make his image sacrosanct. In 1966, the 73-year-old
Mao Zedong swam the Yangtze River in Wuhan, ostentatiously flaunting his good health. On 25
July 1966, pictures of this event as well as him waving his right hand onboard a ship came out in
the Peoples’ Daily along with his poems. Soon after, the slogan Great Wind and Great Wave
became a popular quote11, as shown in Figure 4.
On 2 March 1969, the dispute over the Sino-Soviet border took an exceptionally violent turnwhen Chinese forces fired at the Soviet border troops patrolling the Zhenbao (Damanski) Island on
the Ussuri River; some fifty Soviet soldiers were killed. From Now on We Must Be Prepared(Figure 5) is one of twenty nine slogans published in the People’s Daily on 17 July 1969, tocommemorate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. It reads asfollows: “People unite and oppose a war of aggression by imperialism, especially, a war with an
atomic bomb. Even if the war happens, people should dispel it as a revolutionary war. From now
on we must be prepared.”12
Elementary school students are one of the most popular subjects of propaganda posters. The
title of Figure 6 is China must achieve great things for humanity, which depicts four students
whose eyes were fixed onward standing in front of the blackboard on which the slogan “Let’s

11“Chairman Mao Swan the Yangtze River,” People’s Daily (24 July 1966); “Go Forwards in Great Wind andGreat Wave Following Chairman Mao,” People’s Daily (25 July 1966) (in Chinese).
12“Commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Founding of the People’s Republic of China,” People’s Daily (19 July1969) (in Chinese).

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Yoko Takayama

study hard for the revolution” (Wei ge ming qin fen xue xi) was written with red chalk.13 Maobadges on their clothes and scarves around their necks were the inevitable properties in those days.
Moreover, pre-elementary school children wearing red clothes are shown in the center of theposters The Sprit of Yan’an is Passed on from Generation to Generation (Figure 7).14 Boys often
appear with weapons such as spears and guns and girls appear with books, scoops, loudspeakers,
and straw hats. Mao Zedong appeared as a contemporaneous young man living in Jinggangshan
and Yan’an.

Figure 6.

Figure 7.

The oil painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan created by Liu Chunhua, a student at theCentral Academy of Industrial Art, was considered the most striking work during the Cultural
Revolution. Collectively designed and planned by a group of university students, it was displayed
at the exhibition with the title “Mao Thought and a Brilliant Revolutionary Movement of Anyuan
Coal Miner” in the Chinese Revolutionary Museum in Beijing. Liu Chuhua was greatly impressedwith the style of Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov (1865–1911), who belonged to a group of artists
known as the Itinerants. Liu’s work was eulogized by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife and one of
the Gang of Four, who proclaimed on seeing his work “Red, Light and Bright” and “High, Greatand Perfect.” These words were popular principles at that time.15 More than 900 million copies
were made of Liu’s work, in the form of posters, cups, commemorative stamps, and badges, which
boosted the image of a young Mao Zedong as a symbol of the Cultural Revolution. The painting
Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan originally depicted Mao Zedong going to Anyuan in the Jiangxi
Province in order to lead the miners’ strike. In fact, before the Cultural Revolution, it was Liu
Shaoqi who had been recognized as the head of this act. Considered to be Mao Zedong’s successor,
Liu Shaoqi was depicted as the leader in the 1960 oil painting Liu Shaoqi and Anyuan Miners by
Hou Yimin, an adherent to Socialist Realism. In the 1960s, however, the spread of the Mao cultacross the country and the increasing portrayal of Mao Zedong as the young leader of the peasant
13

Lingtong and Yuxin Middle School, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1972.
Zuo Jianhua, Tianjin People’s Art Publishing House, 1974.
15“A Great Art Flower Bloomed in the Proletariat Cultural Revolution: the Birth of the Grand Painting ‘Chairman
Mao Goes to Anyuan’” People’s Daily (July 9 1968) (in Chinese)
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Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

movement in the Hunan Province andJinggangshan ousted Liu Shaoqi as the acme ofleader. 16 Various slogans created by Mao
Zedong were deployed in posters including
Together the Workers and Peasants Sing theSong of the Plentiful Harvest, In Agriculture,
Learn from Dazhai and Create Districts like
Dazhai throughout the Land, and Learn from
Daqing’s Industry! (Figure 8).17
Figure 8.

Reevaluation of Propaganda Posters
As the end of the Cultural Revolution made the Mao Style and Socialist Realism an object ofconstant criticism, artists changed their subject from revolutionary struggle and service to workers
and soldiers to concept of beauty, self-expression and abstractism in art,18 and deliberately began
to reconsider what was Socialist Realism. Consequently, they have noticed Socialist Realism could
not establish a positive new art style for the proletariat, nor did the Mao style become avant-garde,
ending up with a mere imitation of Soviet Socialist Realism, as the essential discussion about it
had been neglected in the Soviet Union and China.19 Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan was one ofhighly controversial works. For example, Ye Qianyu unleashed a scathing attack stating that
Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan was devoid of originality and a mere pastiche of Italian religious
paintings from the Renaissance period, and that it was extremely absurd to depict communist
leaders like a god or savior.20
But these criticisms do not preclude propaganda posters from being sold, more often than not,for very high prices at auction today. While referring to the period of the Cultural Revolution as
the “lost ten years” or a “cultural desert,” Chinese artists still continue to use its images incontemporary Chinese art.21 In addition, Chinese propaganda posters are highly evaluated in many
countries. At the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, for example, the Propaganda Poster
Exhibition in 2002 featured Chairman Mao Inspecting Fushun and The People’s Army is the Rootof Victory. When “Eastern Illustration Posters: China, Korea, and Japan” opened at the Museum ofTama University in Tokyo, Aoyama Takashi, the chief producer of this exhibition, heaped praiseon the aesthetic value of Chinese propaganda posters.22 Pan Gang, a collector of propaganda
16

Zhou Yuejin, p.137.
Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House and People’s Art Publishing House, 1971.
18
Maria Galikowski, Art and Politics in China 1949-1984 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1998), p. 188.
19
Maki Yoichi, Matsuura Tuneo, and Kawata Susumu, Chinese Propaganda Art (Tokyo: Iwanami Press, 2001),
p. 144 (in Japanese).
20
Ye Qianyu, “Talk on Oil Painting ‘Memory of War Comrades,’” Peoples’ Daily (14 March 1979) (in Chinese).
21
Jiang Jiehong, “Burden or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art,” in Jiang
Jiehong, ed., Burden or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art (Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press, 2007), pp. 4-5.
22
Aoyama Takashi, Chinese Posters (Asahi Shinbun Publishing, 2008) (in Japanese).
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Yoko Takayama

posters, has pointed out the following four reasons for the high prices of Chinese propaganda
posters sold in foreign countries. First of all, they are useful objects to study modern Chinese art
because of their extensive motifs including political, economic, and diplomatic events; second,
their style distinguishes so starkly with that of propaganda art in other countries; third, they havelittle association with today’s political motivation or agenda; and finally, as the negative memoriesof the Cultural Revolution have faded away, they have acquired a commercial value, if preservedin good condition.23
Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan remains as controversial as ever. When the original paintingof the poster was at auction on 7 October 1995, the Guangzhou Branch of the Construction Bankbid 5.5 million yuan for it and paid an extra 550 thousand yuan (as a service cost) to the China
Guardian International Auction Co. Ltd. While now under the auspices of the Construction Bank,
this picture remains state-owned according to a court decision rejecting an appeal from the
Chinese Revolutionary Museum that Liu Chunhua, the former Dean of Beijing Art Academy, andthe Construction Bank return the painting. On 1 April 2002, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s
Court announced that the state should have the proprietary right with Liu Chunhua enjoying the
copyright.24
A significant impetus for the growing popularity in today’s China of propaganda posters
generated during the Cultural Revolution is the official promotion of Red tourism, which takes
form as a “political pilgrimage” or “battlefield tourism” based on the Red spirit, namely, thecollective memory of revolutionary history. Important historical events commemorated throughthis tour encompass the 1927 Nanchang Uprising in the Jiangxi Province, the establishment of theChinese Soviet in Ruijin in 1931, the 1935 Zhunyi conference having resolved Mao Zedong’s
primacy in the CCP, the Long March, and the foundation of Yan’an headquarters in 1937. These
regions represent sacred revolutionary places where the Chinese Communist Party hasenergetically invested in and developed tourist attractions.

Red Tourism and Red Souvenirs
After the CCP promulgated the “Outline on Implementing Patriotic Education” and requested
local government to establish Patriotic Education Bases in 1991, 100 sites were selected to be
Patriotic Education Bases, which are mainly comprised of the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese
Civil Wars between the CCP and the KMT, the Korean War, the Arrow War and the Opium War.
That also includes some archaeological and historical sites such as the Forbidden Palace and theGreat Wall of China. Another selection of 100 sites was held in 2001, following by 66 more in2006.25 These revolutionary sites have been considered as potential tourist resources since the23

Pan Gang, “Chinese Propaganda Posters are sold at foreign markets much more expensive at domestic markets,”
Art Market, 2004 (in Chinese) http://www finance.sina.com.cn/roll/20040923/14231044001.shtml
24“Oil Painting 'Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan' State Owned,” People’s Daily (3 April 2002), http://english.
peopledaily.com.cn/200204/02/eng20020402_93323.shtml
25
Li Yiping and Hu Zhiyini, “Red Tourism in China,” Journal of China Tourism Research 4 (2008), pp. 156-171;
Azuma Harumi, “Revolutionary Representation and Tourism: From the Perspective of the Nostalgia,” in Han Min,

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Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

Chinese Government issued the “National Red Tourism Developing Plan 2004–2010” in 2004.
Although numerous people had made a type of political pilgrimage, visiting a revolutionary site
like Mao’s home town of Shaoshan, located in the Hunan Province, this was seldom called the“Red tourism” during the Cultural Revolution. It was the Red tourism developing plan in 2004 that
promulgated this word across the country and stimulated the tourism in some rural areas.
Therefore Nanchang, Jinggangshan, and Yan’an suddenly received benefit from the plan. The
Jiangxi Grand Hotel, which served as the headquarters for the Nanchang Uprising in 1927, wasrenovated to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the uprising in 2007. When this siteoriginally opened as a revolutionary museum in 1957, Chen Yi, the first mayor of Shanghai,
inscribed the name of the museum on a plaque in front of the building. In China, such inscriptions
by famous leaders are considered to have special significance because of the authority they convey
on the building or place. Inside the museum, exhibits include old furniture, weapons, pictures, andreconstructed revolutionary scenes using mannequins. Jinggangshan, otherwise known as the“cradle of the revolution,” is one of the most important Red tourism sites. The place used to be in
an impoverished area in the rugged and remote mountains of the Jiangxi Province. But it began toflourish after the beginning of the Red tourism development in 2004 with the expansion of
highways, the construction of three-star hotels and restaurants,26 and the restoration of the former
houses of Mao Zedong (Figure 9) and Zhu De as well as the graves of the revolutionary heroes.

Figure 9.

Figure 10.

Red tourism is not only a form of political pilgrimage but also battlefield tourism or “darktourism.” Dark tourism is a tour to battle sites, graves of the famous, infamous, and the rich, and tolocations of infamous deeds; in short, places associated with death. Such activities, as pointed out
by Lennon and Foley, are an intimation of post-modernity. Dark tourism throws doubt on the
project of modernity, e.g. the failure of infallible technology at the sinking of the Titanic,
technological innovation to undertake the Jewish Holocaust, and the impact upon liberaled., Representation and Practice: Anthropological Approach to Modern China (Tokyo: Fukyo Press, 2009), pp.
345-365 (in Japanese).
26
Gu Huimin, Chris Ryan and Zhang Wei, “Jinggangshan Mountain: A Paradigm of China’s Red Tourism,” inChris Ryan, ed., Battlefield Tourism: History, Place and Interpretation (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), pp. 59-65.

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Yoko Takayama

democracy of assassination such as those of Kennedy or King. It also reveals that these instructive
sites having received benefit from tourism development are inseparable from commodification andcommercialism.27 Red tourist attractions offer tourists a quasi-experience of the revolution. Red
tourism derives from the Red spirit, the collective memory exalting the origins of the CCP and
thereby pushing aside people’s discontent over present political corruption and economic
disparities. Many people believe in the bright future that the CCP has represented and promised.
This zeal is clearly visible when they visit Red tourist spots and wear the Red Army uniforms tofully identify with the Red spirit.
The promulgation of the guidelines of Red tourism led to the restoration of martyrs’ memorial
museums and monuments across the nation, with tourist-related facilities, such as hotels,
restaurants, and souvenir shops, set up in sacred revolutionary areas (Figure 10). These shops are
selling Replica Mao badges, propaganda posters, key rings, and cell phone straps with prints of
Mao Zedong. One of the most popular souvenirs is playing cards featuring fifty four illustrations
with a different image printed on each card. A company called Huangchenggen28 manufactures the
cards known as the “Red sacred series” (Figure 11). The package gives us the following
explanation in English of why the company made the cards:
The Cultural Revolution has ended 30 years. The discussion about it has lasting for 30 years.
Obviously it is not acceptable that we comment the resentment, right or wrongs of the former
times. So just let us review some photos about it. The set of Red Series classical poker, the firstone is “Red Memory,” the second one is “Red Eras,” the third “Red Years”, contains 162 pieces ofpaintings which is chosen carefully. Let someone who has experienced can recollect. Let someone
who hasn’t experienced can be thoughts and feelings. The historical sense of the paintings is forremembrance and forgetting.

Figure 11.

27

John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, Dark Tourism: the Attraction of Death and Disaster (Australia: South-Western
Cengage Learning, 2002), p. 11.
28
Huangchenggen Website, http://www.hcgpk.com/- 94 -

Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

Figure 12.

Figure 12 shows three cards from the Red sacred series. A poster Learn from Daqing
Industry! is framed setting the worker into the center, on the king of heart. While factory towers on
the background and a slogan “Learn from Daqing Industry” are totally deleted, some socialist
items, such as a Mao badge on the jacket, The Little Red Book on the pocket, an arctic cap, and a
big red wrench, can be seen in a small frame, which still creates an atmosphere of the worker’s
masculinity. The 6 of diamond focusing one student of the four adds the student into somechildlike innocence that had lacked in the original poster (Figure 6) by being framed in a playing
card. The jack of diamonds depicts an image from the poster The Spirit of Yan’an is Passed onfrom Generation to Generation (Figure 7). It is put together in such a way that the figure of Mao
Zedong at the study in Yan’an occupies the central place. Although the cards shown in Figures 1329
and 14 depict the posters shown in Figures 4 and 5, they differ slightly, because of the presence ofprinted words. The cards in Figure 13 display Red slogans, reprinted for commodification, while
those of Figure 14 have no slogans. To provide a more dramatic interpretation of the Cultural
Revolution, the former uses prominent slogans, whereas the latter emphasizes the influence ofSocialist Realism. The underlying assumption is that people who see fat-lettered slogans or images
influenced by Socialist Realism might remember and/or then cultivate patriotic fervor andenthusiasm for the Cultural Revolution. Until the Cultural Revolution, calligraphy was the mostsophisticated visual art form in Chinese tradition. During the Cultural Revolution, a decisivetransition in the visual language of power occurred, and China, ironically, arrived into a
Westernized world.30
In contrast to the vibrant and lively movement of the female Red Guard and the soldier withsevere facial expression (Figure 13, 14), young Mao is walking alone gallantly on the vast landwith his coat flaring in the wind. Figure 15 shows the 7 of the clubs that features a young Mao in
29

The Cultural Revolution Propaganda Poster cards manufactured by Zhongguo Pukeguan (China Playing Card
House)
30
Chong Tsong-zung, “Mesmerized by Power,” in Jiang, Burden or Legacy, p. 61.

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Yoko Takayama

Yan’an with the slogan Cheer! Yan’an Spirit , accompanied by the Bao Tower, an iconic buildingin Yan’an in the background (Figure 1), and a woodcut version of Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan
on the ace of clubs. Young Mao, as seen at some revolutionary sites in Jinggangshan and Yan’an, isa suitable icon to symbolize the first generation of Chinese socialism, which can awake acollective memory and inspire the Red spirit in younger generation.

Figure 13.

Figure 14.

Figure 15.

The commodification of propaganda posters inevitably led to the disconnection of their
meanings from the original context of socialist ideology during the Cultural Revolution, withsouvenir producers selecting and cutting the “red” icons, such as The Little Red Book, a red scarf,- 96 -

Red Souvenirs: Commodification of Chinese Propaganda Art

and a red armband, so as to make commodities more attractive from a commercial viewpoint.
Benewick points out that the transformation of Mao from revolutionary icon to pop icon took
place in 1993, with the market flooded with brand-new items of Mao encompassing watches,
alarm clocks with Red Guard waving copies of The Little Red Book, medallions, commemorative
plates and plaques, and cigarette lighters.31 While Mao’s images might have become quite kitsch
to some degree, this does not necessarily mean that the purchasers intend to desecrate the historyof the revolution or communist leaders. The meteoric transition to capitalist consumerism does not
result in the end of the visual imagery of the Mao era.32 Given that this ambivalence toward
propaganda posters appears on various scenes, it is not easy to discern which inclination is close topeople in contemporary China.

Conclusion
Propaganda posters have acquired commercial value when they lost their original
fundamental purpose. Having been an amalgam of politics and art, the Mao style has evolved froma forceful political medium to that of a new aesthetic value compatible with different cultural andsocial conditions after the Cultural Revolution. Obviously China today witnesses a revival of Mao
Zedong. This has happened as a result of the disappointment among the people concerning thewidespread corruption and economic disparities stemming from the rapid economic growth. Now
they are looking back with nostalgia to those “good old days” of the early CCP. Barmé argues thatthe environment in which the “totalitarian nostalgia” has taken form is comparable to that of
Russia in the 1990s, where culture was forced to go through a balancing act between oldideologies and mentalities, the demands of art, and new commercial imperatives.33
Nevertheless, it was not only nostalgia but also respect for Mao Zedong that has fueled thereevaluation of propaganda posters. Although the slogans have become old-fashioned, Mao
Zedong remains to be a national symbol. Producers of the Red souvenirs carefully select andrepresent positive memories of the Red spirit, such as a passionate devotion to the building of thesocialist country. Once socialist ideology was eliminated from propaganda posters, nostalgia took
its place. With the rapid economic development, old-fashioned socialist ideology has been
progressively replaced by patriotic education buttressed by nostalgia and selective memories(Figure 16). Thus, the effective use of political posters during the Cultural Revolution in a way thatsuits contemporary Chinese morals generates a new form of propaganda art and its
commodification embodied in the Red souvenirs.

31

Robert Benewick, “Icon of Power: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution,” in Harriet Evans and Stephanie
Donald, eds., Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999), p. 134.
32
Julia F. Andrews, “The Art of the Cultural Revolution,” in Richard King, ed., Art in Turmoil: The Chinese
Cultural Revolution 1966-76 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp.16-17.
33
Geremie R. Barmé, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia University Press,
2001), p. 316.

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Yoko Takayama

Figure 16.

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