In general terms, the creation of the Chinese Communist Party responded to the singular aspiration of both the rural and urban masses to acquire a leading role in one of the two political projects so different from each other that were forged in the country after the May Fourth movement of 1919, culminating in the defeat of the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War (which spanned the period from 1927 to 1949) at the hands of the People's Liberation Army. According to the academician Ke Song (2018), what propelled them towards success was the collective determination to subvert the socioeconomic order of incipient capitalism and to launch, in its place, one with Marxist and Leninist foundations in which workers , peasants, and intellectuals were in a position to join forces against the imperialist powers that had tried to subjugate the will of the Chinese people through relentless interference in line with gunboat diplomacy. From this perspective, it cannot surprise us that, in the task of building a more modern and just world, propaganda played an extremely key role, finding itself in close communion with —and evolving along with— the state political ideology, as well as the service of the proletariat —as a didactic element— and of the revolutionary vanguard that the Party embodied —as unconditional aesthetic support—.
introduction
In general terms, the creation of the Chinese Communist Party responded to the singular aspiration of both the rural and urban masses to acquire a leading role in one of the two political projects so different from each other that were forged in the country after the May Fourth movement of 1919, culminating in the defeat of the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War (which spanned the period from 1927 to 1949) at the hands of the People's Liberation Army. According to the academician Ke Song (2018), what propelled them towards success was the collective determination to subvert the socioeconomic order of incipient capitalism and to launch, in its place, one with Marxist and Leninist foundations in which workers , peasants, and intellectuals were in a position to join forces against the imperialist powers that had tried to subjugate the will of the Chinese people through relentless interference in line with gunboat diplomacy. From this perspective, it cannot surprise us that, in the task of building a more modern and just world, propaganda played an extremely key role, finding itself in close communion with —and evolving along with— the state political ideology, as well as the service of the proletariat —as a didactic element— and of the revolutionary vanguard that the Party embodied —as unconditional aesthetic support—.
II. Theoretical foundations of Marxism and its influence on the Maoist current
From the materialist approach, it is affirmed that the productive forces (tools, machinery, skills, etc.) constitute the determining element of the development of society, and are in a state of constant evolution, depending on which they also change the relationships of production (that is, control over the means of production). Thus, it is understood that a legal and political superstructure necessarily arises on the economic base of societies, and it would only be through revolution that the latter would, in turn, undergo a transformation. Such a revolution, argued Lenin, could not aspire not only to the establishment of a democratic republic governed by the bourgeoisie, but to underpin the leadership of a socialist party with the necessary vision of the future to eventually found a dictatorship of the proletariat.
From all this we can infer that, naturally, Marxism would have such an impact on Mao's worldview that it would end up resulting in a conscious choice, on its part, to encourage a diametrical opposition both towards the European colonial powers and towards the historical legacy of the successive empires installed until relatively recently in mainland China, since it was undeniable that it entailed enormous amounts of socioeconomic oppression by part of the owning class, personified in the figure of the landlord, and, in this sense, Mao knew that, if he continued with such a model, it would only intensify the basic contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private character of production. the property. Mao, with this in mind, set out to carry out a transcendental analysis of the peculiarities of the Chinese revolution and, as a result, ended up enriching the thesis of the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and elaborating his own strategic military proposal against feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism. , which contemplated an alliance between workers and peasants, led by the proletariat, as its main body of struggle and resistance.
On the other hand, any self-respecting vanguard should offer its proposals to the masses in response to the most recent events in the political arena, with special attention to the development of class relations. Mao also believed that it was a matter of time before multiple contradictions arose within the Chinese Communist Party itself, whether between classes, or between the old and the new, vying for first place within society, and the ideological struggle for its Effective resolution would necessarily become an element of vital importance for the very survival of the Party. On the question of the class struggle, Lenin lived long enough to see that the bourgeoisie, even after being defeated by the labor movement, continued to enjoy a far from trivial advantage over the latter, and never ceased in its efforts to invest the new socioeconomic order, assuming a counterrevolutionary threat that is difficult to avoid. Along these same lines, Mao knew how to analyze the Soviet historical experience regarding the rise to power of revisionist agents with reasonable precocity, and tried to anticipate similar situations guaranteeing the consolidation of the interests of the proletariat, and, above all, of its class consciousness in the face of capitalist enemies, from the top of the government. Taking into account all of the above, it would not be unreasonable to affirm that the triad of Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist thought integrates a single ideology in constant evolution (Wakeman, 1973).
III. What is propaganda?
By way of introduction, it would be convenient to provide the reader with some basic notions about the central issue at hand: propaganda. Zhao Xuan (2016) highlights its propensity to appeal to the elementary emotions and impulses of citizens, exercising an invisible government over such passions through the use of significant symbols that substitute violence in the objective of deliberately influencing public opinion. . Likewise, some authors once proposed a classification of it that encompasses a total of two main categories, based on the degree of rationality that the propaganda of a given government exhibits: on the one hand, we would have a type that presents a greater predilection for representation of particular actions that offer the appearance of being in line with the interests of both those who elaborate their design and their recipients —that is, the public that, ultimately, receives the message it contains—. On the other hand, it alludes to the existence of a type that, without being in tune with any individual or collective interest, is inclined to follow the dictates of pure political exaltation. At the same time, another of the keys to propaganda is embodied in the formula of the slogan, which is distinguished by its originality and elegance, presenting an idea associated with superior feelings and attitudes that captures the attention of the recipient and, by virtue of its brevity, appears be noticeably easier to retain in long-term memory.
Those posters where the slogan is presented as its central element —precisely because it gives them an explicit meaning—, instead of specific events that give rise —based on, or despite, their static quality— to induce a beginning, knot, and their outcome, images of united civilians and soldiers are reproduced, without leaving the nature of such relationships to the imagination, since this would not have been as effective as insinuating friendly treatment through physical proximity (hands and bodies together) or overtly affectionate faces, beaming with happiness, and direct eye contact (Zhao, 2016). It would be, then, precisely that joy openly expressed on their faces, as well as the openness of their posture, which suggests the inexhaustible energy that characterizes those who harbor in the depths of their being the desire to persevere in the fight for an ideal future. for the people of their nation —informing, consequently, of the urgency of collective action—. Such an example of improvement could not but inspire third parties to pursue the same goals with similar determination, since emotion is the basis of human motivation (Uhliková, 2018). In this sense, we can conclude that the opposite, that is, a closed posture or melancholy facial expression, by not inciting attitudes of solidarity or empathy, would be excessively discouraging.
We must not ignore the fact that both the prevailing social norms during a given time, as well as the individual characteristics of each and every one of the actors in society —in terms of motivation, particular interests, and unique personality traits, among others. other variables—partially constitute the agglomeration of elements that encompasses a given cultural context, and, in this sense, exert a substantial influence on those areas of community life that are traditionally configured as objects of the political sphere: for example, the communication between propaganda and the masses to which it last one is addressed. One of the advantages that we could highlight of the massive use of propaganda comes to be identified with the type of informative communication that it offers to the public, which differs from the rest insofar as its main objective corresponds to the establishment of a model of mutual understanding formed by "data considered accurate, concepts considered indisputable, and ideas based on facts", following the interpretation of Uhliková (2018).
As we have been suggesting, another of the functions whose fulfillment is tacitly assigned to propaganda posters has to do with the moral transformation of Chinese society, which is now at the center of a struggle between the values of the stages before and after the founding of the People's Republic: revolutionary heroism and proletarian ideology would henceforth be the basis for ideal models of conduct, red being, as is logical, the color most widely used to tint the hyperrealism of posters (Landsberger, 2002). There are authors, such as Fu & Yan (2017), who explicitly refer to other of the multiple sublimation strategies of daily life —according to the denomination assigned by them—, only applied to workers in rural areas. Thus, they identify in various scenes of natural appearance, or, even more, plausible, the attribution of a series of absolutely novel meanings and values, which are in tune with the general lines of the Party, facilitating the absorption of information confirming the cognitive biases of citizenship through the graphic representation of such realities.
IV. Specific uses of propaganda in the People's Republic of China
After its foundation, the Chinese Communist Party did not take long to confirm the suspicion that instrumentalizing a potential political propaganda tailored to the educational needs of the masses —according to the guidelines of the Soviet Union and in tune with the residual imaginary of the past May Fourth Movement—was an essential task if, as was the case, it was intended to gradually replace the old culture and control public opinion, in addition to neutralizing the propaganda poured out by both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), on the one hand, and the Japanese Empire, on the other. As Stefan Landsberger (2008) points out, the propaganda posters in the People's Republic of China fulfilled the main function of visually manifesting the set of political projects that the leaders of the State reserved for their future. next; in other words, they presented life as it was, and as it should be. Fundamentally, the problems that presided over, in the political As of 1949, the formal and symbolic content of such an artistic expression was limited to everything related to the economic reconstruction of the country and adherence to the socialist cause led by Chairman Mao Zedong.
In such posters, the incorporation of human figures whose outfits facilitated their identification with the very diverse members of the proletariat (peasants, soldiers, workers,...) with dynamic poses and healthy bodies stood out, all with a view to boasting —through the idealization of work—individual sacrifice for the common good. Hardly all works of art created by professionals in the People's Republic of China could be called "propaganda". Instead, there are those who establish a strict classification (derived from the standard hierarchy that once ordered the entire guild as a whole, preventing its disintegration) in order to divide such products into various categories based on their purpose and the materials used to make them. its manual manufacture. Thus, there would be: New Year-themed prints (or nianhua), oil paintings (youhua), gouache (shuifenhua), woodcuts (mubanhua), traditional paintings (zhongguo hua), and propaganda posters (xuanchuanhua), among others. others.
In this sense, in order to deduce whether or not a sheet responds to this last denomination, it would be necessary to previously discern whether or not it explicitly contains a politically inspired slogan. Henceforth, realistic but embellished New Year (nianhua)-themed prints would become the visual foundation for such a project of didactic persuasion, due in part to the popularity of the traditional symbols they contained, the that the peasantry had become accustomed to over time. However, eventually they understood that the Nianhua needed a optimum degree of novelty, especially in those urban areas where the familiarization of its inhabitants with the socialist project was still scarce. Thus, a solution truly adapted to the needs imposed by such circumstances involved using the techniques, compositions, scales, perspectives and, in short, iconography typical of radiant and colorful socialist realism —in vogue in the Soviet Union since approximately 1930— by virtue of of its suitability to represent scenes of happiness and prosperity (Landsberger, 2008).
Quickly, the central government tried to recruit the most talented and technically skilled artists, in order to entrust them with the task - which required enormous responsibility - of making the designs that would later begin to abound in public spaces after having previously passed through a process of mass reproduction from the original copies, both in magazines and newspapers, and even post offices where it was possible to adapt their format to that of postage stamps. Due to the low cost and degree of manual labor required during the manufacturing process, it was possible to find innumerable posters adorning, with their intense colors, offices, factories, private homes, railway stations, and many other areas of life. although initially the political message implied in their visual composition went unnoticed by the social majorities, still illiterate at that time (Landsberger, 2008). It should also be clarified that a huge number of Chinese painters took advantage of all the opportunities that were granted to them from the institutions in relation to their training, which in many cases involved stays in Soviet art academies, in addition to teaching exchanges.
At the same time, it was not uncommon for some of the artists who had previously cultivated the Shanghai Style to take the initiative or be urged by the authorities to experience routine life near the village, in the countryside or in the factory, in order to avoid potential criticism of their work. particular ways of perceiving and depicting in the posters, for example, machinery, plowing techniques, peasants (particularly women, as opposed to modern cosmopolitan girls of notable popularity), or the like. In any case, the propaganda posters were meticulously studied under the pretext of fulfilling two key objectives: first, to obtain orientation in ideological matters —in order to detect even the slightest alteration in the tone of the implicit political message in a time when that the codes and verbal formulas that predominated in the media were not sufficiently understandable for the average citizen, although those posters where Mao appeared did not undergo similar analysis—, and, secondly, the redirection of the hegemonic political movement in any of its variants after verifying the inclusion or, failing that, disappearance of the official slogans (Landsberger, 2002). It should be pointed out that, after the founding of the People's Republic, non-productive or didactic activities such as simple collecting —including official propaganda posters— began to attract negative attention to those who were involved in them, due to the new connotations associated with the self-indulgence that they adopted, turning out to be, therefore, branded as "petty-bourgeois amusements" (Landsberger, 2019).
V. Aesthetic inspiration of socialist realism
If we intend to place the beginning of the artistic policy at some specific point in Chinese history of the 20th century, which would mark all the trends adopted in this regard from the political sphere until, at least, the death of Mao, we could opt for a public event occurred in 1942, which many Chinese artists and intellectuals had the opportunity to attend: the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art. It was precisely then that Mao first delivered a resounding message that left little room for autonomous decision for those individuals dedicated to the profession. In other words, the theoretical principle already glimpsed by other socialist leaders was released, according to which art should remain at all times subordinated to politics —or, in other words, to the demands of the Party that represents the masses— ( Landsberger, 2002). A good part of the original texts in Russian or their translations were difficult to approach due to the scarcity of terms in the Chinese language with the potential to refer to everything related to socialist realism, whose nature was specified in 1946 by the Marxist Philosophical Dictionary as follows way: «[It] demands a true, historically concrete representation of reality taken in its revolutionary development, which is necessary to train workers in the spirit of socialism. […] The reproduction of the essential aspects of life, not by means of schemes, but by means of images of concrete evocation and aesthetics capable of vivid impression, such is the meaning of the typical representation of the phenomena of life in mastery of art» (Li, 2012).
For all of them, the most important maxim in their discipline was indebted to the policies implemented by Joseph Stalin in the field of design, according to which art should be "socialist in content" and "national in form" (Li, 2012 ). Thanks to socialist realism, moreover, it would be possible for: “Chinese artists to understand the world of reality and cure the indifference to nature that had caused the decline of traditional Chinese art […] [Socialist realism] was the art form most popular, and therefore also the easiest to understand» (Landsberger, 2002). Despite all this, it would be from the start of the Great Leap Forward, which took place from 1958 to 1961, when socialist realism lost - in the eyes of Mao Zedong - its ability to influence due to its slightly melancholy appearance, which did not fit the purpose of inspiring an optimistic and sacrificial spirit in equal parts in the town, in order to encourage greater mobilization of the workforce (Landsberger, 2008). During this time—and later the Cultural Revolution that would span a ten-year period from 1966—propaganda posters reached the height of artistic expression at all levels, as well as serving as the medium through which it became intensive communication between the elite and the masses possible (Landsberger, 2016).
SAW. Graphic representations of the figure of Mao
We must take into account that the typology of images circumscribed to propaganda art is varied, and, as we suggested previously, the portraits of leaders take on special importance, whether they were local, national, or foreign (two examples of this category would be embodied in the figures of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin); politicians, military, or model workers, etc. Although Mao advocated rebellion against authority, such a position, as is logical, did not include him as a recipient of it. To prevent this, the artists came up with the following solution: to portray Mao in very diverse situations, based on which a positive conclusion about his magnanimous character could be inferred, as surrounded by children (that is, assuming the role of benevolent father, and thus exploiting, whether deliberately or unintentionally, the Confucian heritage with which the masses were familiar and which referred to such virtues as filial piety), as a genius statesman, a skillful military leader, or an outstanding teacher, in a way that is certainly reminiscent of the representations of Vladimir Lenin that began to proliferate after 1920 in the USSR: standing out from the masses and with his arm extended upwards hinting at a blessing.
In any case, to paint Mao, it was essential to avoid using any shade of gray for shadows, since the color black suggested a counterrevolutionary attitude on the part of the professional in question (Landsberger, 2002). Instead, warm tones were to be used, especially red, in order to make his figure the primary source of light in any composition in which he appeared, thereby also illuminating the faces of third parties. Along these same lines, we could highlight the invariable masculinization of such figures, regardless of their apparent sex: extremities (specifically hands and feet) of a disproportionate size, robust torsos, notable height, faces whose features had to be assimilated to the already standardized archetype, or always short hairstyles, among other peculiarities, constituted the stylistic dictates from which not even the visual representations of Mao could escape. Luckily, the artists considered it opportune to dispense with the attribution of an illusory muscularity to the complexion of the leader, since it was enough to enlarge the lobes of his ears to symbolize his destiny of greatness and good fortune. From all this we can infer, therefore, that there was often a tendency to present two different facets of Mao: on the one hand, that of a folksy man who, when he visits factories or harvests, effusively greets farmers, seasonal workers, and workers, to then smoke some cigarettes next to them while joking around, suggesting a good mood.
On the other hand, the facet of a strategist without equal, ready to debate, under any circumstances, with Red Army officers, and to inspect their ranks - not to mention the paintings where he appears welcoming foreigners or guiding representatives of the ethnic minorities of the Republic. It should not surprise us, in this sense, that the absence of Mao's portrait in any of the private homes of citizens constituted in itself a choice susceptible to censorship, as it is tainted by negative judgments and evaluations that a clear reflection of the emptiness of revolutionary will necessarily brought with it. By virtue of this same logic, the exhibition of such a portrait began to be prohibited wherever families lived who once, or even then, had enjoyed the status of members of the property-owning class. On the other hand, Landsberger (2002) expresses in the following terms the position that Mao Zedong occupied in the Chinese Communist Party both at a symbolic and factual level: «Mao was the omnipresent expression of state power, and when his dissatisfaction with the Party threatened With the disintegration of the state, as in the late 1960s, Mao seemed to become the element that held the people together.
There were also those who, in some way, recognized in the aphorisms and, ultimately, Mao's ideological postulates (collected in the Red Book), the characteristic power of a magical or supernatural weapon, even of a spiritual atomic bomb, with which they took pains to make them —as well as the leader's own portrait— the quintessential adornment, in order to propagate with its visual omnipresence the feeling of protection over workers and their daily tasks, especially in rural areas (Landsberger, 2002 ). Thus, in some propaganda posters we can find, at the same time, a circular composition of the elements that make up their content, in whose nucleus Mao tends to be placed, who happens to embody the main symbol of integrity and unity of the Chinese people. The latter is inferred from the fact that the pattern of such a geometric figure, unlike all others, is not divided by lines, but rather each point on the curve is exactly the same distance from its central point (Fu & Yan, 2017).
VII. Conclusions
By way of synthesis, it would be convenient to recapitulate the main reflections that the present work has recovered from the research work of academics as relevant in the matter as Stefan R. Landsberger, an elderly Dutch sinologist who has one of the largest collections of propaganda posters throughout the world after having begun to acquire them during the 1970s, a collection that, in fact, he used to write his doctoral thesis and, later, to visually support the rest of the academic articles and related works to this theme that would predominate in his career ever since. On the one hand, we have been able to discover, after a brief historical introduction to the context in which the People's Republic of China was founded, to what extent the Maoist philosophical proposal theoretically coincided with orthodox Marxist-Leninist postulates and how much it developed throughout its history. political trajectory.
Thanks to this, it is possible to understand to a greater or lesser extent exactly where the importance of designing propaganda in line with the needs of the revolutionary vanguard lies, in order to guide the working class in the struggle for the construction of a just socialist system. and against the imperialist interference that had subjected and ridiculed the Chinese people for too long. Likewise, we have exposed some of the definitions that in the academic field are associated with the very concept of propaganda, clearly delimiting its borders, or, in other words, what it is and what it is not, all this together with the inclusion of a classification attempt that separates the so-called rational from the irrational. On the other hand, we have reviewed the formal evolution of the design of these posters, closely in tune with internal and external political tensions, giving rise to a succession of styles that encompasses the aesthetic inspiration of pre-Republican prints (where the New Year's postcards), through socialist realism from the Soviet Union, to a pre-eminence of indigenous or properly Chinese tastes.
Bibliographic references
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