THESIS
2017
viii, 79 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 30 cm
Abstract
The production of Mao’s images in photographs and paintings became one of the most
significant propaganda tasks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since Mao’s rise in
Yan’an. During the Yan’an period (1937–1949), the CCP developed an unsophisticated but
efficient model of producing Mao iconography in various forms, attracting professional
photographers and painters from big cities to join this endeavor. These individuals brought
advanced skills, ideas, and creativity to Yan’an, and they became Communist Party cadres
who played key roles in making urban cultural policies after 1949.
However, after 1949, the Yan’an model of iconography production came into conflict
with the existing print culture in big cities, especially Shanghai. The one-party state
encountered private publis...[
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The production of Mao’s images in photographs and paintings became one of the most
significant propaganda tasks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since Mao’s rise in
Yan’an. During the Yan’an period (1937–1949), the CCP developed an unsophisticated but
efficient model of producing Mao iconography in various forms, attracting professional
photographers and painters from big cities to join this endeavor. These individuals brought
advanced skills, ideas, and creativity to Yan’an, and they became Communist Party cadres
who played key roles in making urban cultural policies after 1949.
However, after 1949, the Yan’an model of iconography production came into conflict
with the existing print culture in big cities, especially Shanghai. The one-party state
encountered private publishers who made profit from producing Mao iconography. The CCP
implemented standardization and censorship to discipline private industry and corralled it into
the planned economy. During the “socialist transformation” (shehuizhuyi gaizao) (1953–1956), the cultural industry, including Mao iconography production in Shanghai, became state
controlled. By tracing the evolution of Mao iconography production from the Yan’an period
to the early years of the PRC, this thesis examines how “print socialism” evolved in Yan’an
and developed in big cities after 1949. It also investigates how the Communist state utilized,
absorbed, and eventually transformed the capitalist print industry to serve its socialist political
culture.
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