Illustration:
ill. 3.9 (set: 3.7)
Date:
1964
Genre:
illustration, textbook
Material:
scan, paper, black-and-white; original source: print on paper, black-and-white
Source:
Nongye jishu Sanzijing 农业技术三字经 (Three character classic of agricultural techniques). Changchun: Jilin renmin, 1964:61.
Inscription:
学科学，搞試驗，使农业，大发展。 比和学，趕和帮，搞竞賽，評模范。 好干部，好社員，为集体，走在前。 貧雇农，下中农，社队中，做骨干。 地与富，反和坏，被推翻，心不甘。 投明枪，射暗箭，想复辟，搞倒算， 众社員，擦亮眼，見坏事，人人管。 新中国，好江山，保卫好，万万年。
Keywords:
practical learning, model peasants, peasants, agriculture, countryside, information, studying, plants, pesticides, Three Character Classic, parody, lush fields, electronic masts, three Red Banners, big face, huge hands, tough forearms, Mao cap, hero, Sanzijing

Three Character Classic of Agricultural Techniques (Nongye jishu Sanzijing 农业技术三字经)

This parody of the Three Character Classic ends with a page reminiscent of the refrain voiced forcefully in the original: the idea that only arduous study will bring success and development. Here, the acquisition of a new type of knowledge, scientific knowledge, is written into the foreground: “If we study sciences and carry out experiments, then we will be able to instigate great change in the countryside” (学科学搞试验使农业大发展), says the text. The general message, however, remains true to the original: here as there, the Three Character Classic calls for devoted study and practice, it calls for competition and for emulating models who, now in the form of good cadres and commune members, should go forward and lead the people to happiness (比和学赶和帮搞竞赛评模范. 好干部好社员为集体走在前). The element of competition might be a new emphasis in this Three Character Classic (it is also taken up in the Three Character Classic on Husbandry, where one of the illustrations shows how a commune member is being presented with an award for good service [1963, 25]), but striving to emulate models is, of course, a pattern well familiar from the original Three Character Classic.

The argument is underlined by an image expressing the morale of this new Three Character Classic: it glorifies the peasant, who is inspired through the right kind of learning (ill. 3.9). In the background a tractor (again) moves in lush fields, below a large dam. Farther in the background stand a series of electronic masts, a factory, and, looming large above all of these, three banners invoking, albeit slightly anachronistically, the three “Red Banners” of Socialist Construction, the Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Communes. In the foreground are two peasants—one female, one male, both with the typical strong features of a large face, huge hands, and tough forearms, pictorial markers that would continue to dominate propaganda publications throughout the Cultural Revolution. The two peasants are wearing Chinese-style shirts, with Chinese-made buttons. He wears a Mao cap, she a scarf around her hair. Both have, attached to their shirts, a peony, which is a sign of distinction and abundance in traditional symbolism, marking them as peasant heroes. She is holding huge bushels of plants and a hoe in her hands; he is holding, in his left hand, the first edition of Mao’s Selected Works (which contains Mao’s most important writings about peasants). Mao’s book is the focal point of the image. It epitomizes the learning emphasized in the text: it is Mao Zedong Thought, scientific and progressive, that will lead these two peasants (and all Chinese peasants) forward to an ever brighter future. As they gaze toward the book, they have already started moving in the right direction.