Illustration:
ill. 4.4 (set: 4.1)
Date:
1967
Genre:
poster, propaganda poster
Material:
internet file, colour; original source: poster, paper, colour
Source:
DACHS 2008 Red Book Heidelberg, Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
University of Westminster Chinese Poster Collection
Inscription:
我们必胜港英必败
Keywords:
Little Red Book, Mao quotations, Mao’s Thoughts, Mao’s writings, demonstration, Hong Kong Riots, Win back Hong Kong

We will be victorious and the English in Hong Kong will lose out (Women bi sheng, Gang Ying bi bai 我们必胜港英必败)

Mao’s Thoughts acquire another materiality in this 1967 poster, printed in connection with the Hong Kong Riots raging between spring and winter of 1967. During the riots, attempts had been made by Communist forces to “win back Hong Kong” by manipulating strikes and demonstrations, causing a lot of violence. The riots were unsuccessful and subsided by the end of the year.

The poster is entitled „We will be victorious and the English in Hong Kong will lose out“ 我们必胜港英必败. It shows a group of strong and youthful demonstrators, men and women alike, with typically huge forearms, moving swiftly forward (their strength and vitality supported by the speed lines in the foreground of the picture). Each of them is holding a Little Red Book of Mao quotations, and some of the demonstrators are raising, in addition, posters with Mao quotations, most of them taken from the Little Red Book: “The Chinese people will not be humiliated” says one, “Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers,” the next (this being the title of chapter 6 in the Little Red Book) and “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory,” (from chapter 19 in the Little Red Book) a third. Again, it is repetition, here occuring on different levels and in different materialities, which serves to emphasize the importance of Mao and his words.