Illustration:
ill. 4.3 (set: 4.1)
Date:
1967
Genre:
poster, propaganda poster
Material:
scan, paper, black-and-white; original source: print on paper, black-and-white
Source:
The Power of Mao‘s Words in Fired Guard Materials Wenge fengyun文革风云 1967.8:25, 1967. In HWBZL 1980 Suppl. 1, vol. III, 1216.
Keywords:
Mao’s writings, Mao Zedong Thought, red sun, sunrays, Hong Kong Riots, Win back Hong Kong, Fighting Liu Shaoqi, Confucius, Confucian morality, Confucian values, iconography, Mao cap, criticism

The Power of Mao's Words in Fighting the Enemies of the People

Red Guard Publications include numerous woodprint illustrations praising the might of Mao’s Thoughts in fighting so-called “capitalist roaders” in the Party such as Chen Yi 陈毅 and Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇. Mao’s writings are pivotal, the central focus in these images. Here, a book of his writings is held up in the hand of a female revolutionary with a sword in hand. The book emanates rays like a sun which enclose the two young revolutionaries who stand erect, fighting with two minute figures, one of which is identified as Liu Shaoqi: he is holding up a piece of paper with 修养 “self-cultivation” written on it, the Confucian virtue advocated by Liu in his book on how become a “good Communist” (Liu 1965). In many of these images, as we have seen, Mao’s writings are visually translated into a sun, that is, Mao himself, the “red sun in everyone’s heart,” is symbolically understood to give strength to everyone to fulfill further heroic deeds.