Illustration:
ill. 3.5
Date:
1947
Genre:
illustration, textbook
Material:
scan, paper, black-and-white; original source: print on paper
Source:
Xin Minzhuzhuyi geming shiqi gongnongbing sanzijing xuan 新民主主义革命时期工农兵三字经选 (Selection of three character classics for the peasants, workers and soldiers of the new democratic revolutionary age), Beijing: Wenwu, 1975:47.
Keywords:
criticism, feudalism, masses, peasants, workers, soldiers, creators, hero, heroism, Mao Zedong, Chinese Communist Party, Three Character Classic, parody, criticism, Chiang Kaishek, model works, negative character, Red Army, Long March, Sino-Japanese War

Three Character Classic of the People's Army (Renmin Jundui Sanzijing 人民军队三字经)

Many of the themes of earlier revolutionary Three Character Classics—such as the criticism of feudalism and of the “old” and “suppressive” class society; the belief in the role of the masses of peasants, workers, and soldiers as “creators” (创造者) and as the new heroes in the making of history (旧英雄为个人新英雄为大众) (XMZZY 1975, 43, 57); and the importance of Mao Zedong and the CCP in creating an awareness of all of these facts—are taken up in another 1947 parody as seen here, the Three Character Classic of the People’s Army (人民军队三字经 Renmin Jundui Sanzijing) (XMZZY 1975, 42–60). In a section criticizing Chiang Kaishek and the GMD, the text proclaims, “Chiang Kaishek is our greatest enemy, the Communist Party a shining light” (蒋介石大仇人共产党是明灯) (XMZZY 1975, 57).

A practice well familiar from the model works, of slighting negative characters by excluding them and building up heroes by allotting them more space is evident here: while the GMD is only mentioned in eighteen three-character phrases as a whole, the CCP is praised eighteen times, and an additional twenty-one exultations deal with Mao Zedong (XMZZY 1975, 44–45). Many of the following sections, on the Red Army, the Long March, the Sino-Japanese War, the “People’s War for Liberation” (人民解放战争), and the “Liberated Areas” (解放区) also deal, if more implicitly, with the heroic deeds of the CCP and its representatives, Mao, as can be seen in this illustration, most prominently among them.