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Power Structure And Propoganda In Communist China

      Propaganda in China during the Cultural Revolution took on many
forms; there were mass Red Guard demonstrations in Tianamen Square in
support of Mao Zedong, pictures of Mao were put up in every
conceivable location from restaurants to the wallpaper in nurseries,
and pamphlets and books of Mao's teachings were distributed to every
Chinese citizen. One of these propaganda publications Quotations from
Chairman Mao which later became known as the Little Red Book contained
quotes from Mao Zedong and was distributed to every Chinese citizen.
The history of the Red Book provides one of the best ways in which to
analyze Chinese propaganda during the Cultural Revolution and see the
ways in which the Chinese government was able to produce and
effectively indoctrinate the Chinese people with Mao Zedong Thought.
Official Chinese magazines from the period of 1967 to 1970 are filled
with many pictures of citizens holding, reading, and memorizing the
Red Book. This proposal will trace the rise and fall of images of the
Red Book in the official Chinese publication China Reconstructs. This
proposal will use a graphical analysis of pictures in this publication
from 1966 to 1973 to show that propaganda was not just a tool of the
Communist party but also a reflection of internal power struggles
within the party during the Cultural Revolution.
      The Red Book was written several years before it became the
object of national adoration and a tool for the Cultivation of Mao's
personality Cult. The history of the Red Book and its meteoric rise
from a hand book for military recruits to compulsory reading for all
Chinese citizens, is closely tied to its developer Lin Biao's rise to
power. Lin Biao was born in 1907 and was fourteen years younger then
Mao; he joined the communist party in 1925 and until the communists
captured control of China was at various times in charge of resistance
forces, and armies of communist soldiers....