Mao and Che dine together, China 1960 -- Daily LIFT #180
Che enjoys a meal with Mao during his diplomatic trip to the People's Republic of China, late 1960.
Showing posts with label Mao. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mao. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
News and Information Wall for the Residents of the Tachai People's Commune, People's Republic of China, 1969 - Daily LIFT #47
News and Information Wall for the Residents of the Tachai People's Commune, People's Republic of China, 1969 - Daily LIFT #47
(The Daily LIFT - Leftist Image for Today - is a new The Left Chapter feature posting a daily photo, cartoon, artwork or other image related to leftist history or contemporary realty.)
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Vigorously support the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, 1964 -- Daily LIFT #6
Vigorously support the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, 1964
- Poster by Zhou Ruizhuang, People's Republic of China
Today is the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the PRC
(The Daily LIFT - Leftist Image for Today - is a new The Left Chapter feature posting a daily photo, cartoon, artwork or other image related to leftist history or contemporary realty.)
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Mao Tse-Tung - Hugo Gellert c. 1944
Mao Tse-Tung - Hugo Gellert c. 1944
Hugo Gellert was a member of the Communist Party in the United States who rose to fame in the 1920s and 1930s through his political posters and art as well as illustrations he did for socialist and communist magazines. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and opened a gallery for blacklisted artists in New York. Gellert died in 1985.
We looked at his art before in the post: Three Portraits of Lenin 1922 - 1927
Saturday, January 20, 2018
The Rent Collection Courtyard Sculptures -- From feudal oppression to Communist revolution in China
The sculptures are excellent examples of socialist realism with amazing detail and artistry. The exhibition was hugely successful during the Cultural Revolution. Created by a team of sculptors from a local art academy, its works were remade and used as models for another and larger display in Beijing.
Here we are looking at some of the photos from a book published in the People's Republic in 1968 that promoted the exhibition and its themes.I have included short blurbs that give an historical backdrop as well as maps of the region and manor.
(Click on images to enlarge)
The Courtyard
An elderly peasant with no remaining family offers up her last possession,
a hen, to try to pay the rent.
The crushing load of rent
We will settle accounts one day
A widow's grain must all go to rent
An old man is kicked to the ground
when he cannot meet the landlord's henchman's demands
She stiffens with anger at the sight of such cruelty
A little girl empties her family's grain into the winnower
The landlord's thugs beat the man for trying to keep some of his grain
Only on basket of grain left
Preparing for the Peck Measure
What kind of a world is this?
A peasant counts his tally sticks and hopes he can pay his debts
Screaming out at the landlord's injustice
A henchman and a Kuomintang soldier hold back a peasant's son
The peasants burn with anger
Class brothers, unite to settle accounts with the landlord!
A mother is torn away from her baby and family
A blind peasant is forced to sell his granddaughter into bondage as a servant
A family is broken up as a man is dragged
away from his house for failing to pay his debts
Revolt!
He is determined to destroy the landlord's den with his ax
We must smash the old system!
Seizing the guns of the landlord's thugs
Marching into the mountains under the banner of the Communist Party
to wage an armed struggle against the landlord's tyranny
Only revolution will tear down the rent collection courtyards
Joining the guerrillas in the mountains!
The red flag of revolution!
United as one the army and people are invincible
The landlord Liu Wen-tsai is captured
Red political power will be handed down from generation to generation!
See also: Labour and Struggle (1960) - Technology, Innovation, Art and Popular Resistance in Chinese History
See also: Leonard Hutchinson and the Social Realist Art of Canadian Working Class Resistance in the 30s
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Labour and Struggle (1960) - Technology, Innovation, Art and Popular Resistance in Chinese History
Today we are taking a look at a fascinating and illuminating booklet published in the People's Republic of China in 1960. Labour and Struggle: Glimpses of Chinese History is a combination of social history, history of struggle and outline of China's remarkable technological innovation over the centuries, that is illustrated throughout with art and examples of inventions/aspects of daily life.
It places a strong emphasis on the oppression faced by Chinese peasants and labourers throughout the feudal period as well as on their resistance to it and the role that peasant revolts played in propelling social change.
It ends with a poem by Mao, but also includes a powerful and moving excerpt from a peasant folk song of revolt that is nearly eighteen hundred years old.
This song reflects the constant spirit of human defiance and struggle in the face of brutality and hardship:
Our hair is like the leek; cut it off, it grows still!
Our heads are like the chicken's; cut them off they sing still...
Have no fear of the officials.
Don't hold the people too cheap.
(click on images to enlarge)
See also: The Art of Resistance: Sketches of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front 1964 - 1966 Part II
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