The Power of Propaganda Theme Analysis

My friends and I had grown up with the stories of the brave revolutionaries who had saved China. We were proud of our precious red scarves, which, like the national flag, were dyed red with the blood of our revolutionary martyrs. We had often been sorry that we […] had missed our chance to become national heroes by helping our motherland.

Now our chance had come. Destroying the four olds was a new battle, and an important one: It would keep China from losing her Communist ideals. Though we were not facing real guns or real tanks, this battle would be even harder, because our enemies, the rotten ideas and customs we were so used to, were inside ourselves.

I was so excited […] There were many more important missions waiting for me. I felt I was already a Liberation Army soldier who was ready to go out for battle.

Du Hai took the lead. “Down with the bourgeois Jiang Xi-wen! Long live Mao Ze-dong Thought!” he shouted. We repeated the slogans. Then Yin Lan-lan recited, “Our great leader, Chairman Mao, has taught us, ‘Everything reactionary is the same; if you do not hit him, he will not fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish by itself.’” Her voice was loud and forceful. “Today, we proletarian revolutionary young guards have come to revolt against you bourgeoisie. Jiang Xi-wen, this is our da-zi-bao. You are to post it on your door now.” She shook the white paper in front of Aunt Xi-wen’s nose.

After a few weeks, a new copy of the popular painting Mao Ze-dong on His Way to Anyuan appeared in our alley. I had always loved this painting and the story behind it. When he was a young man, our beloved leader, Chairman Mao, had risked his life to go to the mines of Anyuan by himself to establish a revolutionary base there.

The young Mao in the painting wore a long cotton gown and cloth shoes, and he carried an umbrella under his arm. His brilliant eyes were looking into the distance as if he were already thinking about the great revolutionary task that lay ahead of him. I could not look at the painting without feeling inspired. I was ready to follow him anywhere.

I sat on our usual bench […] staring at the fleecy white clouds. […]

In the three months since the Cultural Revolution had started, changes had been so constant that I often felt lost. One day the Conservative faction were revolutionaries that defended Chairman Mao’s ideas; the next day, the opposite Rebel faction became the heroes of the Cultural Revolution. I heard that even Chairman of the Nation Liu Shao-qi and General Secretary Deng Xiao-ping were having problems. […]

I wondered what I would be doing if I had been born into a red family […] I hated my grandfather [… but] I did know if I could hate Grandma if she was officially classed as a landlord’s wife. The harder I tried to figure things out, the more confused I felt. I wished I had been born into a red family so I could do my revolutionary duties without worrying.

Du Hai’s mother was standing on a stool, her head lowered to her chest. Two torn shoes, the symbol of immorality, were hung around her neck, along with a sign that read, Sang Hong-Zhen, oppressor of the young, deserves ten thousand deaths. Her disheveled hair dangled around her shocked, gray face. I hardly recognized the once-powerful Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary.

A short man was standing in front of her, shouting […] “She lied to me! She told me Xinjiang was like a flower garden. […] And what did we find when we got there? Nothing! Not a damned thing! […] She fooled us into going to Xinjiang and then didn’t care whether we lived or died. Is that any way to treat a sixteen-year-old boy? While I was sick and begging for my food in Xinjiang, what was she doing here? She was running around with men and having a good time.”

Now that I had entered [junior high school], I was disappointed. All the classes except for mathematics were completely uninteresting. We had no textbooks, only hastily compiled mimeographed handouts. English class was a bore. Politics class was actually just familiar Communist Party history. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology had been replaced by Fundamentals of Industry and Agriculture, because of Chairman Mao’s instruction to “combine education with practical experience.” One day the teacher had brought the wrong handouts to class. He had prepared a lesson on raising pigs, but he had mistakenly brought the handout titled “The Close-Planting System of Rice Growing.” He stood awkwardly on the platform for a minute or two, then dismissed the class. The poor teachers! Trained in the traditional sciences, they were totally lost when trying to teach us about pigs or paddy fields.

I had just read an article in the paper. It told of a “historical counterrevolutionary,” who, as a local official before Liberation had killed two Communist guerrillas. The paper explained that because he had confessed and had a positive attitude, he was pardoned. Meanwhile, an “active counterrevolutionary” was convicted of slandering the Red Guards. He refused to confess and was imprisoned.

So this was their policy of psychological pressure. No wonder Uncle Fan thought he should confess to something he had not done. Had he confessed to listening to foreign broadcasts? If he had, why hadn’t he been treated with leniency? Why had he been detained? I could not figure it out.

“This is the blind old grandfather. Every day, in bitter cold or in scorching sun, his little granddaughter led him out to beg for their food. With the little food that he managed to receive, how could he repay his debt to the landlord? Each year the debt increased. Finally, Liu Wen-cai forced him to give up his granddaughter in payment. How could he do that? She was his eyes, his whole life. But what else could he do to escape from this brutal landlord? With tears in his lifeless eyes, he said to her, ‘My dearest, you must go with Mr. Liu. It is not because I do not love you, it is that black-hearted landlord who is tearing us apart.’” My voice trembled slightly, and I became more and more emotional as I spoke.

I tried hard to imagine cool things to distract myself, but my legs began to tremble, and my eyes would not focus. I could not see clearly—not the thresher roller, not the bundle of rice in my hand. “Don’t fall down, don’t fall down. It will be all right after today,” I told myself again and again. I repeated Chairman Mao’s quotation, “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory.”

Just before noon, when I turned around to get another bundle of rice, I lost consciousness.