Editing Cultural Revolution (section)

===Arts and literature===
In 1966, [[Jiang Qing]] advanced the ''Theory of the Dictatorship of the Black Line''. Those perceived to be bourgeois, anti-socialist or anti-Mao (black line) should be cast aside, and called for the creation of new literature and arts.<ref name="Jiaqi" />{{rp|352–353}} Disseminators of the "old culture" would be eradicated. The majority of writers and artists were seen as "black line figures" and "reactionary literati", and were persecuted, and subjected to "criticism and denunciation" where they could be humiliated and ravaged, and be imprisoned or sent to hard labour.<ref name="Hong">{{cite book |last=Hong |first=Zicheng |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=S7C9xtFKGWEC |page=213}} |title=A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature |publisher=Brill |year=2009 |isbn=978-9004173668 |translator-last=Day |translator-first=Michael M.}}</ref>{{rp|213–214}} For instance, [[Mei Zhi]] and her husband were sent to a tea farm in [[Lushan County, Sichuan]]. She did not resume writing until the 1980s.<ref name="sina">{{cite web |last1=Zhang |first1=Xiaofeng |author-mask=Zhang Xiaofeng (张晓风) |date=12 March 2008 |title= |script-title=zh:张晓风：我的父亲母亲 |trans-title=Zhang Xiaofeng: My father and mother |url=http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2008-03-12/113615131996.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152135/http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2008-03-12/113615131996.shtml |archive-date=19 October 2017 |access-date=3 May 2017 |website=[[Sina Corporation|Sina]] |language=zh}}</ref> 

In 1970, the CCP came to view the [[Ministry of Culture (China)|Ministry of Culture]] as so disruptive that it decided to dissolve the Ministry and establish a Culture Group within the [[State Council of the People's Republic of China|State Council]] in an effort to rein in cultural politics.<ref name=":Minami" />{{rp|160}} The principles for cultural production laid out by Mao in the 1942 [[Yan'an Forum|Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature]] became dogmatized.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cai |first1=Xiang |title=Revolution and its narratives : China's socialist literary and cultural imaginaries (1949–1966) |last2=蔡翔 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |others=Rebecca E. Karl, Xueping Zhong, 钟雪萍 |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-8223-7461-9 |location=Durham, NC |pages=xix}}</ref> The literary situation eased after 1972, as more were allowed to write, and many provincial literary periodicals resumed publication, but the majority of writers still could not work.<ref name="Hong" />{{rp|219–20}} Documents released in 1980 regarding the prosecution of the Gang of Four show that more than 2,600 people in the field of arts and literature were persecuted by the Ministry of Culture.<ref name="documents" /> Many died: the names of 200 writers and artists who were persecuted to death were commemorated in 1979. These include writers such as [[Lao She]], [[Fu Lei]], [[Deng Tuo]], [[Baren (author)|Baren]], [[Li Guangtian]], [[Yang Shuo (writer)|Yang Shuo]] and [[Zhao Shuli]].<ref name="Hong" />{{rp|213–14}}

Writing about the romantic relationships of revolutionary martyrs became one of the taboo topics during the Cultural Revolution.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Xian |title=Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs |date=2025 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-05719-1 |series=China Understandings Today series |location=Ann Arbor}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=186-187}}

Depictions of [[Iron Girls|iron girls]] became a frequent subject of art during the Cultural Revolution, often shown in spaces and activities traditionally associated with male authority as part of an effort to develop the [[New Man (utopian concept)|new socialist woman]].<ref name=":Evans2" />{{Rp|page=100}}

==== Opera and music ====
[[File:Revolutionary opera.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|The ballet ''[[Red Detachment of Women (ballet)|The Red Detachment of Women]]'', one of the Model Dramas promoted during the Cultural Revolution]]Jiang took control of the stage and introduced [[Revolutionary opera|revolutionary operas]] under her direct supervision. Traditional operas were banned as they were considered feudalistic and bourgeois, but revolutionary opera, which modified [[Peking opera]] in both content and form, was promoted.<ref name="Lu" />{{rp|115}} Six operas and two ballets were produced in the first three years, most notably the opera ''[[The Legend of the Red Lantern]]''. These operas were the only approved opera form. Other opera troupes were required to adopt or change their repertoire.<ref name="King" />{{rp|176}} [[Loyalty dance]]s became common and were performed throughout the country by both professional cultural workers and ordinary people.<ref name="Xu2022" />{{rp|362}} The model operas were broadcast on the radio, made into films, blared from public loudspeakers, taught to students in schools and workers in factories, and became ubiquitous as a form of popular entertainment and were the only theatrical entertainment for millions.<ref name="Jiaqi" />{{rp|352–53}}<ref name="Lu" />{{rp|115}} Most model dramas featured women as their leads and promoted Chinese state feminism.<ref name="Karl-2010">{{Cite book |last=Karl |first=Rebecca E. |title=Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world: a concise history |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8223-4780-4 |location=Durham, NC |pages=148}}</ref> Their narratives begin with them oppressed by [[misogyny]], class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of internal strength and the CCP.<ref name="Karl-2010" />

During the Cultural Revolution, composers of ''[[Yellow Music]]'', which had already been banned following the communist revolution, were persecuted, including [[Li Jinhui]] who was killed in 1967.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578066094 |url-access=registration |title=Jazz Planet |editor=E. Taylor Atkins |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578066094/page/226 226] |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=2004 |isbn=978-1578066094 |access-date=27 June 2015}}</ref> Revolution-themed songs instead were promoted, and songs such as "[[Ode to the Motherland]]", "[[Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman]]", "[[The East Is Red (song)|The East Is Red]]" and "[[Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China]]" were either written or became popular during this period. "The East Is Red", especially, became popular; it ''de facto'' supplanted "[[March of the Volunteers]]" (lyrics author [[Tian Han]] persecuted to death) as the national anthem of China, though the latter was later restored to its previous place.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=几度沧桑 国歌的诞生及背后鲜为人知的故事 |trans-title=The birth and behind-the-scene stories of the national anthem |url=https://www.gov.cn/guoqing/2017-06/07/content_5200590.htm |access-date=2024-12-31 |website=[[Central government of the People's Republic of China]] |language=zh}}</ref> 

"Quotation songs", in which Mao's quotations were set to music, were particularly popular during the early years of the Cultural Revolution.<ref name="Coderre2021">{{Cite book |last=Coderre |first=Laurence |title=Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China |date=2021 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-2161-2 |location=Durham, NC |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1r4xd0g |jstor=j.ctv1r4xd0g}}</ref>{{rp|34}} Composer Li Jiefu first published quotation songs in ''People's Daily'' in September 1966 and they were promoted thereafter as a means for studying ''Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong''.<ref name=":2323">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Andrew F. |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Quotation Songs: Portable Media and the Maoist Pop Song}}</ref>{{Rp|page=47}} Records of quotation songs were played over loudspeakers, their primary means of distribution,<ref name="Coderre2021" />{{rp|35}} as the use of transistor radios lagged until 1976.<ref name="Coderre2021" />{{rp|32–33}} [[Rusticated youths]] with an interest in broadcast technology frequently operated rural radio stations after 1968.<ref name="Coderre2021" />{{rp|42}} At the 9th National Congress of the Communist Party, Jiang Qing condemned quotation songs, which she had come to view as comparable to yellow music.<ref name=":2323" />{{Rp|page=43}}

====Visual arts====
[[File:SZ 深圳博物館 Shenzhen Museum 深圳改革開放前歷史展廳 Before Reform and Opening-up History Exhibition Hall 文革時代紅色思想宣傳海布 political posters IX1 03.jpg|thumb|Posters from the Cultural Revolution period|alt=]]

Aesthetic principles emphasized during the Cultural Revolution included the "tall, big, complete," "red, bright, shining," and "the three prominences".<ref name=":22" />{{Rp|pages=187-188}} According to the principle of the "three prominences," the good are more prominent than the bad, the very good are more prominent than the good, and the one outstanding figure is more prominent than the very good.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=4}} Other stylistic principles of the Cultural Revolution included "tall, large, and full".<ref name=":Evans2">{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Harriett |title=Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution |date=2016 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-73718-1 |editor-last=Li |editor-first=Jie |series=Harvard Contemporary China Series |volume= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |chapter=Ambiguities of Address: Cultural Revolution Posters and Their Post-Mao Appeal |doi= |jstor= |editor-last2=Zhang |editor-first2=Enhua}}</ref>{{Rp|page=96}} 

Among the most significant visual works of the Cultural Revolution was Liu Chunhua's 1967 oil painting, ''Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan''.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=132}} Another influential painting was Pan Jiajun's 1972 ''I Am a Petrel'', which depicts a young woman soldier repairing a telegraph cables during a storm.<ref name=":Evans" />{{Rp|pages=94-95}} Praised as a new classic of depicting a revolutionary heroine, it inspired the creation of similar works and was itself widely distributed as a poster.<ref name=":Evans" />{{Rp|page=95}}

A Red Guard art movement developed, reaching its peak in 1967.<ref name=":Tang">{{Cite book |last=Tang |first=Xiaobing |title=Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution |date=2016 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-73718-1 |editor-last=Li |editor-first=Jie |series=Harvard Contemporary China Series |volume= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |chapter=Socialist Visual Experience as Cultural Identity: On Wang Guangyi and Contemporary Art |doi= |jstor= |editor-last2=Zhang |editor-first2=Enhua}}</ref>{{Rp|page=128}} Red Guards from fine arts academies organized large art exhibitions, often in cooperation with rebel groups in work units or the army, which included many amateur art works.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=132}} The most significant Red Guard art exhibition was ''Long Live the Triumph of Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line'' which opened 1 October 1967 in Beijing and featured more than 1,600 art works in a variety of media produced by artists and amateurs from around the country.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=132}} Following the exhibition, traveling teams toured art works from the exhibition through rural China and into remote areas.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=132}} The Red Guard art movement favored forms of art deemed public or anti-elitist, such as black and white woodcuts (or brush and marker illustrations in the style of a woodcut), satirical cartoons, paper cut outs, and forms of [[folk art]].<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=|pages=132-133}} Among the most popular motifs in Red Guard art was the image of a worker, peasant, and soldier conducting criticism or Red Guards doing so.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=173}} Red Guard groups in fine arts academies also published journals, pamphlets, and manifestos through which they criticized the old art institutions.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=131}}

Traditional themes were sidelined and artists such as [[Feng Zikai]], [[Shi Lu]], and [[Pan Tianshou]] were persecuted.<ref name="King" />{{rp|97}} Many of the artists were assigned to manual labour, and artists were expected to depict subjects that glorified the Cultural Revolution related to their labour.<ref name="Andrews" />{{rp|351–52}} In 1971, in part to alleviate their suffering, several leading artists were recalled from manual labour or freed from captivity under a Zhou initiative to decorate hotels and railway stations defaced by Red Guard slogans. Zhou said that the artworks were meant for foreigners, therefore were "outer" art and not under the obligations and restrictions placed on "inner" art meant for Chinese citizens. He claimed that landscape paintings should not be considered one of the "Four Olds". However, Zhou was weakened by cancer, and in 1974, the Jiang faction seized these and other paintings and mounted exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities denouncing the artworks as [[Black Painting incident|Black Paintings]].<ref name="Andrews" />{{rp|368–376}}

Propaganda in posters was used as a mass communication device and often served as the people's leading source of information. They were produced in large numbers and widely disseminated to propagate ideological positions.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=I3S6mlTj1K4C |page=4}} |title=Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1999 |isbn=978-0847695119 |editor-last=Evans |editor-first=Harriet |pages= |editor-last2=Donald |editor-first2=Stephanie}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=4-5}} The two main posters genres were the big-character poster or ''[[dazibao]]'' and commercial propaganda poster.<ref name="Cushing">{{cite book |last1=Cushing |first1=Lincoln |last2=Tompkins |first2=Ann |title=Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution |publisher=Chronicle Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0811859462}}</ref>{{rp|7–12}}

* The ''dazibao'' presented slogans, poems, commentary and graphics often posted on walls in public spaces, factories and communes. Mao wrote his own ''dazibao'' at Beijing University on 5 August 1966, calling on the people to "Bombard the Headquarters".<ref name="Cushing" />{{rp|5}}
* ''[[Xuanchuan]]hua,'' or propaganda paintings, were artworks produced by the government and sold cheaply in stores to be displayed in homes or workplaces. The artists for these posters might be amateurs or uncredited professionals, and the posters were largely in a [[Socialist Realist]] visual style with specific conventions—for example, images of Mao were to be depicted as "red, smooth, and luminescent".<ref name="Cushing" />{{rp|7–12}}<ref name="Andrews">{{cite book |last=Andrews |first=Julia Frances |title=Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1979 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0520079816}}</ref>{{rp|360}}
After decreasing in prominence throughout the 1980s, Cultural Revolution posters became prominent in public life again in the 1990s in connection with [[red tourism]], as collectibles, in commercial advertising, and in contemporary art.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution |date=2016 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-73718-1 |editor-last=Li |editor-first=Jie |series=Harvard contemporary China series |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London |chapter=Introduction |editor-last2=Zhang |editor-first2=Enhua}}</ref>{{Rp|page=9}} In contemporary China, they continue to be reproduced in large amounts and sold commercially.<ref name=":Evans">{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Harriett |title=Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution |date=2016 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-73718-1 |editor-last=Li |editor-first=Jie |series=Harvard Contemporary China Series |volume= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |chapter=Ambiguities of Address: Cultural Revolution Posters and Their Post-Mao Appeal |doi= |jstor= |editor-last2=Zhang |editor-first2=Enhua}}</ref>{{Rp|page=87}} Historic posters are have been the subject of exhibitions and auctions, including in the United States and Europe.<ref name=":Evans" />{{Rp|page=92}} 

Before the Cultural Revolution, relatively few cultural productions reflected the lives of peasants and workers; during it, the struggles of workers, peasants, and revolutionary soldiers became frequent artistic subjects, often created by peasants and workers themselves.<ref name="Ching-2021">{{Cite book |last=Ching |first=Pao-Yu |title=Revolution and counterrevolution: China's continuing class struggle since liberation |publisher=Foreign Languages Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-2-491182-89-2 |edition=2nd |location=Paris |page=137}}</ref> Among the most prominent examples of this style included the peasant paintings of Huxian.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=133}} In the early 1970s, worker, peasant, and soldier-created art was promoted as the paradigm of socialist art.<ref name=":Tang" />{{Rp|page=133}} The spread of peasant paintings in rural China, for example, became one of the [[Newborn socialist things|newborn things]] celebrated in a socialist society.<ref name="Ching-2021" /> 

==== Film ====
The ''Four Hundred Films to be Criticized'' booklet was distributed, and film directors and actors/actresses were criticized with some tortured and imprisoned.<ref name="Jiaqi" />{{rp|401–02}} These included many of Jiang Qing's rivals and former friends. Those who died in the period included [[Cai Chusheng]], [[Zheng Junli]], [[Shangguan Yunzhu]], [[Wang Ying (actress)|Wang Ying]], and [[Xu Lai (actress)|Xu Lai]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Paul G. Pickowicz <!-- |pages=371–72 --> |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=3XNyF4a7xHsC |page=128}} |title=China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2013 |isbn=978-1442211797 |pages=128–29}}</ref> No feature films were produced in mainland China for seven years apart from a few approved "Model dramas" and highly ideological films.<ref>{{cite book |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=V0R-3zFSJbkC |page=207}} |title=Handbook of Chinese Popular Culture |publisher=Greenwood |year=1994 |isbn=978-0313278082 |editor=Dingbo Wu |page=207 |access-date=June 27, 2015 |editor2=Patrick D. Murphy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429072451/https://books.google.com/books?id=V0R-3zFSJbkC&pg=PA207 |archive-date=April 29, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> A notable example is ''[[Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (film)|Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author=Yingjin Zhang |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=6WzJq0hForAC |page=219}} |title=Chinese National Cinema |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-0415172905 |pages=219–20}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Tan Ye |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=Wh0QMOLRCeIC |page=41}} |title=Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema |author2=Yun Zhu |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0810867796 |page=41}}</ref> China rejected Hollywood films and most foreign films.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|213}} [[Cinema of Albania|Albanian films]] and [[Cinema of North Korea|North Korean films]] developed mass audiences in China.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|213}} In 1972, Chinese officials invited [[Michelangelo Antonioni]] to China to film the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. Antonioni made the documentary ''[[Chung Kuo, Cina]]''.  When it was released in 1974, CCP leadership in China interpreted the film as [[reactionary]] and anti-Chinese. Viewing art through the principles of the [[Yan'an Forum|Yan'an Talks]], particularly the concept that there is no such thing as art-for-art's-sake, party leadership construed Antonioni's aesthetic choices as politically motivated and banned the film.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sorace |first=Christian |title=Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi |year=2019 |publisher=[[Australian National University Press]] |isbn=9781760462499 |location=Acton |chapter=Aesthetics}}</ref>{{rp|13–14}}

Mobile film units brought [[Cinema of China|Chinese cinema]] to the countryside and were crucial to the standardization and popularization of culture during this period, particularly including revolutionary model operas.<ref name="Coderre2021" />{{rp|30}} During the Cultural Revolution's early years, mobile film teams traveled to rural areas with news reels of Mao meeting with Red Guards and Tiananmen Square parades, which became known as "red treasure films".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Material Contradictions in Mao's China |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-295-75085-9 |editor-last=Altehenger |editor-first=Jennifer |location=Seattle |chapter=Mobile Projectionists and the Things They Carried |editor-last2=Ho |editor-first2=Denise Y.}}</ref>{{rp|110}} The release of the filmed versions of the revolutionary model operas resulted in a re-organization and expansion of China's film exhibition network.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|73}} From 1965 to 1976, the number of film projection units in China quadrupled, total film audiences nearly tripled, and the national film attendance rate doubled.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|133}} The Cultural Revolution Group drastically reduced ticket prices which, in its view, would allow film to better serve the needs of workers and of socialism.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|133}}