The Cultural Revolution Through Photography

image: Li Zhensheng, self portrait Several before posts convey highlighted how challenging it is to come upward to theater conclusions ...

image: Li Zhensheng, self portrait

Several before posts convey highlighted how challenging it is to come upward to theater conclusions well-nigh about of the most basic facts well-nigh the history of the Cultural Revolution inwards Cathay (link, link, link, link). The history of this of import recent menstruation of Chinese history is silent a travel inwards progress.  

H5N1 really remarkable volume of documentary photography on this history appeared inwards 2003, amongst the title Red-Color News Soldier. Chinese historian Jonathan Spence provides an illuminating introduction to the volume as well as the period. The inwardness of the book, edited as well as presented past times Robert Pledge, is a torso of photography past times Li Zhensheng. Li was a rank-and-file intelligence lensman in Heilongjiang inwards the northeast of China who had received celluloid preparation inwards the 1960s. Li provides a brusque but fascinating autobiographical contestation of his early on years during the Great Leap Forward, as well as he adds to this narrative inwards each of the chief sections of the book. Li took thousands of photographs during the early on years of the Cultural revolution, about of which he knew to hold upward politically dangerous. He thence succeeded inwards hiding thousands of these negatives for thirty-five years, before making them available for publication inwards 2003.

The volume provides really novel emotional insight into this menstruation of chaos inwards China's recent history. The photographs capture the passions of committed Red Guards every bit good every bit the pathos of the oft innocent scapegoats who were the victim of Red Guard violence. Mass emotion as well as private pathos are captured inwards almost all the images inwards the book. 

Several things squall out from the photos inwards this volume that peradventure shed lite on the sense for Chinese people of the Cultural Revolution. One is the intensity, size, as well as rage of the crowds that are depicted. It is peradventure extreme to say this, but many of these photos evoke majority madness -- people caught upward inwards the emotions as well as hatreds of the menstruation inwards ways that obliterated their ordinary human impulses of compassion as well as kindness. What nosotros reckon instead is a ocean of human faces, taking inwards the humiliation as well as abuse of their neighbors, patch shouting back upward or laughing at shaming self-confessions, dunce caps, as well as raw physical abuse.

Related to this is the cruelty that the photos depict. There is no compassion shown for the victims forced to humiliate themselves, who are physically tormented, as well as who were sometimes killed. What is portrayed is a merciless public scapegoating of people, oft for the most picayune or spurious of reasons. People were defendant of belonging to i of the "four elements" -- landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, or "bad characters" (55), as well as they were dealt amongst summarily. Physical violence was common; but so also was a deep as well as sustained imposition of shaming on the pathetic schoolhouse teacher, local political party official, or slightly better-off peasant. Li describes the scene of the execution of 7 men as well as i woman, 2 of whom were "counter-revolutionaries" because of a flyer they had published titled "Looking North". The scene of the execution troubled Li for many years. "All 8 were position on the backs of trucks inwards pairs, driven through town, as well as so out to the countryside northwest of Harbin. There, on the barren grounds of the Huang Shan Cemetery, they were lined up, hands tied behind their backs, as well as forced to kneel. They were all shot inwards the dorsum of the head" (139). The sequence of photos Li took of this execution are harrowing. The concluding photos of the volume depict the execution of Wang Shouxin, a quondam Party branch secretary, on charges of embezzlement, inwards 1980 (after the destination of the Cultural Revolution). Li Zhensheng was introduce for this killing every bit well. (The adult woman kneeling inwards the photograph higher upward is Wang.)

Another striking characteristic is the cult of Mao that many of the photos demonstrate. "By the autumn of 1966 Mao had become, to most Chinese, a living god" (144). Portraits of the Chairman as well as peasants shaking their Little Red Books abound at these majority meetings. H5N1 headline inwards the Heilongjiang Daily in 1966 shouts its praise: "Long life to Chairman Mao, Great Leader, Great Commander inwards Chief, Great Helmsman" (71). This is the really same nifty helmsman who led Cathay into the Great Leap Forward as well as a devastating famine resulting inwards to a greater extent than than twenty meg deaths, alone 8 years earlier. Mao publicly greeted over xi meg Red Guards inwards Tiananmen Square inwards appearances over the maiden of all several years of the Cultural Revolution, according to Li (131). The many images of Mao inwards these intelligence photos were non accidental; intelligence editors made certain that at that spot were ample posters inwards the published photo, fifty-fifty if they were non visible inwards the master scene:

Another fourth dimension I made a pic of a crowded rally at a sports champaign from behind, so yous couldn't reckon all the portraits held up, alone their wooden frames -- as well as for the concluding image, my editor instructed me to add together pictures of Mao to the dorsum of the frames, fifty-fifty though this skewed the perspective as well as it made no sense that they were facing the incorrect way. (133)

So the volume provides a rich sail through which nosotros tin give the axe start to grasp about of the human important of the sense of the Cultural Revolution. It is of import to hold upward clear well-nigh the limits of the book, however. It is geographically express to the extreme northeast of China, the say of Heilongjiang. So it is suggestive of the nature of the sense inwards other places -- but alone suggestive. It would hold upward striking to convey other images from Souzhou, Wuhan, or Xian; how similar or dissimilar were the currents of rage as well as violence inwards those other parts of China?

Second, the volume does non shed lite on the causes or dynamics of the Cultural Revolution. Li refers to the politics of contender factions on several occasions, but nosotros don't larn much of an sentiment of what the shouting was well-nigh inwards those struggles. And at that spot is no footing for drawing inferences well-nigh the leadership's intentions as well as strategies on the footing of this collection. Li's perspective is from the street: these are the demonstrations that occurred, this is how the crowds looked, hither are about of the acts of humiliation as well as violence that occurred inwards my presence. It is for others to laid the phase past times discovery the political dynamics of the Cultural Revolution from maiden of all to end.

But the questions raised past times this volume are enormously important. Li's photographic television camera depicts a population gone mad; as well as yet these were ordinary people but similar the citizens of Albany or Albuquerque or Peoria. So nosotros are forced to ask, what are the atmospheric condition that brand a world laid upward for this form of raging cruelty; as well as what are the sparks that unleash the outbreak of a menstruation similar the Cultural Revolution?