The People’s Revolution: The Use of the Iconography of the Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution’s internal strife, conflict and ideology is notable, and well studied, but one aspect of it that is rarely considered, according to Julia Lovell, is the overall international impact and view of the event. In her forward to her 2016 article, The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective, Lovell gives a short overview of the histography surrounding the international impacts of the Cultural Revolution1. Discussing the works of Richard Wolin, Roberto
Niccolai and Robert Alexander, Lovell sums them as looking at the international impacts of the Cultural Revolution in a piecemeal manner – looking at individual regions and nations, not considering overall trends – so while these works may be useful, there is not a comprehensive overview of the trends of the international impacts of the Cultural Revolution – a void that Lovell intends to fill2. One such impact demonstrated by Lovell is the way the iconography of the Cultural Revolution impacted a whole range of revolutionary and anti-establishment movements.

The focus of a great deal of Lovell’s work is on how the presentation and conception of the Cultural Revolution abroad stimulated discontented youth across varying nations and social boundaries  – from the African American civil rights movement of the United States to radical student movements in West Germany3. And while a large part of the groups discussed by Lovell are politically left wing, one of the more interesting elements discussed by Lovell is how the revolutionary iconography of the the Cultural Revolution was coopted by many anti-establishment groups, regardless of their political disposition. Lovell discusses how even Italian Neo-Fascists used Maoist slogans and language, while among the more radical arms of the African American liberation movements of the United States, Mao’s Little Red Book was seen in explicitly racial terms,  and the Revolutionary Action Movement used terms like ‘Black Guard’4.

Why was it Maoist iconography that took such a root in revolutionary and anti-establishment groups across the world, and why only by the mid 60s with the onset of the Cultural Revolution? According to Lovell, it was the specific aspects of the Cultural Revolution – the focus on grassroots political participation and the idea of the mass line5. But how was the Cultural Revolution ‘marketed’ and presented outside of China. While Lovell does mention that the Cultural Revolution both internally and externally took on meanings probably unintended by it’s creators, the way the Cultural Revolution was presented internationally does not seem to be something that she focuses on, nor does it seem to be a common area of study6. This seems to be somewhat of a blindspot to me, and a missing piece of the puzzle of the spread of Maoist ideas throughout the later half of the 20th century.

Bibliography

  • Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” The China Quarterly 227 (September 2016): 632–52.
  1. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” The China Quarterly 227 (September 2016): 632–52, PG633-634. [↩]
  2. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” PG634-635. [↩]
  3. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” PG637. [↩]
  4. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” PG637-638. [↩]
  5. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” PG640. [↩]
  6. Lovell, Julia. “The Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective.” PG633-634. [↩]