China's commie comics
History Today describes how the communists of China made use of a form of comic called "lianhuanhua" for producing propaganda:
The Chinese folk tale The Snail-Shell Girl tells the story of a poor man who falls in love with a beautiful woman who lives in a shell, their path to happiness thwarted by an evil landlord. Adapted from a compendium of fourth-century legends, the tale was published as a lianhuanhua in 1957. Lianhuanhua (‘serial picture stories’), read by children and adults alike, are palm-sized books with two or three lines of text and one image per page. They emerged in China’s Republican period (1911-49) and were rented and sold in their thousands.Be that as it may, this is still another example of how China began its collapse under the tragic weight of communism, and a shame this type of comic or illustrated medium had to lend itself as it did to the CCP's propaganda efforts that destroyed a once great country in the long run. Undoubtably, there's plenty of impressive ideas in Chinese mythology that're inspirational for storytelling. But there's also obviously disadvantages, and the CCP in Mao Zedong's time certainly put lianhuanhua to use for bad purposes. Today, it could be argued we're seeing the sad results ever since.
Between 1949 and 1966 the Communist state co-opted the medium for propaganda, and publishing of lianhuanhua boomed. New genres, such as tales about the heroics of the revolutionary wars, were introduced, competing with the ever-popular adaptations of Chinese classics such as Snail-Shell.
But the popularity of Snail-Shell presented a problem: given its focus on systemic class oppression, it is unsurprising that the state liked the story. The issue was that the protagonist’s salvation comes through supernatural intervention. By the time of Snail-Shell’s publication in 1957 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had long questioned how to draw on a literary canon which included a tradition of demons, gods and spirits. The CCP prided itself on being founded on ideas of rational and scientific thinking – the supernatural ran counter to that. In 1942, in his ‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum On Literature and Art’ (which later formed the basis of the treatment of China’s literary legacy in the early PRC), Mao Zedong argued that ‘old forms’ could be ‘remoulded and infused with new content’. Tasked with overseeing the transformation of lianhuanhua publishing, in 1951 the Cultural Bureau expressed concerns about titles with overly ‘pessimistic’, ‘fatalist’, or ‘superstitious’ content, which countered ‘rational and scientific thinking’. But they were not banned outright. Instead, revamped stories were published that combined communist rhetoric with supernatural intervention. These stories both celebrated China’s cultural heritage and satirised society before communism.
Many lianhuanhua are love stories in which the protagonist falls for a beautiful, but supernatural, heroine, who is in turn charmed by his filial piety and work ethic. Themes of freedom of choice in marriage had dominated CCP discourse since the inception of the New Marriage Law in 1950, which, among other things, required both parties to consent to the match, something the party was keen to present as revolutionary. [...]
Lianhuanhua went beyond just imparting communist values, however. As Liu Xun, editor in chief of a magazine about lianhuanhua, put it in 1954, these stories celebrated Chinese mythology and had ‘passed through the baptism of time and solidified the excellent qualities of the Chinese people: bravery, diligence, kindness and modesty’. An introduction to the 1962 edition of Snail-Shell justified its re-publication as a ‘beautiful and moving folk legend’.
The authorities soon changed their mind, however. Lianhuanhua with supernatural elements started to be banned from 1965, following more restrictive national cultural policies that would lead to the Cultural Revolution the following year. Lianhuanhua that had once been, if not celebrated, at least tolerated for including the ‘strange’ were now ‘superstitious’. But even on the eve of the Cultural Revolution there was no wholesale condemnation of Chinese mythology, nor monsters and demons. Some stories, such as the canonical Journey to the West, of which Mao was a fan and which had a lianhuanhua adaptation in 1962, were simply too well established.
Labels: censorship issues, Europe and Asia, history, politics
