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On Photographs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Roderick MacFarquhar
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Extract

Regarding the question of hanging the portraits of our leaders, the Central Authorities made a clear ruling as early as 29 March 1960… “In the organizations for ehe Party, the People's Liberation Army and the people's associations of various kinds, it is permitted to hang the portrait of Mao Tse-tung alone; it is also permitted to hang the portrait of Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, Chu Te, Ch'en Yun, Lin Piao, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, seven persons. The manner of hanging these portraits is: if it is desirable to hang the seven portraits of Mao, Liu, Chou, Chu, Ch'en, Lin, Teng together, the portrait of Mao Tse-tung can be placed in the centre and the others on the two sides. It is also suitable to put the portrait of Mao Tse-tung in the first place and the others in order as indicated, and from left to right. According to our understanding there are now not a few units, especially the primary level units, which have not hung the portraits as described above. We are asking these units to inspect carefully the way in which these instructions have been carried out so that we may have a unified system according to the regulations of the Central Authorities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 46 , June 1971 , pp. 289 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

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References

1. Cheng, J. Chester (ed.), The Politics of the Chinese Red Army (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Publications, 1966), p. 360.Google Scholar A display of leaders' photographs, arranged in one of the prescribed manners in a Chinese shop, cani be seen in Carol, K. S., China: The Other Communism (London: Heinemann, 1967)Google Scholar in the set of plates between pp. 314 and 315. A slightly different angle by the same photographer can be found in Riboud, Marc, The Three Banners of China (London: Macmillan, 1966), p. 139.Google Scholar

2. Hsin-wen chan-hsien (News Front), 30 06 1967Google Scholar, translated in Survey of the China Mainland Press (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), Supplement (hereafter SCMP-S), No. 203, p. 32.Google Scholar

3. Ibid. p. 33. I have not seen the original and have not therefore been able to check whether “spanked” is a faithful translation.

4. Ibid.

5. See Conquest, Robert, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. (London: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 202–203.Google Scholar

6. An example of the casual attitude towards photographs in the China field is the fact that so major a work as Schumann, Franz's Ideology and Organisation in Communist China (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Revised ed., 1968)Google Scholar has undergone a major revison without anyone, including the present writer, noticing that the picture captioned as the Eighth (Lushan) Plenum is actually a picture of the Seventh Plenum. (The picture is among those between pp. 234 and 235 in the revised edition.) That this is not simply a “nit-picking” comment will be argued below.

7. For extended discussions of Kremlinology see Rush, Myron, The Rise of Khrushchev (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1958)Google Scholar, Appendix 2, “The role of esoteric communication in Soviet Politics”; Conquest, Robert, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R.Google Scholar, Ch. 3, “Questions of Evidence”; Zagoria, Donald S., The Sino-Soviet Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962)Google Scholar, “A note on Methodology”; and for a latter-day appraisal of the method, Walter Laqueur, The Fate of the Revolution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), pp. 180–182.Google Scholar

8. The Case of Peng Teh-hum, 1959–1968 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), p. 20.Google Scholar

9. Current Background (Hong Kong) (hereafter CB), No. 981, p. 72.Google Scholar

10. Leonhard, Wolfgang, The Kremlin since Stalin (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 66.Google Scholar

11. In 1956 the Chinese were prepared to ignore Soviet sensitivities by display ing Stalin's picture because they disapproved of the way in which Khrushchev had denounced him at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

12. Jen-min shou-ts'e 1956, p. 77.Google Scholar

13. My discussion of the Kao-Jao affair is based mainly on the relevant chapter in Frederick Teiwes' dissertation on purges and rectification in China and on Hinton, Harold, “The ‘Unprincipled Dispute’ within the Chinese Communist Top Leadership” (Washington: USIA-IS–98–55, 07 1955).Google Scholar

14. Hinton, , “The ‘Unprincipled Dispute’,” p. 24.Google Scholar

15. See P'eng Teh-huai's confession in The Case of Peng Teh-huai, pp. 119–120.Google Scholar

16. Actually two pictures were issued but the other one just showed Mao with delegates vaguely in the background; People's Daily, 25 05 1958.Google Scholar

17. The campaign against local nationalism had replaced the campaign against great Han chauvinism in the summer of 1957 when some representatives of local nationalities had displayed excessive local patriotism. See MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals (New York: Praeger, 1960), pp. 253–257.Google Scholar

18. Translated in CB, No. 891, p. 30.Google Scholar

19. See Schurmann, , Ideology and Organisation, pp. 195–219.Google Scholar

20. Jen-min shou-ts'e, 1959, p. 16.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. pp. 22–23.

22. Teng could have moved next to Mao to give some administrative details about the winding up of the Congress, (The picture was taken at the very end of the Congress; Mao and Teng are standing behind what appear to be the only microphones on the podium.) It would not have been difficult for Teng as General Secretary to organize the selection of the podium group for the final session.

23. For a discussion of this breach, see my forthcoming volume entitled The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: I, Contradictions among the People, 1956–57.

24. People's Daily, 18 12 1958.Google Scholar

25. Ibid. 8 April 1959.

26. CB, No. 892, p. 38.Google Scholar

27. People's Daily, 27 08 1959.Google Scholar

28. See “Down with Ch'en Yun, old hand at opposing Chairman Mao,” Ts'ai mao hung-ch'i (Finance and Trade Red Flag), 15 02 1967Google Scholar, in SCMP-S, No. 177, p. 9.Google Scholar Ch'en was resting in Dairen.

29. See Teng Hsiao-p'ing tzu-pai shu (Teng Hsiao-p'ing's Confession) (Reprinted by Kwangtung Province Ascend the Mountains, Go to the Countryside “Conquer the Tiger (?)” Youth Combat Corps, no date), p. 4. (This item is reproduced in Group X, Roll 1, Part 1 of the microfilmed material distributed by the Center for Chinese Research Materials, Washington.)

30. Lin Piao was apparently sick through much of 1965 on the eve of another even more important assignment as Mao's successor. See “Lo Jui-ch'ing deserves to die ten thousand times for his crimes,” Ching-kang-shan (Chingkang Mountains) and Kuang-tung wen-yi chan-pao (Kwangtung Literature and Art Combat News), 5 09 1967Google Scholar, in Joint Publications Research Service (Washington) (JPRS), No. 43903, pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

31. See “Down with the old swine Chu Teh,” Tung-fang hung (The East is Red) 11 02 1967Google Scholar, in SCMP-S, No. 172, p. 22Google Scholar; also “Towering crimes of Chu Teh, big warlord and big careerist,” Chan pao (Combat News), 24 02 1967Google Scholar, in SCMP-S, No. 175, p. 5.Google Scholar At some point in 1959, after the Plenum presumably, the CC circulated Chu Teh's self-criticism; see the pamphlet Expose the Towering Crimes of Counter-revolutionary Revisionist Li Ch'i against the Party, Socialism and Mao Tie-fling's Thought (Peking: “East is Red” Commune of the Peking Institute of Cinematography of the Red Guard Congress, and the “Red Army” Combat Corps of the Peking Scientific Education Film Studio of the Workers' Congress, 1 04 1967)Google Scholar, in Survey of China Mainland Magazines (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General) Supplement (SCMM-S), No. 23, p. 10.Google Scholar

32. Which is why it was a pity that the photograph in the Schurmann volume suggested that the PSC was present, correct and united at Lushan; see above, footnote 6.

33. People's Daily, 21 01 1961.Google Scholar

34. Indications of later bad feeling between Mme Mao and Mme Liu are provided by the accusations against the latter that she ignored Chiang Ch'ing's advice not to wear a brooch/necklace on a foreign tour; see CB, No. 848, p. 13.Google Scholar

35. 30 September 1962, i.e., the day after the 10th Plenum photograph had appeared.

36. In the Cultural Revolution material, Liu and Teng are excoriated as the leading opponents of Mao; but P'eng Chen's long historical connection with Liu is constantly alluded to—see for instance “A Compilation of dossiers,” Supplement to Kung nung ping (Worker, Peasant, Soldier), 09 1967Google Scholar, in SCMM-S, No. 27, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

37. For a fuller discussion, see my forthcoming volume mentioned above in footnote 23.

38. Solomon, Richard (in “One party and ‘one hundred schools’: leadership, lethargy or luan,” Current Scene, VII, Nos. 19–20 (1 10 1969), p. 34)Google Scholar refers to a picture of Mao meeting some Shanghai non-Party intellectuals in July 1957 in which Mao appears on the extreme left of the picture. He cites a former OCP cadre as observing that the picture might have been designed to ridicule Mao for “leftism” since the Chairman would normally be photographed in the middle of a group. Solomon concurs with this view, suggesting that the photograph conveys the message that Mao's blooming and contending policy was “right in form but left in essence.”

But how unusual was Mao's positioning in the light of other photographs of similar occasions? Certainly Mao normally stands or sits in the centre of formal group photographs; but this is not necessarily the case with informal photographs or photographs of informal occasions. Examples of the informal situation can be seen in the People's Daily of 26 05 and 13 06 1957Google Scholar, where Mao is shown standing on the left of groups of Youth Leaguers and workers' dependants. In Jen-min hua-pao (People's Pictorial), No. 4 (1958), p. 1Google Scholar, and ibid. No. 9 (1960), p. 1, Mao is shown on the right of two informal groups. There can be little doubt that the meeting in Shanghai in July 1957 was meant to be seen as an informal occasion at which the Chairman just engaged in “intimate” conversation with the non-Party people and saw a play with them. This being the case, the principle of consistency would suggest that there is nothing to be deduced from Mao's positioning in this photograph. (And indeed if anything were to be deduced from the positioning, the simplest explanation would be that the Chairman is being depicted in a completely natural position, i.e., on the left of non-Party people.)

39. The photograph (People's Daily, 11 05 1966Google Scholar) was not the only evidence of course. Following the principle of comparability and seeking indications from other material, one noted that there had been no official greetings ceremony for Liu on his return from an Asian tour in April. The political context – the clearly impending fall of P'eng Chen, a man closely associated with Liu in the past – buttressed the photographic evidence.

In the light of later developments, it is worth noting that this photograph showed, next to Mao, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, Chou En-lai and Lin Piao in that order. It is still impossible to be certain of the reason for Teng's prominence in this photograph. One possible explanation is that Mao may have wanted to avoid threatening Teng's position too openly and so drive him into collaboration with Liu before the latter had been disgraced. Confirmation of this hypothesis is suggested by the new Politburo ranking that emerged after the 11th Plenum in August 1966. While Teng suffered, in that two men (T'ao Chu and Ch'en Po-ta) were promoted above him, his ranking actually improved, for the demotion of Liu Shaoch'i, Chu Teh and Ch'en Yun meant he rose from No. 7 to No. 6. (For a table comparing the rankings before and after the 11th Plenum, see The China Quarterly, No. 28 (10–12 1966), p. 186.Google Scholar

39. For footnote see p. 306.