1960 Chinese Propaganda

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, until the 1970s, sinologists and others studied the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media for clues as to what might be occurring in Mainland China of which there was much conjecture. The author compares the reports from two 1960 CCP media releases, which were prepared for the national Chinese audience by the People's Republic of China (PRC), with what is now known about the terrible Communist planning error in the agricultural sector during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The paper concludes that all media materials from Beijing were expected to be propaganda; therefore, the Chinese public became adept at discerning what really might be happening. The author stresses that this reflective habit is still practiced in the PRC, despite much liberalization of the mass media.

Table of Contents
Introduction
'Go to the First Line of Agriculture!'
'Advance Payment of Wages Every Month Stimulates Enthusiasm of the CCP'
Mao's Famine
Concluding Discussion

From the Paper:

"The article seems to fit with a great deal that appeared through the month of September 1960 to do with agricultural gains, work still to be done, the potential for China to become a kind of agrarian paradise, and general applause for the rural laborer. In the article discussed, rural toil is said to be very good for cadres who may still be bureaucrats or people otherwise not yet exposed to the soil. Readers in the cities, or for that matter in Hong Kong or Taiwan or wherever else refugees from the Communist state had fled, had reason to wonder what was meant by the "transfer of large numbers of cadres ..."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Becker, Jasper. "Life in the Cities," in Hungry Ghosts - Mao's Secret Famine. New York: Henry Holt, 1998, 220-231.
• Cheek, Timothy. Propaganda and Culture in Mao's China - Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Fitzgerald, John. "The Origin of the Illiberal Party Newspaper - Print Journalism in China's Nationalist Revolution." Republican China. 21. (1996): 1-22.
• Interview with Dr. X. Lee. Toronto, November, 2006.
• Lin, Justin and Dennis Yang. "Food Availability, Entitlement, and the Chinese Famine of 1959-1961." The Economic Journal. 460. (2000): 136-158.

More papers on 1960 Chinese Propaganda:

• Essay # 90650 : "Mainstream Chinese Media"
• Essay # 138228 : "Propaganda and Persuasion"
• Comparison Essay # 105080 : "Propaganda, Advertising and Competition"

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