---
title: People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/
description: From 1 October 1949 to Mao Zedong's death on 9 September 1976 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governed the People's Republic of China under Chairman…
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: a dense, generic Cold War intelligence analyst's evidence wall of press photography, redacted reports and aerial reconnaissance imagery.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-evidence-wall.jpg)

[Regimes](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/)

# People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong

At a glance

The Chinese Communist Party's rule of the People's Republic of China under Chairman Mao Zedong, from the proclamation of 1 October 1949 to his death on 9 September 1976.

- **Period:** 1949 to 1976
- **Country:** China
- **Leader:** [Mao Zedong](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#mao-zedong)
- **People listed:** 15
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Bandwagon](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bandwagon/) [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/) [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/)

On this page

- [The leader and the people under the leader](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#the-leader-and-the-people-under-the-leader)
- [Background and rise to power](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#background-and-rise-to-power)
- [How power was organized](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#how-power-was-organized)
- [The propaganda apparatus](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#the-propaganda-apparatus)
- [Timeline](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#timeline)
- [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#same-standard-note)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#sources)
- [In the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/#in-the-archive)

**In one line:** From 1 October 1949 to Mao Zedong's death on 9 September 1976 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governed the People's Republic of China under Chairman Mao, with the Party leading every other body of the state, and in those years carried out land reform, intervention in the Korean War, collectivisation, the Great Leap Forward and the famine that followed, a series of campaigns against named classes of people, and the Cultural Revolution.

## The leader and the people under the leader

- ![Mao Zedong greeting President Nixon in Beijing, 21 February 1972](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/mao-zedong.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Zedong,_Zhang_Yufeng_et_Richard_Nixon.jpg): White House Photo Office (President Nixon), U.S. National Archives, Public domain (PD-USGov) — Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and of the Central Military Commission; Chairman of the People's Republic until April 1959 · 1949 to 1976 — Led the Party from 1943 and the state from 1 October 1949; held the state chairmanship until April 1959 and, as Party chairman and head of the Central Military Commission, set the direction of every major campaign until his death on 9 September 1976. — In their words — > “The purpose of our meeting today is precisely to ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy with one heart and one mind.” > > Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, introduction of 2 May 1942, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 3 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm) — > “All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstances should they be allowed to spread freely. However, the criticism should be fully reasoned, analytical and convincing, and neither rough and bureaucratic, nor metaphysical and dogmatic.” > > Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work, 12 March 1957, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 5 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_59.htm) — > “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another.” > > On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, speech of 27 February 1957 as revised by Mao for publication in the People's Daily, 19 June 1957, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 5 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_58.htm) — In the archive: [The Mao cult before the state: 'Mao Zedong Thought' and 'The East Is Red', 1943-1949](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mao-cult-origins-1943-1949/), [The Red Guards: how Mao turned millions of students into a political weapon, 1966-68](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/red-guards-youth-mobilization/), [Big-character posters: how the opening labels of China's Cultural Revolution did the work of charges (1966-68)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/cultural-revolution-big-character-posters/), [The Great Leap Forward's 'sputnik' harvests and the famine that followed](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/great-leap-forward-yield-claims/), [The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns: soliciting criticism, then purging it (1956-1959)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/anti-rightist-campaign-1957/)

### Party leadership

- ![Liu Shaoqi in 1951](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/liu-shaoqi.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Tse-Tung_poseert_met_zijn_ministers_en_gedelegeerden_van_het_Nationaal_Comit%C3%A9_van_China_tijdens_de_herfstconferentie_in_Peking,_Bestanddeelnr_333001_074.tif): Camera Press (Fotocollectie Spaarnestad), CC0 1.0 (Nationaal Archief) — Liu Shaoqi — Chairman of the People's Republic of China; Vice-Chairman of the CCP Central Committee · 1959 to 1968 — Chaired the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1954 and succeeded Mao as head of state in April 1959; labelled "China's Khrushchev" in 1967, expelled from the Party in October 1968, died in custody on 12 November 1969 and was rehabilitated in February 1980. — In their words — > “Our entire Party press must propagate Mao Zedong Thought in a systematic way. The propaganda departments of the Party should edit Comrade Mao Zedong's important works into popular reading matter suited to the level of the average Party member.” > > "On the Party" (report on the revision of the Party constitution, Seventh National Congress, 14 May 1945), in Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1945/on-party/ch02.htm) — > “This is due to the fact that the masses, especially the peasantry, accept things only on the strength of their own personal experience instead of on the strength of our general propaganda and slogans.” > > "On the Party" (report on the revision of the Party constitution, Seventh National Congress, 14 May 1945), in Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1945/on-party/ch02.htm) — In the archive: [Big-character posters: how the opening labels of China's Cultural Revolution did the work of charges (1966-68)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/cultural-revolution-big-character-posters/)
- ![Deng Xiaoping at the White House arrival ceremony, 29 January 1979](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/deng-xiaoping.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madame_Zhuo_Lin,_Rosalynn_Carter,_Deng_Xiaoping_and_Jimmy_Carter_at_the_arrival_ceremony_for_the_Vice_Premier_of_China._-_NARA_-_183155.jpg): White House staff photographers (Carter administration), Public domain (PD-USGov) — Deng Xiaoping — General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee's Secretariat · 1956 to 1966 — Ran the Party's day-to-day business through the Secretariat from 1956, including much of the conduct of the Anti-Rightist Campaign; removed in 1966 as a "capitalist roader", returned as Vice-Premier in 1973 and was dismissed again in April 1976. — In their words — > “Science and technology are part of the productive forces. Mental workers who serve socialism are part of the working people. A correct understanding of these two facts is essential to the rapid development of our scientific enterprises.” > > Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the National Conference on Science, 18 March 1978, in Deng Xiaoping Works (English translation) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1978/30.htm) — > “When views diverge on scholarly questions, we must follow the policy of “letting a hundred schools of thought contend” and encourage free discussion.” > > Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the National Conference on Science, 18 March 1978, in Deng Xiaoping Works (English translation) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1978/30.htm) — In the archive: [The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns: soliciting criticism, then purging it (1956-1959)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/anti-rightist-campaign-1957/), [Boluan Fanzheng: how Deng Xiaoping's faction used a debate about truth to break Hua Guofeng's hold on power, 1977-1981](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/boluan-fanzheng-repudiation-of-cultural-revolution/)
- ![Hua Guofeng in Paris, 16 October 1979](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/hua-guofeng.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hua_Guofeng.jpg): Bibliotheque de l'Hotel de Ville, Bibliotheques specialisees de la Ville de Paris, Public domain (PD-France) — Hua Guofeng — Premier of the State Council; First Vice-Chairman of the CCP Central Committee · 1976 — Named acting premier in February 1976 and premier in April, became Party chairman after Mao's death, and had Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen arrested on 6 October 1976. — In the archive: [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/), [Grief on schedule: Mao's death, Hua Guofeng's succession and the 'two whatevers', 1976-1978](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mao-death-succession-propaganda-1976/)

### State and government

- ![Zhou Enlai in the Great Hall of the People, 21 February 1972](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/zhou-enlai.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Richard_Nixon_Seated_with_Premier_Chou_En-Lai,_William_Rogers,_and_Others_Inside_the_Great_Hall_of_the_People_-_DPLA_-_e11f0938aeb976095187623ccc74db6e.tiff): White House Photo Office (President Nixon), U.S. National Archives (via Digital Public Library of America), Public domain (U.S. federal government work) — Zhou Enlai — Premier of the State Council; Minister of Foreign Affairs to 1958 · 1949 to 1976 — Headed the State Council, the executive of the state, from October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976, and was foreign minister until 1958; he negotiated with the United States in 1971 and 1972. — In their words — > “We Communists do not hide the fact that we believe in communism and that we consider the socialist system a good system. There is no need at this Conference to publicize one’s ideology and the political system of one’s country, although differences do exist among us.” > > Supplementary speech at the plenary session of the Asian-African Conference, Bandung, 19 April 1955 (English rendering as spoken at the conference, text from the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) [source](https://worldjpn.net/documents/texts/docs/19550419.S2E.html) — > “Our great proletarian cultural revolution is acclaimed and warmly praised by all Marxists-Leninists and revolutionary people of the world and immensely fortifies their revolutionary fighting will and confidence in victory.” > > Speech at the National Day Reception, 30 September 1966, in Forward Along the High Road of Mao Tse-tung's Thought (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhou-enlai/1966/09/30.htm)
- ![Zhu De in 1951](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/zhu-de.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Tse-Tung_poseert_met_zijn_ministers_en_gedelegeerden_van_het_Nationaal_Comit%C3%A9_van_China_tijdens_de_herfstconferentie_in_Peking,_Bestanddeelnr_333001_074.tif): Camera Press (Fotocollectie Spaarnestad), CC0 1.0 (Nationaal Archief) — Zhu De — Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress · 1959 to 1976 — Held the rank of commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army in the early 1950s, was a vice-chairman of the Republic from 1954 to 1959, and then presided over the National People's Congress Standing Committee until his death on 6 July 1976. — In their words — > “The Central People's Government will certainly help the Tibetan people in wiping out the influence of imperialism in Tibet; it will achieve the unification of the territory and sovereignty of the People's Republic of China, and defend the national frontiers of our great Motherland, so that the Tibetan nationality and people will achieve liberation, return forever to the family of our great Motherland and, helped by the Central People's Government and the Han nationality, develop its own political, economic, cultural and educational work and improve and raise its standards of living step by step.” > > Statement on the conclusion of the agreement concerning the peaceful liberation of Tibet, 23 May 1951, People's China, vol. 3, no. 12 (16 June 1951) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhu-de/1951/05/23.htm) — > “The Chinese people have a deep love of peace, but in order to defend peace, they have never been, and will never be, afraid of resisting an aggressive war.” > > "The October Revolution and the Chinese People", People's China, vol. 2, no. 10 (16 November 1950) [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhu-de/1950/11/16.htm)

### Armed forces

- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait from his years in office found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peng_Dehuai_1958.jpg), tagged public domain on Commons, 178 px, a derivative whose original publication and US status could not be verified. — Peng Dehuai — Minister of National Defence; commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers · 1954 to 1959 — Commanded the Chinese People's Volunteers in Korea from October 1950 and was defence minister from 1954; after his letter to Mao of 14 July 1959 he was dismissed at Lushan as head of an "anti-Party clique", and he died in detention in 1974. — In their words — > “The exaggeration trend has become so common in various areas and departments that reports of unbelievable miracles have appeared in newspapers and magazines to bring a great loss of prestige to the Party.” > > Letter to Chairman Mao, 14 July 1959, in Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal: The Autobiographical Notes of Peng Dehuai (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), appendix, p. 516 [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/peng-dehuai/1984/memoirspengdehuai.pdf) — > “What is particularly serious in all this is that it was very hard for us to get to know the real situation for a fairly long period.” > > Letter to Chairman Mao, 14 July 1959, in Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal: The Autobiographical Notes of Peng Dehuai (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), appendix, p. 516 [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/peng-dehuai/1984/memoirspengdehuai.pdf) — In the archive: [The Great Leap Forward's 'sputnik' harvests and the famine that followed](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/great-leap-forward-yield-claims/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%9E%97%E5%BD%AA.jpg), tagged PD-China on Commons, but the photographer and first publication are not stated (source: a Baidu Baike page). — Lin Biao — Minister of National Defence; Vice-Chairman of the CCP Central Committee · 1959 to 1971 — Became defence minister in September 1959 and made study of Mao's words part of army political study, was made Vice-Chairman in August 1966 and named Mao's successor in the party constitution of April 1969, and died in a plane crash on 13 September 1971. — In their words — > “Therefore, the most fundamental task in our Party's political and ideological work is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it and to persist in using it to command every field of activity.” > > Foreword to the Second Edition of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 16 December 1966 [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lin-biao/1966/12/16.htm) — > “The newspapers should regularly carry quotations from Chairman Mao relevant to current issues for readers to study and apply.” > > Foreword to the Second Edition of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 16 December 1966 [source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lin-biao/1966/12/16.htm) — In the archive: [The PLA's Political Commissar System: Dual Command, the General Political Department and PLA Daily](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/pla-political-commissar-system/), [The Red Guards: how Mao turned millions of students into a political weapon, 1966-68](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/red-guards-youth-mobilization/)

### Propaganda and culture

- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait from his years in office found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CCP_group_1946.jpg), public domain on Commons, a 1946 group photograph before his years in this office. — Lu Dingyi — Director of the CCP Central Propaganda Department · 1940s to 1952 and 1954 to 1966 — Ran the department that licensed the press, broadcasting, film and education, elaborated the "double hundred" policy to Party and non-Party audiences in 1956, and was removed in May 1966 at the start of the Cultural Revolution. — In the archive: [Zhongxuanbu: the Central Propaganda Department as the ruling party's standing ministry of message, 1949-2026](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/ccp-central-propaganda-department-institution/), [The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns: soliciting criticism, then purging it (1956-1959)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/anti-rightist-campaign-1957/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zhou_Enlai,_Chen_Boda,_Chen_Yi_attended_demonstration_in_Beijing_to_support_1967_Hong_Kong_riot_tkp1967-05-19_p1.jpg), a 1967 Hong Kong newspaper page whose licence was not verified. — Chen Boda — Head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group · 1966 to 1969 — Mao's political secretary and the Party's leading ideologist, edited the journal Red Flag from its launch in 1958, headed the Group from its formation in May 1966 until it lapsed after the Ninth Congress in 1969, was removed in 1970, and was tried in 1980 and 1981. — In the archive: [The Red Guards: how Mao turned millions of students into a political weapon, 1966-68](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/red-guards-youth-mobilization/)

### The Cultural Revolution group

- ![Jiang Qing at the Red Detachment of Women performance, Beijing, 22 February 1972](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/peoples-republic-of-china-mao/jiang-qing.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Richard_Nixon_Seated_with_Jiang_Qing_(Madam_Mao)_during_a_Revolutionary_Opera_Performance_-_DPLA_-_9dc9cbd4848d1dcf7487eeb101fc47e1.tiff): White House Photo Office (President Nixon), U.S. National Archives (via Digital Public Library of America), Public domain (U.S. federal government work) — Jiang Qing — First Deputy Head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group; Politburo member from 1969 · 1966 to 1976 — Mao's wife; supervised the "model operas" that dominated the stage and shaped the arts and press through the Group, sat on the Politburo from April 1969, and was arrested on 6 October 1976. — In their words — > “I am a sort of roving sentry in the field of culture and education. What I have been doing is to subscribe to some magazines and newspapers, to leaf through them, and to pick out materials which I think noteworthy, including positive and negative materials. I finally submit them to Chairman Mao for reference.” > > Speech at the enlarged meeting of the Party Military Affairs Committee, 12 April 1967, English translation (in part) in Issues and Studies (Taipei), vol. 6, no. 10 (July 1970) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/jiang-qing/1967/april/12.htm) — > “After I saw the movie last evening, I felt uneasy. Is it possible for you to make some supplementary filming? If it is shown in the whole country as it is now, those workers, peasants and soldiers who have not seen these operas before would not be able to understand them; for they, unlike us, are not familiar with these operas.” > > Talk at the Peking Forum on Literature and Art, 9 and 12 November 1967, on a documentary film of the model Peking operas, in CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966-1967 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), pp. 595-602 [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/jiang-qing/1967/november/09.htm) — In the archive: [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%BA%B7%E7%94%9F.png), CC BY-SA 4.0, an image made by a Commons user in 2023, not a period photograph. — Kang Sheng — Adviser to the Central Cultural Revolution Group; member of the Politburo Standing Committee · 1966 to 1975 — Had headed the Party's Central Social Affairs Department, its security and intelligence arm, in the 1930s and 1940s; became adviser to the Group in 1966, sat on the Politburo Standing Committee from 1966, and died on 16 December 1975. — In the archive: [The Yan'an Rectification Movement: doctrine, self-criticism and the Rescue Campaign (1942-1945)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/yanan-rectification-movement-1942-1945/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found; no usable file on Commons. — Zhang Chunqiao — Chairman of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee; Vice-Premier · 1967 to 1976 — Led Shanghai's municipal government from February 1967, sat on the Politburo Standing Committee from 1973, became a Vice-Premier in 1975, and was arrested on 6 October 1976. — In the archive: [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yaowenyuan.jpg), a 1960s photograph whose publication and US copyright status could not be verified. — Yao Wenyuan — Member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group; Politburo member from 1969 · 1966 to 1976 — Wrote the November 1965 Shanghai article attacking a play about the Ming official Hai Rui, which opened the movement, sat in the Group and, from 1969, on the Politburo, and was arrested on 6 October 1976. — In the archive: [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/)
- No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wang_Hongwen_Reading.jpg), tagged CC0 as the uploader's own work, but it is dated 1973 and its permission record is still pending, so it was not used. — Wang Hongwen — Vice-Chairman of the CCP Central Committee · 1973 to 1976 — Led Shanghai's rebel workers in 1966 and 1967, was raised to the Party vice-chairmanship at the Tenth Congress in August 1973, and was arrested on 6 October 1976. — In the archive: [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/)

## Background and rise to power

The CCP was founded in Shanghai in July 1921. After the Guomindang (Nationalist) government under Chiang Kai-shek broke with the Communists in 1927, Mao Zedong built a peasant-based Red Army and a rural base in Jiangxi (the Jiangxi Soviet), and became the party's leading figure during the Long March of 1934 to 1935. A Politburo decision of March 1943 gave him the final word, and the Seventh Congress of 1945 wrote "Mao Zedong Thought" into the party constitution and made him Chairman of the Central Committee (origins of the Mao cult).

After Japan's surrender the Communists and Nationalists fought a civil war (civil war propaganda). On 21 September 1949 Mao told the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference that the Chinese people had "stood up", and on 1 October he proclaimed the People's Republic from the Tiananmen rostrum. Chiang's government moved to Taiwan in December.

## How power was organized

The state followed the Party. A Common Programme (29 September 1949) and a Central People's Government with Mao as chairman gave way to the Constitution of 20 September 1954. Its Article 1 reads: "The People's Republic of China is a people's democratic state led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants." Mao became Chairman of the Republic, Liu Shaoqi chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and Zhou Enlai Premier. In April 1959 Liu replaced Mao as Chairman of the Republic; Mao kept the Party chairmanship and the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. Eight minor "democratic parties" continued under the Party's leadership, Party committees ran in parallel with government at every level, and the army answered to the Party through its commissars (political commissars). Mao's own 1938 formulation was: "Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."

The first decade brought mass campaigns. Land reform classed every rural household and confiscated land from those labelled landlords (struggle sessions). Chinese People's Volunteers under Peng Dehuai entered the Korean War in October 1950; the armistice came on 27 July 1953. Farms were collectivised from 1953. The Hundred Flowers invitation of 1956 was followed in 1957 by the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which 552,877 people were officially labelled "rightists" (campaign).

The Great Leap Forward of 1958 set grain and steel targets far above earlier output, and "sputnik" harvest reports were summed into national figures that set state grain procurement (yield claims). When Defence Minister Peng Dehuai criticised "boasting and exaggeration" in a letter to Mao in July 1959, the Party condemned him as the head of an "anti-Party clique". The famine of 1959 to 1961 followed. Most published estimates of excess deaths lie between about 15 million and 45 million or more (Yang Jisheng about 36 million, Dikötter at least 45 million); the total and the causes are disputed. In January 1962 Liu Shaoqi told a conference of 7,000 cadres that peasants in Hunan had called the disaster "three parts natural, seven parts man-made".

In 1966 Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. A Central Cultural Revolution Group was formed in May, students became Red Guards and were reviewed by Mao at eight Tiananmen rallies (Red Guards), and labels such as "capitalist roader" were applied to officials and teachers, Liu Shaoqi first among them (big-character posters). Liu was expelled from the Party in October 1968 and died in custody on 12 November 1969. From December 1968 an estimated 17 million urban youth were sent to the countryside (rustication). Lin Biao, named Mao's successor in the party constitution of April 1969, died in a plane crash on 13 September 1971. Andrew Walder (2014) estimates 1.1 to 1.6 million deaths and 22 to 30 million victims of persecution in 1966 to 1971. Mao died on 9 September 1976.

## The propaganda apparatus

The Central Propaganda Department, headed by **Lu Dingyi** from the 1940s to 1952 and again from 1954 to 1966, licensed what was printed, broadcast, filmed and taught through matching departments at every Party level (the department; doctrine page). Xinhua was a state agency whose wire supplied most Chinese outlets and whose confidential "internal reference" reports told the leadership more than the public wire did (Xinhua). The theoretical journal *Red Flag* (1958) was edited by **Chen Boda**, who in 1966 became head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group.

The army had its own channel. Under **Lin Biao**, defence minister from 1959, study of Mao's words became part of army political study, and in 1964 the General Political Department issued *Quotations from Chairman Mao*, later the handbook of the Cultural Revolution. Children joined the Young Pioneers, and schools taught one national curriculum with Mao Zedong Thought and class-struggle framing (schools).

The campaigns carried their own messages: class labels in land reform, the yield "sputniks" of 1958, the invitation and then the labelling of critics in 1956 and 1957, the Korean War germ-warfare allegations (germ-warfare charges), and the wall posters and slogans of 1966. In February 1977 a joint editorial in the press pledged to uphold "whatever" policy decisions Mao had made (death and succession), and the four leaders arrested on 6 October 1976 were presented as the sole authors of the decade's abuses (the Gang of Four). The Party's own verdict is the 1981 Resolution.

The archive's definitions fit most clearly: name-calling and scapegoating (class labels, "rightist", "capitalist roader"), identity fusion (doubting the harvest figures was treated as attacking the Party and its chairman), card stacking and bandwagon (the yield records), euphemism ("serious difficulties" in the 1981 Resolution for the famine years) and narrative laundering (the 1952 germ-warfare commissions).

## Timeline

- July 1921: the CCP is founded in Shanghai.
- 1 October 1949: proclamation of the People's Republic at Tiananmen.
- October 1950: Chinese People's Volunteers enter the Korean War; armistice on 27 July 1953.
- May 1956: "let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend."
- 8 June 1957: the Anti-Rightist Campaign begins.
- 1958 to 1961: the Great Leap Forward; the famine of 1959 to 1961.
- July to August 1959: Peng Dehuai's letter and his condemnation at Lushan; Lin Biao becomes defence minister.
- May 1966: the Cultural Revolution begins.
- October 1968: Liu Shaoqi is expelled from the Party.
- 13 September 1971: Lin Biao dies in a plane crash.
- 8 January 1976: Zhou Enlai dies.
- 9 September 1976: Mao dies.
- 6 October 1976: Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen are arrested.
- 27 June 1981: the Party adopts its Resolution on the history of the period.

## Same-standard note

This page uses the same structure and definitions as every other regime page: a technique is listed only where the archive's working definition and a documented example fit, the same technique ids are applied to every regime, and offices and dates are stated without judging the people who held them. It sets out the Great Leap famine, the campaigns and the Cultural Revolution as history, using the range of published estimates, and records the Party's own later verdicts beside them. It is not a ranking against any other regime; other regime pages record other systems, each with its own scale, intent and context.

## Sources

- Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, 29 September 1949; Constitution of the People's Republic of China, 20 September 1954 (Foreign Languages Press, 1954); Constitution of 17 January 1975.
- Mao Zedong, "Problems of War and Strategy" (6 November 1938), *Selected Works*, vol. 2.
- Central Committee of the CCP, "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", 27 June 1981.
- Roderick MacFarquhar, *The Origins of the Cultural Revolution*, 3 vols (1974 to 1997); MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, *Mao's Last Revolution* (2006).
- Frank Dikötter, *Mao's Great Famine* (2010), *The Tragedy of Liberation* (2013), *The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962 to 1976* (2016).
- Yang Jisheng, *Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958 to 1962* (2012).
- Andrew G. Walder, *China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed* (2015), "Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966 to 1971", *Social Science History* 38 (2014); Walder and Yang Su, "The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside", *The China Quarterly* 173 (2003).
- Anne-Marie Brady, *Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China* (2008).

## In the archive

### Collection objects (2)

- [ORDER: safe-conduct pass of the Chinese People's Volunteers' Headquarters](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cpv-safe-conduct-order-1951/) (1951 · Card stacking)
- ["为革命实行计划生育" (Practise family planning for the revolution), Shanghai poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/family-planning-for-the-revolution-china-1975/) (1975 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)

### Case studies

- [Zhongxuanbu: the Central Propaganda Department as the ruling party's standing ministry of message, 1949-2026](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/ccp-central-propaganda-department-institution/)
- [The Mao cult before the state: 'Mao Zedong Thought' and 'The East Is Red', 1943-1949](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mao-cult-origins-1943-1949/)
- [Propaganda of the Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949: land reform, surrender leaflets and the fall of the mainland](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/chinese-civil-war-propaganda-1945-1949/)
- [Divide the land, label the enemy: propaganda and discipline in the Jiangxi Soviet (1927-1934)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/ccp-jiangxi-soviet-propaganda-1927-1934/)
- [The Yan'an Rectification Movement: doctrine, self-criticism and the Rescue Campaign (1942-1945)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/yanan-rectification-movement-1942-1945/)
- [Land reform and the struggle session: how the CCP's class labels decided who kept their land, 1946-1952](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/land-reform-struggle-sessions-1946-1952/)
- [The Korean War germ-warfare charges: commissions, confessions and the 1953 recall](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/korean-war-germ-warfare-allegations/)
- [The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns: soliciting criticism, then purging it (1956-1959)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/anti-rightist-campaign-1957/)
- [The Great Leap Forward's 'sputnik' harvests and the famine that followed](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/great-leap-forward-yield-claims/)
- [Big-character posters: how the opening labels of China's Cultural Revolution did the work of charges (1966-68)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/cultural-revolution-big-character-posters/)
- [The Red Guards: how Mao turned millions of students into a political weapon, 1966-68](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/red-guards-youth-mobilization/)
- [Down to the countryside: how China rebranded a mass relocation of youth as revolutionary 're-education' (1968-1980)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/down-to-the-countryside-movement/)
- [Class struggle in the classroom: nationalizing China's school curriculum and textbooks, 1949-1977](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/maoist-school-curriculum-control/)
- [A corner of the flag on a six-year-old: the Young Pioneers of China](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/young-pioneers-of-china/)
- [Red scarf to Party card: a century of the Communist Youth League of China](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/communist-youth-league-china/)
- [Xinhua News Agency: China's state press apparatus, 1931-present](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/xinhua-news-agency-state-apparatus/)
- [The PLA's Political Commissar System: Dual Command, the General Political Department and PLA Daily](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/pla-political-commissar-system/)
- [The danwei: how the work unit became China's basic unit of political control, 1951-2003](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/danwei-work-unit-social-control/)
- [Grief on schedule: Mao's death, Hua Guofeng's succession and the 'two whatevers', 1976-1978](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mao-death-succession-propaganda-1976/)
- [The Gang of Four: arrest, denunciation and a trial that closed the Cultural Revolution's books (1976-1981)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gang-of-four-arrest-and-trial-propaganda/)
- [The 1981 Resolution: how the Chinese Communist Party engineered a single verdict on Mao](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/party-resolution-1981-verdict-on-mao/)

### Learn and Write

- [Cold War propaganda: US and Soviet posters, radio and leaflets](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/cold-war-propaganda/)
- [Obedience to authority](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/)
- [Conformity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/conformity/)