¹ Liberation Army Daily editorial of November 23, entitled “Be good and do good by learning from good people and good deeds” and subtitled “Look to Wang Chieh for inspiration.” BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts (hereafter SWB), FE/2022.

² Heroes in modern Chinese communist textbooks are of course very carefully selected. Most have been drawn from the modern revolutionary period and fall into two types: the great statesmen and founding figures of the CCP, and the heroes and martyrs from the lowest ranks—Tung Ts'un-jui, Liu Hu-lan, etc. Few traditional ones such as emperors, scholars or statesmen appear. They have been eliminated as elements of “feudal” and “bourgeois” culture. A few exceptions have been made for historical figures such as leaders of traditional peasant revolts, great inventors (as Ts'ai Lun—inventor of paper), and a few patriotic martial leaders (carefully redrawn to conform to Communist “class” requirements). Now with the 1967 revision of school syllabi, even these may be eliminated. The new Wang Chieh type heroes are so carefully drawn to reflect subtle ideological fluctuations that even they are subject to retouching. For example, The Song of Ouyang Hat was revised once in 1965, and is reported to be undergoing a second revision.

³ Tse-tung, Mao, “On New Democracy, ” Selected Works (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), Vol. II, p. 340Google Scholar.

⁴ “Economism, ” as the Chinese use the term, means the separation of economics from politics and the primacy of ecoaomic solutions, specifically (1) the free working of price mechanisms and (2) material incentives.

⁵ For example, the Youth League organ Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien (China Youth) devoted its entire March 2 issue to Lei Feng at the start of that campaign, and from then on the subject of heroism was often treated in feature articles. This continued through 1964, when the “Emulate the Army” campaign gave new impetus to the subject of heroism; in 1965, issues numbers 22, 23 and 24 gave full space to Wang Chieh. Subsequently, Wang Chieh and Lei Feng remained common by-words for the new ideals of Mao's “heroic society.”

⁶ The author, a PLA writer, says that he was assigned to Ouyang Hai's former company shortly after the hero's death by order of the army commanders in Canton; their specific purpose was for him to write a novel about the hero “which would describe the changes during those years in the army.” Chinese Literature, November 1966, pp. 108–109.

⁷ See Ch'ing-nien ying-hsiung ti ku-shih (Stories of Young Heroes) (Peking: China Youth Publishing House, 1954)Google Scholar. This includes the lives of Tung Ts'un-jui—liberation war; Huang Chi-kuang—Korean war; Lo Sheng-chiao—Korean war; Wang Hsiao-ho—civil war martyr; Liu Hu-lan—15-year-old girl cadre and civil war martyr; Ting Yu-chun—girl cadre and civil war martyr.

⁸ According to Stuart Schram, the first flowering of the Mao cult occurred in association with the 1942–44 Yenan rectification campaign, and was also related to the labour hero campaigns. He says that “manifestations of the cult are to be found in the messages from labour heroes which began to arrive in Yenan toward the end of 1943, saluting Mao as ‘the star of salvation [chiu-hsing] of the Chinese people’ and such.” Schram, , Mao Tse-tung (London: Allen Lane, 1967), pp. 215–216Google Scholar.

⁹ In December 1943, at the height of the production drive, the Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Liberation Daily) carried an almost daily feature on production heroes (a third to a half a page of space, sometimes more), whose presentation followed a fairly simple formula. A small sketched portrait of the model worker (male or female) headed the column, which began with a brief account of his life, namely, his class background. Next, details of his production record and his production methods were given. The tone of the articles was very businesslike; the hero's personality and private life were not described, and there was no ideological dressing to the facts and figures. Aside from the public acclaim they received, the labour heroes were also given small material rewards. For example, on December 19, 1943, a mass meeting of production heroes took place at which rewards and honours were distributed. Some heroic collectives were given prizes of an ox or money. Individual heroes were given money prizes, or items like towels, handkerchiefs, socks, soap, matches and seeds. Non-utility awards—small banners with the writing of the leaders, like Mao and Chu Teh—were also given out.

¹⁰ Marx, , “Critique of the Gotha Programme” (1875), in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1962), II, pp. 21–24Google Scholar.

¹¹ Feng, Lei diary in Lao-tung jen-min ti hao erh-tzu Lei Feng (Good son of the working people) (Peking: China Youth Publishing House, 04 1963)Google Scholar. Hai, Ouyang: Ouyang Hal chih ko (Song of Ouyang Hai) (Peking: PLA Literature and Arts Society, 04 1966)Google Scholar. Chieh, Wang diary in Wang Chieh jih-chi (The diary of Wang Chieh) (Peking: People's Publishing House, 11 1965)Google Scholar. Hsien-teh, Mai notes and editorials in Ke-ming ying ku-t'ou Mai Hsien-teh (Hard bone of the revolution, Mai Hsien-teh) (Peking: China Youth Publishing House, 01 1966)Google Scholar. English story and pictures in China Reconstructs, December 1966. Chin-hsi, Wang: NCNA, 01 12, 1966, SWB, FE/W352Google Scholar. English story and pictures in China Reconstructs, May 1966 (includes stories on Chiao Yü-lu and Wang Chieh). Yü-lu, Chiao: NCNA 02 7, 1966, SWB, FE/2084Google Scholar. Ying-chün, Liu diary in Jen-min ti hao erh-tzu Liu Ying-chün (Good son of the people, Liu Ying-chün) (Peking: People's Publishing House, 09 1966)Google Scholar. English story and pictures in China Reconstructs, November 1966.

¹² Dates of diaries: Lei Feng—October 1959 to August 1962; Wang Chieh—February 1963 to June 1965; Liu Ying-chün—June 1962 to December 1965.

¹³ People's Daily, June 27, 1966, p.

¹⁴ “China's 600 million people have two remarkable peculiarities; they are, first of all, poor, and secondly, blank. That may seem like a bad thing, but it is really a good thing. Poor people want change, want to do things, want revolution. A clean sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most beautiful words can be written on it …” Mao, article [from Hung Ch'i, 06 1, 1958]Google Scholar no title given, in Schram, Stuart, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 253Google Scholar.

¹⁵ For a comparison with the classical definition of the hero, Sir Maurice Bowra's analysis of heroics is very useful: “In their attempts to classify mankind in different types the early Greek philosophers gave a special place to those men who live for action and for the honour which comes from it. Such, they believed, are moved by an important element in the human soul, the self-assertive principle, which is to be distinguished equally from the appetites and from the reason and realizes itself in brave doings. They held that the life of action is superior to the pursuit of profit or the gratification of the senses, that the man who seeks honour is himself an honourable figure … for ‘they choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals.’” Bowra, C. M., Heroic Poetry (London: MacMillan, 1964), p. 1Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien (China Youth), No. 22, 1965, p. 21Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Chinese Literature, November 1966, pp. 114–115.

¹⁸ There must be some reward for heroism, symbolic or spiritual. And for would-be heroes, the temptation for public acclaim must be great. Judging from recent reports like the following from Harbin, a regular system of merit awards now seems to be coming into use: “On behalf of the Provincial Military District, Comrade (Hsieh Shang-hua) presented a first class collective merit certificate and a flag of ‘paragon in supporting the Left and model in cherishing the people’ to the honoured Mao Tse-tung's thought propaganda team and first class merit certificates to the two martyrs. He also presented red-covered books of Chairman Mao's quotations and gleaming Chairman Mao's badges to the members of the propaganda team.” The two martyrs had “first braved heavy smoke and raging fire to save Chairman Mao's portrait and quotation-poster.” After the portrait was. rescued, grain and lives were also saved. SWB, FE/2648.

¹⁹ China Youth, No. 22, 1965, p. 21Google Scholar.

²⁰ Origins for this emphasis on will, and on toughening the body together with the mind, may of course be traced to such sources as Mao's, school essay “A Study of Physical Culture, ” written in 1917Google Scholar. (His theme was not particularly original; it had been popular with revolutionaries since 1900): “Such objects of military heroism as courage, dauntlessness, audacity, and perseverance are all matters of will. Let me explain this with an example. To wash our feet in ice water makes us acquire courage and dauntlessness, as well as audacity… the will is the antecedent of a man's career. Those whose bodies are small and frail are flippant in their behaviour. Those whose skin is flabby are soft and dull in will. Thus does the body influence the mind.” Schram, , Political Thought, p. 99Google Scholar.

²¹ The episodes of his plunging into the icy river, and of the haircutting team, are only two of many such incidents. He had a habit of getting up at 4 a.m. to fill the wash basins of his comrades, or of sitting up through the night to dry their rain-soaked coats before the fire. Yet he never relates an episode in which he was the inconspicuous participant in a group activity.

²² See Liu Ying-chün's refutation of Feng Ting on the issue of whether Tung Ts'un-jui's heroism was due to a “righteous impulse.” In Liu Ying-chün, pp. 55–56.

²³ China Youth, No. 22, 1965, p. 17Google Scholar.

²⁴ Chinese Literature, November 1966, p. 80.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 78.

²⁶ China Reconstructs, December 1966, pp. 45–46.

²⁷ Thus it is not surprising that the routines of socialist reconstruction give Wang Chieh opportunities to risk drowning as well as to risk catching colds. Ouyang Hai crawls into burning buildings as well as culverts. Mai Hsien-teh used his body to plug a “leak” in his ship, as well as risking mere seasickness. (In a violent storm, when even the veteran sailors got sick, he stayed on duty 19 hours. “The time to steel ourselves is when there's a strong wind and big waves, ” he said. “It makes no difference if we vomit.”) Ibid. pp. 46–47.

²⁸ From the editorial “Emulate Wang Chieh, Great Revolutionary Fighter, ” Peking Review, November 12, 1965. (This logic is again reminiscent of Mao's 1917 essay “A study of Physical Culture, ” in which “those whose skin is flabby are soft and dull in will.” Now by extension, those who are “soft” are easily corrupted by revisionism!)

²⁹ “[Heroes' deaths] are somehow an occasion for pride and satisfaction. We feel not only that their lives are not given in vain, since they have set an example of how a man should behave when he has to pass the final ordeal of manhood, but that by choosing this kind of death he sets a logical and proper goal for himself… there is an assumption that, since the hero subjects his human gifts to the utmost strain, he will in the end encounter something beyond him. … [But we feel that] it is all somehow splendid and magnificent and what they themselves would have wished for.” Bowra, pp. 75–76.

³⁰ Chinese Literature, November 1966, pp. 103–104.

³¹ See for example Kuo Mo-jo's speech Lang-man-chu-i ho hsien-shih-chu-i (Romanticism and Realism) in Hung Ch'i (Red Flag) No. 3, 1958Google Scholar. It is a speech celebrating the publication of 19 of Mao's poems whose appearance coincided with the initiation of the Great Leap Forward. This timing is significant, as the poems were obviously intended to whip up the people's emotions and revolutionary fervour for the Leap. In his speech, Kuo Mo-jo makes such statements as: “[Mao] is the greatest realist, but I dare say, he is also the greatest romantic.” “The present age of the Great Leap Forward should be called the Age of Revolutionary Romanticism and the Age of Revolutionary Realism.” And, “in one's youth, romantic elements are preponderant, whereas in adulthood, realistic elements become preponderant.” He equates realism with fact and romanticism with imagination, and arrives at the conclusion that so long as art and literature have some basis in fact “imagination and exaggeration are permissible” and even desirable in order to create “typical characters in typical circumstances—in other words, to represent the world as it ought to be.”

³² A few excerpts from reports on the campaign in the provinces will give an idea of how this image was aimed, and of what effects were sought. Anhwei: “The Anhwei Military District fa launching an upsurge of learning from Chiao Yü-lu and Mai Hsien-teh. Many leadership comrades, office cadres, soldiers, and medical orderlies were weeping by the time they had finished listening to our reading about the record of Chiao Yü-lu.” “… On 11th February, the Shou County CCP Committee held a standing committee meeting to compare themselves with Chiao Yü-lu. (Feng Lin) Secretary of the Committee said: ‘although Comrade Chiao Yü-lu was only at Lank'ao for something over a year, he visited 120 of the County's 149 production brigades. I have been working in Shou County for 10 years, but I haven't got round so much as he did. My work has been like catching sparrows with my eyes closed.’ Vice-Secretary (Yu Huai-pao) said: ‘Chiao Yü-lu did not want to rest and persisted in work despite his severe liver disease. My illness is lighter than his, yet I take regular rest; I feel ashamed, comparing myself with him. Learning from Chiao Yü-lu has increased my strength.’ The participants all pledged to learn from Chiao Yü-lu with actual deeds.” SWB, FE/2096.

³³ The pattern of publicity seems to be that, if Chiao was Party-promoted, he was also supported by a directive of the General Political Department of the PLA—then under Hsiao Hua. Hsiao Hua was appointed by Liu Shao-chi in 1964, was criticised in January 1967, and disappeared in the summer of 1967. However, neither Chiao Yü-lu nor Wang Chin-hsi were mentioned in army newspaper editorials. It seems that although the People's Daily editorialises on all the heroes, the Liberation Army Daily does so only for PLA heroes.

34–35 NCNA, February 7, 1966, SWB, FE/2084.

³⁶ Compare this death scene of Chiao Yü-lu to that of Ouyang Hai. Although Chiao Yü-lu's death is moving, it is portrayed in fairly moderate language. “One of Chiao Yü-lu's last requests was to examine an ear of wheat grown on the worst alkaline soil of the country, to see what effect soil improvement had brought. He expressed confidence in what the future held for the people. His last words were: ‘I'm sorry I haven't finished the task the Party gave me.’ Two books were found under his pillow, the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung and How to be a Good Communist by Liu Shao-ch'i.” NCNA, February 7, 1966, SWB, FE/2084.

³⁷ After his injury in action, Mai Hsien-teh was hospitalised with severe brain damage, half-paralysed and unable to speak. “Yet, even when his life hung by a thread he showed wholehearted devotion to the revolution and to Chairman Mao. The first thing he did when he recovered the power of speech was to sing the revolutionary song ‘The East is Red.’ Later he asked the nurse to let him read Quotations from Chairman Mao. When, for the first time since he was wounded, he opened Volume I of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung and saw Chairman Mao's picture, his lips quivered. Because he was unable to move his right hand, he learned to hold a pen in his left although only with great difficulty. The first words he then wrote were ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’ in large characters.” China Reconstructs, December 1966, p. 47. He has now recovered but “is rather short of memory.” People's Daily, November 16, 1967.

³⁸ Hsieh chart huo-hai ti 32111 ying-hsiung tsuan-ching-tui (The heroic 32111 Drilling Team fights in a sea of fire) (Hong Kong: San-lien, 11 1966), p. 40Google Scholar.

³⁹ China Reconstructs, December 1966, pp. 45–46.

⁴⁰ Ssu-shih-i-ke hung hsin hsiang t'ai-yang (41 Red Hearts towards the Sun: The 41 heroic young Overseas Chinese)(Hong Kong: San-lien, 01 1967), pp. 32–33Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Mao Chu-hsi chiao-tao ch'u-lai ti jen (Those who are educated by Chairman Mao: The incident at Kunming Lake and the story of Wang Li-ch'ing) (Hong Kong: San-lien, 01 1967), pp. 23–24Google Scholar.

⁴² The image of the Red Guards advancing on their enemies with their red books held before them, reminds one of the Inn Scene in Faust. With their sword-hilts raised as crosses before them, the German students advance on the devil who cowers and slinks off, just like a revisionist before the glowing red Quotations.

⁴³ Chan-tou tsai Pei-pu-wan shang (Fighting at Pei-pu-wan: The heroic crew of Cargo boat No. 1018) (Hong Kong: San-lien, 01 1967), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Chinese Literature, November 1966, p. 10.

⁴⁵ Kunming Lake, pp. 9–12.

⁴⁶ Writing at a time when the Mao-Party conflict had not yet revealed itself openly, Franz Schumann dealt with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party as an “organisational ideology” and generalised this theory for Chinese society as a whole. Schurmann, Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 18–19Google Scholar. Hero emulation and Mao-study were developed as two aspects of a single technique by which Maoists might communicate with individuals directly, circumventing the ideological authority of the Party organisation. This raises the technical problem of how to implement a “mass line” on a non-organisational, individual level, while still maintaining the political force and cohesion of the “mass movement.”