WEI, Yang.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Wanli changjiang hengdu. (Crossing the Thousand-Mile Yangtze River.) A vibrant and prepossessing Cultural Revolution poster commemorating the tenth anniversary of Chairman Mao's famous 1966 swim across the Yangtse River. The swim symbolised Mao's resurgence as a force in Chinese politics, and for the next ten years he would enjoy unchallenged authority at the apex of the Chinese Communist Party. Although this was one of 100,000 copies produced for the first printing, only a fraction survive in collectable condition.Swimming's contribution to strengthening the Chinese citizenry was an important idea in the Maoist ideological canon. Mao swam as often as possible, and his celebrated 1966 dip, while brief, was a highly choreographed and symbolic act of political defiance in the face of his party rivals. Throughout the Cultural Revolution, politicised swimming meets were a staple revolutionary activity, complete with balloons, banners, and all the other pageantry of Maoist politics.Though not marked as such, the present copy is from the library of Paul Pickowicz (b. 1945), a notable scholar of modern Chinese culture and society. In 1971, Pickowicz was one of 15 American scholars invited to visit the mainland, the delegation being the first group of American academics to set foot in Mao's China.

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