CHINESE PROPAGANDA.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

"Si ren bang" yan xing lu ("The Words and Deeds of the 'Gang of Four'"). First edition, first printing, of this collection of propaganda cartoons seldom seen in commerce and presenting here in exceptional condition. This visually striking work was issued by a Beijing-backed publisher in Hong Kong to bring to the colony the tumultuous politics of the post-Mao mainland, in particular the denunciations of a fallen political faction led by Chairman Mao's widow.The roots of the present publication lie in the dramatic political changes that gripped the People's Republic of China in autumn 1976. After Mao's death in early September, a new leadership grouping quickly coalesced around the up-and-coming politician Hua Guofeng and, less than a month after Mao's passing, Hua arranged the arrest and imprisonment of a rival wing of the communist party leadership led by Mao's widow, Jiang Qing. Hua's faction argued that Jiang and her allies posed an existential threat to Mao's revolutionary legacy. Jiang, along with Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, were quickly christened the "Gang of Four" by state media, and they became the go-to scapegoats for the chaos of the Cultural Revolution years (1966-1976). Ultimately, their fate was decided in a sensational televised trial in 1981, at which they were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.After the "Gang's" arrest, to make the official narrative stick and to prepare the way for the trial, state propaganda organs pumped out huge quant

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