Use As Propaganda
| “ | If you find it hard, think of the Long March; if you feel tired, think of our revolutionary forbears. The message has been drilled into us so that we can accomplish any goal set before us by the party because nothing compares in difficulty with what they did. Decades after the historical one, we have been spurred on to ever more Long Marches – to industrialize China, to feed the largest population in the world, to catch up with the West, to reform the socialist economy, to send men into space, to engage with the 21st century. | ” |
- Sun Shuyun
The Long March has been depicted as a pillar of the Chinese Communist Revolution and has been a constant theme of communist propaganda since its completion, in 1935. It has been used as an example to depict the nationalistic fighting spirit of the Chinese people and the rallying call to communism. As a propaganda theme, many facts about the Long March have been altered from historical truth. For example, the battle at Xiang River “which the official history of the Long March identifies as the longest and most heroic battle of the entire campaign, was in fact a major defeat for the Communists, with casualties and desertions reducing the First Army from 86,000 to 30,000 people.”
October 2006 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Long March. Dozens of newly released, government approved books were proudly displayed in bookstores, with the intention of showing the heroic actions and drama of the Long March. Meanwhile Chinese television presented, “a feast of Long March-themed entertainment, including a 20-part drama series, documentaries, and even a song-and-dance extravaganza.”
Western scholars, when examining the Long March, sometimes choose to focus on aspects of the Long March rarely portrayed by Chinese propaganda. Negative aspects of the Long March include instances of the Red Army desperately recruiting local people through kidnapping, blackmail, and sex. Sun Shuyun, while researching a book on the Long March, interviewed one-man who said he was barely into his teens when he was forced to join the Red Army. This veteran only joined the Red Army because his father was arrested by the communists and would not be released until the man agreed to join the army. The man later thought of deserting, but stayed on because he feared being caught and executed. In order to escape starvation, the Red Army sometimes stole food from villagers in the remote locations it traveled through. Driven by desperation and hunger, communist armies during the Long March sometimes took hostages for ransom.
Read more about this topic: Long March
Famous quotes containing the word propaganda:
“The best propaganda omits rather than invents.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)