The Week
The Sunlight of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought Illuminates Peking
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 9, #40, Sept. 30,
1966, pp. 5-6. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]
THE Chinese people greet the 17th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1 at a time when the great proletarian cultural revolution is in high tide.
Since our great leader Chairman Mao personally lit the flames of the great proletarian cultural revolution, the revolutionary masses in Peking have set about promoting Mao Tse-tung’s thought in a big way while vigorously sweeping away the muck and filth left over from the old world and eliminating bourgeois ideology. It has become a conscious act for revolutionary people to study, apply, propagandize and defend Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The sunlight of the great thought of Mao Tse-tung has illuminated the whole city of Peking!
The Red Guards of the Changteh Agricultural School in Hunan Province put up a big-character poster in the Peking Railway Station before they left the capital. It reads: “While in Peking, we saw with our own eyes that the city is becoming a great school of Mao Tse-tung’s thought. On the streets or in the lanes, in the buses or on the pavements, in shops or in schools, in fact everywhere we could see quotations from Chairman Mao and we had the opportunity of grasping Mao Tse-tung’s thought at all times…” This poster has aptly expressed the common impression of revolutionary teachers and students who have come to Peking from all parts of the country.
First Impression
When trains from all over the country pull into the station, the first things that meet the eyes of revolutionary teachers and students are the huge red streamers inscribed with the words “Long live our great leader Chairman Mao!” and many quotations from Chairman Mao written on the walls or on boards along the streets. The Red Guards broadcast over loudspeakers our most respected and beloved leader Chairman Mao’s teachings, such as: “The core of our strength, which leads us in our cause, is the Communist Party of China. The theoretical basis which guides our thinking is Marxism-Leninism.”
A Red Guard from the Institute of Petroleum in Szechuan Province said on his arrival in Peking: “As soon as I set foot in Peking, I feel the strong love for Chairman Mao and Mao Tse-tung’s thought everywhere. This gives us the warm feeling that we have come to Chairman Mao’s side!”
Wherever they go, revolutionary teachers and students from other parts of the country hear revolutionary youths read aloud or recite quotations from Chairman Mao. They say: “Our great leader Chairman Mao himself received us. This is our greatest happiness in our present visit to the capital. The greatest benefit we have derived from our visit is that we have further heightened our consciousness in creatively studying and applying Chairman Mao’s works.
“The Red Guards of Peking greet us and bid us farewell with Chairman Mao’s instructions. We must learn from them, study and apply Chairman Mao’s works well and carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to complete victory!”
Red Propagandists
Tien An Men Square overflows these days with people who flock there in an endless stream. Some pose for photographs in front of the huge portrait of the great leader Chairman Mao on the red-walled gate, while others gather in groups in the middle of the square, or beneath the trees, to discuss their experience and what they have learnt in the great cultural revolution. Here, many revolutionary teachers and students have seen a small exhibition of photos propagating Mao Tse-tung’s thought and Chairman Mao’s great revolutionary practice. Through these photos, they have shared the happiness of the revolutionary people who were received by the great leader Chairman Mao and have seen for themselves the great might of Mao Tse-tung’s thought.
The exhibition was jointly put up by the revolutionary teachers and students of several Peking middle schools. They have learnt in their struggle that, in order to carry on the great proletarian cultural revolution well, the most basic thing is to be armed with Mao Tse-tung’s thought and be propagandists of Mao Tse-tung’s thought. They have organized propaganda teams and made use of broadcasts, singing and other forms to spread Mao Tse-tung’s thought.
Enormous changes have taken place on what formerly was called Wangfuching Street, a well-known commercial section of Peking. It is not merely a revolutionary change in the name of the street and in the names of the shops. A more important change is the fact that the shops now not only serve the people but have become places for propagandizing Mao Tse-tung’s thought. Whichever shop you enter, you see at once a portrait of our respected and beloved leader Chairman Mao smiling kindly and quotations from Chairman Mao, every word of which imparts boundless strength to the people.
Jung Pao Chai, the art shop selling Chinese paintings and calligraphy, had sold quite a large number of poisonous works of art when it was under the control of the anti-Party and anti-socialist gang known as the “Three-Family Village.” Workers, peasants and soldiers and revolutionary teachers and students seldom went there at that time. Now, the Red Guards and revolutionary teachers and students go to Jung Pao Chai to buy Chairman Mao’s poems, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and Chairman Mao’s portraits and photographs.
Classroom for Teaching Mao Tse-tung’s Thought
Peking Library has set aside a spacious and well-lighted hall for Chairman Mao’s works in Chinese and foreign languages. In addition, there are pamphlets on experiences in studying Chairman Mao’s writings and other material that are of help in this study. This is Peking Library’s new reading-room where large numbers of workers, peasants, soldiers and Red Guards from the great cultural revolution front go every day to study Chairman Mao’s writings.
The opening in Peking Library of a reading-room specially for Chairman Mao’s works is a victory for the great proletarian cultural revolution. Although this is the nation’s biggest library, and has a long history, none of its many reading-rooms was set aside for the study of Chairman Mao’s works except for a brief period of one such room in 1958. But the room was rearranged for the study of ancient books on the orders of the counter-revolutionary revisionists of the former Peking Municipal Party Committee and their accomplices. After the great cultural revolution was launched, the revolutionary workers in Peking Library went into action and set aside a new reading-room four times as large as the old one for the study of Chairman Mao’s works. In response to the demand of the revolutionary masses, they are now actively preparing a special room to facilitate the exchange of experiences on the creative study and application of Chairman Mao’s writings among the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary teachers and students and revolutionary cadres.
The study of Chairman Mao’s works is the first must in the lives of revolutionary people. Every revolutionary fighter with a socialist consciousness considers it his highest duly to propagandize Mao Tse-tung’s thought. With the steady deepening of the great proletarian cultural revolution, it is certain that more and more people will creatively study and apply Chairman Mao’s writings in a still more conscious way and join the ranks of people propagating Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The changes now taking place in Peking have made it clear to everyone that the whole country will certainly become a great school of Mao Tse-tung’s thought.
Contents page for this Peking Review issue.
Peking Review article list (in date order).
Peking Review article list (by subject).