I found almost all of the propaganda posters interesting at some level. Either the subject matter, colors or text were interesting in their own rights. However, the posters that most caught my attention were those in the “PLA and Children” section. In that section, a specific poster from 1987 caught my eye:
I'm a Little Sailor, 1987, Stefan Landsberger
It sticks out for obvious reasons. First and foremost, it’s a child holding a loaded AK-47 and smiling. That is enough to stop anyone in their tracks. According to Landsberger, the compiler of all of these propaganda images, images like this were commonplace. Young boys in China were inundated with images of military grandeur, in the hope that they would join the PLA when they came of age. This was a goal shared by both the government and the parents of these young boys.
A career in the PLA was a perfect way for young male recruits to climb the Party ladder and establish themselves both politically and economically. As Landsberger says in his commentary on these posters, “the PLA functioned as one of the main avenues for social mobility.”
This picture in particular is interesting because it glorifies military service in such a way that the viewer is asked to equate the naval ship in the background with the brightly colored flowers in the foreground. This juxtaposition of the man-made and the organic, war and peace, aren’t juxtapositions at all, but rather seen as moral and philosophical equivalents. The depiction of a child in military garb instead of in the company of a military officer, implies that from an early age, young boys are seen as possible and altogether desirable recruits to the PRC cause.
The use of children in this manner is nothing short of ingenious. Seeing as though this poster was made in 1987, it is apparent that the PRC came to the realization that a new generation of revolutionaries, children with no direct connection to the Maoist movements or the Red Guard, were in need of an intellectual and patriotic indoctrination that was once provided by the real-life churnings of revolution. Without that cultural impetus, the government relied on these child-centric propaganda posters to do what government-enforced social upheaval used to accomplish so well.
Tags: History466
Nice snap and great thoughts trying to show in the post… Chinesesphere