Let A Hundred Voices Resound: Music Propaganda’s Role in China’s Cultural Revolution
BY GRACE CHAI '23
“And my sense of rhythm is still pretty bad,” I admitted to my flute teacher one afternoon during my usual Skype lesson. “Oh, really?” she responded, smiling slightly. “Well, when I was young and was auditioning for a music program, I didn’t know anything about music theory. That was in 1977 China, when the restrictions on applicants were lifted.” Instantly, I was intrigued. After I pressed a little further, she recounted how during the ‘60s, music institution entrance exams and one’s family politics were intertwined. I left that session with a hunger to know more, and after a solid ten minutes of Googling, I had my article idea.
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, my teacher lived during China’s Cultural Revolution (CR), a movement spearheaded by the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, that lasted from 1966 to 1976 to rekindle revolutionary fervor among youth. However, what began as an organized political campaign quickly descended into chaos as people publicly accused neighbors, intellectuals, and teachers of harboring “bourgeois” or “traditional” values. Nothing was safe from persecution—certainly not music.
Thus, the question that remains is this: why control music? Why monitor the music on the neighborhood loudspeakers when you could distribute provocative posters and deliver passionate speeches to the masses? Well, while visual mediums certainly galvanized young Chinese, Mao’s purge of Western music isolated them from the outside world. Speakers and radios that once played Beethoven blasted stirring revolutionary anthems like “The East is Red,” in which jubilant citizens proclaimed “The sun in the sky is red/In our hearts is the sun Mao Zedong.” Such propaganda intentionally targeted citizens’ patriotism and the Mao personality cult, dredging up old prejudices against Western spheres of influence and the Opium Wars, which had debilitated China.
Besides such anthems’ effects on adults, propaganda-tainted children’s songs had a more pernicious impact on their target audience. Tunes like “Grow Up to be a Good Member of the Commune” and “Study Well and Make Progress Every Day” were mostly composed in major, or happy-sounding, keys and infused with lively tempos; they quickly achieved classic status and were sung by exuberant students everywhere. However, while the songs seemingly endorsed patriotism and self-discipline, music professors like Lei Oyang Bryant highlight the lyrics’ explicit political message. In “Study Well,” students sing, “Facing the sun to move forward, we must become the successors of communism.” Not only did the lyrics promote a fanatical, borderline worshipful attitude towards Mao, they confined children to a single purpose as “successors of communism” rather than allowing them to develop their own identities. Since adolescents’ brains don’t fully mature until their mid-twenties, the CR generation was especially vulnerable to the musical propaganda’s message, causing mob-related violence to escalate.
Consequently, Mao’s own words became a living contradiction to the country he had fought a civil war to revitalize. In 1957, Mao launched his infamous “Hundred Flowers” campaign, quoting a classical Chinese poem: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.” While he initially encouraged criticism of the government, he cracked down on China’s budding orchestral scene when discontent grew, stagnating its growth. Thousands of Western classically-trained conductors, musicians, composers, and directors were publicly censured, imprisoned, shipped to labor camps, and even killed for refusing to give up their creative freedom as artists. Thus, by effectively halting healthy intellectual debate over music, the government alienated Chinese from a vital form of self-expression.
But not all artistic visions were crushed. One survivor, composer Wang Xilin, was exiled to rural Shanxi for fourteen years because he publicly criticized Mao’s decree that art had to conform to politics. Wang, having endured much suffering and derision, recalled one particularly terrifying incident in 1968 with special clarity: in the middle of the night, he was “dragged to a field...and buried...in a pit up to his neck.” Although near-suffocation would have been a bona fide reason for abandoning the music field in 1977, the composer instead decided to express his experiences through music. Beyond declaring that the misery he endured was unjust and inhumane, he adds, “I want to tell people about the tragedy and darkness of Chinese history...This is my music.”
By reclaiming the music that branded him as a rebel, Wang joined the ranks of Chinese musicians who work to heal the rifts created by the Cultural Revolution. Inspired by classical superstars like Yuja Wang and Lang Lang, more than 40 million Chinese children are currently learning the piano. The Cultural Revolution may have clipped the wings of the songbirds, but that hasn’t stopped them from singing their song. Music has been manipulated to oppress creative freedom not just in China, but throughout history. Let us not forget the past. Yet, what’s more pressing lies ahead; let us boldly proclaim our rights and our music, even under fire. Undaunted, let a hundred voices resound.
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, my teacher lived during China’s Cultural Revolution (CR), a movement spearheaded by the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, that lasted from 1966 to 1976 to rekindle revolutionary fervor among youth. However, what began as an organized political campaign quickly descended into chaos as people publicly accused neighbors, intellectuals, and teachers of harboring “bourgeois” or “traditional” values. Nothing was safe from persecution—certainly not music.
Thus, the question that remains is this: why control music? Why monitor the music on the neighborhood loudspeakers when you could distribute provocative posters and deliver passionate speeches to the masses? Well, while visual mediums certainly galvanized young Chinese, Mao’s purge of Western music isolated them from the outside world. Speakers and radios that once played Beethoven blasted stirring revolutionary anthems like “The East is Red,” in which jubilant citizens proclaimed “The sun in the sky is red/In our hearts is the sun Mao Zedong.” Such propaganda intentionally targeted citizens’ patriotism and the Mao personality cult, dredging up old prejudices against Western spheres of influence and the Opium Wars, which had debilitated China.
Besides such anthems’ effects on adults, propaganda-tainted children’s songs had a more pernicious impact on their target audience. Tunes like “Grow Up to be a Good Member of the Commune” and “Study Well and Make Progress Every Day” were mostly composed in major, or happy-sounding, keys and infused with lively tempos; they quickly achieved classic status and were sung by exuberant students everywhere. However, while the songs seemingly endorsed patriotism and self-discipline, music professors like Lei Oyang Bryant highlight the lyrics’ explicit political message. In “Study Well,” students sing, “Facing the sun to move forward, we must become the successors of communism.” Not only did the lyrics promote a fanatical, borderline worshipful attitude towards Mao, they confined children to a single purpose as “successors of communism” rather than allowing them to develop their own identities. Since adolescents’ brains don’t fully mature until their mid-twenties, the CR generation was especially vulnerable to the musical propaganda’s message, causing mob-related violence to escalate.
Consequently, Mao’s own words became a living contradiction to the country he had fought a civil war to revitalize. In 1957, Mao launched his infamous “Hundred Flowers” campaign, quoting a classical Chinese poem: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.” While he initially encouraged criticism of the government, he cracked down on China’s budding orchestral scene when discontent grew, stagnating its growth. Thousands of Western classically-trained conductors, musicians, composers, and directors were publicly censured, imprisoned, shipped to labor camps, and even killed for refusing to give up their creative freedom as artists. Thus, by effectively halting healthy intellectual debate over music, the government alienated Chinese from a vital form of self-expression.
But not all artistic visions were crushed. One survivor, composer Wang Xilin, was exiled to rural Shanxi for fourteen years because he publicly criticized Mao’s decree that art had to conform to politics. Wang, having endured much suffering and derision, recalled one particularly terrifying incident in 1968 with special clarity: in the middle of the night, he was “dragged to a field...and buried...in a pit up to his neck.” Although near-suffocation would have been a bona fide reason for abandoning the music field in 1977, the composer instead decided to express his experiences through music. Beyond declaring that the misery he endured was unjust and inhumane, he adds, “I want to tell people about the tragedy and darkness of Chinese history...This is my music.”
By reclaiming the music that branded him as a rebel, Wang joined the ranks of Chinese musicians who work to heal the rifts created by the Cultural Revolution. Inspired by classical superstars like Yuja Wang and Lang Lang, more than 40 million Chinese children are currently learning the piano. The Cultural Revolution may have clipped the wings of the songbirds, but that hasn’t stopped them from singing their song. Music has been manipulated to oppress creative freedom not just in China, but throughout history. Let us not forget the past. Yet, what’s more pressing lies ahead; let us boldly proclaim our rights and our music, even under fire. Undaunted, let a hundred voices resound.
