Learn Chinese through Propaganda!

科学是生产力 

This is the first new lesson in about a decade, so we'll start with something simple: a declarative sentence, "x is y".

In Chinese, to convey "[x-topic] is [y-compliment]", in which the "y-compliment" is a substantive nominal descriptor (a noun and not an adjective), you say

"x是y"

是 shì in modern/Standard Mandarin is the copula or "to be" verb, here meaning "is", but also meaning "am", "are", and often used to translate the English "yes", when conveying the sense of "yes, it is [xyz]" (but not generally in the sense of "yes, correct").

So, in our poster, what is/是 shì what?

First we have 科学 kēxué "science". 科学 kēxué is a word with an interesting history. It is a late 19th century neologism ('newly created word') that originated in Japan as an equivalent for the then-contemporary European concept of "science", the idea of which was not conceptualized as such prior to its introduction into east Asia during Japan's Meiji era (1868-1912). 科学 kēxué is comprised of the characters

科 kē meaning "sort", "kind", "class[ification]" or "type" (amongst other meanings), and

学 xué meaning "study" as a verb or in the noun form, as in "the study of xyz". 学 xué is sometimes used as the equivalent to the Greek "-[o]logy" suffix used in English, for example 人类学 rénlèixué "anthropology", literally 人类 rénlèi "mankind/human race" 学 xué "study of/-ology"

(In my opinion, breaking down 科学 kēxué into its component parts is unnecessary and potentially unhelpful; I'd suggest that it's best to learn 科学 kēxué as a word-unit meaning "science")

We've now ascertained:

科学是... kēxué shì "science is..."

But what is science?

While the OP reveals the answer to this riddle, it leaves out a subtlety in Chinese that bears explaining.

In this lesson, we learned about the word

生产 shēngchǎn “production”

from 生 shēng, a very common character whose meaning centers around ideas of “life”/“live”, “alive”, “birth” (as a verb or noun), or “fresh”, even “raw”. And,

产 chǎn ... a[nother] word with creation in mind, it can “produce”, “create”, “to birth”, “product”, or even “property” or “industry”.

Here, these two creation/production words are combined to mean “production”.

The final character 力 lì has come up in other posts on this blog, but we haven't studied it in a proper lesson. 力 lì means "strength", "power", or, here, "force". It is seen in such two-character combinations as 力量 lìliàng also meaning "strength", "power", or "force", and 能力 nénglì, meaning "ability" or "capacity".

Those familiar with Marxist terminology will understand that 生产 shēngchǎn “production” 力 lì "force" is not just the OP's stated "force of production", but the "productive forces" (the combination of the means of labor and labor power).

The subtle ambiguity in the poster is the lack of true articles ("the", "a/an") in Chinese. My read of the poster is somewhat clear - I don't see the poster saying unequivocally that

科学是生产力 kēxué shì shēngchǎn lì "science is the productive force" X

but rather that

"science is a productive force" ✅

I will let other comrades comment on whether this statement is correct or not. This poster was produced in 1979, shortly after the Mao era (which ended in September 1976), directly following the repudiation of the Cultural Revolution and at the outset of the Reform and Opening Up period (December 1978), in which the economy had just began liberalization under Deng Xiaoping's leadership. In the economic sphere, there was an emphasis placed on the "development of the productive forces", away from the Maoist economic program.

抓 zhuā is a fun character. It contains the character 爪 zhǎo “claw”, which is both  phonetic and semantic. The radical on the left side is 扌tíshǒu páng “side handle”, which often denotes an action done manually. This is how we come to the meaning of  抓 zhuā - “grasp”, or “grab”. Here it means “grasp” in a slightly metaphorical sense, as in to mentally grasp the importance of revolution 革命 gémìng.

促生产 cù shēngchǎn

促 cù here is a one-character abbreviation for the verb 促进 cùjìn “to boost”, “to advance”, “to promote” or “to accelerate”.  促 cù means “to urge” or “to promote” by itself, and 进 jìn means “to advance” or “to move forward” (for more information, please see lesson three here)

生产 shēngchǎn comes from  生 shēng, a very common character whose meaning centers around ideas of “life”/“live”, “alive”, “birth” (as a verb or noun), or “fresh”, even “raw”. To this,  产 chǎn is added, also a word with creation in mind, it can “produce”, “create”, “to birth”, “product”, or even “property” or “industry”. Here, these two creation/production words are combined to mean “production”. When you flip them, you get  产生 chǎnshēng “to produce”. 

So, 促生产 cù shēngchǎn is “boost production.

促工作 cù gōngzuò

Here we have 促 cù “boost” again. 

工作 gōngzuò is a very useful word in modern Chinese.  工 gōng is a very multifaceted word, with most of its meanings and connotations dealing with “work”, “labor”, or “industry”.  作 zuò similarly has to do with “work”, “do”, or even “compose”. Here, the combination means “work”, and that is its meaning in modern Chinese.

促战备 cù zhànbèi  

This was also starts with  促 cù “boost”.

战备 zhànbèi is an abbreviation of 战争准备 zhànzhēng zhǔnbèi.  战争 zhànzhēng means “war”, being comprised of 战 zhàn “war”, and 争 zhēng “contention” or “struggle”. 准备 zhǔnbèi means “to prepare” or “be/get ready”. 准 zhǔn means “standard”, or “criteria”, and  备 bèi means “equipped”, “to ready” or “to prepare”.  战争准备 zhànzhēng zhǔnbèi, and its abbreviation here  战备 zhànbèi means “preparations for war”. 

So we have now the full meaning:

抓革命 zhuā gémìng “grasp revolution”

促生产 cù shēngchǎn “boost production”

促工作 cù gōngzuò “boost work”

促战备 cù zhànbèi “boost war preparation” 

Our previous lesson should have prepared you to read the entirety of the second line:

美帝国主义必败

měi dìguózhǔyì bìbài

This is exactly the same as 

美帝必败

měidì bìbài

or

American imperialism must lose 

(or “be defeated”, as above)

So, let’s check out the top line

We have seen previously (here and here) that 人民 rénmín means “[the] people”. So we know that [some] 人民 rénmín people 必 bì must [something].

Let’s go the path of least resistance and see what it is that these people 必 bì must do. 

胜 shèng is the opposite of 败 bài. If 败 bài, as we learned, is “lose”, then 胜 shèng is…to win. Put more ~poetically~, it means to be “victorious”. The word for “victory” itself is 胜利 shènglì, 利 lì being an auspicious work connoting good fortune and benefit. Like 败 bài, 胜 shèng is not often used in colloquial Chinese. “To win” in colloquial Mandarin is 赢 yíng.

So now we see that 人民必胜  rénmín bìshèng the people must win/be victorious. Great! Always a great sentiment. But which people specifically? 

印度支那三国 may look daunting, but don’t worry - it’s actually fairly straightforward.

As we learned here, 国 guó looks a bit like a little 王 wáng king inside of a box (it is actually not 王, but 玉 yù jade). Considered pictographically, a ‘king inside his realm’ means “country”, or “state”, which is the modern meaning of 国.

三 sān is an ancient Chinese character. It is one of few characters that maintains its literal pictographic quality. It means “three” (3). 

三国 sānguó here means, quite simply, “three countries”. I caution readers/learners from always understanding it this way, as China has a historical period also referred to as 三国 sānguó - the Three Kingdoms period, which lasted roughly CE 220-280. See more here on Wikipedia. Here, however, we are referring to three countries. But which ones? Well, here’s where it gets difficult/interesting.

印度 Yìndù is another very old Chinese word. Originating with the spread of Buddhism across East Asia, 印度 Yìndù was even carried over into and retained in the three main sinospheric languages - Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. It means India. 

支那 Zhīnà is today a word that some find a bit offensive. 支那 Zhīnà means “China”. It comes from the Sanskrit designation for China, चीन • (cīna), which is of uncertain etymology, but is usually held to derive from 秦 Qín, the name of the Qin Dynasty  (BCE 221-206), and its predecessor feudal state. With the beginning of Japan’s colonial project around the turn of the 20th century, the term 支那 Zhīnà began took take on a derogatory tone, as Japan refused to refer to China by the Chinese name 中国 Zhōngguó, as they claimed it would implicitly recognize Chinese “centrality” (中国 Zhōngguó literally means “center country”). This is ironic considering Japan’s own self-designation as 日本 Rìběn, literally meaning “sun origin”. 

印度 Yìndù India -  支那 Zhīnà China. What does this mean? Consider the latinized prefixed form of “China” as “sino-”. The same principle is applied to “India” as well: indo-. So we see here that  印度支那 Yìndù-Zhīnà is not literally “India China”, but “Indochina”, or in French, “Indochine”, ie the area of Southeast Asia under French colonial rule, thought to be a crossroads of Indian and Chinese culture.

印度支那三国 Yìndù-Zhīnà sānguó then is “the three countries of Indochina”. Which countries in Southeast Asia under French colonial rule? Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos are often regretfully forgotten - Cambodia perhaps less so. Massive anti-colonial (not to mention postcolonial) struggles were waged throughout all three countries, first against the French, and then against the US. The Vietnam War often overshadows the US’s military involvement in both Laos and Cambodia from the mid-1950s, up until the 1970s. China tacitly supported the communist forces in all three countries, later allying most closely with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when Laos, along with Vietnam, pledged closer allegiance to the Soviet Union. Despite that latter development, China’s support for the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles in the region give us the necessary historical context to understand this poster.

印度支那三国人民必胜 Yìndù-Zhīnà sānguó bìshèng The people of the three Indochina countries must be victorious!

美帝国主义必败 měi dìguózhǔyì bìbài American imerpialism must be defeated!

Let’s start the year with something easy

The text of this poster reads:

美帝必败

In fact, close reader of the blog should know how to read ¾ of this already.

As we learned in this lesson, 美帝 is an abbreviation for 美帝国主义 měi dìguózhǔyì. To summarise:

帝国 dìguó is the 国 guó country of a 帝 dì emperor - an empire. 

主义 (zhǔyì) means “ideology”, or “-ism”. (主义 has been covered previously, here). 

What, then, is 帝国 empire dìguó 主义 ism zhǔyì? Imperialism! A very important word in pre-1980 Chinese propaganda posters, and a word that continues to be used through propaganda media to this day. 

美 měi means “beautiful”. 美帝, however, is not “beautiful imperialism”. 美 měi here refers to 美国 měiguó

All of this is to say that  美帝 měidì means…US imperialism, again, a crucial term in propaganda.

In this post, we saw the word 必须. This aforementioned post originally was meant to have an entire lesson dedicated to it, but it was lost. No matter. 

必须 bìxū, or the short form  必 bì, both mean “must”.  须 xū also means “must”, as in 须知 xūzhī “prerequisite knowlege” (literally “must know”).

so now we have 75% of the slogan

美帝必败

American imperialism must…

The last word is most common in sports, or war for that matter (are not sports just a distant cousin of war? perhaps, perhaps not). 

败 bài very simply means “lose”. It is commonly also found in the word 失败 shībài meaning “loss” or “fail[ure]”. It must be pointed out that 败 bài means “to lose” as in defeat; to lose an object is 丢 diū (one of very few words pronounced this way). In colloquial Mandarin, the word for “lose” is more often expressed as 输 shū, rather than 败 bài. 败 bài is more literary, hence it’s use here in the poster.

so now we have our poster:

美帝必败

měidì bìbài

American imperialism must lose

This poster from July 1965 is a show of support for the Communist forces in Vietnam fighting the US.  The Vietnam War escalated around 1965. The US supported the royal and anti-communist South Vietnam government and forces, and China (along with the Soviets, with whom the Vietnamese latter aligned in the Sino-Soviet split) supported the communist forces of Ho Chi Ming in the North. With China again fighting the US, the sentiment of American imperialism losing was a goal to aspire to.

So, let’s just get right to it, shall we?

A lot of this poster is old material, so let’s start with what we know.

In this lesson from two years ago, we learned the word 和 hé means “and”, or “with”.

In the previous lesson, we learned about 帝国主义 dìguózhǔyì “imperialism”, and 是 shì “to be/is/are/am” or “yes”

You may remember from this post, the word 一切. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to discuss the text of that poster in-depth, so let’s look at the word 一切 now, since it appears on our poster.

一切 yīqiè. 一  yī is perhaps the most basic Chinese character. It means “one”.  切 has various meanings; when pronounced as qiē, it means “to cut”. The different meanings of 切 here are less important (it can variously mean “definitely”, “absolutely”, “to be close to”, among other things).  一切 yīqiè as a word itself means “every”, “all”, or “everything”. It can stand alone as a noun (“everything”, as in  this post), or, as we will see in our text, it can serve as an adverb/adjective (“all”). 

Just to review quickly, we have so far:

帝国主义和一切ＸＸＸＸ是ＸＸＸ

Imperialism and all (something, something something something) is/are (something something)

So, that gets us through all previously mentioned material. Now onto the completely new stuff.

The next word we encounter is 反动派

反动派 is another common moniker found in many propaganda posters. Let’s examine it word-for-word.

反 - fǎn. 反 is a very negative word. It means “negative”, “opposite”, “against”, “counter” or “anti”. As an aside, it is also often found in other characters to show the phonetic component fan (e.g. 饭 fàn “rice” or “cooked food”, 返 fǎn “return”, 贩 fàn “trade”). In this case, think of it as “counter”.

动 - dòng means “movement”, or “action”. It can also be the verb “to move”, “to act”, as well as other unrelated idiomatic expressions.

派 -  pài. 派 has various meanings. It can mean a “political group”, a “school of thought”, or just “group”, but specifically a group with like-minded ideals. It can also refer to individuals of such a group. It can also be used as a verb to mean “to send” or “dispatch” [someone]. In our text, we take the meaning of a “group” or the individuals of said group.

So, what is the like-minded group that does counter-movement/action? As the saying goes, for everything 动 dòng “action”, there is a 反动 fǎndòng “reaction”. And what is a 派 pài “political group” interested in  反动 fǎndòng “reaction”? “Reactionaries” 反动派 fǎndòngpài!

Combined with the 一切 yīqiè before it, 一切反动派 yīqiè fǎndòngpài means “all reactionaries”. 

We’re nearly there! So far we have:

帝国主义和一切反动派Ｘ是ＸＸＸ

Imperialism and all reactionaries (something) are (something something)

So, let’s do some grammar, since we’ve come to that point.

都 dōu. 都 is an interesting word. It doesn’t have an exact translation in English, but it is used to show that all the topics of a sentence have done an action. Idiomatically we can say that it means “all”, but it will only have this meaning when it is found before a verb. In other cases it has other meanings, such as “even”, and “already”, but those are not the meanings in our text. 

Before we discover the last few words, let’s address a potential issue you may have noticed after learning 都.

帝国主义和一切反动派都是ＸＸＸ

Imperialism and all reactionaries all are (something something)

First things first, in English, for our text it may seem more naturally to say “are all”, rather than “all are”. But then we come to the crux of the matter. The double “all”. 一切 is already being used to show that “all reactionaries are” something; do we really need to add 都 to show that they “all are” something? In truth, grammatically speaking, you could use one or the other and there would be little loss of semantic or idiomatic meaning. However, the use of 都 is almost necessitated for two reasons. The first being that the sentence makes use of two topics, and when multiple are both involved in the action of a sentence, it is best to use to 都. The case for this is further strengthened by the use of 一切, showing that it is not just any 反动派 fǎndòngpài “reactionaries” that we are speaking about, but 一切 “all” of them. To emphasize the “all-ness” of the statement, 都 is used. In Chinese, it is not redundant, as the use of 都 becomes a grammatical necessity in conveying the scope of the statement. That “imperialism and all reactionaries are all”….

纸老虎 zhǐ lǎohǔ. Let’s break this one up. 

纸 zhǐ means “paper”. Pretty simple. In colloquial Mandarin, if you ask someone for 纸, it is often used to signify types of “paper” used in the relief of bodily functions (that is, tissue paper, or toilet paper).

老 lǎo means old, but here it is just part of the word 老虎.

虎 hǔ is a tiger, but in colloquial Mandarin, a tiger is almost invariably called 老虎.

So, what is it that “imperialism and all reactionaries all are”? “Paper tigers”.

From this we have our text:

帝国主义和一切反动派都是纸老虎

Imperialism and all reactionaries all are paper tigers

or, more idiomatically:

Imperialism and all reactionaries are [all] paper tigers 

I hope this has been a useful lesson! Please do continue to review all the lessons and especially the little tidbits on grammar. Chinese is often said to have “no grammar”, which is completely untrue; Chinese grammar just functions differently compared to other languages. And grammar, while sometimes difficult, is just as important as learning 单词 (single words).

Thank you all for reading! I hope to run this blog more regularly this year and in the future. I have just completed my masters in Chinese history (would you believe me if I said I wrote about Chinese propaganda? :P), and now have some more free time for this blog.

So, comrades, let’s get into some grammatical nitty-gritty!

This poster has two texts, obviously. Addressing the smaller text first, it is a quotation of Chairman Mao that reads:

印度支那三国人民加强团结，互相支援，坚持持久的人民战争，一定能够排除万难，取得彻底胜利。 -毛泽东

The people of the three countries of Indochina, [by] uniting more strongly, supporting each other, and persevering in a protracted people’s war, will certainly overcome all difficulties and win complete victory. -Mao Zedong

This text can be examined later. Let us focus on the bottom text.

不是人民怕美帝，而是美帝怕人民

We have one word (of two characters) that was previously learned: 人民 (people rénmín). That gives us: “(something) people (something), (something, something) people.” This alone is a pretty good start!

To be…

There is one character/word in Chinese that can express being, existence, and affirmation. It is one of the three most commonly used characters, according to several sources. It is 是 (shì). 是 can mean “yes”; it can mean “[he/she/it] is”/“[I] am”/“[you/we] are”/“was”/“were”; it can means “that’s right”. It is a very versatile character that has a lot of uses both in writing and in speech. Don’t worry too much on the specifics of who the subject of 是 is here; propaganda language is often very vague with either implied or completely absent subjects. Regardless, out of 14 characters, we now are familiar with 6

(something) is people (something), (something) is (something) people

that’s quite a bit of progress for one word

if 是 is “is”, then what is “is not”?

…or not to be

“No” in Chinese can be very straightforward: 不 (bù). 不 can mean “no”, “not”, “does not”, in terms of idiomatic rendering. Unfortunately for learners of Chinese, it is not the only way to negate sentences. Generally speaking, if one is negating a state of being (I am/am not…; is/is not nice, etc), a habitual action (I eat…/I don’t eat…), or a mix of these two, called a ‘stative verb’ (verb which describes a state of being: I like/don’t like…), then we use 不. For other cases, a different word is used. More information on negation in Chinese can be found here and here.

不是 (bùshì, but pronounced búshi), as you may have guessed, is the negation of 是. 是 in this case means “[it] is”, so 不是 means “[it] is not”. 

不是人民 (búshi rénmín) it is not the people

what exactly “isn’t the people”? well, let’s find out

let’s learn some vocab

词汇 - vocabulary list cíhuì

怕 - pà. Very straight forward, 怕 means “to fear”, or “to be afraid of”. Colloquially, especially speaking of sensations, it can be used to mean that one doesn’t like or enjoy something, such as heat (怕热 pàrè, means “to dislike (literally ‘fear’) heat”).

美帝 - měidì. 美帝 is an abbreviation for 美帝国主义 měi dìguózhǔyì. While it does not appear on this poster itself, 主义 is a very important word to know, especially for propaganda.  主义 (zhǔyì) means “ideology”, or “-ism”. It is often used in compounds, added onto other words to make the “-ism” of the proceeding word. (in reviewing the lessons, I see that 主义 has been covered previously, here). 帝 dì is a very ancient Chinese character. In ancient times, it referred to a special kind of altar. Antiquatedly, it also meant “God”; some religions in China use the word 上帝 shàngdì to refer to their god. In modern Chinese, it has taken on the connotation of a king, or more specifically an emperor, as the rulers of China have been called in English (“king” in Chinese is 王 wáng). 国 guó looks a bit like a little 王 inside of a box (it is actually not 王, but 玉 yù jade). Considered pictographically, a ‘king inside his realm’ means “country”, or “state”, which is the modern meaning of 国. Then, 帝国 dìguó is the 国 guó country of a 帝 dì emperor - an empire. What, then, is 帝国 empire dìguó 主义 ism zhǔyì? Imperialism! A very important word in pre-1980 Chinese propaganda posters, and a word that continues to be used through propaganda media to this day. This leaves 美. 美 měi is a very beautiful word. Comprised of 羊 yáng goat, and 大 dà big,  美 měi means “beautiful”. 美帝, however, is not “beautiful imperialism”. 美 měi here refers to 美国 měiguó the US, or “America” . While the country itself may be very beautiful, the idea of the name 美国 (literally “beautiful country”) referring to the country’s beauty is a bit of a myth. The 美 in 美国, is actually an abbreviation of  亚美利加 yàměilìjiā, or 美利坚 měilìjiān, which are early Chinese transcriptions of “America” and “American” respectively.  All of this is to say that  美帝 měidì means…US imperialism, again, a crucial term in propaganda. Starting in the 1960s, and making a big appearance during the Cultural Revolution, the term 美帝 měidì was often seen in conjunction with the term 苏修 sūxiū, meaning “Soviet revisionism”, but more on that later.

So, now we have over 90% of the slogan down

不是人民怕美帝 而是美帝怕人民 búshi rénmín pà měidì, (something)shì měidì pà rénmín

broken down, word for word:  not-is-people-fear-american imperialism (something)-is-american imperialism-fears-people

It is not that the people fear US imperialism, (something) is US imperialism fears the people. 

The last character is another grammar-heavy character, but it’s another important one, so let’s learn it.

而 ér is another ancient character. It doesn’t have an exact translation in English, and is also a very versatile word. It is a conjunction, first of all, generally meaning something close to “and”. It can be a shortened version of the word 而且 érqiě, which is used between independent clauses (sentences or sentence fragments that could stand alone) to connect them. It is possible to translate 而 as “and then…”, or “moreover…”

However, 而是 érshì itself is a word. It is used to convey contrast, especially in the negative: 不是…，而是… (it’s not…, [rather] it’s…). From this we can begin to piece together the meaning of the slogan.

broken down, word for word:  

不 -  bú not 

是 -  shi is 

人 -  rén people 

民 -  mín  people 

怕 -  pà  fear

美 -  měi US; beautiful

帝 -  dì imperialism; empire; emperor

而 -  ér rather; and [then]

是 -  shì is  

美 -  měi US; beautiful  

帝 - dì imperialism; empire; emperor 

怕 -  pà fear[s] 

人 -  rén people 

民 -  mín people

not-is-people-fear-american imperialism rather-is-american imperialism-fears-people

then into larger lexical components (words):

不是 -  búshi [it] is not

人民 -  rénmín [the] people

怕 -  pà  fear

美帝 -  měidì US imperialism

而是 -  érshì rather [it] is 

美帝 -  měidì US imperialism

怕 -  pà fear[s]

人民 -  rénmín [the] people

It is not the people fear US imperialism, rather [it] is US imperialism fears the people.

As Chinese does not use words like “that”, “which”, “whom/whose/who” etc that introduce clauses (similar to “который” in Russian, or “إن” in Arabic), we have to creatively understand the idiomatic meaning of the sentence without such words.

A possible translation is:

It is not that the people fear US imperialism, rather it is US imperialism that fears the people.

A bit less stunted:

It’s not the people who fear US imperialism, but US imperialism that fears the people. (arguably just as stunted)

To be blunt: 

The people don’t fear US imperialism; US imperialism fears the people!

I hope this has been a useful lesson! Please do continue to review all the lessons and especially the little tidbits on grammar. Chinese is often said to have “no grammar”, which is completely untrue; Chinese grammar just functions differently compared to other languages. And grammar, while sometimes difficult, is just as important as learning 单词 (single words).

Thank you all for reading! I hope to run this blog more regularly this year and in the future. I have just completed my masters in Chinese history (would you believe me if I said I wrote about Chinese propaganda? :P), and now have some more free time for this blog. 

“Chairman Mao and his dearest brother in arms, Comrade Lin Biao review the Cultural Revolution’s army.”

Can’t read the text in black because I’m really terrible at understanding handwritten Chinese. All I can make out is the last line which is 毛主席万岁！万岁！万万岁！Long live Chairman Mao! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!

So, in the picture we have Chairman Mao (毛主席) and Lin Biao (林彪). Lin Biao was a general during the Chinese Revolution and rose to prominence during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. It is generally accepted that he was going to be Chairman Mao’s successor, until he tried to flee to the Soviet Union and his plane crashed in Mongolia. 

So, let’s read what the plate says:

毛主席和他的亲密战友林彪同志检阅文化革命大军

We have already learned the first three words. They are 毛主席 Máo Zhǔxí - Chairman Mao. 

Let’s read through the rest

和 - hé “and”, or “with”. 和 literally means “harmonious”, or “peaceful”, but in colloquial Chinese it is the most common word for “and”. Please note, use of 和 as “and” should be confined to making lists of non-actions. 

他的 - tāde “his”. 他 means “he” or “him”; in early modern Chinese, it also meant “she/her” and “it”, but new characters were developed for those words. It can also mean “other”, as in 他人 tārén “other people”. 的 is a very versatile word; in linguistics, it’s called a “attributive marker”. In this case, think of it like the English “-’s” (apostrophe S) to show possession. He-’s = his. When used as a “attributive marker”, it is placed after adjectives to show that it is describing the proceeding noun as having the attribute of the preceding adjective.

亲密 - qīnmì “close”, or “intimate”. 亲 conveys the sense of the closeness of a blood relative. 密 accentuates the sense of closeness, but can also mean “secret”.

战友 - zhànyǒu “comrade in arms”, literally “battle friend”. 战 means “battle”, or can be an abbreviation of 战争 zhànzhēng “war”. 友 basically means “friend[ship]”. 

林彪 - Lín Biāo is Lin Biao’s name. 林 is a surname which means “forest”, and 彪 means “young tiger”. 

同志 - tóngzhì “comrade”, literally “same aspiration. This is a very common term in revolutionary Chinese language. Even today, Party and government officials at all levels, and within mass political circles refer to each other as 同志 - one of the trappings of socialist political culture that is still alive and well in China. 同 means “same” or “together”, and 志 means “will” or “aspiration”. Remember, that titles come after people’s names or surnames. so 林彪同志 is “Comrade Lin Biao” not “Lin Biao Comrade”. In modern Chinese slang, 同志 also means “gay”. This was borrowed from Taiwanese slang, which used it as a code word, while simultaneously poking fun at the Mainland. 

检阅 - jiǎnyuè “inspect”, both characters mean “inspect”, “review”, or “go over”, but colloquial Chinese prefers them said as a single word. 检阅 is almost exclusively used to mean “inspect [military troops]”

文化 - wénhuà “culture” or “cultural”, sometimes abbreviated just to 文, which has connotations of “civility”, “civilization” etc.

革命 - gémìng "revolution” (sometimes “revolutionary” as an adjective). 革 often means “leather”, but in this case it means “change”. 命 means “fate” or “destiny”, but can also mean “command”, but in this case it is the former definition.

大军 - dàjūn "army", literally “big army”.  大 is “big” or “great”, and 军 is “army”.

(The characters 的 and 大 feature prominently below, so remember them.)

so, from this, we have, as fuckyeajews brilliantly translated:

Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Lin Biao inspect the Cultural Revolution army

just one key term:

文化（大）革命 - Wénhuà (Dà) Gémìng means the “Cultural Revolution”. the 大 is not necessary, but when referring to the historical event or the 1966-1976 period in China, 文化大革命 is more proper. This can be shortened to 文革 Wén-Gé. But of course, even 文化大革命 is a short form of 无产阶级文化大革命 - Wúchǎnjiējí Wénhuà Dà Gémìng, or “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. 无产阶级 wúchǎnjiējí - “proletariat” or “proletarian” is made up of two words: 无产 wúchǎn “property-less”, literally “having no property”, and 阶级 jiējí "class", specifically, socio-economic class.

Ok, let’s go onto the handwriting

These are four “titles” or “attributes” given to Chairman Mao, allegedly by Lin Biao. They all begin with the word 伟大的 - wěidàde “great”, and are often called the “four greats”. They are

伟大的导师 - wěidàde dǎoshī “great teacher”. 导师 literally means “guiding master”, but is often colloquialized as “teacher”.

伟大的领袖 - wěidàde lǐngxiù “great leader”. 领 means “lead”, or “neck”. 袖 literally means “sleeve”. 领袖 is an idiomatic expression for “leader”, similar to 主席 for “Chairman” (see Lesson 1 for an explanation of this)

伟大的统帅 - wěidàde tǒngshuài “great commander”. 统帅 is the military rank “commander”, but can also mean “to command”. 统 (which should not be confused with 流) means “to gather [into one]” or “unite”. 帅 is a traditional Chinese military rank, similar to general or commander. In modern colloquial Chinese, it also means “handsome”.

伟大的舵手 - wěidàde duòshǒu “great helmsman”. 舵手 literally means “helm/rudder hand”

and then, of course, we have 毛主席万岁！万岁！万万岁！, which was covered in our review of lesson one.

So, in a nutshell, the bottom half (using English syntax) reads :

Long live the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Commander, the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao! A long life to him! A long, long life to him!

The very last line is Lin Biao’s signature and the year that the inscription was written.

These types of plates were very common during the Cultural Revolution. They were treated like sacred objects, as was anything with Chairman Mao’s image on it. Following Lin Biao’s literal “fall from grace”, much of the memorabilia with him on it was destroyed, but his approbations of Chairman Mao were not. Today, you can find copies of the Quotations from Chairman Mao (which, by the way, was compiled and edited under Lin Biao direction) that have front pages ripped out, which were inevitably pictures with Lin Biao on them. Many editions also carried a front page before the *portrait of Chairman Mao with a handwritten inscription that read “读毛主席的书，听毛主席的话，照毛主席的指示办事” (read Chairman Mao’s books/works, listen to Chairman Mao’s words, follow Chairman Mao’s **directives), with Lin Biao’s signature. If this page was not ripped out, Lin Biao’s signature was often crossed out. Lin Biao was essentially sentenced to damnatio memoriae, and was subject to extensive post-mortem critique. 

*In many communist books, either prior to or following the title page, there was a practice of printing a portrait of the leader that authored the work.

第三、四课：复习 | Review 3 &4

Now for a lesson in reading handwritten Chinese!

Here we have a poster with 毛主席 Chairman Mao and a handwritten inscription written by him to praise the 人民公社 People’s Communes. 

Using what you learned in lessons 3 and 4, can you read what he says about them? 

第四课：多快好省 | Lesson 4: More, fast[er], good [better], economical

In lesson 2 we introduced the 总路线 General Line of constructing socialism, promulgated by 毛主席 Chairman Mao in 1958. This poster contains four key words that come at the end of the General Line: 多, 快, 好 and 省. These three words are commonly used in everyday spoken Chinese, as well as in the context of propaganda - especially from the Great Leap Forward era. The first three are [likely] among the most commonly used characters. Let’s learn, shall we?

多快好省 - duō kuài hǎo shěng - more, fast, good, save

In the context of the the 总路线 these four words mean “[to achieve] greater, faster, better, and more economical [results]”, each one however can be used alone.

多 - duō means “more”, “many” or “much”. The opposite of 多 is 少 shǎo “less” or “few”. When combined, they create 多少 duōshǎo “how much?” or “how many?” 多 alone can also mean “how much?” or “how many” in certain contexts.

快- kuài means “fast”. Very simple and straightforward. 快 kuài can serve as an adjective, an adverb and even an entire predicate; this is the case with most Chinese adjectives, which are sometimes called ‘describers’.

好- hǎo means “good”. Again, very easy. Like 快 kuài, 好 hǎo is also very versatile and can be used in the same fashion.

省 - shěng has two main meanings. More often, it means “Province” and is used to designate the largest administrative division in the People’s Republic of China - for example 湖北省 Húběishěng Hubei Province.  In this case, it takes on a more colloquial usage. 省 shěng also means “to save” or “to leave [x] out”. 省钱 shěngqián means “to save money” or “be economical” - this is how the translation of “…[more] economical…" came about in the General Line. 

Be sure to study these four words well. 多, 快 and 好 will appear frequently in any study of Chinese. 省 may appear later if different provinces are discussed, but it is nonetheless an important character to know. Don’t get it confused with 雀 qiāo/què which means "sparrow”!

so what are these strange characters?

they are, as you may have guessed, 万岁.

Prior to 1986, China had no official policy regarding the use of Traditional and Simplified characters. At the time of the creation of this poster, as can be seen, a highly mixed script was in-use. Today, in the People’s Republic of China and Singapore, 简体字 jiǎntǐzì Simplified Characters are officially used, while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, 繁体字 fántǐzì Traditional Characters are used. On this blog, we will use simplified characters primarily, but traditional characters that appear will be introduced and explained

The characters being used here are 萬歲. However, to further complicate matters, the second character is what is called 异体字 yìtǐzì variant form character. Variants are simply non-“standard” ways of writing one character. In fact, the variant shown here is itself a variant of a variant! Allow me to illustrate:

As we know, the word 岁 means “year of age”. It can be added to the end of any number to describe how old a living being is. For your reference, 岁 looks like this:

Then, there is the Traditional version of 岁：歲

Of the Traditional version 歲, there are two variants;

The Japanese (歳, on the left) and Northern Chinese (嵗, on the right), respectively:

Then, of course, we have the variant shown in the poster, which is now encoded as 𡻕:

It is a combination of 嵗 and 歳, with an extra line, so that the “inside” portion is actually 示

There is, actually, one more variant of 岁 that was promulgated for use in Singapore, which currently uses simplified characters. Instead of being a combination of 山 and 夕, it replaced the 夕 on the bottom with 冫. However, this too is not an encoded character.

I realize that this is not really on the point of propaganda posters, however both traditional and variant characters appear in posters and it is good to understand why what is being typed on the blog may not always reflect exactly what is showed in a poster.

第二、三课：复习 | Review 2 & 3

This poster contains no new words, so you should be able to read the entire thing!

there are two characters, however, than are written differently than the rest of the poster. Can you spot them? What are those two mystery characters written under 毛主席?

第三课：大跃进 Lesson 3: the Great Leap Forward

First, let’s take a minute to admire this poster. This is one of my favorite posters - it seems very striking and forward thinking. This poster depicts the 三面红旗 sān miàn hóngqí or Three Red Banners, which was a set of [three] ideological slogans that were popularized during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961). 

In terms of actually reading the poster, of the 16 characters, you can already read nine of them! Let’s take a look, shall we?

The first line is exactly what we practiced in the previous lesson: 总路线万岁 Long live the General Line. The second and third lines both end in 万岁, so we know that they are further wishes of long life, but to what? Let’s learn!

大跃进 - Dà Yuè Jìn - the Great Leap Forward  

“The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China from 1958 to 1961. The campaign … aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization.” (from Wikipedia)

Just a side note, the General Line was promulgated during and specifically for the Great Leap Forward

Now that you know what the Great Leap Forward was, let’s look at how to understand it in Chinese.

大 - dà means “big”, or “great”. This is usually one of the first words students learn when studying Chinese.

跃 - yuè by itself means “leap” or “jump”. In some contexts, it can also mean “lively” (think of it as being similar to being “jumpy”), as in 活跃 huóyuè “active” or “lively”.

进 - jìn refers to the action of advancing or entering, or more generally moving forward. It has a bit more of an active connotation than just simply “going forward”; it is often used in military contexts, but is not necessarily a military word. 

So, that takes care of line two. Now we know 大跃进万岁 means…

Long live the Great Leap Forward

Let’s look at the last line - it contains another word, like 毛主席 that appears quite frequently.

人民公社 － rénmín gōngshè － the People’s Commune[s]

“The people’s commune was an administrative division in rural areas of the People’s Republic of China from 1958 until 1985, when they were replaced by ‘townships’. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams.” (from Wikipedia)

People’s Communes were the realization of the merging of the various forms of agricultural collectives that had been formed since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and the land reform that had taken place in the Liberated Areas prior to that. They served as the main production force for the mass campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, but took a backseat as a more mundane administrative division for the next two decades.

Let’s take a look at the words:

人民 - rénmín means “people”.  人 rén is one of the most basic Chinese words (alongside 一 yi “one). It means "person”.  民 mín also means “person”, but has a more collective feal to it. It can be used as an adjective to mean “folk”, or used to contrast 军 jūn “military” and ahve the conotation of “civilian”, in all cases it relates to common folk, or ordinary people. When put together, 人民 rénmín refers to “the people”.

公社 - gōngshè means “commune”. Considering the words individually: 公 gōng means “public”, or even “state-owned” or “collective”. It also can have the meaning of “common”, “general” (like 总), or “public”. These are all of a single definition; 公 is known as a 多义字 duōyì zì, or a single character with more than one meaning; 公 gōng, in other circumstances, can also mean “male” (as in 公牛 gōngniú bull, i.e. male cow), “duke”, or even refer to one of several family members (老公 lǎogōng husband, 公公 gōnggong grandfather or eunuch, 阿公 āgōng father-in-law). 社 shè means something along the lines of “an organized body”. It can also mean “agency” (as in 通信社 tōngxìnshè／通讯社 tōngxùnshè “news agency”), or serve as an abbreviation for 社会shèhuì “society”. In very specific circumstances, it can also serve as an abbreviation for 人民公社 People’s Commune itself (as in 社辦企业 "commune-run enterprise").

So from this we can glean the meaning of 人民公社 as People’s Commune.

We can now understand the entirety of the poster

总路线万岁！

大跃进万岁！

人民公社万岁！

Long live the General Line!

Long live the Great Leap Forward!

Long live the People’s Communes!

and those were the 三面红旗 sān miàn hóngqí  "Three Red Banners" that were referred to at the beginning of the lesson. 

第二课：总路线万岁！ Lesson 2: Long live the General Line

In this lesson, we will learn something new and we will review some older material, and then combine what we have learned to make a “new slogan”. 

The slogan in the above poster is:

总路线万岁！- Zǒng Lùxiàn wànsuì! - Long live the General Line!

Now, you may be wondering, “what is the ‘General Line’, and why am I wishing a long life to it?" At this point, it’s not really important to worry about what it is. It’s suffice to say that in Marxist-Leninist politics, it’s important to have a correct ”[political] line". The term “General Line” itself is actually an abbreviation for “the general line for the construction of socialism”. 

Let’s look at the words!

So, we already know from lesson 1 that 万岁 means “long live”. And we know that 总路线 Zǒng Lùxiàn means “General Line”. Let’s break-down 总路线, shall we?

总路线 - Zǒng Lùxiàn - General Line

总 - Zǒng 总 very simply means “general” in many contexts. It also conveys the sense of “overall” or “summed up” or “total”. In certain cases, it can be used adverbially to mean “always” or even “sooner or later” or “eventually”.

路线 - Lùxiàn 路线, as we can see, is a compound word made up two characters:

路 - lù means “road”, or “path”

线 - xiàn literally means “string” or “wire”, or more abstractly “line”

thus, put together, 路线 means “line” or “route”. As mentioned above, in Marxism-Leninism, having a correct political line is of cardinal importance, and in much of Chinese political speak, there is much talk of “following the XX line/

路线”

Another word, similar to 路线 is 道路 dàolù. 路 lù as we know, means “road”, and 道 dào means “way” or “path”. So, 道路 dàolù is often translated as “[the] road”, as in 社会主义道路 or "the road/道路 of socialism".

so, we can now understand 总路线万岁. To review, the word for word translation would be something like:

总 - general

路 - road

线 - line

万 - ten-thousand

岁 - years

and then grouped together:

总 - general

路线 - line

万岁 - long live

and thus the meaning is clear! Long live the General Line!

always remember, 万岁 correctly comes after the object to which that a long life wished.

for those that are interested, here is the actual “General Line of the Construction of Socialism,” as put forward by 毛主席 Chairman Mao:

鼓足干劲，力争上游，多快好省地建设社会主义

-1958年3月党中央成都会议/March 1958, Talks At The Chengdu Conference

and broken down, that’s:

鼓足干劲 Go all out [and], 

力争上游 Aim high

多快好省地建设社会主义 to [achieve] greater, faster, better, and more economical [results] in constructing socialism

the translation of the last line 多快好省地建设社会主义 as"to [achieve] greater, faster, better, and more economical [results] in constructing socialism“ is dubious. A better translation would be: "to more-so (多), faster (快), better (省地), and more economically construct (建设) socialism (社会主义)”.

Review 1 | 第一课：复习

Can you read this poster? If you absorbed the material from the first lesson, then this should be a no-brainer for you! 

An exceptional usage in this poster is the phrase “万万岁！”. As we know “万岁” alone means “long live”, or literally “ten-thousand years”. You may have also caught the phrase "万万岁" in the chorus of the song “万岁！毛主席”. Often, the “万岁 cheer” will be done in three waves, for example:

毛主席万岁！万岁！万万岁！

第一课：毛主席万岁！| Lesson 1: Long live Chairman Mao!

让我们从最初开始！Let’s start from the very beginning!

This poster has the most basic and most common two phrases in Chinese propaganda. The poster says simply “Long live Chairman Mao”.

Let’s break it down:

毛主席万岁 - Máo Zhǔxí wànsuì

毛主席 - Máo Zhǔxí - Chairman Mao  

万岁 - wànsuì - long live 

So, essentially, we have two (or three) words here. “Chairman (Mao)” and “long live”. Let’s take a look at each word individually:

毛主席 - Máo Zhǔxí - Chairman Mao

毛 - Máo  This is Chairman Mao’s surname (or “last name”). It literally means “hair”, or “feather”.  In Chinese, when surnames are combined with titles (eg Chairman, Mr., Comrade, etc), the surname is placed before the title. So, “Mr. Wang” becomes “Wang Mr.” and “President Hu” becomes “Hu President”.

主席 - Zhǔxí - This is the word for “Chairman”. In some cases, it can also mean “President”, but that usage is limited to the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, aka North Korea).  It is a “compound character word”, meaning that two Chinese characters are combined to make a single word with one meaning.  主 zhǔ alone means “main” or “primary”. In some cases it can also mean “owner” or “ruler”. 席 xí alone means “seat”; in Classical Chinese it referred to a sitting mat that was used at banquets and gatherings.  So, 主席 Zhǔxí literally means “main seat”. Somewhat similar to “chairman”, no?

万岁 - wànsuì -  This is an idiomatic expression that means “long live”.  万 - wàn This is the word for ten-thousand. It can also be used to simply refer to a myriad or just a large span. 岁 - suì  This word means “years of age”. It is used when referring to people’s ages 万岁 wànsuì literally means “ten-thousand years [of age]”. In Imperial China, it was a phrase that was reserved to be said only in reference to the emperor. It was later stripped of that connotation, and is now in similar usage to that of “hurray!” and other expressions that convey a sense of good feelings towards the object. However, in the case of Chinese (and generally East Asian) political propaganda, it is more poignant to consider the English translation as “long live”. But more on that later.

So, from all of this, we can understand the word-for-word meaning of 毛主席万岁 as:

毛 - Mao

主 - Main

席 - Seat

万 - 10,000

岁 - years

and then grouped together:

毛 - Mao

主席 - Chairman

万岁 - long live

And thus, our meaning becomes clear: long live Chairman Mao. 

If you watch or listen to videos or recordings from the Cultural Revolution, you will often hear chants of “毛主席万岁 Máo Zhǔxí wànsuì”. Also, it is common to hear announcers voices lilt slightly - that is, change to an either excited or affectionate tone - when uttering "毛主席 Máo Zhǔxí".

Be sure to note that it is “correct” grammar to put “万岁 wànsuì" after "毛主席 Máo Zhǔxí”. However, there is a propaganda song called “万岁！毛主席 Wànsuì! Máo Zhǔxí” that puts "万岁 wànsuì" first, but this is an exceptional usage. However, it does make for good listening practice. You can listen to it here. The chorus is very simple, and I think if you have absorbed the contents of this first lesson you will be able to sing along!

Chorus:

万岁！毛主席 （毛主席万岁！） 万岁！毛主席 （毛主席万岁！） 万岁！万岁！万岁！万岁！*万万岁！（嘿! - hei!) 万岁！万岁！毛主席 

Behold, a whole ass mango reliquary

This was going on at the height of the violent factionalism of the early Cultural Revolution. Student Red Guard (usually called 红卫兵, or something similar) factions fighting each other and fighting mostly cadre family and worker/peasant-led Rebel (造反派 etc) factions. While Chairman Mao initially supported the students, the factional fighting was not well looked-upon. In the midst of this, the Pakistani foreign minister gifts Chairman Mao some mangos, which he hates (no man is perfect 😂), and decides to show a shift in favour towards the worker/peasant factions. In much much more than a symbolic gesture, he gifts the seven remaining mangos to seven different Worker-Peasant propaganda teams. And this is where shit goes BONKERS. So, some of the teams set up special little altars for the mangos at the entrances of their factories that people bow to as they pass by. Of course, the mangos start to rot. Some teams try to preserve them in formaldehyde. Most give up and just resort to using wax mango replicas. Many copies are made, and they become another devotional object in the Mao cult.

There was not just a ‘poster campaign’. There was a fsatire-length film made about them called Song of Mango (itself interesting, in that it tells the story of the mango, an incident of the early cultural revolution, in the perspective of the later cultural revolution). The mangos became a common theme in cultural revolution posters - both as a main subject, and then a background element. Consider this poster:

I have a whole damn book of an exhibition of cultural revolution mango paraphernalia.

抓 zhuā is a fun character. It contains the character 爪 zhǎo “claw”, which is both  phonetic and semantic. The radical on the left side is 扌tíshǒu páng “side handle”, which often denotes an action done manually. This is how we come to the meaning of  抓 zhuā - “grasp”, or “grab”. Here it means “grasp” in a slightly metaphorical sense, as in to mentally grasp the importance of revolution 革命 gémìng.

促生产 cù shēngchǎn

促 cù here is a one-character abbreviation for the verb 促进 cùjìn “to boost”, “to advance”, “to promote” or “to accelerate”.  促 cù means “to urge” or “to promote” by itself, and 进 jìn means “to advance” or “to move forward” (for more information, please see lesson three here)

生产 shēngchǎn comes from  生 shēng, a very common character whose meaning centers around ideas of “life”/“live”, “alive”, “birth” (as a verb or noun), or “fresh”, even “raw”. To this,  产 chǎn is added, also a word with creation in mind, it can “produce”, “create”, “to birth”, “product”, or even “property” or “industry”. Here, these two creation/production words are combined to mean “production”. When you flip them, you get  产生 chǎnshēng “to produce”. 

So, 促生产 cù shēngchǎn is “boost production.

促工作 cù gōngzuò

Here we have 促 cù “boost” again. 

工作 gōngzuò is a very useful word in modern Chinese.  工 gōng is a very multifaceted word, with most of its meanings and connotations dealing with “work”, “labor”, or “industry”.  作 zuò similarly has to do with “work”, “do”, or even “compose”. Here, the combination means “work”, and that is its meaning in modern Chinese.

促战备 cù zhànbèi  

This was also starts with  促 cù “boost”.

战备 zhànbèi is an abbreviation of 战争准备 zhànzhēng zhǔnbèi.  战争 zhànzhēng means “war”, being comprised of 战 zhàn “war”, and 争 zhēng “contention” or “struggle”. 准备 zhǔnbèi means “to prepare” or “be/get ready”. 准 zhǔn means “standard”, or “criteria”, and  备 bèi means “equipped”, “to ready” or “to prepare”.  战争准备 zhànzhēng zhǔnbèi, and its abbreviation here  战备 zhànbèi means “preparations for war”. 

So we have now the full meaning:

抓革命 zhuā gémìng “grasp revolution”

促生产 cù shēngchǎn “boost production”

促工作 cù gōngzuò “boost work”

促战备 cù zhànbèi “boost war preparation”