the sinification of soviet agitational theatre: ‘living...

JournaloftheBritishAssociationforChineseStudies,Vol.2July2013ISSN2048‐0601©BritishAssociationforChineseStudies

TheSinif icationof SovietAgitationa lTheatre: ‘LivingNewspapers’ inMao’sChina1

JeremyE.TaylorUniversityofNottingham

Abstract

Theadoptionanddevelopmentofzhivayagazeta (lit. ‘livingnewspapers’) inChina followsatrajectory common to many forms of artistic expression that were introduced into thatcountrybytheSovietsintheearlydecadesofthetwentiethcentury.WhiletheSovietheritageof this theatre was at first celebrated, the Chinese Communist Party sought to tailor it toparticular needs and to present it as a specifically Chinese innovation, rechristening it‘huobaoju’. Despite dying out in the Soviet Union by the late 1920s, ‘living newspapers’continued to be produced in China from the 1930s through until the Cultural Revolution(1966‐76),with the formbeing employed in tandemwith specific campaignsorattemptsatmassmobilisation. Indeed, theverynatureofChinesecommunismunderMaoprovided theperfectenvironmentinwhichthisformoftheatrecouldthrive.Keywords:China,theatre,Soviet,culture,revolutionary,huobaojuIntroduction

MuchoftheacademicliteratureonperformanceartinMaoZedong’sChinahas focusedon theeight ‘modeloperas’ (yangbanxi),which represented theonlyformofofficiallysanctionedtheatretobeproducedinChinaduringmuchoftheCulturalRevolution(1966‐1976)(e.g.,Roberts,2010).Indeed,somanyanalysesofspecificmodeloperashavebeenwrittenthattheyangbanxihavebecomesynonymouswithMao‐eratheatre:thestageandfilmversionsofThe 1 Research leading to the completion of this paper was undertaken with the support of anEarly Career Researcher Fellowship from the Arts andHumanities Research Council. I thanktheanonymousreviewersofthispaperfortheircommentsandsuggestions.Anyerrorsare,ofcourse,myown.

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Red Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzi jun) have inspired so muchscholarship, forexample, thattheynowrepresentsomethingofanacademicsubfield(e.g.,Chi,2003).Inmuchofthisliterature,therehasbeenatendencynot only to focus on theyangbanxi as the apotheosis of Cultural Revolutionart,butalso to stress theuniquenessof the formand its linkswith the ‘tenyearsofchaos’.Inlecturehallsandonfilmscreens,thegrandyetnowvaguelycomicsoundsand imageryofsuchsocialistrealismhavebecometheprimarymeans throughwhichhistorianshave introduced studentsand layaudiencestotheCulturalRevolution.

Inrecentyears,however,scholarshavestartedtolocatewithinthemodeloperasinfluencesfromotherforms(e.g.,Mittler,2013),aswellasconnectionsthatplacesuchworksfirmlyonamuchbroader‘evolutionarytree’ofChineserevolutionarytheatre,datingbacktotheearlytwentiethcentury(andinsomecases earlier). Such work has not only helped to trace artistic connectionsacross the1966divide,buthasalso forcedus to revisit less‐documentedartforms which survived the early years of the Cultural Revolution. In otherinstances,theubiquityoftheyangbanxihasbeenchallengedwithreferencesto other forms of Cultural Revolution theatre, most notably the dramaticpursuits of the Red Guards, who drew inspiration for impromptu streetperformancesnotmerelyfromofficiallyordainedoperas,butfromallmannerofartisticexpression(Clark,2008:192‐5).

This paper aims to expand on this emerging academic literature byexaminingonesuchform:huobaoju―astreettheatrewhichtook itsChinesenamedirectlyfromaRussianphrase(andaSovietformoftheatre)knownasthe zhivaya gazeta (lit. ‘living newspaper’). Huobaoju are certainly knownaboutinChinatoday:theformmeritsbriefmentioninwiderreferenceworkson theatre, and the term is still used to refer to theatrical performancesundertaken as part of protestmovements, not only in China, but elsewherearoundtheworld.Moreimportantly,theinfluenceofhuobaojuonlaterstyles,including theyangbanxi, has been noted in at least one recent study of thelatter(YangandConceison,2012:n.4).Huobaojuhashithertonot,however,beenstudied inanysystematic fashion,anddespite itsbriefappearance inanumberofhistoricalaccounts, theform’sownhistoryhasyettobeproperlydocumented.While the intellectual fashion for studying the yangbanxi maypartly explain this absence, I would also argue that huobaoju has—inhistoriographical terms—been its own ‘worst enemy’. By its very nature,

JournaloftheBritishAssociationforChineseStudies 29

huobaoju was ephemeral and transient, while never seeking to achieveanything beyond propagandistic effect. The form certainly never aspired toartisticgreatnessor longevity, and itspractitionersoftenmovedon tootherformsofculturalexpressioninduecourse.

Atthesametime,however,thedevelopmentofthisformisimportant,forittellsusmuchaboutwhatreplaceditinthe1960s.Atthesametime,itraisesquestions about a whole range of issues, from the Chinese adaptation ofSoviet theatre to the interaction of various media in the early years of thePeople’sRepublic.AsIshowinthispaper,thisformalsofeddirectlyintothedramatisedpoliticalcultureoftheearlyyearsoftheCulturalRevolution,notprimarilybyinfluencingthedevelopmentoftheyangbanxi,butbyshapingthevery way in which the Red Guards developed their own versions of streettheatre, and their decidedly theatrical approach to iconoclasm, violence andmobilisation.LivingNewspapers

The roots of the ‘living newspaper’ in Europe can be traced to Italianfuturism in the early decades of the twentieth century. Itwas in the youngSoviet Union (and principally theMoscow Institute of Journalism), however,thatitwasdevelopedintoarecognisableformofagitproptheatre.Performedby small bands of propagandists, the scripts for zhivaya gazeta were oftenpastedtogetherfrommaterialsfoundinnewspapers—thoughahighdegreeofimprovisationwas also encouraged—andwere designed to provide illiterateaudiences (suchasworkersorRedArmy recruits)withdetailsof campaigns,battlesorothernewsworthyevents(Casson,2000).Playswereperformedonstreetcornersorinotherpublicspaces,withtheaidofahandfulofpropsandsimpleyethighlysymboliccostumes.2

By the late 1920s, however, zhivaya gazeta were already being seen aspassébymanydramatistsintheSovietUnion,withallformsof‘revolutionaryagitational art’ becoming ‘increasingly unwelcome’, and official attentionturning towards the development ofmore sophisticated forms of theatre intheleaduptotheadoptionofsocialistrealismasofficialstatedoctrinein1932(Frolova‐Walker,2006:185).Indeed,StalindisbandedtheBlueBlouseGroup,themainexponentofzhivayagazeta,in1928(Casson,2000:109). 2Tophats,forinstance,wereusedwithmuchfrequencytomarkoutaparticularcharacterasbeingbourgeois(Tolstoy,1998:24).

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Despite the decline of the form in Russia itself, there was nothingparticularly unusual about the export of the zhivaya gazeta to China. In the1930s, various forms of Soviet agitprop theatre were being emulated bygroupsabroad.Indeed,Left‐leaningtheatrepractitionersintheUnitedStateshadattempted to introducezhivayagazeta into that countryunder theNewDeal’sFederalArtsProject—thoughwithlittlesuccess(Nadler,1995).

WhatissignificantaboutthedevelopmentofthisforminChina,however,isthat,unlike in theSovietUnion, thezhivayagazeta neveractually ‘declined’.Indeed,itnotonlyoutlivedtheimmediatewartimecultureofresistancethathadprovidedsuchasuitablesettingforitsgenesis,butremainedanimportantpartofmasspropagandacampaignsinthePeople’sRepublicintotheCulturalRevolution. Indeed, huobaoju thrived during the early years of communismunder Mao, with the form being continually called upon to encourageparticipation indemonstrationsof support for the regime.This is significant,for it suggestsnotonly thatChinese theatrepractitionerswere successful incontinuing tomakewhat had been, elsewhere, a transitory form of theatrerelevantandtopical,butalsothatstreettheatreofthissortarguablyhadafarmore important role in China underMao than it had in other revolutionarycontexts.Howandwhy,then,didzhivayagazetabecomehuobaoju?

FromthetimeoftheRepublicanRevolutionin1911,theBolshevikattempttocreatea‘propagandastate’(Kenez,1985)remainedthemaintemplatefornumerous Chinese governments of diverse political proclivity, as well as formovements which sought to undermine the state at various times. Duringperiods such as theMay 4thMovement of 1919, theNorthern Expedition of1926‐8andtheJiangxiSovietof1931‐4,Chineseartists,writersanddramatistslearnttheircrafts fromtheSovietmodel,oftendoingso incombinationwithregional Chinese art forms (e.g., opera) and vernacular traditions. The sheernumber of Soviet terms that have since been ‘normalised’ in China, and inmodern Chinese historiography—‘warlord’, ‘comrade’ and many others—reflect notmerely the scale of Soviet influence, but also the frequencywithwhichSovietideasandstylescouldbesuccessfullyincorporatedintoChinesepoliticalculture.3

ThedevelopmentofSovietagitproptheatreinChinafollowedthispattern,with zhivaya gazeta appearing to have been introduced into the country in 3OntheappropriationofSovietjargon(suchas‘warlord’)intotheearlyChineserevolutionarylexicon,seevandeVen(2003:72).


1931,when the first Chinese ‘Soviet’ governmentwas established in Jiangxi,anddramatictroupeswerespecificallycreated forthepurposeofusing it tospreadpropagandainruralareas(Judd,1983:138;Snow,1998:29).Theformwas certainly a regular part of socialist culture by themid‐1930s. Indeed, ayoung Deng Xiaoping is said to have written an anti‐Nationalist play in thismode in early 1937 (Meng, 1994: 44), and Jiang Qing was said to haveperformeda(presumablytranslated)SovietzhivayagazetaduringhertimeintheCommunistbaseofYan’aninthesameperiod(Yang,2009).

Given thisbackground, it isperhaps surprising that it tookuntilmid‐1937fortheformtobedispersedmorewidelythroughoutChina.AsChang‐taiHung(1994)notes, itwas the Japanese invasion thatyear that forced theChineseCommunist Party (CCP) and its allies amongst the intellectual elite to fullyappreciate the value of this particular type of theatre and to bring it to thefore ofwartimepropagandawork. Indeed,Hung notes that, during thewaragainstJapan,the‘livingnewspaper’emergedasoneofthetwomostpopularformsofspokendramainthoseareasofChinanotoccupiedbytheJapanese,oftenbeingperformedbytravellingdramatroupesattachedlooselytoeitherthecommunistsortheNationalists.Manysuchplayswerewritten:

…on the spot, to depict very recent incidents, and members of thetraveling troupes would often collect stories on the road, which theyquickly turned into newplays.This kindof improvisedproduct, thoughrarely polished, gave the poorly equipped troupes added flexibility(Hung,1994:55‐7).

Accounts of such huobaoju provided by contemporary observers suggest atheatre which had not changed much since 1920s Moscow. The AmericanjournalistEdgarSnowwroteofsuchplaysbeing‘fullofovertpropaganda’and‘primitive props’; ‘bursts of laughter alternated with oaths of disgust andhatred for the Japanese’, with the audience becoming ‘quite agitated’ as itwatchedperformancesinmakeshifttheatres(Snow,1998:27‐8).

HuobaojuwasparticularlywellsuitedtothepopularmoodinareasoutsideJapanesecontrolduringthewar,wherethereexistedapublicsentiment—asthehistorianStephenMacKinnon(2008:85)hasphrasedit—of‘moraloutragechoreographed as street theater’. The highly simplified nature of huobaojumeantthatthemessageofresistancetotheJapanesecouldbedisseminated

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to largeaudiencesviaa smallnumberofactors.Unsurprisingly,manyof theearlyhuobaoju portrayed individual enemies such asWang Jingwei, and theJapanesethemselves,inhighlycaricaturedfashion(e.g.,Wang,1943).Indeed,it is telling that the development of huobaoju in China paralleled theemergence of the satirical wartime cartoon—a topic towhich I shall returnbelow.4

As the formbegan tobeusedwithmuchmore frequency inChina in themonths following the Japanese invasion, however, its promoters recognisedthat it required elucidation.Writing in the appropriately named Sino‐SovietCulture Magazine (Zhong Su wenhua zazhi) in early 1938, one theatrepractitioner introduced huobaoju to fellow Chinese propagandists bydescribing it as a ‘new type of performance’ which represented the‘dramatisationofthenews’.ThepotentialbenefitsfromsuchaforminChinaincludedthefactthatthenewsusuallyreported inprintcouldbebroughttothe attention of those unable to read—i.e., the vast majority of China’speasants. Indeed, the success of ‘living newspapers’ in 1920s Soviet societywas presented as reason enough for its emulation in wartime China (Ge,1938).

While the Japanese invasion certainly acted as a catalyst for the rapiddevelopment ofhuobaoju, the form also benefited from the very deliberateattemptsonthepartoftheChineseCommunistPartyinMay1942toredefinethe role of the arts in Chinese society. These ideaswere laid out during the‘Yan’anTalksonLiteratureandArt’,underwhichMaoZedongdecreedthatallartmustbepolitical,aswellassubservienttotheneedsofChina’s‘masses’.AsMark Amitin (1980:12) notes, this new direction heralded, for performanceart, ‘thedeathwarrant foroperasaboutgoodemperors, kind landlords,evilserfsandplottingservants,andheraldedthebeginningofahard‐coreagitproptheatre’; yet it also provided room for greater levels of experimentation,particularly in terms of the incorporation of appropriately peasant forms ofculturalexpressionintowhatwereessentiallyforeignformsofpropaganda.Inthecommunistbaseareas,suchtheatrebecame‘afunctionalpartofthewarmachine’, with the Communists’ Eighth Route Army (Ba lu jun) devoting anumberoftroupesspecificallytoit(MeserveandMeserve,1972:317).

4Formoreonthistopic,seeLentandXu(2008).


The linkbetweenmobilisation (asexperiencedduring thewar)and ‘livingnewspapers’ remained an important one after 1945, too. Huobaoju werescriptedduringtheKoreanWarforperformanceamongstChinesetroops(e.g.,Xue, 1951), and therewere cases during that conflict of Chinese and NorthKoreanpropagandistsjointlyproducingsuchplays.Librarycataloguelistingsofpublishedscriptssuggestanoticeableriseinhuobaojuproductionintheyearsof the Great Leap Forward, as well as during Chinese moral and logisticalinvolvement in the Vietnam War.5 And the form was revived at othermomentsofarmedconflict,suchastheSecondOffshoreIslandsCrisisof1958(duringwhichChineseforcesclashedwithNationalistforcesfromTaiwanoverislandsoffthesouthChinacoast),whenhuobaojusuchasGetOutofTaiwan,American Wolves! (Meiguo lang, gunchu Taiwan qu) and The Dead End forAmericanImperialism(Meidideqiongtumolu)werewritten.6

However, it was during the Chinese Civil War of 1945‐9 that the ‘livingnewspaper’ reached its apogee. Dozens of huobaoju lampooning ordenigrating theNationalistChinese leaderChiangKai‐shekwereproduced inthisperiod,oftenforperformanceamongstcommunisttroops,orforpeasantsin ‘Liberated’ areas. Local cells of the Communist Party all over the countryformed specific propaganda groups for the purpose of performinghuobaojuand other forms of drama (Sha, 1999: 67). Celebrated leftwing playwrightswere also tasked with scripting huobaoju in this period and after, amongstthemDuXuan (e.g.,1952).Anda handfulof intellectualsemerged from theCivilWarperiodasspecialistsinthegenre.Byfarthemostprolificcompilerofhuobaojuinthisperiod,forinstance,wasZhouFang,whowasbasedintheJinJi Lu Yu Border Region.7 Zhou was responsible for editing one of the mostpopularhuobaojuoftheCivilWarera—Jiang’sArmyMustbeDefeated(Jiangjun bi bai), which had been collectively authored by cultural workers in thecommunistbaseatwhichhewasstationed(Renminribao,16January1947).Zhou went on to be involved in the scripting and editing of a significantnumberofhuobaojuthroughuntilthe1950s.(Figure1)

5Althoughonemustbe cautious in takingpublished scriptsas evidenceofactualhuobaojuperformances. As Ellen Judd (1983: 147) suggests in her study of Jiangxi Soviet‐era drama,huobaoju scripts were often not produced at all (for fear that the plays would lose theirtopicalitybythetimetheywereprintedanddistributedtopotentialpractitioners).6ThesearetakenfromalistofnewhuobaojuadvertisedinthejournalJubeninJuly1960.7I.e.,theregionbetweenthefourprovincesofShanxi,Hebei,ShandongandHenan.

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Whilemembers of a relatively small band of intellectuals took charge ofcompilinghuobaoju,productionswerestagedbyallmannerofgroups,rangingfromuniversity‐andschool‐baseddramasocietiestocommunes,tradeunionsandthearmedforces.Indeed,theverynatureofthisgenremadeitadaptabletotroupesofvarioussizeanddiverselevelsofdramatictalent.

Itwasalsointhisperiodthattheeducationalfunctionofhuobaojuwasatitsclearest,withcompilersinspiredbyMao’s1942callstomakeartsubjecttopolitics openly extolling the form as a means through which Party policiescould be taken directly to ‘themasses’. ‘This volume’,wrote Liu Chuan, theeditoracollectionofearlypost‐CivilWarhuobaoju

is written for the special use of dramatic troupes within factories,villages,militaryunitsandschools.Myaimsineditingthisvolumearetointroduceworksthatcombinepoliticsandart,andformandcontent,tomycomradesamongsttheworkers,peasantsandsoldiers.Atthesametime,Ihopethatitcanservesomelevelofeducationalpurposeforthebroadmasses(Liu,1951:nopagenumbers).

Figure1:AgitproptheatreintheCommunistbaseareasofnorthernChina,January1948.Notethealmostcompleteabsenceofprops,theminimaluseofcostumeandtheproximityoftheaudiencetotheactors.(CourtesyofGettyImages)


Oneofthemostimportantwaysinwhichplays‘educated’audienceswastoformahighlycaricaturedyetuniformpictureof theCommunistParty’smainenemies:ChiangKai‐shek, theUnitedStatesand thosewithinChinadeemed‘counterrevolutionaries’,‘landlords’or‘Rightists’.Indeed,itisnoteworthythattheimagesofsuchfiguresborneoutofthesimplepropsandwardrobeitemsof‘livingnewspapers’boreastrikingresemblancetothecartoonimagesofthesame figures circulating in printed newspapers on a daily basis. It is thusperhapsmore than coincidence that some of China’smost celebrated statecartoonists of the 1950s, such as Hua Junwu—famed for his dozens ofderogatorycaricaturesofChiangKai‐shekandvariousAmericanleadersduringthe early post‐1949 years—also took a role in directing huobaoju (Zheng,2010). Cartooning as a revolutionary art form in China had, like huobaoju,beenperfected during thewaryears inYan’an, and represented thegraphicand satirical denigration of enemies in much the same way as actors andplaywrightsdidwithstreettheatre(Hung2011:155‐81).

Figure2:HongHuang,Baoweishijieheping(ProtectWorldPeace),ca.1947.ThisisoneofmanyartisticrepresentationsofchildrenactingouthuobaojuthatwerecreatedduringtheCivilWar.Notethecelebrationoftheatricalviolence,aswellastheuseofitemssuchasthetophattodenotetheUnitedStatesandthe‘WhiteStar’badge(officialemblemoftheChineseNationalistParty)andmasktodenoteChiangKai‐shek.(CourtesyoftheSpecialCollectionsDepartment,UniversityofSheffieldLibrary)

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While cartoons could inspire huobaoju, ‘living newspapers’ could alsoinfluencevisualart.Oneofthemostenduring imagesoftheCivilWarperiodbytheCCP‐affiliatedartistFengZhen,forexample,wasanianhua‐(NewYearprint) inspired depiction of a group of children involved in ahuobaoju,withtwo individual children dressed as Chiang Kai‐shek and a stereotypicalAmericanbeingattackedbyothersdressedasChinesepeasantsandworkers.Theoriginalimage,entitled‘Wawaxi’(Child’splay),isstillheldbytheNationalArtMuseumofChina,andwasgivenprideofplaceinthe‘CongYan’anzoulai’(Coming from Yan’an) Exhibition held in 2012 to celebrate the 70thanniversary of Mao’s talks at the Yan’an Forum.8 Feng’s work was notexceptional, however. Depictions of huobaoju performances were regularlyproduced during the Civil War years (Figure 2), with such renditions oftenincorporating elements of peasant artistic traditions—like huobaojuproductionsthemselves—orbeingpresentedintheformofnianhua.

Equally, huobaoju scripts and textbooks were regularly adorned withimageseitherinspiredbyortakendirectlyfromthegrowingcanonofChineseposter art (Figure 3). And huobaoju (including many of those cited in thispaper)weregiventitleswhichechoed,orwerepreciselythesameas,biaoyu(slogans) found in the Communist‐affiliated press, scrawled on the walls of‘liberated’areasorusedasthetitlestoposters.

8DetailscanbefoundintheMay2012(89)issueofZhongguomeishuguanyuekan(JournaloftheArtMuseumofChina),whichwaspublishedtocoincidewiththeexhibition.


Inthisway,huobaojuweremadepartofintertextualmobilisationaleffortswhich incorporated and encouraged exchange between all sorts of artisticexpression.Justasadmirationofanianhuadepictingahuobaojumightinspiredisparate communities to try their hand at staging such a play, access to acentrallypublishedscripttobeusedinsuchproductionsmight,inturn,assistinthedistributionofspecificvocabulary,imageryoriconographywhichwentwell beyond the bounds of street theatre, andwhich could help spread theuniformmessageofanygivencampaignorpolicytoabroadaudience.SinifyingZhivayaGazeta

Such intertextuality, and the place of huobaoju within networks ofpropagandistic cultural expression, suggests not simply that huobaoju were

Figure3:CoverofZhouJun(1955),WomenyidingyaojiefangTaiwan(WemustliberateTaiwan).Theimageusedhere,depictingmainlandmilitarypersonnelgazingacrosstheTaiwanStrait,wastypicalofthosecirculatinginofficialreferencepublicationsproducedforthebenefitofpropagandaartistsinthe1950s.(CourtesyoftheShanghaiLibrary)

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influenced by developments in the visual arts during the CivilWar, but alsothattheirusehaddevelopedalonglinesalreadyquitedifferentfromthoseinthe SovietUnion. In being brought into a broader body of revolutionary artdevelopedinYan’an,huobaojuwasbeinggivenafarmoreinfluentialrolethanithadeverbeengrantedinthelandofitsorigins.

During and shortly after the Chinese Civil War, the Soviet connection tohuobaojuwasnotdenied.Onthecontrary,theinvolvementoftheSino‐SovietFriendshipAllianceinthescriptingofsuchdramassuggeststhatthisheritagewascelebrated(e.g.,Dongbeiwenhuajiaoyugongzuodui,n.d.).Aswithmuchelse drawn from the Soviet canon of propaganda art, however, the Chineseeventually came to claim the form as their own invention, particularlyfollowingtheSino‐Sovietsplitof1960.Writingofhuobaoju inthatveryyear,forexample,anarticle inone of the leading theatre journals inChina notedmerelythat‘it[i.e.,huobaoju]alreadyhasquitealonghistoryinChina,havingproven its agitational strength in opposing imperialism, feudalism andbureaucraticcapitalism…’(Li,1960:95).

Such claims to innovation and ownership, however, were not withoutmerit. After all, Chinese ‘living newspapers’ had incorporated aspects ofvernacular and regional forms of performance art from at least the Yan’anperiod. One example was the incorporation of kuaiban (rhythmicstorytelling)—a form of performance in which a story is recounted in arhythmic and free‐rhyming fashion to the accompaniment of bamboo‘clappers’heldbythespeaker(Anon,1949),whilexiangsheng(crosstalk)wasalso used for some huobaoju (Anon, 1958). Like other forms of artisticexpressiondevelopedinYan’an,somehuobaoju(e.g.,An,1950)alsoshowedatendencytoincorporateelementsofShaanxifolkdanceandsong.

In all of this, the well‐documented effort on the part of LeftwingintellectualsinChinato incorporateelementsoffolkcultureinanattempttomakepropagandamorepalatable topeasantaudiencesduringboth thewaragainst the Japanese and the Civil War was evident.9 (Figure 4) Thisrepresented a peculiarly Yan’an‐inspired vision of the role of theatre formssuchashuobaoju,whichitwasbelievedcouldbemademoreattractivetothe‘masses’ if they articulated revolutionary ideas in vernacular Chinese form,despitetheirSovietroots.Justascommunistpaintersworkedpeasantartistic

9Onthistopic,seeJudd(1990).


traditions(suchasnianhua)intovisualpropaganda,huobaojucouldbemademore convincingly ‘of the people’ by incorporating local performancetraditions into them. In this regard,huobaoju sharedmuch in commonwithotherformsofperformanceartduringtheMaoyears.Beitsmall‐scalestreettheatre, stage‐managed events such as early post‐Liberation national daycelebrations(Hung2011:75‐91)orstrictlymanagedeventssuchasTheEastisRed(Dongfanghong)of1964(Clark2008:158‐9),theconsciousincorporationofregionalpeasantmusical,danceandperformancetraditionswasastandardmethod bywhich theatre could bemade to speak ‘to themasses’ in termstheyunderstood.

Unlike the Soviets, the Chinese also wrote huobaoju specifically for

children, such as ‘The Little Heroes Outwit the KMT Spies’ (Xiao yingxiongzhiqinfeite)(Zuo,1951).Throughoutthe1950sandearly1960s,anumberofothervariationsof thehuobaoju formwerealsodeveloped inChina ranging

Figure4:CoverofthescriptforXueLi’s‘HoldYourTongue’(Zhuoshetou)from1951.Thefigureontherightisdepictedasholdingbamboo‘clappers’asusedinthekuaiban‐styleofstory‐telling.(CourtesyoftheShanghaiLibrary)

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from‘gewuhuobaoju’(lit.huobaojuwithsinginganddancing)to‘guangchanghuobaoju’ (plazahuobaoju). All of this suggestsa highly flexible viewof theform and its uses, as well as a talent at adaptinghuobaoju to very specificaudiences.

This is not to suggest, however, that huobaoju shed everything from itszhivaya gazeta origins. In the Chinese context, huobaoju lost none of thecommoncriteria ithad inheritedfromearlyStalinistRussia:asimpleplotsetaround a specific event or campaign; a limited number of acts, with mostbeinglimitedtoasingleact(dumu);anequallylimitedtimeframe,withmosthuobaojulastingonlyamatterofminutes;asmallnumberofcharacters,withactorsdressedinacartoon‐likefashion;livelyparticipationfromtheaudience;and a frequent use of comic violence. As had been the case following theJapanese invasion of 1937, the purpose ofhuobaoju inMao’s Chinawas tocontinuetoagitateagainstindividualsorgroupsdeemedtobeenemiesofthepeople.

Moreover,likeSovietpractitionersofthe1920s,thoseinMao’sChinawhoscriptedorproducedsuchhuobaojuneverclaimedthattheirartrepresentedthe height of dramatic endeavour. Such plays were deemed best if they‘contained dialogue and song,music and dancing, exaggerated actions, loud[vocal] delivery…and bright colours…’, and if they ‘…denigratedcounterrevolutionaries while glorifying the people’s heroes’ (Li, 1960: 96).Indeed,oneofthemostrecurrentwordsintheinstructionsthataccompaniedhuobaojuscriptswas‘ease’(yi),for‘livingnewspapers’weredeemedeffectiveonly if they were easy to perform and understand. ‘These three plays’,instructed the anonymous editors of a 1965 anti‐American huobaoju, forinstance, ‘are easy to organise and easy to act out: they are suitable forproduction invillagesaswellbyallkindsofartistic troupes’ (Anon,1965:nopagenumbers).

Indeed, and in a reflection of the Mao‐era rejection of ‘intellectualism’,huobaoju’ssimplicityandlackofsubtletywereheldupastheform’ssourceofvirtue by its many proponents. ‘As a form of immediate propaganda (jishixuanchuan)’, argued the Chinese playwright, novelist and defender ofhuobaoju Lao She in 1966, ‘it [i.e.,huobaoju] is perhaps a little crude… butonlybybeing immediatedoes it haveaneffect’. Thepoint ofhuobaojuwasnottoaspiretodramaticgreatnessbuttogetapointacross,arguedLaoShe:these plays had to be presented in such a way that people ‘understood


somethingassoonastheysawitandassoonastheyheardit’(Renminribao,8April1992).

Thisbeingthecase,themessagesofalmostallhuobaojuwereexceedinglysimple, and the emotions they encouraged visceral. Characters representingclassandstateenemieswerehabituallyshowntosufferphysicalabuseatthehandsofthe‘masses’(orviatheirownineptitude),orweretheatricallykilled,whilemembersoftheaudiencewereencouragedtohurlabuseorobjectsatactorsplayingthepartofsuchvillains.Scriptscontainedconstantrepetitionofpolitical slogans. And to make absolutely sure that the message wasunderstood, some huobaoju involved actors in roles known as the‘jieshuoyuan’ (lit. ‘explainer’), whose job it was to narrate events as theyoccurred,ask rhetoricalquestionsof theaudience inanattempt to increaseagitation,andtospeakdirectlytocharacterswithintheplay(e.g.,byspeaking‘for’onlookerswhenberatingavillain).Anothercommonpracticewastohavea villain’s name attached to his or her person throughout the course of theplaysothateventhemostill‐informedofobserverswouldunderstandwhichcharacterwasworthyofvitriol.10

In keepingwith the original aims of the form, playswere alsowritten atastounding speed. During the Great Leap Forward, for example, the China‐widerushtoharvestgraininexcessofwildlyambitioustargetswasmirroredinattemptsbyculturalworkerstoproducehuobaojuovernight:in1958,actors,directorsandscriptwritersfromtheShanghaiPeople’sArtsTheatre(Shanghairenminyishuxiyuan,1958:132)wroteeighthuobaojuinthespaceoffivedaysbased on their experiences of visiting factories around the city. In otherinstances,huobaojuweresaidtofittheveryaimsoftheGreatLeapForwardinthattheywere‘quickandeconomical’(duokuaihaosheng)(Renminribao,12April1958).

Atthesametime,however,anddespitethegreatlengthsthatweretakento present huobaoju as a Chinese innovation, many of these practicessuggested little real narrative development beyond the sorts of ‘livingnewspapers’ that had been produced in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The

10Thispracticeisevensuggestedinonescriptsothat‘itwillmakeiteasierfortheaudiencetounderstand’(Liu,1951:2).ThispracticeboreastrikingresemblancetoeverydaylifeinChinaintheearly1950s. During the LandReform campaigns, andduringvariouspurgesof the sameperiod, ‘class enemies’ were habitually paraded through the streets with name tags hungaroundtheirnecks(seeSchoenhals,2007).

42 JeremyE.Taylor

photographic record of performances suggests, for instance, that huobaojuhad changed little between the 1940s and the 1960s. Actors portrayingAmericans and other ‘capitalists’ in 1965 dressed inmuch the sameway astheir predecessors had done in 1949 (or zhivaya gazeta actors had done inMoscow in the 1920s)—donning a top hat or MacArthuresque sunglasses(Hong,2002:159)—while theubiquitous figure ofChiangKai‐shekcontinuedtobedepictedinCivilWarmode(andinmuchthesamewaythatillustratorssuch as Hua Junwu continued to draw him for the country’s newspapers),wearing an ‘ill‐fitting army uniform and only a single boot’, with ‘handsbandaged and a plaster on his head’ (An, 1950: 1).11 (Figure 5)While ‘livingnewspapers’ in China had thus been embellishedwith numerous vernacularculturalelements, theyremainedatheartarevolutionaryformofagitationaltheatre,andonewhichcontinuedtobetrayanearlySovietprovenance.

11 The depiction of Chiang with a plaster on his head originated in early wartime visualpropagandacreatedbytheJapaneseandtheiralliesin1937‐8;itwasadoptedbytheChinesecommunistsinalmostallpost‐1945depictionsoftheNationalistleader.

Figure5:AhuobaojubeingperformedonthestreetsofShanghai,1950.Theactorinthecentreoftheimagewithsunglasses,pipeandbandagesisplayingthepartofDouglasMacArthur;theactorholdingasamuraiswordandwearingakimonoisplayingaJapanesemilitarist.(CourtesyoftheShanghaiMunicipalArchives)


Controll ingtheForm

From its inception, the ‘living newspaper’ was an improvisational andephemeral art form. In the early years of thewar against the Japanese, forinstance,playswereindeedscripted,andparticulartroupesweretaskedwiththeperformanceofspecifichuobaoju. In justasmanycases,however, theseplayswereperformedwithoutrecoursetoprintedscriptsorofficialsanction.

IntheSovietUnion,theimprovisationalqualityof ‘livingnewspapers’hadservedaspecificpurposeduringthe1920s,buthadcometobeviewedwithsuspicion as Stalin attempted to consolidate power. In post‐1949 China, asimilar pattern developed. The Communists recognised the success that thisagitationaltheatrehadachieved.Intheyearsfollowing1949,however,whenmobilisation of the entire population in support of the Korean War, LandReform,andthecollectivisationofagriculturewasimperative,theneedforascripted, unified and tightly controlled programme of propaganda becameparamount.

InChina,however,thiswasachievednotbydoingawaywithhuobaoju,butbytaskingstate‐runbodiesatboththenationaland local levelwithscriptingandproducinghuobaoju, andbymaintaining strict control over the rights topublish the scripts for such plays. At the same time, and in an effort not tostiflethe improvisationalnatureoftheformthathadmade itsoeffective inthewar years, they also decreedwithin these published scripts a significantmeasure of flexibility in terms of production. ‘When acting out this script’,instructedthecollectiveauthorsofa1965huobaojuconcerningtheVietnamWar, for instance, ‘the actors, clothing, props and so on can be organisedaccording toone’sowndiscretion,basedon theactual circumstances’ (Li, etal.,1965:n.p.).Inotherinstances,distinctionsweremadeaccordingtowherea huobaoju was to be performed. In a Great Leap Forward‐era huobaojuwritten in the southern city of Guangzhou, actors were instructed in greatintricacyaboutthestagesettingforaparticularhuobaoju, rightdowntotheinclusion of a papaya tree that was to be made visible at the back of thestage;12 ‘if performed on the street’, however, ‘a single chair and tablewillsuffice’(Guo,etal.,1958:n.p.).

12Suggestingaverylocalreferencetosub‐tropicalGuangzhou.

44 JeremyE.Taylor

In other cases, however, a farmore elaborate list of items that could orcould not be altered in the performance of huobaoju was included forperformers and producers towards the end of a script. In one early play,performers were given the choice to set words to whatever melodies theythought appropriate—suggesting that regional variation in terms of musicalaccompanimentremainedamajorfactorinChinesehuobaoju—yettheywerealsoremindedthatcertainelementswerenottobechanged:‘Whenyousingthe line “It was precisely at this moment of danger that the Soviet Unionarrived”, the [person playing the] Soviet Red Army [officer] must come onstageimmediately—anearlyorlateentrywillruintheeffectentirely’(Dongbeiwenhuajiaoyugongzuodui,n.d.:17).

This is not to say that thewriting of newhuobaoju became theexclusivedomain of the Party or organs of the central government. Instead, and in areflectionoftheconceptofthe‘massline’(qunzhongluxian),therewasaverydeliberate attempt to encourage non‐Party and non‐government groups tobecome involved. Indeed,huobaojuwas justifiedpreciselybecause itwas sowell suited to the fulfilment of the ‘mass line’ insofar as it encouragedaudience participation and collective authorship. The People’s Daily notedwith some pride in August 1958, for instance, that a huobaoju written byprofessional dramatists was being performed and further developed by anamateur dramatics club run by railway workers in Shanghai, with workersthemselvesrefiningelementsoftheoriginalproduction(Zhang,1958).

Furthermore,ratherthansimplymonitoringthescriptingorproductionofplays, the authorities also controlled the context in which they could beperformed.Huobaojuwere stillperformedon street cornersand in factoriesor villages. However, by assimilating such performances into events such asnational day celebrations, mass rallies or other staged events, theimprovisationalqualityofthehuobaojucouldberetained,whilethecontentor message of each play strictly monitored. Dramatic troupes couldindependentlyproducequitedifferentversionsofaparticularhuobaoju,butthe fundamental message of each play could be maintained by thoseorganisations which published scripts and associated guides—mostprominentlymunicipalorprovincial‐levelpublishinghousesandtheatres.

The result was an ‘institutionalisation’ of huobaoju, with the formappearing immediateand spontaneousbutbeing justas firmly controlledasother forms of propaganda. Like posters, for example, recordswere kept of


the number of each huobaoju script that were published (with these beingmarkedon thepublications themselves), and the independentproductionofsuchplayswasnotcondoned.Conclusion

TheonsetoftheCulturalRevolutionin1966hadwidespreadramificationsforalltypesofperformanceartinChina.YetasIsuggestedattheverystartofthis paper, the hitherto generally accepted narrative of the model operasreplacing all other forms of drama in this period is now beginning to beundermined by new scholarship.While it is clear thathuobaoju did have aninfluenceontheyangbanxi,theforminitially livedonafter1966throughtheRedGuards,manyofwhomappeartohaveincorporatednotsimplyelementsof the form into their street performances, but entire sections of extanthuobaoju where appropriate. Paul Clark (2012: 35‐6), for example, providesevidence that huobaoju were incorporated into impromptu performancesprovidedby‘sentdownyouth’toruralaudiencesinthelate1960s,suggestingthat thosewhose job itwas to spread revolution to the countryside sawnocontradiction in the continued use of the form in the Cultural Revolutioncontext.Inothercases,the‘hybridformofspokenplay’oftenperformedinanimprovisational fashion by Red Guards in the cities, and reaching a peak inpopularity during the summer of 1967, betrayed clear echoes of huobaoju(Clark,2008:192‐5).Itistellingthat,inbothcases,huobaojuappearstohavebeencalled uponpreciselybecauseof itsagitationalquality (one that suitedthe mood of the Cultural Revolution), but also because the improvisationalnature of the form represented a potential threat to authority. Just as thestatehadsoughttocontrolhuobaojupriorto1966,socouldthosewhosoughttocriticisestate‘bureaucracy’reformulatehuobaojufortheirownpurposes.

Iwouldargue,however,thatthelegacyofhuobaojuafter1966wasfoundnot in the officially codified forms of theatrewhichwere celebrated in thisperiod,butinthedramatichysteriaoftheCulturalRevolutionitself.Afterall,none of the agitational functions of the ‘living newspaper’ disappeared in1966.Mostwereinsteadchannelledintoothers formsofpoliticalexpression.Thereisbutathinlinebetweenpublicdenunciationof‘Nationalistspies’,theforced donning of dunce hats and other theatrical accoutrements on ‘classenemies’, the public beating of villains or the shouting of slogans at massrallies and the basic elements of thehuobaoju. The public spectacle that so

46 JeremyE.Taylor

typified the Cultural Revolution represented the triumph of everything thatthehuobaojuformstoodfor.

Inthisregard,huobaojucanalsobeseennotmerelyaspartofatraditionofrevolutionarytheatreinChinathatstretchesbackwellbeyondthe1960s,butalso as part of what Chang‐tai Hung (2011: 262) has referred to as a wider‘Nationalistic propaganda state’ fostered underMao, one inwhich the verypurpose of all artistic expression was to ‘fadong qunzhong’ (stir up themasses).Insuchacontext,huobaojusatalongside,butalsointeractedwith,awhole range of artistic expression that had been developed and Sinicised inYan’an, from cartoons to poster art. Such a culture may have been forgedprimarilyinthewaragainstJapan,yetitdevelopedmostrapidlyintheCCP’swaragainst theNationalists, andbecamesubsumed intoawiderpractice ofencouragingmassparticipationwiththeultimateaimof‘understand[ing]andexploit[ing] the mentality of the masses’ (Hung, 2011: 261). In this regard,huobaojuwasinseparablefromthebroaderpracticeofmasscampaignsinthePeople'sRepublic, inwhichall sortsofartisticexpression—drama,visualart,music—were designed for the purpose of ‘inviting popular participation bystirringupcollectivehatred’(Strauss,2002:82).Mosthuobaojuwere,afterall,createdtoaccompanyspecificcampaigns,rangingfromtheKoreanWartotheGreat Leap Forward, and most involved the direct vilification or evenexecutionofenemies,inabsentia,againstwhichcampaignsweredirected.

The importance of huobaoju for our understanding of Chinese culturaldevelopmentunderMaothusliesnotpurelyintheSovietoriginsoftheform,noreveninitsSinification,butintheextenttowhichthehistoryofthisforminChinaforcesustoquestiontheviabilityof1966asanaturalwatershedinthedevelopmentofrevolutionaryculture.AsBarbaraMittlerhasrecentlyargued,manyoftheculturalexpressionsthatemerged inthepost‐1966periodwere‘notwithouthistoricalprecedents’ (2013:30), justasmanyoftheformsthatwe have come to associate so closelywith the Cultural Revolution—such astheyangbanxi,withwhich Istartedthispaper—developedoutofanexistingbodyofYan’an‐derivedpoliticalculture.Huobaojupredatedbutalsopresagedthe advent of RedGuard theatricality and themore formalisedworld of themodel works. This fact alone has all kinds of ramifications for ourunderstandingofagitational theatre inChina,andshouldperhapspromptustorevisittheargumentthattheyangbanxi,andthewiderCulturalRevolutionculturetheyhavecometorepresent,wereinanywayunique.


There is,admittedly,muchmoreworkthatneedstobedonetoprovideamore holistic picture of the huobaoju form and its development overthelonguedurée.Futurearchivalresearchmightprovidegreaterinsightsintothe control and development of the form at various levels of the state andparty—andinthecitiesasopposedtothecountryside—whilewiderusemightalso be made of the photographic and audiovisual record in understandinghowChinesehuobaojudiffered(orotherwise)fromtheirSovietpredecessorsintermsofkeyfunctionssuchasaudienceparticipation.

Inanycase,huobaojuwasbothreliantonandreflectiveoftheverynatureof political culture in China in the 1950s and 1960s. Stylistically, huobaojulooked very similar to their Soviet antecedents—right down to the top hatsworn by ‘capitalists’ in both. Contextually, however, they representedsomethingquitedifferent.Thecomedicviolenceandconstantexhortationstoloathe common enemies in huobaoju may have seemed unremarkable intimesofwar.What is telling inChina’scasewasthatsuchdepictions, ratherthanfadingwiththeCommunistvictory in1949,became, likeother formsofrevolutionaryart—frommanhuatoposters,slogansandwoodblockprints—aconstant feature of socialist political culture under Mao for another twodecades.

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Jeremy E. Taylor is anassociateprofessorat theSchoolofContemporaryChinese Studies, University of Nottingham. He is the author of RethinkingTransnational Chinese Cinemas: TheAmoy‐Dialect Film Industry in ColdWarAsia (Routledge, 2011) and over 20 peer‐reviewed journal articles and bookchapters.Heisalsothefounderof“EnemyofthePeople:VisualDepictionsofChiangKai‐shek”,anAHRC‐fundedon‐linedatabase.

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