Living Revolution

The revolutionary life is reflected in a myriad of ways. It is revealed in the mundane and everyday, in the trivial and the transient. It is in the commonplace that a world of radical change unfolds. Its message was broadcast on radio and TV, contained in movies and the press. Its essence was repeated in study sessions and secret gossip, in official documents and restricted files. Its paths followed the design of urban centers and traveled the rivers and mountains of a nation. Its stories were told in the lives of countless individuals.

Experience the sights and sounds of Chinese culture in the 1960s, through Radio, TV, and Movies:
In the revolutionary atmosphere of 1960s China, life was suffused with the sights and sound of the state. Listen to the Radio and you can hear some of the major songs of the period, including the Cultural Revolution "anthem," Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman, as well as a Mao poem put to music and Mao "quotation songs" (yulu ge). Watch TV and you can see mass rallies of the kind that marked the progress of revolutionary time; Watch a Movie and see short excerpts from a few of the films that we have collected in our archive.

Study the politics of the time:
The Little Red Book
Ask Chairman Mao for the Answers to your Problems (a pamphlet used by the PLA on how to apply Mao Zedong Thought to everyday situations)
A Personnel File (documents on people whose belongings were confiscated and who were sent into exile)
Take an English Lesson (including such topics as race relations in the United States)
A Model Soldier's Diary (the daily dilemmas of a young man trying to put Mao Zedong Thought into practice - in Chinese only)
Newspapers and Magazines

Praise a Hero | Denounce an Enemy
Whoever goes up can always come down — and sometimes go up again. See how heroes are portrayed and enemies denounced.

Dying for Revolution, the only way out
Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi

Explore the world according to Chairman Mao, the places and the possibilities of China's revolutionary landscape
The Miracles of Chairman Mao
Humour and its Enemies (Huang Yongyu and Deng Tuo)
The Long March, new and old
Revolutionary sites and monuments: Tiananmen Square, Yan'an, and other revolutionary holy sites
People's Liberation Army

Daily life:
Red Guards and their culture: music, clothes, language
Schools | Communes and Factories | Medicine
Music