Abstract
This paper addresses the question of whether Chongqing’s Red culture campaign (2008–2012) was a real mass campaign. Drawing upon Baudrillard’s concept of simulation, it discusses the extent to which Chongqing’s Red culture campaign can be characterized as the simulation of a traditional Maoist mass campaign. This paper argues that instead of being a real mass campaign, the Red culture program exhibited the following critical features of simulation—the procession of a model of the real, the liquidation of referentials, and the constitution of a self-induced and monolithic circuit of power. Firstly, the operation of Chongqing’s Red culture campaign followed an established model of the ideal revolutionary mass campaign. The activities therefore did not follow their own trajectories but were organized to fit in the preexisting model. Secondly, the Red culture campaign was a process during which signs were emptied of their representational meaning. The definition of Red was expanded to include all songs that were considered “healthy” and “positive.” As a result, it stopped referring to any specific concept of political ideology. Thirdly, Chongqing’s Red culture program demonstrated characteristics of a self-induced and nondialectical power circuit. The program did not exchange meaning with the audience of the program. Rather, the exchange of signs took place within the territory of an imagined singular political power. To think of the Red culture campaign not as a mass campaign but possibly the simulation of a mass campaign, this paper examines a distinctive set of power relations that were embedded in Chongqing’s controversial political program and aims to facilitate a better understanding of the organization of political power in the current Chinese society.
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Notes
The Three Represents: the CCP should “always represent the developmental requirement of China’s advanced productive forces, represent the developing orientation of China’s advanced culture, and represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.”
Statistics accessed 17 November 2013 at Chongqing government’s website: http://www.cq.gov.cn/today/news/376959.htm.
What exactly happened during the campaign on the ground was quite another story. The mobilization of the masses unfortunately created deep divisions within the society and led to widespread social chaos.
Interview with GZ45 (female, aged 27).
See note 3.
Interview with GZ34 (male, aged 50).
Interview with XS08 (female, aged 19).
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Mei, X. Why Chongqing’s Red Culture Campaign Was not a Real Mass Campaign. Int J Polit Cult Soc 30, 63–81 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-016-9217-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-016-9217-7