Singing the Revolution: the role of songs and operas on the dissemination of communism in Mao Zedong’s China

The music scene in Mao Zedong’s China, essentially consisting of sung music, was characterized by two distinct phenomena. The first was the spread of “revolutionary songs,” simple melodies inspired by Western and native traditions with political content accessible to the masses. The second, in vogue during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), consisted of “model plays” (yangbanxi), including revolutionary Peking operas, fusing Chinese and Western operatic traditions to represent heroes and villains clearly. Their popularization depended on media such as radio, propaganda teams, cinema, and posters, encouraging active participation in related events and, thus, the effective assimilation of the Chinese Communist Party’s messages.

In form and content, songs and operas reflect processes of signification directly related to the modus vivendi of the masses, fusing the communist ideology with native systems of thought to correctly interpret th4e propagandized message. This would only be possible through involvement in propaganda devices and related activities, which generate varying degrees of perception and reception of the message. Based on this assumption, this research aims to explore the symbolism found in revolutionary music and opera in the representation of the ideology to be disseminated by the Maoist government, as well as its influence on the masses’ perception of the represented ideas. It also seeks to analyze the promotion via propaganda media of popular participation in musical learning, as well as its importance in the construction of the soundscape of China in the mid-20th century and how music was viewed in society at the time.