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Abstract
Chinese labour heroes represent an idiosyncratic expression of a broader twentieth-century phenomenon of promoting worker emulation through the hailing of model labourers. Taken from a comparative perspective, the Chinese practice can be seen not only as modelled on an earlier Soviet development, but also a broader need felt in totalitarian regimes in the 1930s and 1940s that workers needed to be ‘remoralised’ through the establishment of cults of workers and work. Recently revived in the People's Republic of China in the form of patriotic movies and television shows, the main historical development of the Chinese articulation of this broader historical labour phenomenon is assessed in light of recent studies of Soviet and National Socialist attempts to heroise labour.
Notes
1. Xinhua, “China's “CitationIron Man” an undying legend” (People's Daily, September 17, 2009) and Elley, “Iron Men” (Variety, January 6, 2010). http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout = print_ review&reviewid = VE1117941846&categoryid = 31.
2. Tie ren and All China Women's Federation, ‘Iron Man’.
3. CitationChan, The Taching Oilfield.
4. CitationHobsbawn, Age of Extremes and CitationWeston, “The Iron Man Weeps.”
5. CitationKataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China, 258–9 and CitationKelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 55.
6. CitationShao et al., Dang dai Lei Feng; Crothall, “Plumber glorified as model worker” (The Standard (Hong Kong), April 16, 1996) and Zhang, “Heroes for our times” (Shanghai Star, June 28, 2001).
7. CitationShao et al., Gong he guo qun ying pu.
8. CitationNietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral.
9. CitationYu, “Labor is Glorious,” 234–5.
10. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 54.
11. CitationCheng, Creating the “New Man”, 48–55.
12. Xue xi tie ren Wang Jinxi and Citation Chuang Ye .
13. CitationBakken, The Exemplary Society, 198 and CitationChen, Acting the Right Part, 312–3.
14. CitationHama, “The Daqing Oil Field” and CitationLee, Industrial Management and Economic Reform, 97–100.
15. CitationLandsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters and CitationLandsberger, “Learning by What Example?”
16. CitationSheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes.”
17. CitationVoegelin, Die politischen Religionen and CitationHerz, “The Concept of ‘Political Religions’.”
18. CitationSchurmann, Ideology and Organization, 525.
19. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes.”
20. Yu, “Labor is Glorious,” 234–5.
21. CitationStakhanov, The Stakhanov Movement Explained and CitationSiegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity.
22. CitationSchram, Mao Tse-tung, 220; and cf. now CitationGao, Hong tai yang shi zen yang sheng qi de.
23. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes.”
24. CitationAlt and Alt, The New Soviet Man and Cheng, Creating the “New Man”.
25. CitationBuckley, Mobilizing Soviet Peasants.
26. Yu, “Labor is Glorious,” 234.
27. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 47.
28. CitationWeyrather, “Deutsche Arbeit.”
29. CitationWeber, “Die protestantische Ethik.”
30. Alt and Alt, The New Soviet Man; CitationWhite, The Bolshevik Poster; CitationBonnell, Iconography of Power and Cheng, Creating the “New Man.”
31. CitationBracher, The Age of Ideologies, 47.
32. CitationCasquete, “Martyr Construction.”
33. CitationLewin, “Stalin in the Mirror of the Other,” 71.
34. CitationStalin, Speech at the First All-union Conference of Stakhanovites; Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 55; and cf. CitationShlapentokh, “The Stakhanovite movement” for an assessment of Stakhanovite “spontaneity.”
35. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 64.
36. Ibid., 61–2.
37. Ibid., 62.
38. CitationFitzpatrick, “Happiness and Toska.”
39. Schram, Mao Tse-tung, 220.
40. E.g. CitationWright, “The Chinese Peasant and Communism.”
41. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 54.
42. CitationStraus, Factory and Community in Stalin's Russia, 136–71.
43. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes”, 50.
44. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 50 and Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 55.
45. Cheng, Creating the “New Man”, 64.
46. Kelkar, “The Role of Labour Heroes,” 56–7.
47. Ibid., 57.
48. Yu, “Labor is Glorious,” 238–9 and 245.
49. Ibid., 234–5.
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51. Zhou, “It's only make-believe” (China Daily, April 3, 2009).
52. CitationKiet, ‘Congress of heroes and emulation fighters’ and Cheng, Creating the “New Man”, 160–65.
53. CitationChang, “The Mechanics of State Propaganda,” 89–90.
54. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 49.
55. CitationDeutscher, “Socialist Competition” and CitationWarner, Management of Human Resources, 13–20.
56. CitationKaple, Dream of a Red Factory.
57. Schurmann, Ideology and Organization, 31–3.
58. Ibid., 76.
59. Schurmann, Ideology and Organization, 101 and Yu, “Labor is Glorious,” 245–6.
60. CitationTakahara, The Politics of Wage Policy.
61. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 51 and Cheng, Creating the “New Man”, 101–3.
62. CitationSeybolt, Revolutionary Education in China, 105–8.
63. Xue xi tie ren Wang Jinxi.
64. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 51 and CitationLandsberger, “Propaganda Posters in the Reform Era,” 48–9.
65. Peking Review, “Revolutionary leadership: county party secretary Chiao Yu-lu” (Peking Review, February 25, 1966) and Seybolt, Revolutionary Education in China, 105–8.
66. Sheridan, “The Emulation of Heroes,” 62.
67. Stakhanov, The Stakhanov Movement Explained and CitationLei, Lei Feng ri ji.
68. Xue xi tie ren Wang Jinxi.
69. CitationYang, “Industrial Workers in Chinese Communist Fiction,” 212–3.
70. CitationAi, Steeled and Tempered.
71. CitationZhou, The Path of Socialist Literature and Art in China; Yang, “Industrial Workers in Chinese Communist Fiction”; CitationHsia, “Heroes and Hero-worship in Chinese Communist Fiction” and CitationHsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 673–4.
72. CitationBulag, “Models and Moralities,” 25.
73. CitationStranahan, “Labor Heroines” and Yu, “Labor is Glorious,” 241–2.
74. Stranahan, “Labor Heroines,” 237–8.
75. CitationHsing, Liu Hulan; CitationBergmann, Paragons of Virtue, 99–101 and Liu Hulan.
76. Ai Jun, “Lao dong mo fan yong yuan shi shi dai de ling pao zhe' [Model workers are always the pacesetters of an era]” (Guang ming ri bao [Guangming Daily], April 28, 2008). http://guancha.gmw.cn/content/2008-04/28/content_767559.htm.
77. Shao et al., Dang dai Lei Feng.
78. Beijing Review, “Young people learn from Lei Feng” (Beijing Review, April 4, 1982). Reprinted in: Chinese Politics: Documents and Analysis. Vol. 4: The Fall of Hua Kuo-Feng (1980) to the Twelfth Party Congress (1982), edited by James T. Myers, Jürgen Domes, and Erik von Groeling, 319–20. Columbia, SC: University of Columbia Press, 1995; CitationLandsberger, “Role Modelling in Mainland China,” 374 and Landsberger, “Learning by What Example?,” 557 and Martinsen, “Communist chic: kneel before Lei Feng” (Danwei, March 5, 2010). http://www.danwei.org/communist_chic/kneel_before_lei_feng.php.
79. Martinsen, “Communist chic: kneel before Lei Feng” (Danwei, March 5, 2010). http://www.danwei.org/communist_chic/kneel_before_lei_feng.php.
80. CitationDai, “Behind Global Spectacle and National Image Making,” 166.
81. Beijing Review, “Blockbusters with a government feel” (Beijing Review, June 30, 2009). http://www.bjreview.com.cn/movies/txt/2009-07/02/content_205010.htm.