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Abstract
This paper examines We Love Peace, a poster that became exceedingly popular among Chinese People’s Volunteer Force soldiers and essentially the iconic image for the Korean War. The poster was based on a photograph initially published in the People’s Daily, and it continued to circulate in various formats, including a pirated version of black-and-white photographs. Focusing on the production and reception of the image, this paper contextualizes the propaganda of the Korean War in the early PRC visual culture. By bringing attention to the active engagement of We Love Peace by the CPVF soldiers, this study attempts to approach the soldiers’ affective responses as a window to the complicated relationship between the control of the state and the agency of its subjects.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Notes
1 G. J. Seigworth and M. Gregg, “An Inventory of Shimmers,” in The Affect Theory Reader, ed. G. J. Seigworth and M. Gregg (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 1–28; P. T. Clough and J. Halley, The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).
2 Seigworth and Gregg, 1.
3 For a few examples, see J. Chen, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (Columbia University Press, 1994); P. Zhu, Americans and Chinese at the Korean War Cease-Fire Negotiations, 1950–1953 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001); W. Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).
4 For the former, see X. Li, A History of the Modern Chinese Army (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 94–112; for the latter, see P. Zhu, “Disgraced Soldiers: The Ordeal of the Repatriated POWs of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army from the Korean War,” The Journal of Chinese Military History, 4.2 (2015): 162–200; C. Chang, Hijacked War: The Korean War Over Chinese Prisoners (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).
5 G. D. Rawnsley, “‘The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea”: How Beijing Sold the Korean War,” Media, War & Conflict, 2 (2009): 285–315; Masuda Hajimu, “The Korean War through the Prism of Chinese Society: Public Reactions and the Shaping of ‘Reality’ in the Communist State, October-December 1950,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 14.3 (2012): 3–38; Wang Xianyue, “Kangmei yuanchao shiqi de meishu chuangzuo jiqi yishu tezheng,” Guizhou daxue xuebao, 2 (2009): 54–58; S. Hou, Quanneng zhengzhi: kangmei yuanchao yundong zhong de shehui dongyuan (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2012).
6 Que Wen gave detailed accounts on the process of his creation of the photo. After the image was rediscovered in the 1990s partly thanks to the “Old Photo Fever,” many journalists interviewed Que and published various accounts with slight differences. My description here is based on Que Wen, “Baowei heping shi yongheng de: wei women re’ai heping fabiao 40 zhounian erzuo,” Dazhong sheying, 7 (1992): 9.
7 P. Deery, “The Dove Flies East: Whitehall, Warsaw and the 1950 World Peace Congress,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, 48.4 (2002): 449–68; K. H. Keen, “Picasso’s Communist Interlude: The Murals of ‘War’ and ‘Peace,’” The Burlington Magazine, 122.928 (1980): 464–70.
8 For a brief account of the history of the Beihai Kindergarten, see He Jimin, “Xinzhongguo ‘kaiguokan’ kanli kanwai de gushi,” Bolan qunshu, 10 (2008): 6; Yu Lulin, “Chuangban beihai you’eryuan,” Zongheng, 3 (2004): 50–52. Yu Lulin is the mother of the girl in We Love Peace.
9 Que, 9.
10 For Zou Ya’s biography, see Lin Yang, Beizongbu hutong 32 hao: renmin meishu chubanshe de lao yishujia men (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 2014), 73–90.
11 Wang Weihan, “Daonian jianbin jushe de laozhanyou An Jing tongzhi,” in Wenyi Zhanshi Hua Dangnian, ed. Jinchaji wenyi yanjiuhui (Beijing: Jinchaji wenyi yanjiuhui, 1986), 237–39.
12 The cemetery was built from 1946 to 1950, see Y. C. Zhang, “Zou Ya yu Jin Ji Lu Yu lieshi linyuan,” Zhonghuahun, 4 (2002): 50–51.
13 J. F. Andrews and K. Shen, The Art of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 141–42, 151–53; C. Hung, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 182–209.
14 Wen Hua, “Guanyu ‘yuefenpai’ nianhua he nianhua tedian wenti,” Meishu 5, (1958): 18–20.
15 For Zou’s understanding on posters, see Zou Ya, “Jixu ba xuanchuanhua chuangzuo tigao yibu,” Meishu, 7 (1955): 39–41.
16 Ma Ke, “Zhongshi qunzhong yijian gaijin zhengzhi xuanchuanhua chuangzuo,” Meishu, 8 (1955): 44–46.
17 Such incompetence is widely seen in works depicting children. For another telling example, see Zhang Xuefu’s Construction of New China (1951).
18 For children’s image in wartime China, see L. Pozzi. “‘Chinese Children Rise Up!’: Representations of Children in the Work of the Cartoon Propaganda Corps during the Second Sino-Japanese War,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 13 (2014): 99–133.
19 L. Pozzi, “The Revolution of a Little Hero: The Sanmao Comic Strips and the Politics of Childhood in China, 1935–1962” (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2014).
20 Zou, 40.
21 The piece was featured in the Second National Art Exhibition. For its criticism, see Wen, 20.
22 Y. Gu, “What’s in a Name? Photography and the Reinvention of Visual Truth in China, 1840–1911,” The Art Bulletin, 95.1 (2013): 123.
23 “Cujin xuanchuanhua chuangzuo de gengda fazhan: shinian xuanchuanhua zhanlanhui zuotanhui,” Meishu, 2 (1960): 10.
24 Tan Qiannian, “Woliang de hunshazhao,” Yangguan, 1 (2007): 41.
25 Xinhua shudian zongdian, ed., Quanguo zong shumu 1949–1954 (Beijing: Xinhua shudian zongdian, 1956), 923.
26 Zhongguo chuban kexue yanjiusuo and Zhongyang dang’anguan, eds., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo chuban shiliao 6 (Beijing: Zhongguo shuji chubanshe, 1999), 283.
27 Xiao Qi, “Yizhang zhaotianhua,” Xinguancha, 11 (1954): 8–9.
28 Ibid., 8.
29 Wang Qiande, “Wo zai chaoxian zhanchang de digong shengya,” Dang’an Chunqiu, 8 (2008): 29.
30 Xiao, 9.
31 Luo Gongliu, Chaoxian zhandi sheying, suxie, riji (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 2011), 23.
32 Xinhua shudian zongdian, 947.
33 Luo, 7.
34 Xiao, 88.
35 For Meng Yun’s relocation, see Meng Yun, “Yifeng zhiyuanjun shushu de xin,” accessed July 5, 2017, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_550a55ed0100etf8.html.
36 Beijing qingnian baoshe, 1.
37 Meng Yun recounts Ma Yue’s recollection in her blog. Meng Yun, “Yifeng zhiyuanjun shushu de xin,” accessed July 5, 2017, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_550a55ed0100etf8.html.
38 Ibid.
39 For a brief account on the conditions of photojournalism during the Korean War, see Gao Shengtian, “Nanwang de suiyue: kangmei yuanchao zhanzheng shying caifang sanji,” in Lishui wenshi ziliao di 14 ji, ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Zhejiangsheng Lishuishi weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui (Lishui: Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Zhejiangsheng Lishuishi weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, 1997), 41–48.
40 “Women re’ai heping,” accessed July 5, 2017, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5d1833750102wp83.html.
41 C. Rose, “The Meanings of the Late Victorian Sailor Suit,” Journal of Maritime Research, 11.1 (2009): 24–50; C. Rose, “What Was Uniform about the Fin-de-Siecle Sailor Suit?,” Journal of Design History, 24.2 (2011): 105–24.
42 Xiao, 9.
43 Beijing qingnian baoshe, 30.
44 Xiao, 9.
45 E. Edwards, “Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 41 (2012): 221.
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Yi Gu
Yi Gu is an associate professor of modern and contemporary Chinese art at the University of Toronto. Her book, Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-air Painting, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. She is currently working on two projects: one approaches the Korean War as the first visual campaign between the two blocs; the other examines “the Beautiful Countryside” movement, which was initiated by the Xi regime but embraced by various forces of capital and a wide variety of cultural workers such as architects, artists, and public intellectuals. Her studies on Chinese photography history have appeared as book chapters and in journals such as The Art Bulletin, Representation, Ars Orientalis and Trans Asia Photography Review.