Performing Socialism at Altitude

Abstract

This article is a preliminary examination of Chinese expeditions to Mount Everest between 1958 and 1968. Using a variety of sources, from plays to photobooks, it examines how socialism was “performed” through mountaineering in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). From literal theatrical performance in the 1962 play Mount Everest to the pictorial record of the expeditions, Chinese mountaineering was used to highlight, reinforce, and display Chinese socialist achievements to domestic and international audiences through images of human beings simultaneously conquering Everest and engaging in practices associated with ‘building socialism’. Used as metaphors for socialist advances and as tools for glorifying the PRC as a strong, healthy and harmonious nation, the expeditions are unexpectedly revealing as unintended performances of implicit goals and values of the Chinese Communist Party, such as a distinctly imperial gaze on the province of Tibet. There was a ‘theatricality’ to Maoism, in which people constantly deployed set pieces and took on roles therein, as though the drama of revolution took place in every moment of life -- even when climbing at 8,000 metres. This article thus considers the role of performance in promulgating messages about mountaineering and socialism. It elucidates the connections between Chinese politics and Chinese mountaineering as mediated and expressed through literary, theatrical and visual media, and the varied ways in which mountaineering has been deployed in a context beyond the typical Western-centric view of mountaineering in the Himalayas.

Notes

1 All translation in this article is by Maggie Greene.