Two Images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics

Abstract

The scene was Chongqing, China's wartime capital; and the time was 1942, the fifth year of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45, known in China as the War of Resistance against Japan). An anti-Japanese woodcut exhibition was held at the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association (Zhong-Su wenhua xiehui) from October 10 to 17 to rally people's support for the war. With 54 artists participating and a total of 255 pieces of work on display, this was an unprecedented event, capturing widespread attention in this inland river city at an uncertain time.1 Besides being uncommonly large, the show was unusual because it included woodcuts from the Communist-controlled territories, among them the works of Gu Yuan (1919-96) and Li Qun (1912- ). The exhibition was held at a time when the second alliance between the Nationalist Party (Guomindang, or GMD) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was crumbling, spurred in part by the New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941, in which thousands of Communist troops were ambushed and killed by the Nationalist forces in southern Anhui. But, despite increasing tension, the two parties still managed to convey an appearance of cooperation in the face of a deadly outside enemy. For the Communists, the show offered an additional advantage: a rare opportunity for them to display artistic achievements from their isolated border regions and, more important, to break temporarily the GMD-imposed blockade and present their carefully manufac