| A handpainted poster illustrates popular participation in the campaign
against the Gang of Four. Here, depicted mockingly as a film crew, the
Gang of Four launches missiles bearing the slogans "Usurp the Party"
and "Seize Power." The image of the filmmaker may connote alliance with
the corrupt, bourgeois West and symbolize the self-centered interests
of the Gang of Four. Individual handpainted posters like this one were
common during the Cultural Revolution. In 1966, a homemade big-character
poster hung up at Beijing University was discovered by Mao and broadcast
to the nation. Some scholars take that incident to mark the beginning
of the mass movement of the Cultural Revolution. |
