This is perhaps one of the most unusual museums in China. After all, it takes a fair amount of self-irony to tell tourists so lightly about the art of Chinese communist propaganda.
The museum is small, very curious, and it will not take much time to study its exhibits. This is a private collection whose enthusiastic founder assembled about 5 thousand posters from the era of early socialism.
What kind of China is shown on these propaganda posters? Almost the same as the Soviet Union in its formative years. It glorifies the labor of the ordinary worker, condemns freeloaders and ideological enemies, and urges its citizens to be educated and moral. Such posters could be found everywhere: at school and on public transport, in hospitals and in shops. They covered every sphere of life, which meant they could instruct and admonish people everywhere.
“Long live Chinese-Soviet friendship forever!” says the caption beneath the image of two embracing young men, one Slavic-looking and the other Eastern-looking. In another picture, Chinese children gaze respectfully at a portrait of the “Great Helmsman,” Mao Zedong. The national hero and chief theorist of Maoism, by the way, was often depicted in the company of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, even Einstein.
