Please wait a minute...
Frontiers of History in China

ISSN 1673-3401

ISSN 1673-3525(Online)

CN 11-5740/K

Postal Subscription Code 80-980

Front. Hist. China    2015, Vol. 10 Issue (1) : 96-125    https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-004-015-0004-4
research-article
Propaganda by the Book: Contextualizing and Reading the Zhejiang GMD’s 1929 Textbook Essentials for Propaganda Workers
Christopher A. Reed()
Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
 Download: PDF(359 KB)  
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

The Nationalist Party (GMD) had been writing and issuing documents of many types for some years before Nanjing was established as the capital of the Republic of China in 1927/1928. From its earliest days, doctrines were advanced via cause-oriented newspapers and journals. Even more important, the Soviet-sponsored reorganization of the GMD in the early 1920s had yielded a far-reaching party propaganda operation tied to Sun Yat-sen’s notion of political tutelage. But how was propaganda to work in practice? And at whom was it to be aimed? This article seeks to address aspects of these questions by assessing a textbook for propaganda workers that was issued in the name of the GMD’s Zhejiang Provincial Executive Committee’s Propaganda Department in October 1929, half a year after the GMD’s foundational right-wing Third Party Congress. Although Essentials for Propaganda Workers does not fully operationalize Sun’s version of political tutelage, it can nonetheless be seen to reflect the central party’s efforts to implement tutelage and supervision, not only of the Chinese masses suggested by Sun’s program, but also of party propaganda workers in Zhejiang. In that regard, it reveals the astonishingly rapid ideological realignment of the GMD into an anti-Communist party, not only at the national level, which is well known, but also on the provincial and lower levels. Drawing on material from the GMD Archives in Taipei, this article addresses issues of party organization, control, mobilization, inner party dynamics, and message content in the GMD’s propaganda activities in Zhejiang province in the late 1920s. “Propaganda by the Book” adds to our knowledge of the organizational practices of both the central GMD in Nanjing and the Zhejiang provincial GMD as well as to the social history of Republican China’s official print culture.

Keywords GMD      Zhejiang      official print culture      propaganda      political tutelage      party organization      control      mobilization     
Issue Date: 23 March 2015
 Cite this article:   
Christopher A. Reed. Propaganda by the Book: Contextualizing and Reading the Zhejiang GMD’s 1929 Textbook Essentials for Propaganda Workers[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2015, 10(1): 96-125.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fhc/EN/10.3868/s020-004-015-0004-4
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fhc/EN/Y2015/V10/I1/96
[1] Yi Ren. “Relying on America”: The CPI’s Propaganda in China and Its Influence on China’s Pursuit of a New National Identity before the May Fourth Movement*[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2019, 14(3): 427-457.
[2] Huan Jin. Authenticating the Renewed Heavenly Vision: The Taiping Heavenly Chronicle (Taiping tianri) [J]. Front. Hist. China, 2018, 13(2): 173-192.
[3] Yao Dadui. The Power of Persuasion in Propaganda: The Taiping Three Characters Classic [J]. Front. Hist. China, 2018, 13(2): 193-210.
[4] Yin Cao. A Lone Islet or A Center of Communications? Shanghai in the Indian National Army Movement[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2017, 12(1): 112-137.
[5] Yee Tuan Wong. Hokkien Merchants and the Kian Teik Tong: Economic and Political Influence in Nineteenth- Century Penang and Its Region[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2016, 11(4): 600-627.
[6] Pei Jiang,Wei Wang. Tradition, Revolution and Gender: An Analysis of Wife-Initiated Divorce in North China’s Revolutionary Bases from 1941–1949[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2016, 11(1): 66-92.
[7] Sheng-chi Shu. Managing International News-Agency Relations under the Guomindang: China’s Central News Agency, Zhao Minheng, and Reuters, 1931–1945[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2015, 10(4): 594-644.
[8] Zhao Ma. Female Workers, Political Mobilization, and the Meaning of Revolutionary Citizenship in Beijing, 1948–1950[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2014, 9(4): 558-583.
[9] Yu Xue. Buddhist Manifestations of Patriotism during the Korean War[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2014, 9(2): 280-306.
[10] Niv Horesh. “Bankers Are Stingy?” Re-Examining Stock Exchanges and Public Debt in Prewar Shanghai (1920s-1930s)[J]. Front Hist Chin, 2013, 8(4): 603-620.
[11] Jennifer Liu. Defiant Retreat: The Relocation of Middle Schools to China’s Interior, 1937–1945[J]. Front Hist Chin, 2013, 8(4): 558-584.
[12] Di Wang. Reorganization of Guilds and State Control of Small Business: A Case Study of the Teahouse Guild in Early 1950s Chengdu[J]. Front Hist Chin, 2012, 7(4): 529-550.
[13] Guannan Li. Reviving China: Urban Reconstruction in Nanchang and the Guomindang National Revival Movement, 1932–37[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2012, 7(1): 106-135.
[14] Scott Pearce. A King’s Two Bodies: The Northern Wei Emperor Wencheng and Representations of the Power of His Monarchy[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2012, 7(1): 90-105.
[15] HUANG Hongshan. The operation and modern development of Qiliu hospice during the Qing Dynasty in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces[J]. Front Hist Chin, 2009, 4(2): 265-291.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed