CULTURAL REVOLUTION.
Qun mo tu [Pictures of groups of Demons].
The text in the top is a quotation by Chairman Mao: “Highest Directive: The imperialists and domestic reactionaries will never be reconciled to their failures. They will make the final struggle. After the country is settled, they will continue to engage in all manner of destruction and stir up trouble. They will try every day and every hour to recover their authority in China. This is inevitable, and there is no doubt that we must not relax our vigilance. The enemy will not destroy itself. Whether it is the Chinese reactionaries or the aggressive forces of American Imperialism in China, neither will quit the historical stage of their own device.”
This poster was printed by the Tianjin Sports department. Acting on behalf of various sports organizations in Hebei Province they took it upon themselves to expose and punish “demons” as they saw fit. During the Cultural Revolution scholars, experts, and people in authority were roundly accused of counter-revolutionary crimes and revisionist thinking. The purge started on June 1st, 1966 with an editorial in the People’s Daily entitled “Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons” and it engulfed the country with extraordinary force lasting for about ten years. It was orchestrated by Mao Zedong and his wife Jiang Qing in order to shore up power following the disastrous policies of the ‘Great Leap Forward’.