Reflections on "Revolutionary Culture"

Liu Jiming, August 17, 2024
at  Honghu, Hubei

Honghu is the center of the Hunan-Hubei-Western revolutionary base area, and also the birthplace of The Red Guards of Honghu Lake. Before coming to Honghu, everyone has probably seen the film The Red Guards of Honghu Lake, and some may have watched it more than once. I can't even remember how many times I've seen it.

The Red Guards of Honghu Lake was adapted from an opera created by the Hubei Provincial Opera Troupe. The predecessor of the Hubei Provincial Opera Troupe was the Hubei Provincial Experimental Opera Troupe, now called the Hubei Provincial Opera and Dance Theater, abbreviated as "Provincial Opera." It's very close to Wuhan University, less than one stop away. After graduating from Wuhan University, I was assigned to work as a scriptwriter at the Provincial Opera. When I reported for duty, the unit sent a logistics worker on a tricycle who brought me and my luggage to the Provincial Opera in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. I worked at the Provincial Opera for less than three years. Except for Wang Yuzhen, who played Han Ying (she was transferred to work in Beijing), I met all the main creative personnel from The Red Guards of Honghu Lake, such as the scriptwriter-lyricist-composer Mei Shaoshan, Ouyang Qianshu, Zhang Jing'an, set designer Zhu Xiaodan, and especially Xia Kuibin who played Liu Chuang and Liu Shuqi who played Han Ying's mother—they were husband and wife, very warm and kind people. Shortly after I arrived at the Provincial Opera, I was commissioned by a magazine to interview them and wrote an article about their love and career. More than thirty years have passed in a flash. After I left the Provincial Opera, I never went back. Xia Kuibin passed away in the 1990s, and if Liu Shuqi is still alive, she would be over ninety years old.

These past few days I've been revisiting several classic arias from The Red Guards of Honghu Lake, such as "The Waters of Honghu Lake Lap Against the Waves," "Taking Up the Plates and Striking Them," and "I Want to See All the World's Suffering People Liberated." The Red Guards of Honghu Lake is adapted from an opera, so it contains many arias, but the most famous are still these three—I never tire of hearing them. I loved them as a child and can still hum a few lines now. Every time I hear Han Ying pouring out her heart to her mother in prison, those three passages "Mother, after your son dies, you must bury your son beside Honghu Lake... by the main road, on the high slope" and the final line "I want to see the white bandits completely destroyed, I want to see all the world's suffering people liberated," I can't help but have tears well up in my eyes.

This aria of Han Ying's is called an aria in operatic terms, expressing mother-daughter affection, class hatred, and the noble sentiments of a proletarian revolutionary who sacrifices herself for righteousness with perfect eloquence. Whether in content or musical form, it has reached the pinnacle of perfection and can be called a classic among classics—it can be said to be our best exemplar for studying red classics and revolutionary culture.

This was a digression. Now let's enter our main topic.

I. What is "Revolution"?

Before formally entering today's topic, let's first clarify what revolution and revolutionary culture are.

According to mainstream interpretation, revolutionary culture was created by the Chinese Communist Party in leading the people through revolution, construction, and reform throughout history. It has elevated excellent Chinese traditional culture and is the sum of all material and spiritual culture born and formed in the practice of revolution, construction, and reform. It can inspire the spiritual strength of the broad masses of people to strive for comprehensively building a modern socialist country and realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The historical source of revolutionary culture lies in the Chinese people's long revolutionary process, specifically including the periods of the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the Liberation War—revolutionary culture produced under different spatial and temporal conditions. Historically, revolutionary culture manifests as revolutionary values, revolutionary theory, revolutionary-era lifestyles, and the symbolic system of revolutionary culture. In modern society, revolutionary culture inevitably displays new characteristics and new forms due to culture's national and temporal nature, mainly consisting of revolutionary spiritual culture, revolutionary relics and sites and documents, revolutionary cultural symbols, etc.

This explanation provides clear definition of the connotation and sources of revolutionary culture, but it is relatively abstract, hollow, and even vague. For example, what is revolution? What is the difference between proletarian revolution and bourgeois revolution? What are the different characteristics of the New Democratic Revolution, socialist revolution and construction, and the reform and opening-up period led by the Chinese Communist Party? All these require specific analysis.

Chairman Mao once said in his "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan": "A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." This is true for proletarian revolution, and also for bourgeois revolution. The French Revolution that overthrew the feudal autocratic Bourbon dynasty and China's Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the corrupt feudal Qing rule were such, as were Russia's October Revolution that overthrew the Tsar and China's New Democratic Revolution that overthrew the reactionary Kuomintang rule.

Revolution always replaces old systems with new ones, represents new social forces and values, and represents the interests of the majority of people. The bourgeoisie was the majority relative to the feudal nobility, and the proletariat is also the majority relative to the bourgeoisie. Revolution that represents the interests of the proletariat and the broad masses of suffering people is proletarian revolution; that which represents the interests of landlords, capitalists, and a minority of privileged elites is bourgeois revolution.

In any era, revolution represents progress. The standard for distinguishing revolution from counter-revolution, progress from restoration, is simple: it depends on whether it represents the interests of the majority. If it does, it is revolutionary and progressive; otherwise it is counter-revolutionary. If revolution representing the interests of the majority of people is changed to represent the interests of a minority, that is counter-revolutionary restoration. This standard is the touchstone for identifying true revolution from false revolution. With this touchstone, all counter-revolutionary forces that wave revolutionary banners while practicing restoration will be exposed in their true colors, no matter how eloquent their words or how sophisticated their disguises.

Revolution also represents ideals and sacrifice. For the proletariat, the ideal is realizing communism, and they struggle for this ideal. Struggle brings sacrifice, sacrifice brings bloodshed, and many people pay with their lives. Chairman Mao felt this most acutely and profoundly—his own family sacrificed six relatives for the Chinese revolution. Regarding revolution, he left many profound maxims, such as: "Countless revolutionary martyrs have laid down their lives in the interests of the people, and our hearts are filled with pain as we the living contemplate their deeds. Let us hold high the banners they held high and march forward along the path crimson with their blood!" "To forget the revolution means betrayal." Even in his later years, he never forgot: "How many people died for us to establish New China—some may have forgotten, but I remember!"

Why are the colors of the Chinese Communist Party and New China's flag bright red, rather than pink or deep red? Because blood is bright red only when it first flows from the body; before long it coagulates and becomes deep red or even black. The reason our national flag and party flag are bright red is that the founders of the CCP and the People's Republic hoped this party and this nation would forever maintain their revolutionary character, just as they promised when founding the party and the nation—to continue the revolution and never surrender. They hoped the party and nation would not change color, neither becoming deep red like a scabbed wound forgotten and enshrined in memorial halls and museums, serving only for people to visit with no real significance. Of course, they also hoped it wouldn't become pink, which is a color popular among petite bourgeois groups, representing consumption and fashion, no longer having any connection with revolution. We are now in an ocean of this color.

Bright red is both the main color of the national and party flags and the main color of revolution. Deep red represents the past, while bright red represents past, present, and future—it is the symbol of revolutionary spirit's eternal vitality. Mr. Guo Songmin was recently attacked by many fruit fans [note: Kuomintang supporters] for criticizing a film about the Battle of Hengyang. He wrote an article called "Words of a Deep Red Person," using "deep red person" to describe himself and declaring his intention to defend the achievements of the New Democratic Revolution. When I reposted his Weibo, I said: "If the achievements of the socialist revolution and construction period are negated, what meaning is there in defending the achievements of the New Democratic Revolution?" Why did I say this? Because the socialist revolution and construction and the New Democratic Revolution are mutually causal and interdependent. Without the New Democratic Revolution, there could be no socialist revolution and construction, and vice versa—without socialist revolution and construction, the New Democratic Revolution would not be "new," and would be no different from the dynastic changes throughout Chinese history where one group seizes power from another. So if the New Democratic Revolution is deep red, then socialist revolution and construction is bright red. Now many people in public opinion and even the mainstream say the opposite of what Guo Songmin said—they don't negate the New Democratic Revolution, but they negate the entire period of socialist revolution and construction from 1957 to Chairman Mao's death in 1976. This is equivalent to negating the class nature of the Chinese revolution, conflating proletarian revolution with bourgeois revolution, and retreating from communism to nationalism—this is the same as Song Jiang changing Chao Gai's "Hall of Righteousness" to "Hall of Loyalty" [note: reference to Water Margin].

For example, in recent years mainstream media has loudly proclaimed the continuation of red genes, yet power departments frequently suppress grassroots spontaneous red cultural activities and threaten or even persecute supporters and organizers, making many people participate in mass red cultural activities like underground party members in spy dramas.

This Zhao Laotaiye and Lord Ye-style attitude toward the color red—loving the dragon in theory but fearing it in practice [note: reference to traditional Chinese fables]—is the real betrayal of revolutionary culture.

II. Revolutionary Culture, Traditional Culture, and Socialist Advanced Culture

In mainstream discourse, revolutionary culture is usually placed alongside traditional culture and socialist advanced culture. The authoritative theoretical formulation is:

First, excellent Chinese traditional culture is the crystallization of wisdom accumulated by the Chinese nation through the long river of history. It is manifested not only in the vast and brilliant cultural achievements, but more importantly in the ideas, traditional virtues, and humanistic spirit that run through them. It reveals the glorious history of the Chinese nation, displays the great wisdom and creativity of all ethnic groups, and is also the unique identifier gradually formed by the Chinese nation and Chinese people in the process of governing themselves and the state, respecting time and maintaining position, understanding constants and reaching changes, developing things and accomplishing tasks, and achieving success—distinguishing them from other nations.

Second, revolutionary culture consists of the ideological theories, value pursuits, and spiritual qualities cultivated and created in the great struggle of the Party and people since modern times, especially since the May Fourth New Culture Movement, such as the Red Boat Spirit, Jinggangshan Spirit, Long March Spirit, Yan'an Spirit, Yimeng Spirit, Xibaipo Spirit, etc. It embodies the development and achievements of modern and contemporary Chinese culture under Marxist guidance, displaying the unyielding national integrity and heroic spirit of the Chinese people. Revolutionary culture is both a high cultural condensation of the Chinese nation's revolutionary struggle history and the main manifestation of the Chinese spirit in the revolutionary era, embodying the aspirations of all ethnic groups for a better life.

Third, socialist advanced culture is formed under Marxist guidance in the great practice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics led by the Party—a socialist culture that is modernization-oriented, world-oriented, and future-oriented, national, scientific, and popular, representing the progressive trends and development requirements of the times.

With slight discernment, we can easily discover that the greatest characteristic of the above discourse is abandoning the Marxist viewpoints on class and class struggle and the analytical method of historical materialism—it represents a state-nationalist position. Among these, the description of so-called excellent traditional culture, such as "governing oneself and the state, respecting time and maintaining position, understanding constants and reaching changes, developing things and accomplishing tasks, achieving success," clearly stands from the position of elites and ruling classes, running completely counter to the value orientation and even aesthetic tastes of revolutionary culture.

We often say that the Chinese Communist Party led the people in ending thousands of years of feudal society and the man-eating exploitative system, overthrowing the three mountains of feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism, and imperialism, enabling the long-oppressed masses at the bottom of society to stand up and become masters, and establishing an egalitarian socialist system. This is the most important dimension for understanding the Chinese revolution. Understanding traditional culture cannot be separated from this dimension either. The Chinese Communist Party and the revolution it led emerged when the feudal system and culture of thousands of years was becoming corrupt, declining, and moribund. "The salvos of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism." The victory of the Chinese revolution was also due to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought formed in long struggle practice, as were China's socialist revolution and construction. Understanding and attitudes toward traditional culture should also be built on this dimension. Chairman Mao's approach to traditional culture always emphasized critical inheritance; he never placed traditional culture alongside revolutionary culture. Without criticism there is no revolution. Fundamentally speaking, the victory and even legitimacy of the Chinese revolution was built on criticism and negation of China's thousands of years of feudal system and feudal culture, not on things like "governing oneself and the state, respecting time and maintaining position, understanding constants and reaching changes, developing things and accomplishing tasks, achieving success"—these Confucian-Mencian concepts that only feudal society scholar-bureaucrats possessed. For Communists who believe in Marxism-Leninism, true excellent Chinese traditional culture is neither Confucian culture nor Daoist culture, but Legalist culture and the rebel culture represented by peasant uprisings from Chen Sheng and Wu Guang to Li Zicheng and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

However, in recent years society has stirred up a so-called revival of traditional culture craze, with various chaotic and even absurd phenomena appearing, such as Confucius statues being erected in squares only to be moved away within days, the Han clothing trend sweeping society, elementary students reciting the Four Books and Five Classics, women binding feet, an advertisement in Shanghai two years ago recruiting kneeling domestic service for hundreds of thousands monthly salary, "Maybach Young Master" being admitted to Tsinghua University, and the removal of Li Zicheng statues and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom monuments. These are all results of revolutionary culture being devoured by feudal culture.

The so-called "socialist advanced culture" refers to "the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics theory," excluding what is commonly called the first thirty years or the Mao Zedong era. This historical period is uniformly called the "period of socialist revolution and construction" in CCP party history, People's Republic of China history, and socialist history, and should rightfully belong to revolutionary culture and socialist advanced culture, but now it has been excluded from this category. This is untenable whether from historical logic or political ethics, yet it has brazenly become a mainstream narrative—truly bewildering. But upon careful thought, it becomes understandable. Why do I say this? Because although the periods before and after reform and opening-up are both part of the whole after the founding of the People's Republic of China, fundamental reversals have occurred in economic base, political system, and entire ideology. Rather than saying it developed on the foundation of the first thirty years, it would be more accurate to say it developed through negation of the first thirty years. In fact, the mainstream also views reform and opening-up as earth-shaking, as a "revolution" comparable to the CCP's founding of party and nation—it is another expression of "farewell to revolution" and "de-revolutionization."

More than ten years ago, I gave a lecture at Shanghai's "Urban Literature Forum," comparing the cultural differences between the two thirty-year periods from a literary sociology perspective: "In the period from 1949 to 1979, people, collective, workers-peasants-soldiers, proletariat, equality, communism, etc., became core value symbols of mainstream ideology. The popular slogans of that period such as 'the individual submits to the collective,' 'willingly be a screw in the socialist machine,' and 'devote limited life to unlimited service to the people,' advanced and heroic figures like Wang Jinxi, Jiao Yulu, Wang Jie, Lei Feng, and the Little Sisters of the Grassland, and even some fictional characters including Liang Shengbao from The Builders, Gao Daquan from The Golden Road, and Xiao Changchun from Bright Sunny Skies, all strongly embodied this zeitgeist. Then after 1979, this situation was completely overturned. Individual, human nature, individualism, humanism, personal interests, personality liberation, freedom, democracy, competition, getting rich first, survival of the fittest, etc.—a series of vocabulary representing bourgeois values and lifestyles that had already been criticized were reestablished as dominant vocabulary of the new period as symbolic signs of ideological liberation."

From this we can see that so-called "socialist advanced culture" is essentially a deconstruction of socialist values and also a deconstruction of revolution. Mainstream intellectual circles call this "disenchantment" and "new enlightenment"—removing the specter of revolution and completing the democratic and scientific enlightenment movement that May Fourth failed to complete. In reality, this is constructing bourgeois ideology on the ruins of negating communist revolution. These arguments are concentrated in the writings of Li Zehou, Liu Zaifu, and later Zhang Ming and other liberal scholars—this was the main intellectual current of the 1980s.

For a long time, we all lived in a post-1980s social atmosphere. Only in the new century, when nationalism replaced liberalism as the new main intellectual current, did some changes appear. State ideology began shaping traditional culture as mainstream culture. In this regard, it can be said to be a kind of negation of 1980s mainstream culture, but this return to so-called traditional culture through negating liberalism—culture that the May Fourth Movement, New Democratic Revolution, and socialist revolution after New China's founding had all vigorously criticized—not only lacks progressive significance but represents a regression.

In 2022, I said at an academic conference at Tsinghua University that in the grand narrative of Chinese revolution, the Cultural Revolution was a continuation of the 1949 revolution—it could even be said that 1949 was the "cause" of the 1966 revolution, and the 1966 revolution was the "effect" of 1949. Without 1949, there would be no 1966; conversely, without 1966, 1949 would lose its sense of direction and "communist lofty ideals." This is why Mao Zedong said "Winning nationwide victory is only the first step in a long march of ten thousand li. The road ahead is longer, more arduous, and greater." This is why he felt he had accomplished two major things in his life: one was establishing New China, the other was launching the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution sought to solve the worldwide problem of the "day after" revolution, but perhaps due to excessive force, like a rocket that exhausted its energy before delivering the missile to its predetermined space orbit, "the post-revolutionary years returned to pre-revolutionary years." This trend continued until the second decade of the early 21st century. From then until now, marked by the rise of nationalism, China and the world entered an intermediate state where left and right politics achieved temporary balance. This balance is both the product of intense gaming and compromise among various economic, social, ideological currents and forces, and the result of authoritarianism and elite politics implementing strong control and brainwashing of the masses. "Centrist politics" may be successful in national governance, but it is extremely conservative and mediocre culturally. Unlike all "right" or "left" political forms, unlike the bourgeoisie and proletariat in their ascending periods which possess distinct class attributes and lofty political ideals, it is ambiguous and murky in values, hesitant and uncertain in action, vigilant against and rejecting any political practice bearing left or right labels. It mixes conservatism, pragmatism, statism, nationalism, and elitism together, suppressing democracy in democracy's name, negating revolution in revolution's name, constructing a trans-class hybrid ideology. Mainstream academia's definitions of revolutionary culture, traditional culture, and "socialist advanced culture" are classic expressions of this hybrid ideology.

This tendency to replace class narrative with nationalist narrative is most prominently manifested in literature and art. Now in almost all film and television works reflecting the New Democratic Revolution, the protagonists are landlords and capitalists, and they are all portrayed as positive images with great loyalty, closeness to the people, and patriotism. Poor people have all become extras, each with wretched faces and servile nature, following behind their masters constantly calling "master," "young master," and "miss," completely overturning many familiar red classic character images such as Nan Batan and Wu Qionghua from The Red Detachment of Women, Huang Shiren and Yang Bailao and Xi'er from The White-Haired Girl, Feng Lanchi and Zhu Laozhong from Red Flag Spectrum, Han Laoliu and Zhao Yulin from The Hurricane, etc.

As for works reflecting the first thirty years, not to mention early scar literature, even in some novels and film and television works newly created in recent years, anyone who believes in communism and insists on class struggle is portrayed as selfish and morally deficient "ultra-leftists," appearing like clowns, while their opponents are all upright and righteously indignant, suffering attacks and persecution—exactly opposite to the impression given by literary works from the first thirty years like Gao Daquan from The Golden Road, Tian Chunmiao from Spring Shoots, and real-life heroes and models like Lei Feng and Wang Jinxi. A few days ago I saw a Weibo post saying that in a film about the Liberation War, People's Liberation Army soldiers charging toward Kuomintang positions shouted the slogan "For... rejuvenation, forward!" A netizen commented jokingly that in a few more years, the Liberation War might be renamed the "Rejuvenation War." If it were really changed this way, it might be even more absurd, because the predecessor of the Kuomintang's Military Statistics Bureau was called the Renaissance Society—calling it a Rejuvenation War would be like one's own people fighting one's own people!

From this we can see that so-called socialist advanced culture is replacing class narrative with nationalist narrative. Nationalism appears to be an inclusive centrist politics, but its essence is to negate class narrative. Like liberalism, nationalism is an opponent of revolutionary culture—one stands from a nation-state position, the other from an individual position. Recently, some people online criticized Mo Yan's works for smearing the Communist Party and Eighth Route Army and wanted to sue him. These people criticizing Mo Yan from a nationalist position miss the point, because Mo Yan himself is a mixture of nationalism and liberalism. His humanistic rhetoric in his inscription at the Liaoshen Campaign Memorial Hall and his criticism of agricultural cooperativization and people's commune system in his Nobel Prize-winning novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out are all mainstream views in Chinese cultural circles since the 1980s—how could you possibly sue or criticize him successfully? But this incident also shows that huge rifts and conflicts exist between mainstream and popular opinion among nationalism, class narrative, and liberalism, and the gaming and struggle among these three may well become the main contradiction in Chinese society for some time to come.

This is my understanding of the relationships among revolutionary culture, traditional culture, and socialist advanced culture.

III. How to Promote Revolutionary Culture?

Correctly understanding revolution and its relationship with traditional culture and socialist advanced culture is for the purpose of promoting revolutionary culture.

So how do we promote revolutionary culture?

I'll share a few personal views.

1. Beware of abstracting, museumifying, and turning "revolutionary culture" into consumer culture

So-called abstraction and museumification means avoiding the proletarian attributes of the Chinese revolution, emptying and castrating specific content, turning it into a kind of de-revolutionized neutral nationalist narrative, treating it like museum exhibits by blocking any connection or even association with reality.

So-called turning into consumer culture refers to the red tourism boom prevalent in recent years. From Jinggangshan to Yan'an, from Shanghai's First Congress site to Jiaxing's South Lake, red scenic spots large and small throughout the country have all become hotspots that tourists flock to. In this flourishing tourism boom, revolution as a deliberately packaged symbol has taken on thick commercial attributes, serving merely as something for people to observe and satisfy curiosity. The historical and realistic significance contained in revolution has been completely obscured and distorted. Last year, in a public class for the first graduate writing class at Human Realm Academy, I spoke about one incident. Everyone knows Great Changes in a Mountain Village is a red classic. Its author Zhou Libo was from Yiyang, Hunan. As the birthplace of Great Changes in a Mountain Village, Yiyang is also where Zhou Libo spent the longest time going to the countryside to experience life. Many characters in Great Changes in a Mountain Village can find their life prototypes locally. In recent years, to stimulate the local economy, the village where Zhou Libo went to the countryside has also been developed into a red tourist destination aimed at consumption, with many scenic spots named after place names and characters from Great Changes in a Mountain Village. Recently, the local government also collaborated with the China Writers Association to organize a "New Great Changes in a Mountain Village" plan, hoping to use Zhou Libo and Great Changes in a Mountain Village's influence to develop red tourism cultural industry. But they probably didn't think that Zhou Libo and Great Changes in a Mountain Village reflected the great practice of vast numbers of farmers under Communist Party leadership carrying out the cooperativization movement and ultimately establishing people's communes, taking the socialist collective path. But the path taken by rural areas throughout the country including Hunan's Yiyang after reform and opening-up was completely opposite to the farmers in Great Changes in a Mountain Village—abolishing people's communes and returning to the "small-scale peasant economy" (individual farming) that had lasted for thousands of years, turning already organized farmers back into scattered sand, returning to the small-scale peasant economy that had lasted for thousands of years. This means that the agricultural cooperativization movement that Zhou Libo and his generation of writers enthusiastically praised and fully devoted themselves to was no longer the new world that the liberated farmers in The Hurricane yearned to establish, but a return to the "old world" they had smashed through bloodshed and sacrifice.

Yiyang's Great Changes in a Mountain Village plan is by no means an isolated case in the red tourism boom throughout the country, but has considerable typicality. This shows that red tourism using revolutionary culture as a vehicle has become a chess piece in the consumer market under the integrated government-capital framework, having no relationship with the original intention of the Chinese revolution.

What is historical nihilism? This is a living textbook of historical nihilism. In recent years, mainstream media has frequently and loudly criticized historical nihilism. Previously, they put the blame for historical nihilism on public intellectuals, but now most public intellectuals have gone into hiding and can no longer be blamed, yet historical nihilism has intensified. We've discovered that those truly engaging in historical nihilism aren't public intellectuals, but come from the system itself.

Turning revolutionary culture into consumption is precisely a new manifestation of historical nihilism and an inevitable result of capitalist globalization. Not only can it not achieve the effect claimed by the mainstream of spreading and promoting revolutionary culture, it will only intensify revolution's deep-redification and turn it into a kind of pink culture focused on consumption.

2. The only effective way to promote revolutionary culture is through struggle

We say bright red is the color of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese revolution, symbolizing the fresh blood and lives of millions of martyrs. The color of blood is bright red, not pink. The essence of red is revolution, and the essence of revolution is struggle. China's New Democratic Revolution, socialist revolution and construction all achieved success through arduous, unyielding struggle. Therefore, at the end of Haoran's Bright Sunny Skies, the protagonist Xiao Changchun sighs: "Life is a struggle!"

In an era of bidding farewell to revolution and consuming revolution, promoting revolutionary culture cannot rely merely on lectures or even preaching, but requires clear-cut, uncompromising struggle practice. Without struggle there is no revolution. The bourgeoisie verbally negates all revolution, especially proletarian revolution, but they are most skilled at revolution. All achievements the bourgeoisie has made to date were obtained through revolution, not through the reform they claim. The struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie is life-and-death and absolutely cannot be mutually beneficial and win-win. If the proletariat doesn't want to forever serve as slaves and leeks for the bourgeoisie, they can only rise up and struggle—there is no other way out. Lenin said revolution is the locomotive of history; social progress comes through struggle. Struggling against the bourgeoisie, feudalism, and all systems, cultures, and forces that oppress and exploit the proletariat and working people requires drawing strength and inspiration from revolutionary culture. Revolution takes many forms. Currently, denouncing and prosecuting reactionary elements who tear down Chairman Mao's statues is one kind of struggle; exposing the lies and evil deeds of the capital-power-elite group through writing, supporting and backing those who report corrupt officials and perverted professors, supporting grassroots people's rights defense, etc., are also forms of struggle.

Only in continuous struggle practice can revolution's true soul and original intention possibly be activated and awakened, enabling revolutionary culture to return from museums to reality, transforming from a kind of bourgeois consumer culture back into a weapon for proletarian struggle. This is a mission that all communist believers and inheritors of China's socialist revolution and construction must undertake. As young people, you should especially actively and proactively take on this mission.

This is the only effective way to promote revolutionary culture.