Great Helmsman is still an icon in modern China

THE BLACK and white photographs resonate with the hope and anticipation, perhaps even the frisson of fear, that followed the violent revolution that swept the Communist Party to power in China 60 years ago.

The main figure is Mao Zedong, the revolutionary genius who would eventually become the “Great Helmsman”, before being vilified for kicking off the ideological frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, and becoming the most important figure in 20th century Chinese history.

They were taken by his photographer, Hou Bo.

Despite the ravages of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, and the disastrous social agricultural reform known as the Great Leap Forward, Mao is still an icon in China, considered by the Communist Party to be “70 per cent good, 30 per cent bad”.

His portrait gazes out over Tiananmen Square in central Beijing and he is hard to shift from the public’s affections.

He is the central figure in today’s mass military parade, which features thousands of tanks and rocket launchers rumbling past the podium in front of the Forbidden City looking onto Tiananmen Square, watched by his heir, president Hu Jintao.

In one of Ms Hou’s iconic photographs, behind a sparse bank of radio microphones, Mao is reading a speech to the gathered party faithful in Beijing to announce the foundation of the People’s Republic of China.

The drama of the 1949 event was captured by Ms Hou, who had been with Mao all the way from the revolutionary stronghold of Yan’an to the taking of Beijing.

Today’s parade is a much grander affair than the official launch, monitored by TV cameras from all over the world, but the images captured by Ms Hou back in 1949 depicted an event that sent shockwaves around the world.

“Mao Zedong was a great man,” said the spritely 85-year-old in an interview in her Beijing home, giving the thumbs-up sign.

“We were just ordinary workers who gave our lives for the foundation of a new China. After 1949, everyone’s life was hard, but so was his. China was very poor, and he made a big contribution to provide a foundation for our country to be great,” she said, still clearly moved by the memory of Mao.

Mao first appeared on the banknote in 1990, alongside three other iconic leaders, and his face still adorns all modern banknotes.

There are periodic calls to have his face removed from notes, including occasional motions tabled at China’s annual parliament, the National People’s Congress.

Some delegates would like Mao to make room for other leaders such as the economic reformer Deng Xiaoping and Sun Yat-sen, considered the “father” of modern China.

Today’s China seems a million miles removed from the ideologically fervent, largely rural revolt that was the 1949 Chinese revolution. Mercedes and Audis zip up and down Chang’an Avenue at the city’s heart, the private sector is a growing force and everyone has warmly embraced capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

However, the way the city of Beijing has been shut down so tightly, with no dissent brooked, is a sign that the party still holds sway with an iron fist in the capital, even 60 years on.

Back in 1949, the Communists had precious little foreign currency to buy film or lenses, so in order to include all the dignitaries Ms Hou had to move backwards, taking her dangerously close to the edge of the rostrum, before she was held back from falling by none other than future premier Zhou Enlai himself.

“I almost fell off the podium! The camera I had was not very advanced at the time,” said Ms Hou.

The powerful photographs of the birth of contemporary China mark only one stage in Ms Hou’s remarkable narrative of a country that went from being united by a democratic dream under Sun Yat-sen, to fighting an horrific war of resistance against the Japanese invaders alongside Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists, before the wartime allies turned upon each other in a brutal civil war.

Ms Hou joined the Communist Party when she was 14, after escaping the Japanese invaders, and she spent seven years in Yan’an, which marked the end of the Long March and was the focal point of the Chinese revolution between 1937 and 1948, the birthplace of the revolution.

“When I told Chairman Mao I spent seven years at Yan’an, he said – you were raised on Yan’an rice, so you must serve the people.” During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) she was sent to the countryside after being denounced by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife and the most famous member of the Gang of Four, who were later blamed for the period of ideological frenzy that wrought havoc in China.

“She said I was a fake communist because I had joined when I was 14 years old, even though the official age was 18. And she said the fact I had photographed disgraced figures like Liu Shaoqi meant I was definitely a counter-revolutionary. I hate her, but she also did what she believed in,” said Ms Hou.

“It’s true that Chairman Mao made mistakes during the Cultural Revolution, but he was very old and he was misled by other people, especially the Gang of Four,” she said.

“The party always helps you in the end,” said Ms Hou.