China Pictorial

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China Pictorial

China Pictorial began on July 18, 1950, less than a year after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and has continued publishing monthly ever since. The magazine has received much attention from Chinese leaders, and Chairman Mao Tse-tung himself wrote the name of the magazine for its masthead in his own calligraphy.

China Pictorial was a companion magazine to the other foreign language publications produced on a regular basis by the Socialist People’s Republic of China, China Reconstructs, Peking Review and Chinese Literature.

(Those issues with no link are copies which haven’t been available to scan. If anyone has these numbers and would be prepared to loan them to be scanned it would be very much appreciated. If the year is not listed then that means no issues at all have been available to scan to date.)

1951

1 – January     

• The Great Leader of the Chinese People – Chairman Mao Tse-tung
• Peace must be won
• Chop off the claws of the aggressor
• Tibetan life after Liberation
• National minorities welcome the goodwill mission
• The National Front against imperialism
• 100th Anniversary of the Taiping Peasants’ Revolutionary Movement

2 – February 

3 – March 

4 – April      

• China’s women emancipated
• Liberating the border regions of China
• Japan under American Imperialism
• Harnessing the Huai River
• China’s largest public library
• The Minority Peoples of Southwest China

5 – May    

• Peking celebrates International Labour Day
• Land to the tillers
• Model workers in production
• History’s warning to the warmongerers – the 6th Anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union over German Fascism
• American spy ring unearthed in Tientsin
• Students of all countries unite for peace
• Soviet posters and cartoons on exhibition

6 – June     

• One year of the Korean War
• The peaceful liberation of Tibet
• The Chinese Young Pioneers
• New mining methods produce new records
• Forerunners of a Peoples’ Athletics

7 – July 

• 30th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China

8 – August   

• 24th Anniversary of the Chinese People’s Army
• The Heroism of the Chinese People’s Volunteers – in Korea

9 – September    

• American sabotage of Armistice Talks – in Korea
• The Huai River Battle
• Peasants repair ancient irrigation system
• Students on summer vacation train for their future
• The Long March – a new opera

10 – October    

• China celebrates National Day
• The Third World Youth Festival
• Broadcasting to the people
• The Summer Palace

11 – November   

• Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung
• First Anniversary of Resist-America and Aid-Korea Movement
• Government Delegation visits old Revolutionary Bases
• From poverty to wealth in Inner Mongolia
• Ancient Art in China
• ‘How the steel was tempered’ – new theatre from Soviet novel

12 – December    

• Achievements in railway construction
• Textiles for the people
• Workers’ safety improved
• The wealth of South China
• Fisheries of New China

1952

1 – January      

• We are one with Chairman Mao
• They visited Chairman Mao’s native village
• Fertilisers – a growing industry
• Science comes to agriculture
• Early morning in the capital
• Traditional Chinese medical practice undergoes reform

2 – February          

• Spring Festival
• Care for the families of the Nation’s Heroes
• ‘Labour can change the face of the earth’
• Workers’ initiative raises production
• Liu Hu-lan

3 – March    

• Celebration of the Second Anniversary of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance
• American germ warfare in Korea and China
• Happy marriages break through feudal ideas
• The 29th Anniversary of the ‘February 7 Movement’
• ‘Let’s fam together’
• In the battle against illiteracy
• Liu Lai-ti – a heroine of New China

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June  

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September  

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1959

1 – January      

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June     

• Joint statement of the Chinese and Japanese Communist Parties
• Article by W. E. B. Du Bois on his recent trip to China
• The Sino-German Friendship People’s Commune

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September  

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1968

1 – January 

2 – February          

3 – March

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June     

7 – July 

• Firmly support the Revolutionary Mass Movements arising in France, Europe and North America!
• Men Ho – good cadre boundlessly loyal to Chairman Mao‘s Revolutionary Line
• No limit to serving the people

8 – August 

• The evergreen friendship between the Peoples of China and Tanzania
• The Red Ninth Company, a model in studying Chairman Mao’s Works
• Chairman Mao gave her a new life – medical advances enabled the removal of a huge tumour
• Keeping close ties with the Masses
• Revolutionary Flame in Africa

9 – September   

10 – October

• The working class must exercise leadership in everything – Yao Wen-Yuan
• The road for training engineering and technical personnel indictated by the Shanghai Machine Tools Plant – Report of an investigation
• A Red Banner in valiantly defending Chairman Mao’s line on army building
• New herdsmen on the Grasslands
• Sink roots among the Masses

Suplement – Compass for the Victory of the Revolutionary People of All Countries

11 – November  

12 – December  

1969

1 – January    

• Marching up the highway of the brilliant ‘May 7’ Directive
• ‘Barefoot Doctors’ are fine!
• Such intellectuals are welcomed by the Poor and Lower Middle Peasants
• Workers mount the stage of designing
• A Red Banner in water conservation construction
• A fine example of continuously making Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
• A Heroic People’s Army – The Albanian People’s Army

Supplement: China succcessfuly conducts new hydrogen bomb test    

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April

• Greet the Party’s Ninth National Congress with outstanding achievements!
• A good example for Tientsin workers
• Co-operative medical service is fine!
• Nine poor peasant families run their own school for 19 years
• To the vast countryside
• New storm in the Japanese People’s Struggle

5 – May

• Win new victories of the industrial front
• The Chinese Government lodges strongest protest with the Soviet Government – over incursions in the area of Chenpao Island
• Down with the New Tsars!
• Chenpao Island has always been Chinese territory
• A ‘PLA Tachai‘ marches ahead

6 – June

• Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China
• Ensuring good quality in publishing Chairman Mao’s Works
• The fruit of Self-reliance

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September  

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December

• Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China
• Advance along the rod pointed out by the Kutien Conference

China Pictorial 1969 Index

Poster of Chairman MaoTse-tung

1970

1 – January

• Revolutionary Emulation under Socialism
• The bitter fight of the Hsiaohsiang People
• Heroic Paratroopers
• Peasant-College Student-Peasant
• A fine school for the Re-education of Cadres
• Forward on the road of integrating with the Workers and Peasants

Supplement: Grand Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Liberation of Albania

2 – February          

3 – March

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June     

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1971

1 – January    

2 – February          

3 – March

• Centenary of the Paris Commune (1871-1971)
• Ten Years of Splendid Victories – Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the South Vietnam national Front for Liberation
• Participate in production while studying
• Educated young people in the countryside
• Women bridge builders
• A Heroic People – of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June     

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September   

• Taching – Red Banner on the industrial front
• Women well operators
• In industry, learn from Taching
• On the Yellow Sea coast
• The Korean People forge ahead
• The Cambodian People are bound to win
• The idea of serving the people
• Bulward of continuing the Revolution

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1972

1 – January    

2 – February  

• Gala meeting of table tennis players from Asia and Africa
• Delegation of the People’s Republic of China at United Nations
• China’s 1971 Autumn Exports Commodities Fair
• Militant Art, Revolutionary Friendship

3 – March    

4 – April  

5 – May   

• Paean to Proletarian Internationalism – Modern Revolutionary Peking Opera ‘On the Docks’
• Edgar Snow, friend of the Chinese People
• New works of art
• Cultural team on the plateau
• PLA topographic unit on the ‘Roof of the world’
• Profound frienship between Army and People
• Serve the people better
• Heroic Albania

Supplement: The Red Lantern Opera (Selected Songs)   

6 – June     

7 – July  

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1973

1 – January    

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June      

• Young steel workers trained
• Work on the Yellow River must be done well
• A tour of the source of the Yellow River
• After the earthquake – in Tibet
• Chinese acrobatic troups abroad
• The PLA practices its traditional industry and thrift

Supplement: Samdech Sihanouk’s Inspection Tour of the Cambodian Liberated Zone

7 – July    

• Celebrating ‘May First’, International Labour Day
• Lunghai – a county of high yield in grain
• How Hualin Brigade learnt from Tachai
• New pictures of the ‘Great Northern Wilderness’
• Changes in the Yellow River-Huangshui River Valley

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1974

1 – January   

• Secretary of State Kissinger in Peking
• Azalea Mountain – a Modern Revolutionary Peking Opera
• Young People in a mountain region
• The ‘Roebuck’ – an advanced fishing Commune
• Pearls on the Yellow River
• The People’s Police
• A survey of the Takla Makan Desert
• A theatrical troup from the countryside

2 – February          

3 – March    

• Record harvests in China
• This factory relies on its workers
• College students of a new type
• Three noted Yellow River cities
• Free of floods

4 – April  

5 – May  

6 – June      

7 – July   

• New successes in Revolution and Production
• We love Tien An Men
• Shanghai’s history is created by the labouring masses
• A prosperous Socialist rural scene
• Jubilant North Tibet Grassland

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December  

1975

1 – January   

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April  

5 – May    

• Peking’s market
• Armymen and civilians
• Working hard for Socialism
• Urban militia of Shanghai
• Changes along the Tatu
• The Revolutionary Committee of our county

6 – June      

7 – July   

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November  

12 – December

1976

To date we only have access to one issue in English of China Pictorial for 1976. However, four numbers for the year are available in Chinese and are included here for non-Chinese speakers for the images.

1 – January   In Chinese

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April  In Chinese

5 – May   In Chinese

6 – June      

7 – July  In Chinese

8 – August 

9 – September   

10 – October  

11 – November

An issue entirely devoted to Chairman Mao but merely two months after his death the revisionist and ‘capitalist-roaders’ within the Party were already ‘re-writing’ history. The ’empty’ spaces in the picture on page 12, for example, are the erased comrades of the so-called ‘Gang of Four‘. However, this issue does contain many good picture of Comrade Mao.

• Eternal Glory to the Great Leader and Great Teacher Mao Tse-tung  

12 – December

1977

1 – January

This number of China Pictorial was emtirely devoted to commemorating the life of Chou En-lai, on the first anniversary of his death. Chou was one of those who seemed to function as a ‘Fifth Columnist’ within the Party leadership, never being denounced as a supporter of the ‘capitalist-roaders’ but almost certainly following their line, especially in his later years. Considered as an enemy of the Revolution by those who were later branded as the ‘Gang of Four‘ by the revisionist after their coup in taking control of the Party after the death of Chairman Mao.

• In deep memory of esteemed and beloved Premier Chou En-lai

2 – February          

3 – March    

4 – April  

5 – May    

6 – June      

7 – July   

8 – August 

9 – September    

• The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall Successfully Completed
• Learning from Taching Persistently
• Through the uninhabited Qangtang region
• The Three Gorges
• Botswana marches on

10 – October  

11 – November   

• A great milestone – the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
• Thriving Inner Mongolia
• The Chuchi Production Brigade

12 – December

Below are a few examples of how China Pictorial has been transformed into a shallow and meaningless magazine more interested in consumerism than any achivements of the Chinese people. Such is the legacy of capitalism which now totally dominates Chinese society.

1985

1 – January

2006

12 – December

2013

2 – February

2019

8 – August

More on China …..