Chairman Mao Tse-tung
China Reconstructs
This informative magazine was founded in 1952 by Soong Ching-ling [Madam Sun Yat-sen], with the help of the naturalized Chinese citizen Israel Epstein. Originally it appeared bi-monthly, later becaming a monthly.
China was a campanion magazine to the other, regular publications of the Socialist People’s Republic of China, Peking Review, China Pictorial and Chinese Literature.
China in transition, selected articles, 1952-1956 by writers of China Reconstructs, Peking, 1957, 465 pages. (Big file version)
China in transition, selected articles, 1952-1956 by writers of China Reconstructs, Peking, 1957, 465 pages. (Small file version)
(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.)
1952 – Volume I
2 – March-April This is a black-and-white xerox copy of this issue
3 – May-June
5 – September-October
6 – November-December
1953 – Volume II
1 – January-February
2 – March-April
3 – May-June
4 – July-August
5 – September-October
6 – November-December
Supplement: ‘Between Husband and Wife: A Play in One Act’, by the Peking People’s Art Theatre
Supplement: Index for 1953 issues
1954 – Volume III
3 – May-June
Supplement: ‘Mistress Clever: A Chinese Folk Tale’
6 – November-December
Supplement: ‘Index for 1954 issues’
1956 – Volume V
2 – February
3 – March
4 – April
5 – May
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August
9 – September
11 – November
Supplement: ‘Index for 1956 issues’
1957 – Volume VI
1 – January
2 – February
3 – March
4 – April
5 – May
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August
9 – September
10 – October
11 – November
12 – December
Supplement: ‘Index for 1957 issues’
1966 – Volume XV
4 – April
7 – July
8 – August
11 – November
12 – December
1967 – Volume XVI
Supplement: 1967 Calendar, featuring photos of clay figurines
2 – February
3 – March
4 – April
5 – May
Supplement: ‘Patriotism or National Betrayal? — On the Reactionary Film Inside Story of the Ching Court’
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August, Special Issue on the 25th Anniversary of Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s ‘Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art’
9 – September
10 – October
11 – November
Supplement: ‘Along the Socialist Road or the Capitalist Road?’, by the editorial departments of Hongqi and Renmin Ribao and ‘Comments on Tao Chu’s Two Books‘, by Yao Wen-yuan
12 – December
1968 – Volume XVII
3 – March
4 – April
5 – May
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August
9 – September
11 – November
12 – December
1969 – Volume XVIII
1 – January
2 – February
3 – March
4 – April
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August
9 – September
10 – October
11 – November
1970 – Volume XIX
2 – February, Special Issue on the revolutionary opera ‘Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy’
3 – March
4 – April
Supplement: ‘Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of the Great Lenin’
Includes supplement: ‘Premier Chou En-lai Pays Friendship Visit to Korea’
Extra Issue ‘People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All their Running Dogs!’
6 – June
7 – July
8 – August
9 – September
10 – October
11 – November
12 – December
1971 – Volume XX
1 – January
2 – February
3 – March
4 – April
5 – May
7 – July
Supplement: ‘Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China’
9 – September
10 — October
Supplement: ‘Table Tennis and Friendship’
11 – November
1972 – Volume XXI
Supplement: ‘Joint Communique’, of President Nixon’s visit to China
7 – July Includes ‘Gateway to Chinese’, beginning a new series of lessons in the Chinese language.
8 – August
Supplement: ‘New Page in Annals of Sino-Japanese Relations’
1973 – Volume XXII
Supplement: ‘The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents)’
1974 – Volume XXIII
Supplement: Some Basic Facts About China: Ten Questions and Answers” Includes sections on People’s Communes, Neighborhood Life, the General Line for Socialist Construction, National Economic Development, the Policy of ‘Walking on Two Legs’, Women, Minorities, Education and Health.
Supplement: ‘At the U.N.: Chairman of Chinese Delegation Chiao Kuan-hua’s Speech’, Oct. 2, 1974
1975 – Volume XXIV
Supplement: ‘Communique of the Second Plenary Session of the Tenth Central Committee of the CPC’
Supplement: ‘The Chinese People Warmly Congratulate the Great Victories of the Cambodian and the Vietnamese Peoples’
1976 – Volume XXV
Supplement: ‘More Basic Facts About China’ Includes sections on Socialist Economic Construction, How the Oil Industry was Developed, Tachai Commune and the Socialist Countryside, Education, Factories Run their own Colleges, Barefoot Doctors, Cadre Schools, etc.
10 – October This is the last issue of the magazine that was edited from a Maoist revolutionary perspective.
11-12 – November-December, This is the memorial issue upon the death of Mao Zedong, and includes a large number of photographs of Mao over the years. (Note also that in the photograph from the million-person mass memorial meeting (on pages 82-83), the capitalist-roaders who had just staged their coup d’état, absurdly airbrushed out the images of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing and the other three leaders in the so-called “Gang of Four” of Mao’s closest followers.)
(From 1977 onwards all the publications produced in the People’s Republic of China (including those for a foreign readership) started to reflect the world view of the ‘capitalist-roaders’ who had usurped power very soon after the death of Mao Tse-tung in September 1976. They are included here to allow readers to understand how the principles of Socialism were perverted in the early years of the restoration of capitalism.)
1977 – Volume XXVI
The ‘capitalist-roaders‘ step up their campaign against the Marxist-Leninists of the so-called ‘Gang of Four’
Supplement: Chairman Hua Kuo-feng’s speech at the Second national Conference on learning from Tachai in agriculture
Issue devoted to praise of Chou En-lai who, in his final days, had become an ally of the ‘capitaltist-roaders’ within the Party.
Devoted to a character assassination of Comrade Chiang Ching and her work to establish a Socialist culture in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
The attack on Chiang Ching continues.
The issue devoted almost entirely to the life of Chairman Mao Tse-tung but praising him in such a way as to denigrate his achievements and advances in Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and practice.
1978 – Volume XXVII
Supplement: Medical Care for China’s Millions
1979 – Volume XXVIII
Includes an article by the capital-roaders reversing the verdict on the reactionary Tien An Men demonstration in April 1976 which took the opportunity provided by a memorial to Zhou Enlai to attack the so-called ‘Gang of Four‘ and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Also includes a scurrilous poem slandering Chiang Ching [Jiang Qing] which was circulated at that demonstration.
1980 Volume XXIX
Includes articles about the rehabilitation of the revisionist chieftain, Liu Shaoqi, by the capitalist-roaders who came to power in a coup d’état after Mao’s death.
Missing pages 25-26 and 47-48, which may have been pages of color photos. This appears to have been a printing error.
1981 – Volume XXX
Includes the ludicrous article “Parapsychology, Is it Real?”, which claims that there is scientific evidence that some children can see completely hidden writing and “read” it with their ears, armpits or buttocks! (An astounding example of how far the revisionist regime had already moved away from a scientific materialist perspective.)
Includes an article about the kangaroo court procedings by the capitalist-roaders against the so-called “Gang of Four” and other Maoist revolutionaries.
Includes an article entitled “Is China ‘Going Backward’?” which tries to reassure worried readers that China “is not on the capitalist road”, and contains yet more slander against the so-called “Gang of Four”. Of course it turned out that the worries of these readers were completely justified.
Includes an article about the sentencing of Jiang Qing and the other close followers of Mao after the conclusion of the kangaroo trial against them by the capital roaders.
Supplement: Death of Soong Ching Ling (Mme Sun Yet-sen)
Celebration of the 100th anniversay of the birth of the revolutionary writer Lu Hsun.
Supplement: In memory of Soong Ching Ling (1893-1981)
- “Advertising Reappears in China”, lauding the appearence of billboards on public streets.
- “Summing Up: Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution and 32 Years of New China”, an article about what is purported to be a “balanced” summing up of Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the new CCP document “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the PRC”. In reality this document, and this article promoting it, are the worst sort of defamatory nonsense on the part of the capitalist roaders.
Insert: Subscription leaflet
