Season 16, Episode 10: The Great Leap (China, 1953-1976)
A black and white photograph of the Constitutional Convention that produced the People’s Republic of China’s first constitution in 1954. Source: Public Domain
A black and white photograph of Chinese farm workers laboring in a field at night with the aid of lanterns. Source: Public Domain
A black and white photograph of Chinese villagers tending backyard furnaces which were used to produce steel and other industrial alloys in the absence of large factories. Source: Public Domain
A black and white photograph featuring Chinese people in a workers commune eating at the commune’s cafeteria together. Source: Public Domain
A propaganda poster encouraging people to kill mosquitos, flies, sparrows, and rats to help China’s agriculture sector to thrive. The mass killing of the sparrows, however, would have dire consequences as the bird kept the populations of crop-consuming insects under control. Source: Public Domain
A photograph of three Indian soldiers (center) surrendering to Chinese troops during the 1962 border skirmish. Source: Public Domain
A black and white photograph of a man (center) wearing a placard that labels him an anti-party element. The man in the photo is Xi Zhongxun, whose son Xi Jinping, the current paramount leader of The People’s Republic of China today. Source: Public Domain
A black and white photograph of the remains of Emperor Wanli, whose remains were disinterred by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution and then set on fire. Source: Louis le Grand, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This frieze was damaged during the Cultural Revolution by Red Guards, who decapitated the figures depicted therein. Source: Udo Schoene, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A black and white photograph of a faction of the Red Guards in the streets of Shanghai in 1967. If you look closely, you can see some of them wielding the Little Red Book of quotes from Chairman Mao Zedong. Source: Public Domain
A photograph of Buddha statues which were somewhat literally defaced during the Cultural Revolution. Source: Pat B, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
