He Shu: The story behind two stills of the performance of the propaganda team

Original title

Served as the "main force of red propaganda"

"Black second generation"

Author: He Shu

In the relics of his ex-wife Lu Huang, there are two stills of her participating in the performance of the "Mao Zedong Thought Literature and Art Propaganda Team".

The "red propagandists" in these two stills are all "old educated youths" in Chongqing who went to the countryside before the Cultural Revolution. At that time, Lu Huang and Song Xiaotao were 16 years old, Duan Qianfang was 17 years old, they were junior high school graduates, and Zhang Yuanzhong was 13 years old, a primary school graduate. They were assigned to the so-called "community-run forest farm" in Dazhu County, Sichuan Province, in the Daba Mountains. Before the Cultural Revolution, they came to prominence by participating in the cultural performances in the communes and districts. During the Cultural Revolution, they were transferred to the county Mao Zedong Thought Literature and Art Propaganda Team. The two programs in the stills were performed around 1970.

In the two stills, the two performers Lu Huang (front) and Duan Qianfang (back, holding a kettle), the performance of the show is the word "Water", which shows that they overcome thirst during the march and let others drink water. The spirit of "uninterested in self-interest, but for others"; the three performers are Lu Huang and Song Xiaotao (back right, playing as an old poor peasant) and Zhang Yuanzhong (back left, playing as a soldier), and the performance is the counterpart drama "A Broken Bowl" ", showing that the old poor peasant remembers bitterness and sweetness in educating his descendants not to forget their roots. The soldier is the son of the poor peasant, and Lu Huang plays the poor peasant's daughter.

It's emotional, though, that the actors are so far removed from the political identities of their characters.Both Lu Huang and Song Xiaotao's fathers were "rightists". Duan Qianfang's father was originally a businessman and was falsely accused of being a "historical counter-revolutionary" during the suppression of the rebellion. Zhang Yuanzhong's father was a so-called "capitalist", that is, a private entrepreneur today. Their parents were all "objects of dictatorship" in the "first thirty years", while they were the "second black generation" who were discriminated against and abandoned by mainstream society in that "red era".

However, in the most revolutionary era, they had to be expelled and suppressed by the revolution to play the most revolutionary role and propagate the most revolutionary ideas. This was also the case with many of the creators of the most popular "model group" at the time. The "second generation of black people" served as the "main force of red propaganda", which almost became a common contradiction at that time.

These "red" propagandists with "black" identities, Duan Qianfang later worked in Dazhu County, and Lu Huang worked in a bank after being transferred back to Chongqing. Song Xiaotao and Zhang Yuanzhong have never left their literary and artistic propaganda work.

Song Xiaotao's father is the director of the Chongqing Song and Dance Troupe, and his mother is a film actor (the former head of the Actors Troupe of Xi'an Film Studio). Leading the way, let the teachers and students of the whole school remember this "comedian". It's just that he was born at an untimely time and failed to enter art academies or art groups and became an "old educated youth". Later, he became the main force in the creation and performance of the educated youth propaganda team. He was often able to combine screenwriter, director, stage artist and actor, but it was difficult to play the "revolutionary hero" he aspired to because his image was not "high, large and complete". They can only play small roles such as some negative characters or the old poor peasants among the positive characters.Despite this, his performance still left a deep impression on the local audience, and also left some interesting words.

Once, in the previous show, he played Hatoyama in the excerpt from the model play "Feasting on Hatoyama". Because of the long robe he was wearing, the waistband of the trousers inside was dragged down and was not found. The next program was about cross talk. He took off his robe in a hurry backstage and went on stage. The audience burst into laughter as soon as he appeared on the stage. He thought the audience was happy to laugh because they saw him appear, because he often made the audience laugh. Continuing to stand there with a smug smile and wait for the performance with the opponent's actors, who knew that the theater manager next to him quickly commanded the curtain to close. Only then did he realize that the waistband of his pants was hanging in front of him, making a fool of himself.

Another even more sensational event was that in a small opera "The Witty Little Ulan", he played the role of a spy "Doyle" who was often seen in literary and artistic works at that time and who had "lurked carefully for decades and lived impatiently". "Uncle Ji," was bowing his head and bending over to sabotage in front of the livestock pen. He was discovered by Xiao Wulan, a red soldier with a very high level of "class struggle consciousness". He used a red tassel gun to approach his back. The pistol in his waist shot back and turned somersaults to escape, but as he crouched there, he found the pistol in his trousers slipped into his crotch and dropped into his trouser legs, which were tucked into his boots and pulled from the outside. Unable to get the gun, he had no choice but to quickly loosen the belt of his trousers and reach out from the crotch to take out the gun. At this time, the red tassel was close to his back, and time did not allow him to delay any longer. He quickly fired a backhand, and then somersaulted—the pants that had loosened their belts suddenly fell... The next day, about this wonderful performance The news of the scene spread like wildfire, the audience was full, the audience was full, and everyone wanted to see his thrilling and funny somersaulting and flipping his pants, which of course would never happen again.

He was later transferred back to Chongqing and became a backbone and department leader in the Family Planning Publicity and Education Center.

Zhang Yuanzhong is also a very distinctive character. Although he only has a primary school education and has no family influence in literature and art, but because his family lived next to a movie theater dedicated to showing old movies at that time, he often skipped school and went to the movie theater to watch movies since he was a child, remembering the plots and lines in many movies. I am well-acquainted. When educated youths often tell movie stories to everyone, and they tell them together with performances, they are vivid and vivid, and they have become well-received "movies" capable people. On the eve of going to the countryside, he was fortunate enough to play a small newsboy in the film "Red Rock" (later renamed "Eternal Life in Fire" when it was released in Chongqing), shouting on the road: "Sell newspapers and sell newspapers!  …" Although his scene only passed by in the edited film, he had a relationship with Yu Lan (played by Sister Jiang), the star of the film, because of that experience.

After the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Yuanzhong became a worker in an iron factory. Based on the influence of watching movies since he was a child and the accumulation of his life as an educated youth in the countryside, he created a rural themed children's movie script "Qingqing Stream", which Yu Lan served as the director. The director's children's film studio was selected from a large number of natural submissions. When recruiting him to Beijing to revise the draft, he told Yu Lan about the past, and Yu Lan was naturally very cordial. This film was shot by the Children's Film Studio and won the Bronze Bull Award for Children's Film. He was therefore transferred to the county cultural center to engage in literary counseling. He was transferred to the cultural center for literary counseling with a primary school diploma. He was probably the only one at that time. Later, Zhang Yuanzhong was transferred back to Chongqing to work in the Nan'an District Cultural Center. He died of illness not long ago.

May 8, 2021 at Chongqing Fengjiang Pavilion