“How can I disappoint Chairman Mao, who put his trust in people like us, the working class, the class that was once even lower than the pigs and dogs before Liberation?”
This quote accentuates the blind partisanship of loyal citizens in Maoist China. Spoken by Secretary Chain, it exhibits his belief that the people owe the Party and yet to toil enough to express their gratitude. Similarly to most brainwashed loyalists including Min they believe unequivocally in Mao’s Communism and its ideologies with certainty that is for a better nation despite the political cruelty. It demonstrates the ability of the Party to manipulate and generate collective consciousness among the working class.
“The Red Guards showed us how to destroy, how to worship. They jumped off buildings to show their loyalty to Mao. It was said that physical death was nothing. It was light as a feather. Only when one died for the people would one's death be heavier than a mountain.”
As head of the Little Red Guard in childhood, Min looks up to the devoutness of the Red Guards to the Maoist ideologies. The cult of personality generated by Mao’s totalitarian regime renders the populaces as fanatical followers to his principles. The Red Guards as the epitome of this loyalty through servicing the cause at their own expense even if dire are the inspirations of citizens raised under Maoism.
“I want you to be aware of what you are creating, he continued. You are creating an image which will soon dominate China's ideology. You are creating history, the proletarian's history. We are giving history back its original face. In a few months, when the movie is all over the country, you will be the idol of revolutionary youths. I want you to memorize Chairman Mao's teaching, “The power of a good example is infinite”.”
The Supervisor as the advisor to Mao’s wife in terms of cultural matters ensures the philosophy of Maoism through entertainment and propaganda. The backstory being Min’s involvement as an actress in one of Qing’s films in which the ideas of the Cultural Revolution were stressed in the plot. This further accentuates the cult of personality developed around Mao’s Communist China in that his teachings are embedded in the mindset of the younger demographic until it becomes inherent. In an effort of eradicating the bourgeois system completely, the Maoist ideologies aim to ensure constant struggle against capitalist notions.
