ABSTRACT
The use of Model Workers in China’s post-Revolutionary propaganda was pervasive. Each Model Worker that represented one of the social classes of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, with the exception of the petty bourgeoisie, was represented in film propaganda, promoting nationalism, social reform and the development of socialism. According to Mao Tse-Tung, a heroic Model Worker must be dignified, fearless, self-sacrificing and willing to overturn the existing order for the good of the masses. The Model Workers of Chinese cinema lived the ideals of the Common Programme and the constitutions that codified Mao’s early theoretical work on the place of the individual in a Marxist-Leninist society. The Model Worker movement was conceived to overcome the problem of ideological confusion and to provide a clear message that it was the peasants and the working class, guided by the Party, that were the true liberators of China.
