Turning Disaster into Victory

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Turning Disaster into Victory Reporting
Disaster Relief in the 1963 Tianjin Great Flood

• URBAN TRANSITION AND GOVERNANCE SOCIAL AND
  HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
• UNIVERSITY OF TURKU, CENTRE FOR EAST ASIAN
  STUDIES
• 18.12.2008
• LAURI PALTEMAA

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• A preliminary analysis of reporting the great
  flood in 1963 in Tianjin
• Part of a larger project on Tianjin Governance
• Later this paper will be expanded to analyze
  other aspects of disaster relief in Tianjin
  (events, organization, relief effort after the
  flood, etc)

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• Tianjin Ribao (Tianjin Daily, hereafter TR)
• Propaganda organ of local party-state
• Maoist local state sought to overcome the
  problems in mobilization through the standard
  means on its disposal moral persuasion in public
  speech
• No material incentives were offered (or at least
  not reported), and the whole effort relied on
  commands and immaterial rewards

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• Six types of generic articles on flood and flood
  prevention efforts
• Mobilization and motivation articles
• Feature articles
• Articles on leadership decisions and general
  instructions
• The articles that dealt with assistance from
  other parts of the country
• Production news
• Technical instructions

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• Mobilization and motivation articles
• Designed to support and sustain the mobilization
  through providing motivation to the cadres and
  masses alike
• Direct propaganda contained discussion on the
  ideological / political meaning of the relief
  effort
• Usually front page coverage
• Permeated with politically correct (PC)
  sloganeering
• The articles aim at educating the masses and
  cadres on their respective duties and sentiments
  that go with them

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• Feature articles
• Teaching through examples
• Indirect propaganda Introducing exemplary
  frontline units and individuals
• Readers are expected to assume similar methods
  and spirit, too
• Based on providing representatives from every
  social group involved in the mobilization

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• As articles indicate, ideological work was
  carried out on the frontline constantly
• Ideological education was needed especially when
  lull periods brought out discipline problems
• The main target groups of such efforts were
  peasants and workers
• Caused concerns on slacking in work, raised
  demands of quick return to homes, etc.

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• Frontline dyke construction sites could rely on
  existing propaganda structures right from the
  start
• Dispatched units had their leading cadres with
  them who were responsible for propaganda work
  also during normalcy

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• Ideological significance of the struggle
• The campaign was declared a great struggle
  against the nature
• For protecting socialist construction, peoples
  lives, property and security
• The frontline of the fight was described as a
  great revolutionary smelter
• Here people could become revolutionary soldiers
  with higher class consciousness
• A lesson in collectivism, on caring about the
  whole, and on discipline
• In general the struggle demonstrated the
  superiority of socialist system
• The Role of Chairman Mao very small in propaganda

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• Much of direct propaganda was about instructing
  the grass-roots levels of the best practices on
  ideological work
• Speaking bitterness
• Promoting competitions between individuals and
  groups
• Explaining the water situation to the masses

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• Speaking bitterness
• In the old society the masters showed no
  interest in relief work, but could the present
  peoples government increase its concern on us
  and the struggle any further? You young people
  have not suffered in your lives! When there was a
  big flood back then it destroyed crops and
  houses. There were three of us, and we had
  nothing to eat, we had to walk to Dongbei to do
  hard manual work. My old father perished. Now the
  world is really not like that! With the help of
  the Party and government help and leadership we
  can get through all hardships. (TR 24.8.1963, 1
  Support fully the city reflect on past in light
  of present increase vigor.)

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• Indirect methods Examples of class
  representatives and how mass line works
• In articles individuals and groups were portrayed
  as highly standardized characters
• Representatives of different social groups were
  given lines that befitted their class positions
  and position in the campaign against the flood

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• Workers designated as the vanguard against the
  flood, others were instructed to listen to the
  voices of the workers, follow the working class
• A worker My small loss is nothing compared to
  the security of the whole city, small me (xiaowo,
  oneself) should serve the big me (dawo, public).
  (TR 16.8.1963, 1 170 000 strong army of this
  city holds fast to securing the dykes)

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• Cadres
• Expected to lead from the front through their own
  examples Where there is danger, there are
  leading cadres.
• Party members were for example told to have
  rushed into water to fill in threatening gaps in
  dykes with their own bodies, feeding the members
  of masses with heir own expenses and providing
  them shelter while sleeping outside themselves,
  etc..
• Many consoling visits to the frontline by high
  leaders reported

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• Soldiers and militia members
• Mobilization was based largely on ordering danwei
  militias and City army units onto the frontline
• Ordered to be models for the rest not seeking
  easy tasks but to go for the most difficult ones,
  keeping up strict discipline

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• A soldier We must protect the fatherland and
  struggle against class enemy. But we must also
  fight against natural disasters. When I think
  about this, my body is filled with strength. (TR
  15.8.1963, 3 The sons and younger brothers -
  soldiers fighting along the Ziya rives banks.)

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• Peasants were in a slightly junior position to
  the three outlined above, but still praised for
  their contribution and spirit in the struggle
• Getting peasants to care for common good and
  goals was emphasized.
• Examples of peasants leaving behind their own
  communes and villages and coming to the dykes
  from tens of lis away were praised

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• Peasants In order to defeat the flood, caring
  about just ones own village is not enough!,
  Protecting the big home of Tianjin also helps
  our small home. Protecting the socialist
  construction in Tianjin will bring us the support
  of urban people and the big brother-workers and
  this will help to develop agricultural
  production.

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• Other social groups
• Students and intellectuals were told to
  participate in struggle against the flood in
  order to strengthen their proletarian outlook
• An experience in tempering their spirits and
  revolutionary determination

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• Production news
• Usually found in the back pages of TR
• Featured selected danweis in their efforts to
  keep up production targets for the flood effort
  and the national plan
• Reportedly, this was also achieved
• Heroism of home front emphasized

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• When it became clear during the second week of
  October that the flood was defeated, propaganda
  effort shifted its emphasis to the return to
  normalcy
• Production stressed Use the Sprit of Fighting
  the Flood to Promote Production

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• The City was saved after two month of
  mobilization
• In the end Tianjin City government could not only
  declare victory on the nature, but also moral
  victory
• What was not mentioned in the TR lost lives,
  lost property, expenses of mobilization, etc