How the People’s Republic of China reconciled a literary tradition rich in un-communist ideas with the rise of propaganda comics.
The Snail-Shell Girl, a cherished Chinese folk tale, tells of a poor man falling in love with a supernatural woman who secretly aids him. Adapted into a lianhuanhua—compact, picture-filled comic books—in 1957, this tale exemplifies the genre’s dual role in cultural preservation and political messaging. These palm-sized comics, each page adorned with an image and a few lines of text, became an unlikely cultural battleground during the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Originating in China’s Republican period (1911–49), lianhuanhua thrived, reaching broad audiences of adults and children alike. The Communist state, recognising their popularity, co-opted them as a propaganda tool after 1949. Tales of revolutionary heroism were produced alongside adapted Chinese classics like The Snail-Shell Girl. However, this folk tale presented a challenge: its depiction of supernatural intervention conflicted with the Communist Party’s scientific and rationalist ethos.
Tradition meets ideology
In his 1942 “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” Mao Zedong emphasised the need to “remould old forms” with revolutionary content. The challenge was to retain the cultural resonance of traditional tales while aligning them with Communist ideals. The Cultural Bureau, tasked with overseeing publications, flagged lianhuanhua with “superstitious” or “fatalistic” elements as problematic. Yet outright bans were avoided; instead, the state reshaped these stories, infusing them with themes like class struggle and social justice.
The Snail-Shell Girl exemplified this approach. Its protagonist, Tianluo, uses her magical powers to assist her lover, Xie Duan, a hardworking peasant, and to overthrow an oppressive landlord. The story resonated with the party’s land reform campaigns, which sought to redistribute land from exploitative landlords to the peasantry. However, the supernatural resolution—a flood conjured by Tianluo to vanquish the oppressors—clashed with the CCP’s rejection of mystical thinking.
To bridge this gap, introductions to such stories contextualised their fantastical elements. A 1955 foreword to another folk tale, Starling, explained how ancient societies relied on the supernatural to conceptualise justice before attaining revolutionary awareness. Similarly, the 1962 edition of Snail-Shell justified its publication as a celebration of bravery and resilience rooted in folklore.
Love, liberation, and the supernatural
Marriage and personal choice were recurring themes in lianhuanhua, reflecting the CCP’s progressive New Marriage Law of 1950, which mandated mutual consent. In Snail-Shell, Tianluo’s choice to help Xie Duan, driven by his work ethic and kindness, mirrored these values. Her resistance to the landlord’s coercion underscored the CCP’s narrative of individual and collective struggle against oppression.
However, the genre’s tolerance for the supernatural waned by the mid-1960s. As the Cultural Revolution loomed, lianhuanhua featuring magical transformations or mythical creatures were increasingly criticised as “superstitious.” Stories like The Snail-Shell Girl fell out of favour, though canonical works like Journey to the West, admired by Mao himself, managed to endure.
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Censorship and survival
In 1965, the Lianhuanhua Review Group was established to purge unsuitable titles. Women turning into animals or magical beings were among the first casualties. By the onset of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), lianhuanhua were largely restricted to depicting revolutionary struggles, with Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, spearheading campaigns to align the medium with party-approved narratives.
Despite this suppression, lianhuanhua endured. Private collections safeguarded pre-Cultural Revolution titles, and with the loosening of restrictions in the late 1970s and 1980s, previously banned stories resurfaced. New editions of Snail-Shell were published, reflecting a renewed appreciation for China’s mythological and cultural heritage.
Legacy of lianhuanhua
Lianhuanhua exemplifies how a cultural medium can adapt to political imperatives while retaining its essence. As Liu Xun, editor-in-chief of a lianhuanhua magazine, remarked in 1954, these stories captured the “bravery, diligence, kindness, and modesty” of the Chinese people. The medium’s ability to reflect both the CCP’s rhetoric and China’s rich folkloric tradition ensured its survival, even in the face of censorship.
Today, lianhuanhua remains a window into a tumultuous era, where art, ideology, and tradition converged to shape a unique cultural phenomenon. Through tales like The Snail-Shell Girl, the genre preserved a link to China’s past while navigating the complex demands of its revolutionary present.
