The “Right deviationist wind of reversing verdicts”

At the time of this poster’s creation in 1976, China was emerging from the decade-long, state-instigated chaos of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."  This reign of near-anarchy, sparked by Mao Zedong’s desire to incite "permanent revolution" against his enemies in the party, destroyed much of the Chinese economy and resulted in the deaths of several million people.

After Mao’s death in September 1976, the already purged-and-rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping lost a power struggle with members of the so-called Gang of Four – the ultra-leftist pawns and allies of Mao – and was exiled to southern China.

Deng was labeled as a "capitalist roader" by his enemies, and was the subject of direct and indirect attacks from the CCP’s propaganda apparatus.  This poster was part of that campaign.

It reads, roughly: "wage to the end the struggle against the right deviationist wind of reversing verdicts."  Translated out of Marxist-Leninist double speak into plain English, the poster is an attack on Deng’s proposed political and economics policies of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and the "Socialist Market Economy," respectively.

However, despite the Gang of Four’s struggle against him, Deng eventually attained power as the de facto leader of Communist China.  He wielded enormous influence until his death in 1997.

The creator of the original poster is Du Xianqing, who was born in 1922 in southern China’s Sichuan Province.  In his youth, Du was a student of music and drawing, and in 1986 went on to study and teach painting at the Southwest Art School in Sichuan, where he remains to this day.

*The translation of the orginal poster and information about the artist came from Stefan Landsberger’s website on Chinese propaganda posters.