The East Is Red (song)

"The East Is Red" (simplified Chinese: 东方红; traditional Chinese: 東方紅; pinyin: Dōngfāng Hóng) is a song that was the de facto anthem of the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The lyrics of the song were attributed to Li Youyuan, a farmer from northern Shaanxi, and the melody was derived from a local folk song. He allegedly got his inspiration upon seeing the rising sun in the morning of a sunny day.

The lyrics to "The East is Red" were adapted from an old Shaanxi folk song about love. The lyrics were often changed depending on the singer. The modern lyrics were produced in 1942, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, attributed to a farmer from northern Shaanxi, Li Youyuan. It is possible there was an earlier version which referred to Liu Zhidan, a local communist hero, who was killed in Shanxi in 1936. Later, Mao's name replaced Liu's in the lyrics. The song was popular in the Communist base-area of Yan'an, but became less popular after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, possibly because some senior Party leaders disagreed with the song's portrayal of Mao Zedong as China's "savior".

The lyrics of "The East is Red" idealize Mao Zedong, and Mao's popularization of "The East is Red" was one of his earliest efforts to promote his image as a perfect hero in Chinese popular culture after the Korean War. In 1956, a political commissar suggested to China's defense minister, Peng Dehuai, that the song be taught to Chinese troops, but Peng opposed Mao's propaganda, saying "That is a personality cult! That is idealism!" Peng's opposition to "The East is Red", and to Mao's incipient personality cult in general, contributed to Mao purging Peng in 1959. After Peng was purged, Mao accelerated his efforts to build his personality cult, and by 1966 succeeded in having "The East is Red" sung in place of China's national anthem in an unofficial capacity.

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