The Chairman’s Voice: Revolutionary Classicism and Lyric Ventriloquism in Maoist China

Abstract The enduring influence of Mao Zedong’s classicist poetry worldwide is a fascinating phenomenon, especially because this ostensibly conservative genre is marginalized in institutionalized modern Chinese literature. This article examines a curious case of fake Mao poems that enjoyed supreme ideological authority during the Cultural Revolution. By tracing the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party toward the Chinese literary legacy, I argue that revolutionary classicism was the logical offspring of revolutionary nationalism when literati and folk traditions were mobilized to serve a totalitarian cause; that the institutionalized lyric voice of Chairman Mao was collectively created and appropriated; that classicist poetry, combining sounds, words, and imagery, was the chosen medium for the masses to create an intimate relationship with the purported inner subjectivity of the chairman; and that, by ventriloquizing this voice, the Chinese revolution was finally embodied. Classicist poetry thus represents a neglected aspect of Chinese literary modernity and nation building.