Red Flag (magazine)

The Red Flag (Chinese: 红旗; pinyin: Hóngqí) was a journal on political theory, published by the Chinese Communist Party.^[1] It was one of the "Two Newspapers and One Magazine" during the 1960s and 1970s.^[2][3] The newspapers were People's Daily and Guangming Daily.^[3] People's Liberation Army Daily is also regarded as one of them.^[4]

Red Flag

December 1967 issue, "Advance along the Road Opened Up by the October Socialist Revolution"
Categories	Political magazine
Frequency	Bimonthly
Publisher	Chinese Communist Party
Founded	1958
Final issue	July 1988
Country	China
Based in	Beijing
Language	Chinese
ISSN	0441-4381
OCLC	1752410

History and profile

Red Flag was started during the Great Leap Forward era^[2] in 1958.^[1][5] The journal was the successor to another journal, Study (Chinese: Xuexi).^[6] The title of Red Flag was given by Mao Zedong.^[1] Chen Boda was the editor of the journal,^[6] which served as a crucial media outlet during the Cultural Revolution.^[1][7]

Red Flag was freely distributed in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia until 1958 when the "undesired" foreign publications were banned through the Undesirable Publications Ordinance.^[8] As a result, its circulation became 3,000 copies in contrast to 5,000 copies before the implementation of the law.^[8]

During the 1960s, Red Flag temporarily ended publication, but was restarted in 1968.^[9] Its frequency was redesigned as biweekly.^[5] Then it came out monthly until 1979.^[6] It was published bi-monthly from 1980 to 1988.^[6]

Red Flag covered theoretical arguments supported by the party.^[2] It also published articles on the views of the party about the Communist parties in other countries. For instance, in March 1963 the speech of Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, at the 10th Congress was discussed and evaluated in detail.^[10]

Chinese officials announced in May 1988 that the journal would be closed.^[11] Finally, it ceased publication in June 1988, and was succeeded by Qiushi (Chinese: Seeking Truth).^[1]

In 1966, Pol Pot formed a similar magazine with the same name in Cambodia in Khmer, Tung Krahom, modelled on Red Flag.^[12]

References

1. "China to Furl Red Flag, Its Maoist Theoretical Journal". Los Angeles Times. Beijing. 1 May 1988. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
2. Cynthia Leung; Jiening Ruan (2012). Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Chinese Literacy in China. Springer Netherlands. p. 52. ISBN 978-94-007-4821-7.
3. Robert B. Kaplan; Richard B. Baldauf (2008). Language Planning and Policy in Asia: Japan, Nepal, Taiwan and Chinese characters. Bristol; Buffalo; Toronto: Multilingual Matters. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-84769-095-1.
4. Ma Xiangqi (2012). "两报一刊"有《光明日报》吗". CNKI (in Chinese). No. 2. Archived from the original on 17 April 2017.
5. Qin Shao (Spring 2010). "Waving the Red Flag: Cultural Memory and Grassroots Protest in Housing Disputes in Shanghai". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 22 (1): 216. JSTOR 41491022.
6. Lawrence R. Sullivan (2007). Historical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p. 420. ISBN 978-0-8108-6443-6.
7. Kevin Latham (2007). Pop Culture China!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. Santa Barbara, CA; Denver, CO; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. p. 153. ISBN 978-1-85109-582-7.
8. Florence Mok (2021). "Disseminating and Containing Communist Propaganda to Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia through Hong Kong, the Cold War Pivot, 1949–1960". The Historical Journal. 65 (5): 1416. doi:10.1017/s0018246x21000790. S2CID 245040808.
9. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. February 1969. p. 86.
10. Carlotta Clivio (2019). "Neither for, nor against Mao: PCI-CCP interactions and the normalisation of Sino-Italian Relations, 1966–71" (PDF). Cold War History. 19 (3): 383. doi:10.1080/14682745.2018.1529758. S2CID 158702260.
11. Roderick MacFarquhar (1997). The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao and Deng. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 414. ISBN 978-0-521-58863-8.
12. Odd Arne Westad; Sophie Quinn-Judge (2006). The Third Indochina War: Conflict Between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79. London; New York: Routledge. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-134-16776-0.