Chairman Mao’s historic swim – glorified in China but ridiculed by the rest of the world
Fifty years ago, Mao Zedong’s ‘world-record-breaking’ swim in the Yangtze River signalled the return of the Great Helmsman. Other state leaders have since tried to use the sport as a demonstration of power, with varying results
It was probably the most powerful political publicity stunt in Chinese history. Fifty years ago this summer, 73-year-old Chairman Mao Zedong plunged into the Yangtze and led a reported 5,000 adoring followers in Wuhan’s annual swim. The ripple effect would last for a decade.
The stage-managed act of political theatre generated news worldwide, inspiring a series of classic propaganda art posters and even a movie, released in August 1966.
“The water of the river seemed to be smiling that day,” reported the official Chinese news agency.
Those looking on though could hardly have grasped the full significance of the event, which was loaded with symbolism for the Chinese people.
Mao had left Beijing and retreated to the shadows in Hangzhou in late 1965, buffeted by his critics among the revisionist bureaucrats of the Communist Party’s counter-revolutionary faction. He entered the waters at Wuhan the old man of the revolution, his nascent Cultural Revolution still fragile in its conception. He emerged reborn in the eyes of the nation, the inheritor of modern China and once more the Great Helmsman, ready to lead the country to its true revolutionary destiny. Today’s most accomplished spin doctor could not have planned it better.