------Program code: DO-090107-03672 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
01-07-2009 10:12
-da.jpg) |
February 10th, 1948 was the first day of Chinese New Year, the year of Wuzi in the lunar calendar. In a liberated area in northeast China, the peasants who had been allotted movable property and land from landlords pasted New Year couplets on their doors. On the inner walls, portraits of the kitchen god were replaced with images of Mao Zedong.
Members of the Second Northeast China Art Troupe joined local peasants in the yangge dance in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
-da.jpg) |
During the previous year, the Northeast Field Army had launched the autumn offensive, capturing 15 cities and gaining control of most of northeast China. In a number of large, isolated cities along the railways, Kuomintang troops were besieged.
On the Central Plains, a field army led by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, another field army led by Chen Yi and Su Yu, and an army group led by Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi, defeated the enemy’s attack on the Dabie Mountains and annihilated 69,000 Kuomintang troops, in so doing opening up the Central Plains Liberated Area.
By the beginning of 1948 the number of combatants in the Liberation Army had reached 2.49 million, well up from the figure of 1.2 million at the start of the war, while the number of the Kuomintang troops, experiencing a decline in morale, had dropped from 4.3 million to 3.65 million.
In a proclamation published in Nanjing on New Year’s Day, Chiang Kai-shek admitted there had been repeated losses over the past year and urged the public to “support the policy of suppression against the Communist Party”. But people in the Kuomintang-controlled areas were suffering greatly due to the severe economic depression. On January 5th, the Shanghai newspaper “Shen Bao” published a piece of doggerel complaining about the soaring prices and corrupt officials.
A newsreel made by the Central Film Studio described how the National Government had even forced dancing girls to register to increase its tax revenue.
In September 1947, the National Government banned commercial dance halls to “practise economy to suppress the Communist rebellion and build up the country”. In Shanghai, where there were 29 registered commercial dance halls employing some 20,000 dancing girls, musicians and waiters, rallies were held to protest against the ban. The Shanghai Bureau of Social Affairs, however, ordered the dance halls closed down, group by group, through the drawing of lots. The first closures – of the Paramount Hall and 13 other major dance halls - took place on January 31st.
When dancing girls and other former employees of the dance halls flocked to the Bureau of Social Affairs. Jack Birns, a photographer with the American magazine “Life”, reported that a messy conflict broke out when demonstrators and police exchanged blows, and that demonstrators, numbering in the thousands, created a massive disturbance at the Bureau (of Social Affairs). Broken glass flew in all directions and furniture was thrown out of windows.
