Propaganda Images Used by Communist Regimes to Indoctrinate Masses

Anti-U.S. propaganda poster in a primary school at the Chongsan-ri Farm in North Korea. stephan/CC BY-SA 2.0

With hundreds of millions of images posted on the internet or published in media across the world, have you ever considered if what you’re looking at is something genuine or just another piece of propaganda?

In the era of fake news, there are instances where images are carefully crafted to create a false impression and deceive people. Below are some posters and images that had been used widely by the totalitarian regimes of North Korea and China as propaganda tools to indoctrinate its citizens.

Posters With Anti-U.S. Messages

People outside the “hermit kingdom” of North Korea usually aren’t much aware of what is happening inside the isolated state, except if one can access the firsthand reports of North Korean defectors.

For decades, North Korea had brainwashed its citizens by putting up propaganda banners and posters, which often contained anti-U.S. messages, around the country. Not only were these messages seen on the streets, but the communist regime also put up posters in schools, as well as on the country’s postal stamps.

However, New York Post reported that the anti-U.S. narrative took an “Orwellian turn” days before then-President Donald Trump’s June 2018 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The posters that portrayed the United States in a bad light all of a sudden disappeared.

An anti-U.S. propaganda poster showing a fist crushing a U.S. soldier on a display on the streets of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, on Feb. 27, 2008. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images

Rowan Beard, a tour manager at Young Pioneer Tours, told Reuters, “All the anti-American posters I usually see around Kim II-sung Square and at shops, they’ve all just gone. In five years working in North Korea, I’ve never seen them completely disappear before.”

However, according to NK News, some more subtle anti-U.S. theme posters did show up in January 2019, and the state media’s propaganda remained “coded,” even in the year 2020.

Propaganda poster in a primary school at the Chongsan-ri Farm. (stephan/CC BY-SA 2.0)

A stamp printed by North Korea shows solidarity with International Revolutionary Forces, circa 1971. artnana/Shutterstock

Appeal Not ‘Siege’: Falun Gong’s Historic Peaceful Gathering

Since coming into power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been actively cracking down on dissidents, minorities, and religious groups. For instance, in 1999, a peaceful protest was labeled as a “siege” by the communist regime.

On April 25, 1999, some 10,000 Falun Gong adherents made their way to China’s Central Appeals Office on Fuyou Street in Beijing. Some were local residents, while others had traveled from different parts of the country to the capital after hearing that Tianjin authorities had arrested over 40 practitioners two days prior, on April 23.

More than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered on Fuyou Street in Beijing on April 25, 1999, to peacefully appeal for fair treatment. The event was propagandized by the Chinese Communist Party and used as an excuse to launch a brutal persecution campaign that continues today. Courtesy of Minghui.org

Several days prior to the arrest, a magazine in Tianjin published an article that slandered Falun Gong. To request the false report be corrected, some practitioners wrote to the magazine and some adherents went to Tianjin to try to redress the issue in person, but the authorities called in the riot police, which led to 45 being arrested. The officials at Tianjin Municipality then told them to go to the State Council Appeals Office in Beijing.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient cultivation discipline of the Buddha-school tradition that was introduced in China in 1992. The practice consists of moral teachings and five gentle exercises. By the late 1990s, around 70–100 million Chinese people were practicing Falun Gong, making the numbers more than the CCP’s membership.

When Falun Gong practitioners arrived early on the morning of April 25, 1999, on Fuyou Street, they noticed that the police were already there and directing them to the street across Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Chinese regime and the central government. Due to the large number of people, this move put them into a position where they surrounded Zhongnanhai—which was later accused by the CCP to be “besieging” the central government.

The scene on Fuyou Street before police closed the street to traffic on April 25, 1999. Minghui

Falun Gong practitioners began arriving on Fuyou Street early on the morning of April 25. Some 1,000 public security personnel and plainclothes officers had already been deployed. Minghui

However, according to the photos taken by the ABC, the practitioners were lined up in an orderly manner, with some sitting down or reading their books, while others were practicing the Falun Gong exercises. There was sufficient room for pedestrians to walk through and the traffic wasn’t affected.

“No record, film, or plausible account suggests that the Falun Gong practitioners did anything even faintly provocative during the entire episode, which continued for 16 hours. No littering, smoking, chanting, or speaking to reporters,” wrote investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann in the article “An Occurrence on Fuyou Street.”

The crowd later dispersed quietly after the then-premier, Zhu Rongji, agreed to meet Falun Gong representatives and grant their request to release those wrongfully detained. Though the matter was resolved that day, the Chinese regime launched a brutal persecution campaign three months later on July 20, 1999, which saw countless Falun Gong practitioners being arrested, detained, and tortured. Some 4,641 adherents were also confirmed to have died from the persecution, which continues today.

Posters on China’s One-Child Policy

China’s infamous, now-lifted one-child policy was introduced back in 1979 to control the country’s rapidly growing population. Propaganda posters, murals, and billboards were put up all across the country in an attempt to educate citizens to give birth to only one child, informing them of the imaginary benefits of a better life that awaits them and being provided for by the government when they are old.

However, the policy led to millions of unborn babies being aborted. It resulted in a huge gender disparity due to the strong preference for having a son. The policy also saw many families being subjected to heavy fines, forced abortions, and sterilizations, as well as the illegal trafficking of Burmese women for forced marriage and childbearing.

China's "one-child" policy billboard reading "Have less children, have a better life" greets residents on the main street of Shuangwang, in southern China's Guangxi region, in May 2017. Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images

An old slogan on the wall in Jiande Village reads, "Have one baby and the government will provide for the aged." atiger/Shutterstock

China lifted the policy in 2016 and has turned it into a “two-child policy.” Despite the reformed policy, the country is facing a population crisis as birth rates are still declining.

Socialist Haircut

North Korea’s state television broadcast a propaganda program called “Let’s trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle” between 2004 and 2005, which told its citizens what kind of hairstyle was acceptable in the country.

“Hair should be kept between 1 cm and 5 cm in length and should be trimmed every 15 days,” according to the program, The Guardian reported.

The five-part series stated the negative effects of long hair, including that it “consumes a great deal of nutrition,” and that it could actually snatch away energy from the brain, according to the BBC.

A board showing approved hairstyles is displayed at a men's salon in the Munsu Water Park complex on Aug. 19, 2018, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Carl Court/Getty Images

The state radio program also told locals the reason behind dressing tidily. It’s “important in repelling the enemies’ maneuvers to infiltrate corrupt capitalist ideas and lifestyle and establishing the socialist lifestyle of the military-first era,” the radio mentioned.