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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 17. July 18th, 1973

Lessons from a Puppet Show

Lessons from a Puppet Show

Cartoon of a nurse reading to a boy

Politically the performance brought out several very important principles of Chinese life today, as well as popularising revolutionary struggle in the past. For example the principle of co-operation — unity is strength, was brought out very clearly. In an effort to show his keeness a young recruit tried to throw a huge page break boulder over a cliff. One by one other soldiers of the 8th Route Army joined him until eventually all of them succeeded in removing the boulder. This scene demonstrated that by uniting the people as a single force the 8th Route Army could defeat the Japanese invaders.

Another scene showed how the 8th Route Army was an inseparable part of the masses. The young recruit goes to the Headquarters of the Japanese and the Chinese puppet army, ostensibly to collect a debt from an officer in the puppet army. The Japanese commander is desperately trying to find food for his troops and the young man tells him there is plenty of food in his village. "Aren't you a member of the 8th Route Army," asks the Japanese commander and the puppet captain suspiciously. The boy laughs and mockingly replies "Can't you tell the difference between the 8th Route Army and the masses?" Somewhat perplexed the Japanese and the puppet troops follow him to his village and are annihilated by the local people and the 8th Route Army.

This scene emphasised a continuing revolutionary principle, not just an historical fact. The People's Liberation Army today is as inseparable from the masses as the 8th Route Army was during the Anti-Japanese war.

But the Chinese people do not just learn the revolutionary principles on which their society is run through indirect experience, by studying the past. They learn and practice these principles in everyday life.