Good Memories (12) My Life in the Propaganda Team

The full name of the Workers' Propaganda Team is Workers' Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team. Mao Zedong Thought propaganda team is divided into workers, troops and farmers. Mao Zedong Thought propaganda team is referred to as industrial propaganda team, military propaganda team and agricultural propaganda team. 1968 in the summer, the central government issued an order to send workers' propaganda teams to colleges and secondary schools.

Strictly speaking, the selected workers' propaganda team members are all industrial workers, generally party member, educated, middle-aged and young.

Xigang Primary School, where we were studying at that time, was no exception. I should have graduated from primary school by then. Due to the delay in graduation from autumn to spring (referring to the graduation time in February), I can't remember when the school joined the propaganda team. But because I joined the propaganda team, which accepted the leadership of the propaganda team, we regularly organized rehearsals and arranged performances every day. On this day, many young people came to help us rehearse the program, and later learned that they were all members of the workers' propaganda team.

The propaganda team of the school was stationed by Hefei Machine Tool Factory (later changed to Hefei Meiling Refrigerator Factory). Some members of the propaganda team are university graduates from 1964 and 1965. After several years of training after graduation, they were assigned to factories because they thought they were politically mature. I was admitted to the university before the Cultural Revolution, and I just started my sophomore or junior year. Then they took part in the movement. They are knowledgeable, educated and energetic, and they all brag.

At that time, we were only 12 to 13 years old, and the members of the propaganda team were older than us 10 years old. We rehearse together every day and often go to the nearby countryside to arrange performances. We have been together for a long time, and they regard us as little brothers and sisters. Sometimes they rehearse in the auditorium of the machine tool factory. During the break, we went to the dormitory of the propaganda team to play. That is a two-story building, which we call the workers' propaganda team.

What impressed me most was that an uncle borrowed a camera from the factory to take pictures of us. The camera is Shanghai Seagull brand, and it uses 120 film. After taking pictures of us, he took the film out of the camera and sent it to the photo studio to develop the negative. After the negatives were developed, the uncles developed them themselves. We followed it to see how to print photos. It was fun and charming. At night, we cover the dormitory windows with sheets. Wrap the light bulb in the room with red silk. If one layer is not enough, use two layers. The whole room is dark. Then turn on the exposure machine to develop the photos. The exposure machine is a small wooden box with frosted light bulbs inside. Only the glass plate facing upwards is transparent. We put the negative on the glass, and then put the bought photographic paper on the negative. Photographic paper with cracks and wrinkles will close after a few seconds. Control the exposure of photographic paper, then put the photographic paper into the developing water, hold it with chopsticks and swing it back and forth in the water. After the black-and-white portraits are developed, they are washed in a clear water basin, then put in fixing water, soaked in fixing water for a few minutes, and finally stuck on the glass, dried and then removed from the glass. This process of developing photos makes us feel very real.

Uncle Huang of the propaganda team works in the heat treatment workshop of the factory. He often takes us to his workshop to play, so we ask him what this workshop is for. He put the metal on the electric stove to burn red, then put it in the pool to let it cool quickly, and then printed out the data before and after treatment on the hardness tester, telling us how much the metal strength has increased and what material this metal can become.

Uncle Huang graduated from Beijing University of Technology and is from Beijing. After graduation, I worked on a farm and was assigned to work in Hefei Machine Tool Plant. Later, he was promoted to deputy general manager of Meiling Group.

At that time, the performances of the literature and art propaganda team were mainly dancing, dialogue, poetry reading and solo, and most of the songs they sang were Mao Zedong's poems and quotations to promote Mao Zedong Thought? Besides drums, gongs, cymbals and cymbals, there are also bangzi and wooden fish to beat the time. The main dance tracks are sunflowers and little red books. Of course, everyone wears the reformed military uniform and arranges the words "Long live Chairman Mao" with sunflowers.

Dance has a strong sense of rhythm, and gongs and drums are musical instruments with strong voices and distinct rhythms. We always knock a gong and drum before the performance, and we don't start the formal performance until the people in the venue are basically full. With the cooperation of gongs and drums, the stage atmosphere is set off and rendered. After the general stage layout is completed, play a section of "Flower Drum Lantern". Huagu Lantern is a traditional dance in Bengbu City, Fengtai County and Yingshang County of Anhui Province, and it is one of the national intangible cultural heritages. It is a kind of folk dance that perfectly combines dance, lanterns and gongs and drums, among which the opening gongs and drums of lanterns are very infectious.

According to the instruction of Deng Xiaoping in September 1977, "The problem of workers' propaganda teams should be solved, and it is not safe to stay in school",10.6, 165438, the Central Committee forwarded the report of the Ministry of Education, and all the workers' propaganda teams stationed in universities, primary schools and secondary schools withdrew from the school.