Mass Mobilization, Non-Competition and Proletarian Expertise: Mass Callisthenics and the Contested Egalitarian Politics in the Early People’s Republic of China, 1949–1976

AbstractAfter the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted ‘mass sports and physical culture’ (qunzhong tiyu) to justify its political claims and serve socialist construction. The relative ease of promoting its easily amendable forms and collective spirit earned mass callisthenics a distinctive role in Maoist physical culture. Much energy went into the distinctive creation of what became Mao-era China’s (1949-1976) two most pervasive and significantly symbolic forms of mass callisthenics: broadcast callisthenics (guangbo ticao) and production callisthenics (shengchan cao). However, this development was inundated with twists and turns for the CCP, sports leaders and experts, and ordinary participants due to the Party’s ambivalent egalitarian politics, which relied heavily on mass mobilization and revered proletarian expertise, reflecting its complicated and divided interpretation of the Soviet model and its recollection of its own revolutionary legacy. Through an analysis of abundant central and local materials, this article tells the unheeded story of mass callisthenics, which was a miniature of the contested anti-elitism movements of Mao-era China.Keywords: Mass callisthenicsMaoist egalitarian politicsthe Chinese Communist Party (CCP)physical education professionalsthe working class Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 ‘Fulaishan jiedao houshiyao xiaoxue shisheng lexiang dijiutao guangbo ticao’[Students and teachers of Houshiyao primary school at Fulaishan subdistrict enjoy doing the ninth edition of broadcast callisthenics], November 12, 2019, https://www.meipian.cn/2ihxo5hb (accessed May 18, 2022).2 In Chinese, the term ‘tiyu’ covers all the English definitions of ‘sports’, ‘physical culture’ and ‘physical education’. Thus, I leave it untranslated in most parts of my writing and use these English terms in specific contexts. In this article, the term ‘mass tiyu’ (qunzhong tiyu) refers to sports and physical culture programmes that were designed for the general public. By contrast, the term ‘elite sports’ refers to programmes that aimed to cultivate specialist athletes.3 For callisthenics in modern China, see Andrew D. Morris, Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004); Hwang Jinlin, Lishi, shenti, guojia: jindai zhongguo de shenti xing-cheng, 1895–1937 [History, body and the state: The formation of the body in modern China, 1895–1937] (Beijing: Xinxing chubanshe, 2006), 45–86; Robert Culp, ‘Rethinking Governmentality: Training, Cultivation, and Cultural Citizenship in Nationalist China’, The Journal of Asian Studies 65, no. 3 (2006): 529–48; Nicolas Schillinger, The Body and Military Masculinity in Late Qing and Early Republican China: The Art of Governing Soldiers (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016). For callisthenics in socialist bloc countries, see James Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Susan Grant, Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014); David L. Hoffman, ‘Bodies of Knowledge: Physical Culture and the New Soviet Man’, in Language and Revolution: Making Modern Political Identities, ed. Igal Halfin (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002), 228–42; Molly Wilkinson Johnson, Training Socialist Citizens: Sports and the State in East Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Gyongyi Szabo Foldesi, ‘From Mass Sport to the “Sport for All” Movement in the “Socialist” Countries in Eastern Europe’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 26, no. 4 (1991):239–534 Michel Bonnin, The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China’s Educated Youth (1968–1980) (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2013), 13–8.5 See Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yanan Way Revisited (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995), 249–54; Miin-ling Yu, ‘“Labor Is Glorious”: Model Laborers in the PRC’, in China Learns from the Soviet Union, eds. Thomas P. Bernstein and Hua-yu Li (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 231–58.6 Sigrid Schmalzer, ‘Red and Expert’, in Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi, ed. Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019), 215–20.7 John M. Hoberman, Sport and Political Ideology (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984), 219.8 Dong-Jhy Hwang and Li-Ke Chang. ‘Sport, Maoism and the Beijing Olympics: One Century One Ideology’, China Perspectives, no. 1 (2008): 4–17.9 Morris, Marrow of the Nation, 30–7, 105–12, 128–39. However, military callisthenics (bingcao) also faced many social criticisms for its barbarism (ibid., 36–41, 48–52). ‘Trophyism’ and the ‘athlete system’ were terms used by social critics in modern China, respectively criticizing those who participated in sports allegedly only for winning trophies and those who developed tiyu for the sake of selecting and cultivating elite athletes.10 Wang Zengming and Zeng Biao, eds., Zhongguo hongse tiyushi [History of Chinese red tiyu] (Xi’an: Xibei daxue chubanshe, 2013), 62–5, 125–8.11 Morris, Marrow of the Nation, 127. The nationalist government refers to the government that governed the Republic of China (ROC) from 1925 to 1948, led by the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party).12 See Andrew G. Walder, China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 39; Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: Free Press, 1999), 31–54.13 See Yu, ‘“Labor Is Glorious”’, 234–5; Selden, China in Revolution.14 Wang and Zeng, Zhongguo hongse tiyushi, 194–220.15 Thomas P. Bernstein, ‘Introduction: The Complexities of Learning from the Soviet Union’, in China Learns from the Soviet Union, ed. Bernstein and Li, 8. Bernstein categorized three Soviet models and used the term ‘revolutionary Stalinism’ to describe the Soviet ‘socialist offensive’ of 1929–1934.16 Susan Brownell, Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 19.17 Grace Yen Shen, ‘Scientism in the Twentieth Century’, in Modern Chinese Religion II, 1850–2015, ed. Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely and John Lagerway (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 91–137.18 Timothy Cheek, The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 155; Eddy U, Creating the Intellectual: Chinese Communism and the Rise of a Classification (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019), 42–67; Meisner, Mao’s China and After, 44; Sigrid Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 113–5.19 Bernstein, ‘Introduction’, 8. Technological elitism was a major feature of what Bernstein defined as ‘bureaucratic and middle-class Stalinism’, as the account that follows unveils.20 Meisner, Mao’s China and After, 54.21 See Wu Shaozu, ed., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo tiyushi, 1949–1998 [Sports history of the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1998] (Beijing: Zhongguo shuji chubanshe, 1999), 1–6; Amanda Shuman, ‘The Politics of Socialist Athletics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1966’ (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Cruz, 2014), 63–72; Liang Shen and Hong Fan, ‘Sport, Ideology and Nation-Building in the Early Years of the People’s Republic of China’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 38, no. 17 (2021): 1774–90.22 Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society, 101–2.23 For the history of Chinese group callisthenics, see Huang Kuanrou, Mao Xuexin and Wu Xin, ‘The Historical Development of Chinese Group Callisthenics’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 7 (2011): 1072–85.24 ‘Beijingshi diyijie renmin tiyudahui choubei gongzuo zongjie’ [Summary of the preparation work for the First Beijing People’s Sports Meeting], Xin tiyu, July 1950, 30.25 Feng Wenbin, ‘Guanyu kaizhan renmin tiyu de jige wenti’ [Several issues on the development of people’s tiyu], Xin tiyu, September 1950, 4.26 The Chinese New Democratic Youth League (renamed the Chinese Communist Youth League in 1957) supervised national tiyu in the early 1950s. The ACSF, officially founded in 1952, was the PRC’s first national tiyu organization.27 Feng, ‘Guanyu kaizhan renmin tiyu de jige wenti’, 4.28 Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society, 137.29 ‘Guangbo ticao: bange shiji de quanmin jianshen jiyi’ [Broadcast callisthenics: Half a century of memories of mass physical exercises], Beijing ribao, July 15, 2008, 1430 ‘Guanyu tuiguang guangbo ticao de lianhe tongzhi’ [Joint notification on promoting broadcast callisthenics], November 24, 1951, in Zhonghua renmin gongheguo tiyu yundong wenjian huibian (diyi ji) [PRC sports documents (compilation 1)] (Beijing: Renmin tiyu chubanshe, 1957), 10.31 Hao Keqiang, ‘Zuoticao shi aiguo qingnian meitian bibukeshao de huodong’ [Doing broadcast callisthenics is an indispensable activity for patriotic youth], Xin tiyu, December 1951, 13.32 Wu Xue, ‘68sui de guangbo ticao: quanmin yundong de “qimeng”’[68 year-old broadcast callisthenics: the ‘torchbearer’ of mass physical exercises], Xinmin zhoukan, November 20, 2019, 38.33 See Shuman, ‘The Politics of Socialist Athletics in the People’s Republic of China’, 72–7.34 Chen Zhenhua, Lu Enchun and Li Shiming, Zhongguo ticao yundong shi [History of Chinese callisthenics and gymnastics] (Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe, 1990), 605.35 Yang Wei, ‘Wo de muqin yanglie’ [My mother Yang Lie], in Chao’an wenshi (di shiyi ji) [Historical accounts of the Chao’an County (vol. 11)], ed. Chao’an xian zhengxie wenshi weiyuanhui (Chao’an, 2007), 100–2.36 ‘Guangbo ticao: bange shiji de quanmin jianshen jiyi’, 14.37 Pei Shunyuan and Zhang Xiangchao, ‘Guomian wuchang dianxing shiyan de guangbocao’ [Typical experiments of broadcast callisthenics in the No. 5 State-Owned Cotton Mill], Xinmin wanbao, September 2, 1953, 4.38 Dong Chengliang and Jin Zhaojun, ‘Guangbo ticao dui zengjin shenti jiankang de jiazhi’ [The values of broadcast callisthenics for physical health], Xinmin wanbao, January 30, 1953, 3.39 Wu Weili, ‘Huxi gongren julebu juban guangbocao xuexiban’ [Huxi workers’ club held broadcast callisthenics study classes], Xinmin wanbao, January 16, 1953, 3.40 ‘Guangbo ticao: bange shiji de quanmin jianshen jiyi’, 14.41 ‘Guanyu zai quanguo xiaoxue zhong tuixing shaonian guangbo ticao de lianhe zhishi’ [Joint instruction on promoting juvenile broadcast callisthenics in primary schools nationwide], August, 1954, in Zhonghua renmin gongheguo tiyu yundong wenjian huibian (diyi ji), 80–1.42 The period 1953–1957 was the PRC’s transition to socialism. Largely modelled on revolutionary Stalinism, the PRC began its rapid industrialization and economic collectivization.43 Yu, ‘“Labor Is Glorious”’, 235–6.44 Many studies have analyzed the internal and external politics of the PRC’s elite competitive sports during the Mao years. For some comprehensive accounts, see Xu Guoqi, Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895–2008 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008); Fan Hong and Lu Zhouxiang, The Politicisation of Sport in Modern China: Communists and Champions (London: Routledge, 2014); Shuman, ‘The Politics of Socialist Athletics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1966’; Aurélien Boucher and Steven Pope, ‘Without a Red Leader’s Fan: A Connected History of the Emergence of Table Tennis as China’s National Sport’, Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture 1, no. 1 (2022): 40–58.45 Shuman, ‘The Politics of Socialist Athletics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1966’, 252–546 Zhang Xiangchao, ‘Zhengque renshi juban yundong jingsaihui de yiyi’ [Properly understand the meaning of holding sports competition meetings], Xinmin wanbao, October 17, 1953, 4.47 ‘Shanghaishi tiyu yundong weiyuanhui guanyu shanghaishi kaizhan guangbo ticao de qingkuang baogao’ [Report from the SMSC preparation committee on situations for promoting broadcast callisthenics in Shanghai], November 1953, B126-1-52-20, Shanghai Municipal Archives, Shanghai, China (hereafter SMA).48 ‘Huochetou tiyu xiehui shanghai fenqu jinri juxing guangbo ticao bisai’ [Shanghai Partition of Locomotive Sports Association held broadcast callisthenics competition today], Xin tiyu, May 10, 1954, 12.49 ‘Gongqingtuan shanghaishi guoying shanghai diwu mianfangzhichang weiyuanhui guanyu jinyibu gonggu guangbo ticao kaizhan hongqi jingsai de baogao’ [Report from the Communist Youth League committee of the Shanghai State-Owned No. 5 Cotton Mill on further consolidating broadcast callisthenics and developing red flag competitions], February 2, 1953, B126-1-32-15, SMA.50 ‘Shanghai fenqu guangbo ticao hongqi jingsai zongjie’ [Summary report from the Shanghai Partition on broadcast callisthenics red flag competitions], September 7, 1953.51 Interview with Hu Luming, March 16, 2021.52 ‘Gongqingtuan shanghaishi guoying shanghai diwu mianfangzhichang weiyuanhui guanyu jinyibu gonggu guangbo ticao kaizhan hongqi jingsai de baogao’, B126-1-32-15, SMA.53 ‘Wei shenme yao juxing gezhong geyang de bisai’ [Why did we hold all kinds of competitions?], Xinmin wanbao, November 13, 1954, 4.54 The 1957 Rectification Movement was launched by the CCP Central Committee to attack the so-called bureaucratism (guanliao zhuyi), factionalism (zongpai zhuyi) and subjectivism (zhuguan zhuyi) among Party members. Besides self-inspection, the CCP motivated the general public to express opinions about them.55 Founded in 1952, the SSC was affiliated to the PRC central government and had taken charge of national tiyu undertakings ever since, replacing the role of the Youth League and the ACSF.56 Dong Shouyi, ‘Tiyu gongzuo zhong de jige wenti’ [Several problems with tiyu work], Xin tiyu, July 1957, 15–6.57 Cao Jianchun, ‘Youpai weishenme cong qunzhong tiyu fangmian xiang dang jingong’ [Why did the rightists attack the Party through mass tiyu], Xin tiyu, September 1957, 3–4.58 Wu Jiangping, ‘Weishenme shuo shi “yingxing haozhao”: Bo Dong Shouyi guanyu guangbo ticao de miulun’ [Why did he call it ‘mandatory mobilization’? Rebutting Dong Shouyi’s fallacies on broadcast callisthenics], Xin tiyu, September 1957, 9.59 The Anti-Rightist Movement (1957–1959) was a backlash against the Rectification Movement, during which Mao Zedong retreated and the CCP began a crackdown against numerous critics, who were attacked as ‘rightists’. The downfalls of Dong, Huang and Zhang were also related to their non-red experiences before 1949. Dong used to work for the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and was the coach of the ROC national basketball team. Huang and Zhang used to be senior KMT military leaders. The ‘rightist’ accusations against them were revoked in 1958, but they were again persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.60 Bernstein, ‘Introduction’, 15–17. Mainly initiated by Mao, the Great Leap Forward was a social, political and economic campaign from 1958 to 1962, during which the CCP attempted to accelerate towards full communism within a short period of time.61 Ibid., 8.62 Walder, China under Mao, 97–9.63 See Grant, Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society, 159–70.64 ‘Guojia tiwei dangzu guanyu 1960nian quanguo tiyu gongzuo huiyi qingkuang de baogao (zhailu)’ [Report from the SSC Party Committee on the 1960 National Tiyu Work Conference (excerpt)], February 17, 1960, in Tiyu yundong wenjian xuanbian, 1949–1981, [Selected sport documents, 1949–1981], compiled by Guojia tiwei zhengce yanjiushi (Beijing: Renmin tiyu chubanshe, 1982), 50.65 ‘Shanghaishi 1958 nian “quanmin tiyu huodong zhou” gongzuo zongjie’ [Work summary of Shanghai 1958 ‘week of mass tiyu activities’], June 19, 1958, B126-1-375-8, SMA.66 Rong Gaotang, ‘Chengfengpolang, zhengqu tiyu dayuejin’ [Brave the winds and waves and strive for the Great Leap Forward in tiyu], Xinmin wanbao, February 10, 1958, 3.67 ‘Shanghaishi tiyu yundong weiyuanhui guanyu guangbo ticao bisai banfa (cao’an)’ [The SMSC’s regulations for broadcast callisthenics competition (draft)], 1958, B126-1-359-39, SMA.68 Bernstein, ‘Introduction’, 15–6.69 Yu, ‘“Labor Is Glorious”’, 244.70 Shuman, ‘The Politics of Socialist Athletics in the People’s Republic of China’, 273–83.71 Mao Zedong, ‘Tiyu zhi yanjiu’ [A study of physical education], in Collected Works of Mao Tse-tung (1917–1949) (Arlington, VA: Joint Publications Research Service, 1978), 11.72 ‘Guojia tiwei guanyu guanche zhongyang guanyu weisheng gongzuo de zhishi jingshen, dali kaizhan qunzhong tiyu huodong de yijian’ [The SSC’s opinions on implementing the spirit of the Central Committee’s directions on public health work and intensively developing mass tiyu], April 25, 1960, in Tiyu yundong wenjian xuanbian, 1949–1981, 296.73 For the story of Mao and swimming, see Poon Shuk-wah, ‘Embodying Maoism: The Swimming Craze, the Mao Cult, and Body Politics in Communist China, 1950s–1970s.’ Modern Asian Studies 53, no. 5 (2019): 1450–85.74 Joel Andreas, Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 61; Walder, China under Mao, 97–9; Meisner, Mao’s China and After, 118–9.75 See Schmalzer, ‘Red and Expert’, in Afterlives of Chinese Communism, ed. Sorace, Franceschini and Loubere, 215–20; Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man, 115–28.76 The term ‘mass science’ was also generally referred to as ‘mass science research’ (qunzhong kexue yanjiu), ‘science of mass character’ (qunzhongxing kexue) or ‘masses doing science’ (qunzhong ban kexue) in Mao-era official narratives. See Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man, 114.77 For studies of these topics, see Yi Lianyuan, ‘“qunzhong kexue” yu xinzhongguo jishu zhengzhi shuping’ [‘Mass science’ and the techno-politics of new China: A critical review], Kaifang shidai, no. 5 (2019): 63–75.78 ‘Da yuejin de jianbing’ [Pioneers of the GLF], Xin tiyu, May 1958, 3–4.79 Chen Zhonghuang, ‘Kuanggong chushen de yundong jianjiang: Dong Yaolu’ [Dong Yaolu: From a miner to an excellent athlete], Xin tiyu, May 1959, 14–5.80 Chen Zhonghua, ‘Tigao changpao sudu he naili de fangfa’ [Methods for improving speed and endurance in long-distance running], Xin tiyu, June 1959, 26–7.81 ‘Beijing tiyu xueyuan kaizhan jishu geming’ [Beijing University of Sports carried out a technical revolution], Xin tiyu, March 1959, 19.82 ‘Jiji caiqu cuoshi, jiasu tigao chengji’ [Actively take measures to accelerate improving performance], Xin tiyu, March 1959, 5.83 Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society, 146–7.84 Jia Yurui and Liu Junxiang, ‘Jieshao yizhong gongren ticao’ [Introducing a worker callisthenics], Xin tiyu, May 1951, 29.85 ‘Gongren jin yanjiao chuangzao le zhanwu zuoye ticao’ [A worker called Jin Yanjiao created railway operation callisthenics], Xin tiyu, July 1951, 23–4.86 Shanghaishi tiyu yundong weiyuanhui qunzhong tiyu chu ed., Shengchancao jieshao [Introduction to production callisthenics] (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1958), 10.87 Ibid., 1–7.88 ‘Shengchancao zhuozhu gongxiao, shi fangzhi tixie dali tuiguang’ [The Municipal Textile Sports Commission is vigorously promoting production callisthenics that has achieved brilliant effects], Xinmin wanbao, April 22, 1958, 3.89 See also the stories of some famous scientists at that time in Sigrid Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 47–99; Peter Neushul and Zuoyue Wang, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Sea: C.K. Tseng, Mariculture, and the Politics of Science in Modern China’, Isis 91, no. 1 (2000): 59–88.90 Yuan Gu, ‘Shenru gongchang fudao, dagao qunzhong tiyu: tiyuan shisheng yu gongren hebian shengchancao’ [Go deep into the factory to instruct and extensively develop mass tiyu: Teachers and students of Shanghai University of Sports co-created production callisthenics with workers], Xinmin wanbao, June 8, 1960, 3; Interview with Wang Yuan, March 28, 202191 ‘Beijing tiyu xueyuan shisheng shuqi dagao qunzhong tiyu’ [Teachers and students of Beijing University of Sports extensively develop mass tiyu during the summer vacation], Xinmin wanbao, August 26, 1958, 3.92 ‘Yiliao tiyu ke zhi yaosuan beiteng, yiwu renyuan zai gangtiechang shiyan xiaoguo lianghao’ [Medical tiyu can cure pain in the back: Medical staff achieved good experimental effects in the iron–steel factory], Wenhui bao, March 30, 1959, 2.93 ‘Diyi tao gongren cao: fangzhi gongren cao’ [The first edition of worker callisthenics: Textile worker callisthenics], Xinmin wanbao, March 6, 1960, 3; ‘Guojia tiwei jintian gongbu gangtie gongren cao he meikuang gongren cao’ [The SSC carried out ironworker callisthenics and coal miner callisthenics today], Xinmin wanbao, April 27, 1960, 3.94 A typical example is the barefoot doctor system in the countryside, where medical resources were scarce. See Chunjuan Nancy Wei, ‘Barefoot Doctors: The Legacy of Chairman Mao’s Healthcare’, in Mr Science and Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution: Science and Technology in Modern China, ed. Chunjuan Nancy Wei and Darryl E. Brock (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013), 251–80.95 ‘Guojia tiwei dangzu guanyu 1960nian quanguo tiyu gongzuo huiyi qingkuang de baogao (zhailu)’, 51–2.96 Yi Bing, ‘Tiyu wei shengchan fuwu de hao bangyang’ [A good example of tiyu serving production], Xinmin wanbao, September 27, 1960, 3.97 ‘Shenti yue lian yue qiang, shengchan tiantian xiangshang’ [Body is increasingly strong, production is increasingly active], Wenhui bao, May 30, 1960, 1.98 Interview with Hu Luming, March 16, 2021.99 ‘Shenti yue lian yue qiang, shengchan tiantian xiangshang’, 1.100 Guo Xiubin, ‘Gongren shengchancao huicao biaoyan jinwan gei jiang’ [The award ceremony for the workers’ production callisthenics demonstration will be held tonight], Xinmin wanbao, December 3, 1963, 2.101 Wang Zaiming, ‘Putuo qu juxing fansha gongren shengchan cao bisai’ [Putuo District held a foundry production callisthenics competition], Xinmin wanbao, November 5, 1965, 2.102 ‘Zhendui butong laodong tedian, kaizhan ticao huodong, Shanghai bianzhi yibai duo tao shengchancao’ [Developing callisthenics according to different labour characteristics: Shanghai has created more than 100 production callisthenics], Wenhui bao, August 16, 1960, 2.103 Xu Changchun, ‘Zhigong guangbo cao huicao he shengchan cao biaoyan jin kaishi’ [Workers’ broadcast callisthenics demonstration and production callisthenics performance start today], Xinmin wanbao, November 5, 1965, 2.104 Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution, 25; Miriam Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague: Chairman Mao’s Campaign to Deworm China (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2016), 10–1; Gross further studied how mass science facilitated the integration of techno-bureaucratic system with grassroots cadres and leaders.105 The proclaimed goal of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), a socio-political campaign launched by Mao, was to eliminate capitalist and traditional remnants from society.106 Guojia tiwei hongse xuanchuanyuan, ed., Mao zhuxi yulucao huibian [Compilation of Chairman Mao’s quotation callisthenics], 1968, 9.107 Cheng Shigang, ‘Wenge yulucao de “chulong” jingguo’ [The creation of quotation callisthenics during the Cultural Revolution], Wenshi bolan, no. 3 (2008):56–8108 ‘Shanghaishi geming weiyuanhui wenjiaozu guanyu Shanghaishi tiyu geming weiyuanhui qingshaonian guangbo ticao jixu shibian de qingshi baogao’ [Instruction from the cultural and educational group of the Shanghai municipal revolutionary committee concerning the SMSC revolutionary committee’s request for continuing to design teenager callisthenics], July 4, 1970, B244-3-226-35, SMA.109 ‘Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun Shanghaishi tiyu xitong junshi jieguan xiaozu guanyu yaoqiu shending xinbian gongjian guangbo ticao de qingshi baogao’ [Request for instruction from the People’s Liberation Army’s military takeover group of the Shanghai tiyu system on examining and approving new work-time broadcast callisthenics], February 16, 1971, B244-3-321-49, SMA.110 ‘Dali tuiguang guangbo ticao jianxing quanmin jianshen xingdong: guojia tiyu zongju juzhang gou zhongwen zai jiankang zhongguo xingdong (2019–2030) qidong yishi shang de changyi’ [Vigorously promote broadcast callisthenics and practise national fitness programme: Proposal of Director Gou Zhongwen of the General Administration of Sport of China at the opening ceremony of Healthy China Initiative (2019-2030)], August 7, 2019, https://www.sport.gov.cn/qts/n4992/c921203/content.html (accessed July 18, 2023). The General Administration of Sport is the successor of the SSC since 1998.111 For example, the General Administration of Sport held a nationwide online broadcast callisthenics competition during the COVID-19 pandemic. See ‘Guanyu kaizhan “jiankang zhongguo wo xingdong” quanguo guangbo ticao gongjian cao yunbisai he huodong de tongzhi’ [Notification on holding the “I join Healthy China Initiative” national broadcast callisthenics and work-break callisthenics online competition and activity], January 11, 2021, https://www.sport.gov.cn/qts/n4986/c975805/content.html (accessed July 18, 2023).112 For instance, physical educators of Qiongshan Middle School in Hai’nan Province combined calisthenics with local ethnic minority folk dance. See ‘Zuimei kejian cao xiuchu zuixuan minzu feng’ [The most beautiful class-break calisthenics shows the most dazzling ethnic style], Hai’nan ribao, April 6, 2021, 8.Additional informationNotes on contributorsYiyang WuYiyang Wu is a lecturer at the School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). He obtained his PhD in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is interested in studying modern Chinese history.