Are you a Communist? 你是共产党员吗 (1981) #

Are you a Communist? 你是共产党员吗 (1981), illustrated by Wang Jieyin 王劼音, text by Bai Wanchun 柏万春 and Chen Kehui 陈克会, adapted from an eponymous novel by Zhang Lin 张林, translated by Damian Mandzunowski, published in Lianhuanhua bao 连环画报 07/1981 (92), pp. ii-8. ¹

translation and introduction: 9 March 2026

Translator’s introduction #

Damian Mandzunowski

Each July, the visual culture of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) highlighted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) anniversary. Specially created commemorative stamps or posters were released, as were thematic lianhuanhua, celebrating each next year in the CCP’s history since its founding in 1921. The 30th anniversary in 1951, for example, yielded a widely celebrated historical lianhuanhua retelling in detail the party’s history up to that point.

When, in 1981, the 60th anniversary of the CCP arrived, a special twenty-four-part picture story-like set of propaganda posters was released in celebration. And even though this time there was no new standalone lianhuanhua, the July 1981 issue of Lianhuanhua bao 连环画报 (known under its official English name as Picture Story), the major national lianhuanhua magazine, ran a comic strip that in more ways than one relates and comments on the state of the CCP at sixty. Drawn by Wang Jieyin 王劼音, and written by Bai Wanchun 柏万春 and Chen Kehui 陈克会, Are you a Communist? 你是共产党员吗 adapts the eponymous novel written by Zhang Lin 张林 that had won one in thirty national level fiction awards for 1980. The novel was also soon adapted into TV, with the resulting series winning third prize in the 1982 annual award for outstanding TV dramas; as well as into a radio drama, which itself won one of the annual Golden Deer awards for outstanding radio plays in 1982.

The lianhuanhua strip, on the other hand, did not win any major award, nor is it particularly well-known or referenced in extant literature; one could go as far as include it into a broad corpus of early-1980s semi-experimental lianhuanhua published in the pages of Picture Story and similar comic magazines that are now largely forgotten. (Compare also with Mermaid and My Uncle Jules.)

Drawn in subtle, artistic black-and-white graphics, Are you a Communist? has a down-to-earth, humanistic touch to it: the characters swear, have emotional outbursts, and are far from perfect. The narrative occurs in two temporal layers. A few short prologue-like panels give us the backstory of Liu Dashan, the protagonist, who as a teenager joined the communist guerrillas in the late 1940s. (His name, literally meaning “big mountain,” references the typical socialist realist trope of names evoking images of grandeur and power.) He encounters there an impactful older comrade who, at a crucial moment of doubt, demanded to know whether he was a Communist—that is, a capital-C-member-of-the-party type of communist—, directly implying the obligations and grave consequences that come with an affirming answer. The main story then occurs some three decades later, toward the late 1970s and early 1980s, when purged party members and cadres were rehabilitated and reinstated to their former work positions. Liu Dashan, as we learn, spent two years in one of the infamous Cultural Revolution cowsheds, makeshift prisons set up by rebel factions at the height of the violent struggles. We meet him when he returns to lead a party committee at a railroad station. There, he is faced with a dilemma: his old friend and, most importantly, partner from the years of cowshed containment, Bai Fan, has been accused and soon admits to having orchestrated a cover-up of a train accident at the station under his supervision. In the end, Liu Dashan hesitates only for a moment and the credo of being a Communist prevails: while Bai Fan is punished, Liu Dashan still manages to re-instill belief in the CCP in his old comrade.

How, then, does all this relate to the 60th anniversary of the CCP?

The lianhuanhua strip, through its juxtaposition of a direct and colloquial language with the subtle and artistic visuals, invites interpretation. On the one hand, the figure of Liu Dashan is loyalty and devotion to the party personified; for him, personal relations are secondary to the CCP and its grand cause. As such, the story can be read as an allegory about the return to the old ways, both via the literal return of the old cadres, such as Liu Dashan, or understood more symbolically as a return to a more proper, rules-based time. It also presents this somewhat nostalgic vision in direct opposition to Cultural Revolution-era informal networks running through the party-state, as exemplified in the actions of the young stationmaster.

And so, the lianhuanhua also contextualizes three generations of CCP members. It is the denunciation letter sent up by an old cadre which alerts Liu about Bai Fan’s transgression; and while the middle-aged cadres in the person of Bai Fan are depicted mostly as burned out and lost, it is a young cadre, the Baita stationmaster, who truly is the villain of the strip: he orchestrates the cover up and it is he who later tries to bribe and blackmail Liu Dashan into obedience. In contrast, Bai Fan is depicted as sick—both symbolically, in his wavering loyalty to the CCP, and literally, as he suffers a heart attack—yet not beyond redemption.

Liu Dashan, at the background of the other cadres, is an exemplary Communist of the 1930/s40s generation, also known as the Yan’an generation: he knows his Party well and trust is what binds him to it. He does not forget the hardships endured during the Cultural Revolution, but other than Bai, he learned to move on, focusing on the future instead. At one point the comic describes how, when Bai would recall past hardships and show his scars, Liu would prefer to talk about the Four Modernizations (panel 21). Liu’s decision to start disciplinary action against Bai is also contextualized enough to make it seem like a necessary remedy, rather than actual betrayal: the images show Liu from the back, lost in thought, shaken by the discovery of Bai’s mismanagement (panels 23-24); they focus on details such as a sleeping face, an open door, a bowed head, and a silent meeting between the old friends (panels 37-42); and the last images of the story are those of hope—Bai is standing up again, looking at his leaving friend, who, in turn, is symbolically revisiting his first meeting with the old division commander (panels 46-47).

The story thus ends, in classical scar literature way, with an open ending that primarily communicates notions of hope. This ending signifies that even cadres who have erred can be saved and rehabilitated through strict discipline combined with revolutionary comradeship. Saving Bai is hence not less than saving the CCP itself. As such, the lianhuanhua strip thematizes the existence of a “sickness” within the party (as seen in Bai Fan’s corruption/heart disease) and shows that there is a way to cure it (in Liu Dashan’s adherence to principle). Seen at this background, Liu’s continued asking of the central question—“Are you a Communist?”—to himself and other figures throughout the story is not only a continuous reference to the moment of forging a Communist in the heat of the battle; it exemplifies a much deeper, existential inquiry into what it actually meant to be a CCP member in 1981.

Notes on the translation #

• The central question of the story, 你是共产党员吗, is not only its title but also repeatedly raised by various characters at turning points of the plot. As such, the more direct translation of “Are you a Communist Party member?” seemed too wordy to retain the punchiness of the Chinese original. Instead, the translation uses Communist with a capital “C” to render it into the more direct “Are you a Communist?”—apart from the very last time (panel 47) when “共产党员” is translated as “Communist Party member” in a nod to the meta dimension of the comic’s ending.

• Panel 4 references the Liaoshen Campaign, a major military campaign launched in 1948 by the CCP and its People’s Liberation Army against the Guomindang in the northeast.

• Panel 13 references Lenin in 1918, a famous Soviet film from 1939 that was also popular in the PRC; it was itself adapted into lianhuanhua numerous times between the 1950s and the 1970s.

• In panel 15, Liu Dashan quotes the first half of the proverb “吃人家的嘴软，拿人家的手短”: its literal translation would be “the mouth that has been fed by others is soft, the hand that has received doesn’t reach” and the implied meaning, as a dictionary definition has it, is that “one is partial to those from whom presents have been accepted.”

• When it comes to the text, the story is told in a direct and vernacular way, presumably to underline the tension between Liu Dashan’s roughness and the bureaucratic newspeak that is being criticized. Some of the used terms are of particular interest for their colloquial or even vulgar connotations which, by and large, were very rare in lianhuanhua: “媳妇” (panel 5) could be a way to refer to a “young wife” but is used here as a sexist insult to a man’s toughness; similarly, “婆娘” (panel 29) is as much as “old wife” but comes with a sexist and disrespectful connotation; “个屁” (panel 30) literally is “a fart” but when suffixing a noun or verb it turns into a very direct dismissal of that what precedes it; and “娘的” (panels 34, 42) literally means “mother’s…” but can range from “damn it” to much stronger language.

• In direct contrast to these, and perhaps to underline Liu Dashan’s mocking of the insincerity and performative nature of the corrupt officials around him, vocabulary drawn from the performing arts is used in a few pivotal moments: “唱戏” (panel 23) literally means to “perform in opera”; “亮相” (panel 35) refers to a dramatic frozen-like pose an actor strikes upon entering the stage or at the end of a combat sequence; “这一套” (panels 23, 34) and “招数” (panel 35) both refer to series of moves from opera routines mimicking martial arts or combat on stage.

Read the translated lianhuanhua #

Please note: Published originally as a lianhuanhua in a comic journal, this story spans from the right half of the first page and ends on the left half of the last page; the remaining space on these two pages is taken up by other comic strips. We decided to upload the pages entirely to preserve the historical context of the original story.

Page 01 / Panels 01-03

Page 02 / Panels 04-09

Page 03 / Panels 10-15

Page 04 / Panels 16-21

Page 05 / Panels 22-27

Page 06 / Panels 28-33

Page 07 / Panels 34-39

Page 08 / Panels 40-45

Page 09 / Panels 46-47