Xiaofei Kang

This book project challenges the prevailing assumption that the Chinese Communist revolution offered no room for religion. It examines the intertwined discourses of religion and revolution in Communist propaganda in the Party’s quick rise to dominance from the 1940s to the early 1950s. Crossing the political divide of 1949, this project argues that the Party utilized religion to mobilize widespread support and to construct a new form of legitimacy for its rule. It further demonstrates that gendered language and symbolism defined how propaganda workers manipulated and reconfigured traditional religious resources for the revolution. The book promotes new understanding of the revolution's tenacious connections with the old cultural system and its bearings on contemporary politics.