Chinese Communist Propaganda Posters from Mao Zedong Era

During the Cultural Revolution, PRC propaganda was crucial to the formation and promotion of the cult of personality centered around Chairman Mao Zedong, as well as mobilizing popular participation in national campaigns. Past propaganda also encouraged the Chinese people to emulate government approved model workers and soldiers, such as Lei Feng, Chinese Civil War hero Dong Cunrui, Korean War hero Yang Gensi, and Dr. Norman Bethune, a Canadian doctor who assisted the Communist Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It also praised Third World revolutionaries and close foreign allies such as Albania and North Korea while vilifying both the American "imperialists" and the Soviet "revisionists" (the latter of whom was seen as having betrayed Marxism-Leninism).

According to Barbara Mittler, Maoist era propaganda left memories of violence and slander upon many Chinese, and their psychological strains drove many to madness and death. Today, Maoist era propaganda are no longer used by the CCP, and are largely commercialized for the purposes of nostalgia.