This 1966/67 documentary “Report from China Part 1”, originally titled “Country of Dawn”, was distributed by Radim Films in the USA and originally produced by a Iwanami Film Productions, of Japan.

The film records many of the events which took place during the Cultural Revolution. Many aspects of Chinese life are covered: the People’s Communes, the industrial cities and their workers, and scenes of the young Red Guards journeying on foot to bring their knowledge to the peasants living in the outlying regions of this vast country.”

The movie includes the usual sightseeing spots of China but focuses more on the “indigenous industrial revolution” movement which a part of the Cultural Revolution . It contains edited and translated workplace interviews with the mid-level figures of this “ordinary revolution”, and other scenes of the new China.

Part 1 focuses on the industries of the capital cities of the provinces of Machuria, Jilin and Liaoning.

1:17 Tiananmen Square, Lots of civilians, including children seen with the “volunteer” and other rank-identifying armbands of the Communist movement – Young Pioneers and the like.

2:12 National Assembly building in Beijing

2:45 the “Lost Generation” here as high school students whose studies were interrupted, are reading the Little Red Book.

3:34 The Great Wall

4:43 Train arriving to Shanghai. Soviet-manufactured railway cars

5:45 The Songhua river (Sungari, as the narrator peculiarly says, is its name in Russian). A Soviet-manufactured riverboat.

6:18 River embankment in Harbin featuring a Russian neoclassical-style pavilion, probably either from the colonial times, or built during the postwar Stalinist USSR-China friendship period (1949-1954)

6:23 The People Flood Control Success Memorial in the Stalin Park in Harbin

6:56 A number of Russian district buildings (in Songbei part of Harbin) have been demolished.

7:03 Sign: “Medicalized retirement home of the Municipal Committee of Education of the Harbin city”. Patients playing pingpong.

7:25 Some churches – unsure whether still existing.

7:33 Handwritten Cultural Revolution newspapers.

8:10 Red Guard marching down the street, following a truck, carrying crimson flags, slogans.

8:32 Banner with a slogan: “Long live the proletarian cultural revolution”

8:56 Public beach on Songhua river.

9:40 Manual labour in the countryside

12:07 Beating the dirty clothing on washboards

13:15 Chemical fertilizer factory under construction in the suburb of Changchun, Jilin province.

14:02 Interview with Mr. Zhao the construction supervisor and future factory manager. Talking about the details of the Third Five-Year Plan in North-Western China, and the possibility of exporting food to the rest of China after it’s successful.

15:05 Shenyang, capital of the Liaoning province. Soviet and Czechoslovakian-manufactured public transportation.

16:04 Smokestack painted with a “Long live the CCP !” slogan at a steel mill

16:42 Interview with Mr. Jing, head of the tool cutting for metalworking division (only fragments of phrases such as “1961, everyone” etc. can be heard)

18:45 Shenyang No.1 Engineering Machinery Factory

20:18 Mao quotes “Dare to walk on a peak that no one has ever reached before, we will definitely be able to build China well and make it…”

20:24 Quoting Mr. Sheng, Tsinghua university graduate and head of the engineering bureau of the factory

21:31 Factory council discussing the digging out of a new basement floor, presumably to install the parts of machinery for the new large steel roller, mentioned earlier.

22:40 Shenyang Workers Housing district

23:55 Kindergarten. Sign “Shenyang city worker’s district kindergarten”. Children, accompanied by councilors in white robes and caps and parents, walk in.

25:23 Calisthetics class at a kindergarten for training hand-eye coordination

26:20 Labor education – sewing basically an early-life, home economics type class – probably borrowed from similar, earlier (1930ies and 1940ies) preschool Soviet programs.26:51 Lunch break. Kindergarten was indeed not entirely tax-funded and free of charge neither in China nor in the USSR. There was a monthly fee, depending on the parents’ incomes.

27:50 Mandatory nap time.

28:55 Primary school classroom full of pupils, Mandarin class

29:40 Housewives’ study group

30:39 Vegetable dealers spreading white cabbage leaves for drying and pickling.

31:05 Typical married worker’s housing.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com