Tao Zhu 陶鑄 (1908-1969) became member of the CCP in the 1930s. In 1955, he was appointed Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee and commander of the Guangzhou Military Region. In 1956, he became member of the Eight CCP Central Committee. In 1961, he assumed the position of first secretary of the Central-South Region, and just one year later he became the political commissar of the Guangzhou Military Region. In 1965 he became the vice premier of the PRC, and in 1966, he replaced Lu Dingyi 陸定一 (1906-1996) as the director of the Central Propaganda Department, but his career in Beijing ended in early 1967 (Sullivan, 2012: 251). Tao Zhu was accused of suppressing the revolution, and he was under attack for his attempt to protect Wang Renzhong 王任重 (1917-1992), former Central-South Region deputy from the attacks of the Central Cultural Revolution Group (MacFarquahar and Shoenhals, 2006: 185-190). Tao Zhu died in 1969. The collection contains numerous caricature-posters criticizing Tao Zhu, represented as a traitor, and an enemy of the revolution. His ties with Guangzhou politics are often mentioned in these images, for instance he is addressed as the “Emperor of Guangdong” (王南粵, Wang Nanyue).
Reference:
MacFarquhar Roderik and Michael Schoenhals. Mao’s Last Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Sullivan, Lawrence R. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Communist Party. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2012.
