The theorisation and praxis of socialism in China has had tremendous influence on Western understandings of Marxism, and yet the ways in which Chinese socialism accomplished this, especially in Europe and the United States, remains understudied. The Chinese Communist Revolution not only led to a structural transformation in China, but also had an impact on the ways in which the West—both in socialist and non-socialist regions—engage with their own conceptions of socialism. Mao Zedong, for instance, has had a profound impact on many Western critical theorists, including Louis Althusser, who engaged with his “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” (1942) from the 1960s onwards. Similarly, French intellectuals like Jean-Paul Satre and Julia Kristeva were fascinated by Maoism and visited China during the Cultural Revolution (Žižek, 2007). Beyond these theoretical exchanges, the cultural arena also witnessed the ways in which Chinese socialism has been influential to Western cultural products. In an endeavour to excavate the cultural influence of Chinese socialism, this article examines Song of the Rivers (1954) directed by the Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens and China—A Country Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1956) by Joop Huisken, Ivens’ mentee, and Robert Ménégoz. Both films showcase China in the form of ethnographic travelogues, while foregrounding a sense of transnational political solidarity. In examining the reciprocity of and the interaction between China and East German socialism, I argue that, produced from a perspective of political solidarity, they challenge the kind of orientalist depiction of China exhibited in other Western cultural products. At the same time, the Chinese revolution serves as a form of self-reflection, through which artists in East Germany could envision their own blueprint of socialism and strengthen their understanding of the socialist ideals. Most importantly, bringing Chinese and East German socialist culture alongside each other sheds a new light on the conceptualisation of transnational socialist culture as a form of world literature.
