From Slogan to Subversion: The Irony of ‘Serve the People!’ in Yan Lianke’s Novel

Abstract

This paper examines the political and psychological subversions at the heart of Yan Lianke’s Serve the People! (2005), a bold satire of China’s Cultural Revolution. Centred on a sexually charged and ideologically fraught affair between a young Sergeant and the young pretty wife of a Division Commander, the novel transforms Mao Zedong’s revered slogan ‘Serve the People!’ into a bitterly ironic motif. By unpacking the abuse of language, revolutionary rhetoric, and authoritarian power, this study highlights how personal desire becomes a site of resistance in a regime that demands ideological purity and loyalty. Through a close reading of the novel’s symbols such as the desecration of Maoist imagery, the erotic use of wooden signs and red armbands, and the politicisation of private acts. This paper explores the intersection of sexual politics, class inversion, and emotional repression. The analysis draws on broader traditions of political fiction, including works similar to Lianke’s, to position Lianke’s narrative within the global context of literary dissent. Ultimately, this paper argues that Serve the People! functions as a counter-memory to China’s sanitised revolutionary history, offering a piercing critique of how totalitarian systems distort not only truth and morality but also the most intimate dimensions of human life.