Picasso’s Dove of Peace in Shanghai – A Symbol of Sino-USSR Alliance

In the mid-1950s, shortly after the communists took power, it seems Picasso’s Dove of Peace became a brief leitmotif around Shanghai. Here’s a picture of Nanking Road in the early 1950s, close by the Park Hotel and the pailou (a version of which still remains) on the north side of the road opposite the old racecourse.

And here you can see the Dove of Peace painted on a cargo ship moored at a Shanghai wharf.

Memoirs and visitors records in the mid-1950s often recall Picasso’s Doe of Peace appearing on stamps, postcards, the covers of magazines and newspapers and even featuring in a popular propaganda song, “Grandma Wants Peace”. Not just in Shanghai but across China.

Actually the regularity of Picasso’s Doves appearance is interesting as it shows the closeness between the USSR and Communist China prior to the Sino-Soviet Split. The Dove was really the symbol of the Moscow-led “peace initiative” aimed against the American and UN presence in Korea. Obviously both China and the USSR were supporting Kim Il-sung’s forces in the North.

Anything with the Dove of Peace does rather handily allow us to date images as being the mid-1950s…

Chinese Dove of Peace stamps