China during the Cultural Revolution: the Great Leap Forward shown by women steeple jacks working on high towers in oil refineries (left) and on high pylons in the electricity industry (right). Colour lithograph after Xue Jinggui and others, 1974.

In 1958 the Communist Party had introduced the Great Leap Forward movement in an attempt to speed up industrial and agricultural production. The exploitation of oil fields and the construction of power stations had achieved encouraging results. On the left women are working high above the ground, painting with red paint the pipes on a high oil processing tower. The poem on the left painting expresses the oil workers’ great ambition and strong passion to build the highest towers and exploit the boundless oil fields. An inscription on the further oil-refining tower says "Be self-dependent and self-supported". The right hand painting and poem describe two women workers who are working with electric wiring on high iron-towers that allows electric power stations to transmit more electricity to mountainous and rural areas. They enable more and more villagers to use electric appliances, and farms can be easily irrigated. Far below is a dam with hydro-electric turbines, the source of the electricity