VARIOUS SHOTS of a competition in the transportation department of the Wuhan steel factory. Officials are sitting on a platform. Competitors wearing numbers file in front of them and form rows. Each group is headed by a worker bearing a sign identifying his section. As the crowd of workers looks on, someone holds a long stick with a long string of firecrackers that explode one after the other. At the door of a hangar, some of the spectators are gathered around a locomotive bearing photos of President Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Hua Guofeng. These same photos also appear on a giant cloth that serves as a wall behind the officials’ platform. In front and at the sides, we see long red banners with Chinese lettering. One of the competitors, standing at a podium on the officials’ platform, is reading a text. When he finishes, he goes back to his place in line and the workers leave the premises, filing past the official platform.