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Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
TALKS AT THE YENAN FORUM ON LITERATURE AND ART
May 1942
INTRODUCTION
May 2, 1942
Comrades! You have been invited to this forum today to exchange ideas and
examine the relationship between work in the literary and artistic fields
and revolutionary work in general. Our aim is to ensure that revolutionary
literature and art follow the correct path of development and provide
better help to other revolutionary work in facilitating the overthrow of
our national enemy and the accomplishment of the task of national
liberation.
In our struggle for the liberation of the Chinese people there are various
fronts, among which there are the fronts of the pen and of the gun, the
cultural and the military fronts. To defeat the enemy we must rely
primarily on the army with guns. But this army alone is not enough; we
must also have a cultural army, which is absolutely indispensable for
uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy. Since the May 4th Movement
such a cultural army has taken shape in China, and it has helped the
Chinese revolution, gradually reduced the domain of China's feudal culture
and of the comprador culture which serves imperialist aggression, and
weakened their influence. To oppose the new culture the Chinese
reactionaries can now only "pit quantity against quality". In other words,
reactionaries have money, and though they can produce nothing good, they
can go all out and produce in quantity. Literature and art have been an
important and successful part of the cultural front since the May 4th
Movement. During the ten years' civil war, the revolutionary literature
and art movement grew greatly. That movement and the revolutionary war
both headed in the same general direction, but these two fraternal armies
were not linked together in their practical work because the reactionaries
had cut them off from each other. It is very good that since the outbreak
of the War of Resistance Against Japan, more and more revolutionary
writers and artists have been coming to Yenan and our other anti-Japanese
base areas. But it does not necessarily follow that, having come to the
base areas, they have already integrated themselves completely with the
masses of the people here. The two must be completely integrated if we are
to push ahead with our revolutionary work. The purpose of our meeting
today is precisely to ensure that literature and art fit well into the
whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as
powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking
and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy
with one heart and one mind. What are the problems that must be solved to
achieve this objective? I think they are the problems of the class stand
of the writers and artists, their attitude, their audience, their work and
their study.
The problem of class stand. Our stand is that of the proletariat and of
the masses. For members of the Communist Party, this means keeping to the
stand of the Party, keeping to Party spirit and Party policy. Are there
any of our literary and art workers who are still mistaken or not clear in
their understanding of this problem? I think there are. Many of our
comrades have frequently departed from the correct stand.
The problem of attitude. From one's stand there follow specific attitudes
towards specific matters. For instance, is one to extol or to expose? This
is a question of attitude. Which attitude is wanted? I would say both. The
question is, whom are you dealing with? There are three kinds of persons,
the enemy, our allies in the united front and our own people; the last are
the masses and their vanguard. We need to adopt a different attitude
towards each of the three. With regard to the enemy, that is, Japanese
imperialism and all the other enemies of the people, the task of
revolutionary writers and artists is to expose their duplicity and cruelty
and at the same time to point out the inevitability of their defeat, so as
to encourage the anti-Japanese army and people to fight staunchly with one
heart and one mind for their overthrow. With regard to our different
allies in the united front, our attitude should be one of both alliance
and criticism, and there should be different kinds of alliance and
different kinds of criticism. We support them in their resistance to Japan
and praise them for any achievement. But if they are not active in the War
of Resistance, we should criticize them. If anyone opposes the Communist
Party and the people and keeps moving down the path of reaction, we will
firmly oppose him. As for the masses of the people, their toil and their
struggle, their army and their Party, we should certainly praise them. The
people, too, have their shortcomings. Among the proletariat many retain
petty-bourgeois ideas, while both the peasants and the urban petty
bourgeoisie have backward ideas; these are burdens hampering them in their
struggle. We should be patient and spend a long time in educating them and
helping them to get these loads off their backs and combat their own
shortcomings and errors, so that they can advance with great strides. They
have remoulded themselves in struggle or are doing so, and our literature
and art should depict this process. As long as they do not persist in
their errors, we should not dwell on their negative side and consequently
make the mistake of ridiculing them or, worse still, of being hostile to
them. Our writings should help them to unite, to make progress, to press
ahead with one heart and one mind, to discard what is backward and develop
what is revolutionary, and should certainly not do the opposite.
The problem of audience, i.e., the people for whom our works of literature
and art are produced. In the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and the
anti-Japanese base areas of northern and central China, this problem
differs from that in the Kuomintang areas, and differs still more from
that in Shanghai before the War of Resistance. In the Shanghai period, the
audience for works of revolutionary literature and art consisted mainly of
a section of the students, office workers and shop assistants. After the
outbreak of the War of Resistance the audience in the Kuomintang areas
became somewhat wider, but it still consisted mainly of the same kind of
people because the government there prevented the workers, peasants and
soldiers from having access to revolutionary literature and art. In our
base areas the situation is entirely different. Here the audience for
works of literature and art consists of workers, peasants, soldiers and
revolutionary cadres. There are students in the base areas, too, but they
are different from students of the old type; they are either former or
future cadres. The cadres of all types, fighters in the army, workers in
the factories and peasants in the villages all want to read books and
newspapers once they become literate, and those who are illiterate want to
see plays and operas, look at drawings and paintings, sing songs and hear
music; they are the audience for our works of literature and art. Take the
cadres alone. Do not think they are few; they far outnumber the readers of
any book published in the Kuomintang areas. There, an edition usually runs
to only 2,000 copies, and even three editions add up to only 6,000; but as
for the cadres in the base areas, in Yenan alone there are more than
10,000 who read books. Many of them, moreover, are tempered
revolutionaries of long standing, who have come from all parts of the
country and will go out to work in different places, so it is very
important to do educational work among them. Our literary and art workers
must do a good job in this respect.
Since the audience for our literature and art consists of workers,
peasants and soldiers and of their cadres, the problem arises of
understanding them and knowing them well. A great deal of work has to be
done in order to understand them and know them well, to understand and
know well all the different kinds of people and phenomena in the Party and
government organizations, in the villages and factories and in the Eighth
Route and New Fourth Armies. Our writers and artists have their literary
and art work to do, but their primary task is to understand people and
know them well. In this regard, how have matters stood with our writers
and artists? I would say they have been lacking in knowledge and
understanding; they have been like "a hero with no place to display his
prowess". What does lacking in knowledge mean? Not knowing people well.
The writers and artists do not have a good knowledge either of those whom
they describe or of their audience; indeed they may hardly know them at
all. They do not know the workers or peasants or soldiers well, and do not
know the cadres well either. What does lacking in understanding mean? Not
understanding the language, that is, not being familiar with the rich,
lively language of the masses. Since many writers and artists stand aloof
from the masses and lead empty lives, naturally they are unfamiliar with
the language of the people. Accordingly, their works are not only insipid
in language but often contain nondescript expressions of their own coining
which run counter to popular usage. Many comrades like to talk about "a
mass style". But what does it really mean? It means that the thoughts and
feelings of our writers and artists should be fused with those of the
masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. To achieve this fusion, they
should conscientiously learn the language of the masses. How can you talk
of literary and artistic creation if you find the very language of the
masses largely incomprehensible? By "a hero with no place to display his
prowess", we mean that your collection of great truths is not appreciated
by the masses. The more you put on the airs of a veteran before the masses
and play the "hero", the more you try to peddle such stuff to the masses,
the less likely they are to accept it. If you want the masses to
understand you, if you want to be one with the masses, you must make up
your mind to undergo a long and even painful process of tempering. Here I
might mention the experience of how my own feelings changed. I began life
as a student and at school acquired the ways of a student; I then used to
feel it undignified to do even a little manual labour, such as carrying my
own luggage in the presence of my fellow students, who were incapable of
carrying anything, either on their shoulders or in their hands. At that
time I felt that intellectuals were the only clean people in the world,
while in comparison workers and peasants were dirty. I did not mind
wearing the clothes of other intellectuals, believing them clean, but I
would not put on clothes belonging to a worker or peasant, believing them
dirty. But after I became a revolutionary and lived with workers and
peasants and with soldiers of the revolutionary army, I gradually came to
know them well, and they gradually came to know me well too. It was then,
and only then, that I fundamentally changed the bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois feelings implanted in me in the bourgeois schools. I came
to feel that compared with the workers and peasants the unremoulded
intellectuals were not clean and that, in the last analysis, the workers
and peasants were the cleanest people and, even though their hands were
soiled and their feet smeared with cow-dung, they were really cleaner than
the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals. That is what is meant by
a change in feelings, a change from one class to another. If our writers
and artists who come from the intelligentsia want their works to be well
received by the masses, they must change and remould their thinking and
their feelings. Without such a change, without such remoulding, they can
do nothing well and will be misfits.
The last problem is study, by which I mean the study of Marxism-Leninism
and of society. Anyone who considers himself a revolutionary Marxist
writer, and especially any writer who is a member of the Communist Party,
must have a knowledge of Marxism-Leninism. At present, however, some
comrades are lacking in the basic concepts of Marxism. For instance, it is
a basic Marxist concept that being determines consciousness, that the
objective realities of class struggle and national struggle determine our
thoughts and feelings. But some of our comrades turn this upside down and
maintain that everything ought to start from "love". Now as for love, in a
class society there can be only class love; but these comrades are seeking
a love transcending classes, love in the abstract and also freedom in the
abstract, truth in the abstract, human nature in the abstract, etc. This
shows that they have been very deeply influenced by the bourgeoisie. They
should thoroughly rid themselves of this influence and modestly study
Marxism-Leninism. It is right for writers and artists to study literary
and artistic creation, but the science of Marxism-Leninism must be studied
by all revolutionaries, writers and artists not excepted. Writers and
artists should study society, that is to say, should study the various
classes in society, their mutual relations and respective conditions,
their physiognomy and their psychology. Only when we grasp all this
clearly can we have a literature and art that is rich in content and
correct in orientation.
I am merely raising these problems today by way of introduction; I hope
all of you will express your views on these and other relevant problems.
CONCLUSION
May 23, 1942
Comrades! Our forum has had three meetings this month. In the pursuit of
truth we have carried on spirited debates in which scores of Party and
non-Party comrades have spoken, laying bare the issues and making them
more concrete. This, I believe, will very much benefit the whole literary
and artistic movement.
In discussing a problem, we should start from reality and not from
definitions. We would be following a wrong method if we first looked up
definitions of literature and art in textbooks and then used them to
determine the guiding principles for the present-day literary and artistic
movement and to judge the different opinions and controversies that arise
today. We are Marxists, and Marxism teaches that in our approach to a
problem we should start from objective facts, not from abstract
definitions, and that we should derive our guiding principles, policies
and measures from an analysis of these facts. We should do the same in our
present discussion of literary and artistic work.
What are the facts at present? The facts are: the War of Resistance
Against Japan which China has been fighting for five years; the world-wide
anti-fascist war; the vacillations of China's big landlord class and big
bourgeoisie in the War of Resistance and their policy of high-handed
oppression of the people; the revolutionary movement in literature and art
since the May 4th Movement--its great contributions to the revolution
during the last twenty-three years and its many shortcomings; the
anti-Japanese democratic base areas of the Eighth Route and New Fourth
Armies and the integration of large numbers of writers and artists with
these armies and with the workers and peasants in these areas; the
difference in both environment and tasks between the writers and artists
in the base areas and those in the Kuomintang areas; and the controversial
issues concerning literature and art which have arisen in Yenan and the
other anti-Japanese base areas. These are the actual, undeniable facts in
the light of which we have to consider our problems.
What then is the crux of the matter? In my opinion, it consists
fundamentally of the problems of working for the masses and how to work
for the masses. Unless these two problems are solved, or solved properly,
our writers and artists will be ill-adapted to their environment and their
tasks and will come up against a series of difficulties from without and
within. My concluding remarks will centre on these two problems and also
touch upon some related ones.
I
The first problem is: literature and art for whom?
This problem was solved long ago by Marxists, especially by Lenin. As far
back as 1905 Lenin pointed out emphatically that our literature and art
should "serve . . . the millions and tens of millions of working
people".[1] For comrades engaged in literary and artistic work in the
anti-Japanese base areas it might seem that this problem is already solved
and needs no further discussion. Actually, that is not the case. Many
comrades have not found a clear solution. Consequently their sentiments,
their works, their actions and their views on the guiding principles for
literature and art have inevitably been more or less at variance with the
needs of the masses and of the practical struggle. Of course, among the
numerous men of culture, writers, artists and other literary and artistic
workers engaged in the great struggle for liberation together with the
Communist Party and the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies, a few may be
careerists who are with us only temporarily, but the overwhelming majority
are working energetically for the common cause. By relying on these
comrades, we have achieved a great deal in our literature, drama, music
and fine arts. Many of these writers and artists have begun their work
since the outbreak of the War of Resistance; many others did much
revolutionary work before the war, endured many hardships and influenced
broad masses of the people by their activities and works. Why do we say,
then, that even among these comrades there are some who have not reached a
clear solution of the problem of whom literature and art are for? Is it
conceivable that there are still some who maintain that revolutionary
literature and art are not for the masses of the people but for the
exploiters and oppressors?
Indeed literature and art exist which are for the exploiters and
oppressors. Literature and art for the landlord class are feudal
literature and art. Such were the literature and art of the ruling class
in China's feudal era. To this day such literature and art still have
considerable influence in China. Literature and art for the bourgeoisie
are bourgeois literature and art. People like Liang Shih-chiu, [2] whom Lu
Hsun criticized, talk about literature and art as transcending classes,
but in fact they uphold bourgeois literature and art and oppose
proletarian literature and art. Then literature and art exist which serve
the imperialists--for example, the works of Chou Tsojen, Chang Tzu-ping
[3] and their like--which we call traitor literature and art. With us,
literature and art are for the people, not for any of the above groups. We
have said that China's new culture at the present stage is an
anti-imperialist, anti-feudal culture of the masses of the people under
the leadership of the proletariat. Today, anything that is truly of the
masses must necessarily be led by the proletariat. Whatever is under the
leadership of the bourgeoisie cannot possibly be of the masses. Naturally,
the same applies to the new literature and art which are part of the new
culture. We should take over the rich legacy and the good traditions in
literature and art that have been handed down from past ages in China and
foreign countries, but the aim must still be to serve the masses of the
people. Nor do we refuse to utilize the literary and artistic forms of the
past, but in our hands these old forms, remoulded and infused with new
content, also become something revolutionary in the service of the people.
Who, then, are the masses of the people? The broadest sections of the
people, constituting more than 90 per cent of our total population, are
the workers, peasants, soldiers and urban petty bourgeoisie. Therefore,
our literature and art are first for the workers, the class that leads the
revolution. Secondly, they are for the peasants, the most numerous and
most steadfast of our allies in the revolution. Thirdly, they are for the
armed workers and peasants, namely, the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies
and the other armed units of the people, which are the main forces of the
revolutionary war. Fourthly, they are for the labouring masses of the
urban petty bourgeoisie and for the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, both of
whom are also our allies in the revolution and capable of long-term
co-operation with us. These four kinds of people constitute the
overwhelming majority of the Chinese nation, the broadest masses of the
people.
Our literature and art should be for the four kinds of people we have
enumerated. To serve them, we must take the class stand of the proletariat
and not that of the petty bourgeoisie. Today, writers who cling to an
individualist, petty-bourgeois stand cannot truly serve the masses of
revolutionary workers, peasants and soldiers. Their interest is mainly
focused on the small number of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. This is the
crucial reason why some of our comrades cannot correctly solve the problem
of "for whom?" In saying this I am not referring to theory. In theory, or
in words, no one in our ranks regards the masses of workers, peasants and
soldiers as less important than the petty-bourgeois intellectuals. I am
referring to practice, to action. In practice, in action, do they regard
petty-bourgeois intellectuals as more important than workers, peasants and
soldiers? I think they do. Many comrades concern themselves with studying
the petty-bourgeois intellectuals and analysing their psychology, and they
concentrate on portraying these intellectuals and excusing or defending
their shortcomings, instead of guiding the intellectuals to join with them
in getting closer to the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers, taking
part in the practical struggles of the masses, portraying and educating
the masses. Coming from the petty bourgeoisie and being themselves
intellectuals, many comrades seek friends only among intellectuals and
concentrate on studying and describing them. Such study and description
are proper if done from a proletarian position. But that is not what they
do, or not what they do fully. They take the petty-bourgeois stand and
produce works that are the self-expression of the petty bourgeoisie, as
can be seen in quite a number of literary and artistic products. Often
they show heartfelt sympathy for intellectuals of petty-bourgeois origin,
to the extent of sympathizing with or even praising their shortcomings. On
the other hand, these comrades seldom come into contact with the masses of
workers, peasants and soldiers, do not understand or study them, do not
have intimate friends among them and are not good at portraying them; when
they do depict them, the clothes are the clothes of working people but the
faces are those of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. In certain respects they
are fond of the workers, peasants and soldiers and the cadres stemming
from them; but there are times when they do not like them and there are
some respects in which they do not like them: they do not like their
feelings or their manner or their nascent literature and art (the wall
newspapers, murals, folk songs, folk tales, etc.). At times they are fond
of these things too, but that is when they are hunting for novelty, for
something with which to embellish their own works, or even for certain
backward features. At other times they openly despise these things and are
partial to what belongs to the petty-bourgeois intellectuals or even to
the bourgeoisie. These comrades have their feet planted on the side of the
petty-bourgeois intellectuals; or, to put it more elegantly, their
innermost soul is still a kingdom of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.
Thus they have not yet solved, or not yet clearly solved, the problem of
"for whom?" This applies not only to newcomers to Yenan; even among
comrades who have been to the front and worked for a number of years in
our base areas and in the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies, many have
not completely solved this problem. It requires a long period of time, at
least eight or ten years, to solve it thoroughly. But however long it
takes, solve it we must and solve it unequivocally and thoroughly. Our
literary and art workers must accomplish this task and shift their stand;
they must gradually move their feet over to the side of the workers,
peasants and soldiers, to the side of the proletariat, through the process
of going into their very midst and into the thick of practical struggles
and through the process of studying Marxism and society. Only in this way
can we have a literature and art that are truly for the workers, peasants
and soldiers, a truly proletarian literature and art.
This question of "for whom?" is fundamental; it is a question of
principle. The controversies and divergences, the opposition and disunity
arising among some comrades in the past were not on this fundamental
question of principle but on secondary questions, or even on issues
involving no principle. On this question of principle, however, there has
been hardly any divergence between the two contending sides and they have
shown almost complete agreement; to some extent, both tend to look down
upon the workers, peasants and soldiers and divorce themselves from the
masses. I say "to some extent" because, generally speaking, these comrades
do not look down upon the workers, peasants and soldiers or divorce
themselves from the masses in the same way as the Kuomintang does.
Nevertheless, the tendency is there. Unless this fundamental problem is
solved, many other problems will not be easy to solve. Take, for instance,
the sectarianism in literary and art circles. This too is a question of
principle, but sectarianism can only be eradicated by putting forward and
faithfully applying the slogans, "For the workers and peasants!", "For the
Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies!" and "Go among the masses!" Otherwise
the problem of sectarianism can never be solved. Lu Hsun once said:
A common aim is the prerequisite for a united front.... The fact that our
front is not united shows that we have not been able to unify our aims,
and that some people are working only for small groups or indeed only for
themselves. If we all aim at serving the masses of workers and peasants,
our front will of course be united.[4]
The problem existed then in Shanghai; now it exists in Chungking too. In
such places the problem can hardly be solved thoroughly, because the
rulers oppress the revolutionary writers and artists and deny them the
freedom to go out among the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. Here
with us the situation is entirely different. We encourage revolutionary
writers and artists to be active in forming intimate contacts with the
workers, peasants and soldiers, giving them complete freedom to go among
the masses and to create a genuinely revolutionary literature and art.
Therefore, here among us the problem is nearing solution. But nearing
solution is not the same as a complete and thorough solution. We must
study Marxism and study society, as we have been saying, precisely in
order to achieve a complete and thorough solution. By Marxism we mean
living Marxism which plays an effective role in the life and struggle of
the masses, not Marxism in words. With Marxism in words transformed into
Marxism in real life, there will be no more sectarianism. Not only will
the problem of sectarianism be solved, but many other problems as well.
II
Having settled the problem of whom to serve, we come to the next problem,
how to serve. To put it in the words of some of our comrades: should we
devote ourselves to raising standards, or should we devote ourselves to
popularization?
In the past, some comrades, to a certain or even a serious extent,
belittled and neglected popularization and laid undue stress on raising
standards. Stress should be laid on raising standards, but to do so
one-sidedly and exclusively, to do so excessively, is a mistake. The lack
of a clear solution to the problem of "for whom?", which I referred to
earlier, also manifests itself in this connection. As these comrades are
not clear on the problem of "for whom?", they have no correct criteria for
the "raising of standards" and the "popularization" they speak of, and are
naturally still less able to find the correct relationship between the
two. Since our literature and art are basically for the workers, peasants
and soldiers, "popularization" means to popularize among the workers,
peasants and soldiers, and "raising standards" means to advance from their
present level. What should we popularize among them? Popularize what is
needed and can be readily accepted by the feudal landlord class?
Popularize what is needed and can be readily accepted by the bourgeoisie?
Popularize what is needed and can be readily accepted by the
petty-bourgeois intellectuals? No, none of these will do. We must
popularize only what is needed and can be readily accepted by the workers,
peasants and soldiers themselves. Consequently, prior to the task of
educating the workers, peasants and soldiers, there is the task of
learning from them. This is even more true of raising standards. There
must be a basis from which to raise. Take a bucket of water, for instance;
where is it to be raised from if not from the ground? From mid-air? From
what basis, then, are literature and art to be raised? From the basis of
the feudal classes? From the basis of the bourgeoisie? From the basis of
the petty-bourgeois intellectuals? No, not from any of these; only from
the basis of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. Nor does this
mean raising the workers, peasants and soldiers to the "heights" of the
feudal classes, the bourgeoisie or the petty-bourgeois intellectuals; it
means raising the level of literature and art in the direction in which
the workers, peasants and soldiers are themselves advancing, in the
direction in which the proletariat is advancing. Here again the task of
learning from the workers, peasants and soldiers comes in. Only by
starting from the workers, peasants and soldiers can we have a correct
understanding of popularization and of the raising of standards and find
the proper relationship between the two.
In the last analysis, what is the source of all literature and art? Works
of literature and art, as ideological forms, are products of the
reflection in the human brain of the life of a given society.
Revolutionary literature and art are the products of the reflection of the
life of the people in the brains of revolutionary writers and artists. The
life of the people is always a mine of the raw materials for literature
and art, materials in their natural form, materials that are crude, but
most vital, rich and fundamental; they make all literature and art seem
pallid by comparison; they provide literature and art with an
inexhaustible source, their only source. They are the only source, for
there can be no other. Some may ask, is there not another source in books,
in the literature and art of ancient times and of foreign countries? In
fact, the literary and artistic works of the past are not a source but a
stream; they were created by our predecessors and the foreigners out of
the literary and artistic raw materials they found in the life of the
people of their time and place. We must take over all the fine things in
our literary and artistic heritage, critically assimilate whatever is
beneficial, and use them as examples when we create works out of the
literary and artistic raw materials in the life of the people of our own
time and place. It makes a difference whether or not we have such
examples, the difference between crudeness and refinement, between
roughness and polish, between a low and a high level, and between slower
and faster work. Therefore, we must on no account reject the legacies of
the ancients and the foreigners or refuse to learn from them, even though
they are the works of the feudal or bourgeois classes. But taking over
legacies and using them as examples must never replace our own creative
work; nothing can do that. Uncritical transplantation or copying from the
ancients and the foreigners is the most sterile and harmful dogmatism in
literature and art. China's revolutionary writers and artists, writers and
artists of promise, must go among the masses; they must for a long period
of time unreservedly and whole-heartedly go among the masses of workers,
peasants and soldiers, go into the heat of the struggle, go to the only
source, the broadest and richest source, in order to observe, experience,
study and analyse all the different kinds of people, all the classes, all
the masses, all the vivid patterns of life and struggle, all the raw
materials of literature and art. Only then can they proceed to creative
work. Otherwise, you will have nothing to work with and you will be
nothing but a phoney writer or artist, the kind that Lu Hsun in his will
so earnestly cautioned his son never to become.[5]
Although man's social life is the only source of literature and art and is
incomparably livelier and richer in content, the people are not satisfied
with life alone and demand literature and art as well. Why? Because, while
both are beautiful, life as reflected in works of literature and art can
and ought to be on a higher plane, more intense, more concentrated, more
typical, nearer the ideal, and therefore more universal than actual
everyday life. Revolutionary literature and art should create a variety of
characters out of real life and help the masses to propel history forward.
For example, there is suffering from hunger, cold and oppression on the
one hand, and exploitation and oppression of man by man on the other.
These facts exist everywhere and people look upon them as commonplace.
Writers and artists concentrate such everyday phenomena, typify the
contradictions and struggles within them and produce works which awaken
the masses, fire them with enthusiasm and impel them to unite and struggle
to transform their environment. Without such literature and art, this task
could not be fulfilled, or at least not so effectively and speedily.
What is meant by popularizing and by raising standards in works of
literature and art? What is the relationship between these two tasks?
Popular works are simpler and plainer, and therefore more readily accepted
by the broad masses of the people today. Works of a higher quality, being
more polished, are more difficult to produce and in general do not
circulate so easily and quickly among the masses at present. The problem
facing the workers, peasants and soldiers is this: they are now engaged in
a bitter and bloody struggle with the enemy but are illiterate and
uneducated as a result of long years of rule by the feudal and bourgeois
classes, and therefore they are eagerly demanding enlightenment, education
and works of literature and art which meet their urgent needs and which
are easy to absorb, in order to heighten their enthusiasm in struggle and
confidence in victory, strengthen their unity and fight the enemy with one
heart and one mind. For them the prime need is not "more flowers on the
brocade" but "fuel in snowy weather". In present conditions, therefore,
popularization is the more pressing task. It is wrong to belittle or
neglect popularization.
Nevertheless, no hard and fast line can be drawn between popularization
and the raising of standards. Not only is it possible to popularize some
works of higher quality even now, but the cultural level of the broad
masses is steadily rising. If popularization remains at the same level for
ever, with the same stuff being supplied month after month and year after
year, always the same "Little Cowherd" [6] and the same "man, hand, mouth,
knife, cow, goat", [7] will not the educators and those being educated be
six of one and half a dozen of the other? What would be the sense of such
popularization? The people demand popularization and, following that,
higher standards; they demand higher standards month by month and year by
year. Here popularization means popularizing for the people and raising of
standards means raising the level for the people. And such raising is not
from mid-air, or behind closed doors, but is actually based on
popularization. It is determined by and at the same time guides
popularization. In China as a whole the development of the revolution and
of revolutionary culture is uneven and their spread is gradual. While in
one place there is popularization and then raising of standards on the
basis of popularization, in other places popularization has not even
begun. Hence good experience in popularization leading to higher standards
in one locality can be applied in other localities and serve to guide
popularization and the raising of standards there, saving many twists and
turns along the road. Internationally, the good experience of foreign
countries, and especially Soviet experience, can also serve to guide us.
With us, therefore, the raising of standards is based on popularization,
while popularization is guided by the raising of standards. Precisely for
this reason, so far from being an obstacle to the raising of standards,
the work of popularization we are speaking of supplies the basis for the
work of raising standards which we are now doing on a limited scale, and
prepares the necessary conditions for us to raise standards in the future
on a much broader scale.
Besides such raising of standards as meets the needs of the masses
directly, there is the kind which meets their needs indirectly, that is,
the kind which is needed by the cadres. The cadres are the advanced
elements of the masses and generally have received more education;
literature and art of a higher level are entirely necessary for them. To
ignore this would be a mistake. Whatever is done for the cadres is also
entirely for the masses, because it is only through the cadres that we can
educate and guide the masses. If we go against this aim, if what we give
the cadres cannot help them educate and guide the masses, our work of
raising standards will be like shooting at random and will depart from the
fundamental principle of serving the masses of the people.
To sum up: through the creative labour of revolutionary writers and
artists, the raw materials found in the life of the people are shaped into
the ideological form of literature and art serving the masses of the
people. Included here are the more advanced literature and art as
developed on the basis of elementary literature and art and as required by
those sections of the masses whose level has been raised, or, more
immediately, by the cadres among the masses. Also included here are
elementary literature and art which, conversely, are guided by more
advanced literature and art and are needed primarily by the overwhelming
majority of the masses at present. Whether more advanced or elementary,
all our literature and art are for the masses of the people, and in the
first place for the workers, peasants and soldiers; they are created for
the workers, peasants and soldiers and are for their use.
Now that we have settled the problem of the relationship between the
raising of standards and popularization, that of the relationship between
the specialists and the popularizers can also be settled. Our specialists
are not only for the cadres, but also, and indeed chiefly, for the masses.
Our specialists in literature should pay attention to the wall newspapers
of the masses and to the reportage written in the army and the villages.
Our specialists in drama should pay attention to the small troupes in the
army and the villages. Our specialists in music should pay attention to
the songs of the masses. Our specialists in the fine arts should pay
attention to the fine arts of the masses. All these comrades should make
close contact with comrades engaged in the work of popularizing literature
and art among the masses. On the one hand, they should help and guide the
popularizers, and on the other, they should learn from these comrades and,
through them, draw nourishment from the masses to replenish and enrich
themselves so that their specialities do not become "ivory towers",
detached from the masses and from reality and devoid of content or life.
We should esteem the specialists, for they are very valuable to our cause.
But we should tell them that no revolutionary writer or artist can do any
meaningful work unless he is closely linked with the masses, gives
expression to their thoughts and feelings and serves them as a loyal
spokesman. Only by speaking for the masses can he educate them and only by
being their pupil can he be their teacher. If he regards himself as their
master, as an aristocrat who lords it over the "lower orders", then, no
matter how talented he may be, he will not be needed by the masses and his
work will have no future.
Is this attitude of ours utilitarian? Materialists do not oppose
utilitarianism in general but the utilitarianism of the feudal, bourgeois
and petty-bourgeois classes; they oppose those hypocrites who attack
utilitarianism in words but in deeds embrace the most selfish and
short-sighted utilitarianism. There is no "ism" in the world that
transcends utilitarian considerations; in class society there can be only
the utilitarianism of this or that class. We are proletarian revolutionary
utilitarians and take as our point of departure the unity of the present
and future interests of the broadest masses, who constitute over 90 per
cent of the population; hence we are revolutionary utilitarians aiming for
the broadest and the most long-range objectives, not narrow utilitarians
concerned only with the partial and the immediate. If, for instance, you
reproach the masses for their utilitarianism and yet for your own utility,
or that of a narrow clique, force on the market and propagandize among the
masses a work which pleases only the few but is useless or even harmful to
the majority, then you are not only insulting the masses but also
revealing your own lack of self-knowledge. A thing is good only when it
brings real benefit to the masses of the people. Your work may be as good
as "The Spring Snow", but if for the time being it caters only to the few
and the masses are still singing the "Song of the Rustic Poor", [8] you
will get nowhere by simply scolding them instead of trying to raise their
level. The question now is to bring about a unity between "The Spring
Snow" and the "Song of the Rustic Poor", between higher standards and
popularization. Without such a unity, the highest art of any expert cannot
help being utilitarian in the narrowest sense; you may call this art "pure
and lofty" but that is merely your own name for it which the masses will
not endorse.
Once we have solved the problems of fundamental policy, of serving the
workers, peasants and soldiers and of how to serve them, such other
problems as whether to write about the bright or the dark side of life and
the problem of unity will also be solved. If everyone agrees on the
fundamental policy, it should be adhered to by all our workers, all our
schools, publications and organizations in the field of literature and art
and in all our literary and artistic activities. It is wrong to depart
from this policy and anything at variance with it must be duly corrected.
III
Since our literature and art are for the masses of the people, we can
proceed to discuss a problem of inner-Party relations, i.e., the relation
between the Party's work in literature and art and the Party's work as a
whole, and in addition a problem of the Party's external relations, i.e.,
the relation between the Party's work in literature and art and the work
of non-Party people in this field, a problem of the united front in
literary and art circles.
Let us consider the first problem. In the world today all culture, all
literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite
political lines. There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art
that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of
politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian
revolutionary cause; they are, as Lenin said, cogs and wheels [9] in the
whole revolutionary machine. Therefore, Party work in literature and art
occupies a definite and assigned position in Party revolutionary work as a
whole and is subordinated to the revolutionary tasks set by the Party in a
given revolutionary period. Opposition to this arrangement is certain to
lead to dualism or pluralism, and in essence amounts to
"politics--Marxist, art--bourgeois", as with Trotsky. We do not favour
overstressing the importance of literature and art, but neither do we
favour underestimating their importance. Literature and art are
subordinate to politics, but in their turn exert a great influence on
politics. Revolutionary literature and art are part of the whole
revolutionary cause, they are cogs and wheels in it, and though in
comparison with certain other and more important parts they may be less
significant and less urgent and may occupy a secondary position,
nevertheless, they are indispensable cogs and wheels in the whole machine,
an indispensable part of the entire revolutionary cause. If we had no
literature and art even in the broadest and most ordinary sense, we could
not carry on the revolutionary movement and win victory. Failure to
recognize this is wrong. Furthermore, when we say that literature and art
are subordinate to politics, we mean class politics, the politics of the
masses, not the politics of a few so-called statesmen. Politics, whether
revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, is the struggle of class against
class, not the activity of a few individuals. The revolutionary struggle
on the ideological and artistic fronts must be subordinate to the
political struggle because only through politics can the needs of the
class and the masses find expression in concentrated form. Revolutionary
statesmen, the political specialists who know the science or art of
revolutionary politics, are simply the leaders of millions upon millions
of statesmen--the masses. Their task is to collect the opinions of these
mass statesmen, sift and refine them, and return them to the masses, who
then take them and put them into practice. They are therefore not the kind
of aristocratic "statesmen" who work behind closed doors and fancy they
have a monopoly of wisdom. Herein lies the difference in principle between
proletarian statesmen and decadent bourgeois statesmen. This is precisely
why there can be complete unity between the political character of our
literary and artistic works and their truthfulness. It would be wrong to
fail to realize this and to debase the politics and the statesmen of the
proletariat.
Let us consider next the question of the united front in the world of
literature and art. Since literature and art are subordinate to politics
and since the fundamental problem in China's politics today is resistance
to Japan, our Party writers and artists must in the first place unite on
this issue of resistance to Japan with all non-Party writers and artists
(ranging from Party sympathizers and petty-bourgeois writers and artists
to all those writers and artists of the bourgeois and landlord classes who
are in favour of resistance to Japan). Secondly, we should unite with them
on the issue of democracy. On this issue there is a section of
anti-Japanese writers and artists who do not agree with us, so the range
of unity will unavoidably be somewhat more limited. Thirdly, we should
unite with them on issues peculiar to the literary and artistic world,
questions of method and style in literature and art; here again, as we are
for socialist realism and some people do not agree, the range of unity
will be narrower still. While on one issue there is unity, on another
there is struggle, there is criticism. The issues are at once separate and
interrelated, so that even on the very ones which give rise to unity, such
as resistance to Japan, there are at the same time struggle and criticism.
In a united front, "all unity and no struggle" and "all struggle and no
unity" are both wrong policies--as with the Right capitulationism and
tailism, or the "Left" exclusivism and sectarianism, practiced by some
comrades in the past. This is as true in literature and art as in
politics.
The petty-bourgeois writers and artists constitute an important force
among the forces of the united front in literary and art circles in China.
There are many shortcomings in both their thinking and their works, but,
comparatively speaking, they are inclined towards the revolution and are
close to the working people. Therefore, it is an especially important task
to help them overcome their shortcomings and to win them over to the front
which serves the working people.
IV
Literary and art criticism is one of the principal methods of struggle in
the world of literature and art. It should be developed and, as comrades
have rightly pointed out, our past work in this respect has been quite
inadequate. Literary and art criticism is a complex question which
requires a great deal of special study. Here I shall concentrate only on
the basic problem of criteria in criticism. I shall also comment briefly
on a few specific problems raised by some comrades and on certain
incorrect views.
In literary and art criticism there are two criteria, the political and
the artistic. According to the political criterion, everything is good
that is helpful to unity and resistance to Japan, that encourages the
masses to be of one heart and one mind, that opposes retrogression and
promotes progress; on the other hand, everything is bad that is
detrimental to unity and resistance to Japan, foments dissension and
discord among the masses and opposes progress and drags people back. How
can we tell the good from the bad--by the motive (the subjective
intention) or by the effect (social practice)? Idealists stress motive and
ignore effect, while mechanical materialists stress effect and ignore
motive. In contradistinction to both, we dialectical materialists insist
on the unity of motive and effect. The motive of serving the masses is
inseparably linked with the effect of winning their approval; the two must
be united. The motive of serving the individual or a small clique is not
good, nor is it good to have the motive of serving the masses without the
effect of winning their approval and benefiting them. In examining the
subjective intention of a writer or artist, that is, whether his motive is
correct and good, we do not judge by his declarations but by the effect of
his actions (mainly his works) on the masses in society. The criterion for
judging subjective intention or motive is social practice and its effect.
We want no sectarianism in our literary and art criticism and, subject to
the general principle of unity for resistance to Japan, we should tolerate
literary and art works with a variety of political attitudes. But at the
same time, in our criticism we must adhere firmly to principle and
severely criticize and repudiate all works of literature and art
expressing views in opposition to the nation, to science, to the masses
and to the Communist Party, because these so-called works of literature
and art proceed from the motive and produce the effect of undermining
unity for resistance to Japan. According to the artistic criterion, all
works of a higher artistic quality are good or comparatively good, while
those of a lower artistic quality are bad or comparatively bad. Here, too,
of course, social effect must be taken into account. There is hardly a
writer or artist who does not consider his own work beautiful, and our
criticism ought to permit the free competition of all varieties of works
of art; but it is also entirely necessary to subject these works to
correct criticism according to the criteria of the science of aesthetics,
so that art of a lower level can be gradually raised to a higher and art
which does not meet the demands of the struggle of the broad masses can be
transformed into art that does.
There is the political criterion and there is the artistic criterion; what
is the relationship between the two? Politics cannot be equated with art,
nor can a general world outlook be equated with a method of artistic
creation and criticism. We deny not only that there is an abstract and
absolutely unchangeable political criterion, but also that there is an
abstract and absolutely unchangeable artistic criterion; each class in
every class society has its own political and artistic criteria. But all
classes in all class societies invariably put the political criterion
first and the artistic criterion second. The bourgeoisie always shuts out
proletarian literature and art, however great their artistic merit. The
proletariat must similarly distinguish among the literary and art works of
past ages and determine its attitude towards them only after examining
their attitude to the people and whether or not they had any progressive
significance historically. Some works which politically are downright
reactionary may have a certain artistic quality. The more reactionary
their content and the higher their artistic quality, the more poisonous
they are to the people, and the more necessary it is to reject them. A
common characteristic of the literature and art of all exploiting classes
in their period of decline is the contradiction between their reactionary
political content and their artistic form. What we demand is the unity of
politics and art, the unity of content and form, the unity of
revolutionary political content and the highest possible perfection of
artistic form. Works of art which lack artistic quality have no force,
however progressive they are politically. Therefore, we oppose both the
tendency to produce works of art with a wrong political viewpoint and the
tendency towards the "poster and slogan style" which is correct in
political viewpoint but lacking in artistic power. On questions of
literature and art we must carry on a struggle on two fronts.
Both these tendencies can be found in the thinking of many comrades. A
good number of comrades tend to neglect artistic technique; it is
therefore necessary to give attention to the raising of artistic
standards. But as I see it, the political side is more of a problem at
present. Some comrades lack elementary political knowledge and
consequently have all sorts of muddled ideas. Let me cite a few examples
from Yenan.
"The theory of human nature." Is there such a thing as human nature? Of
course there is. But there is only human nature in the concrete, no human
nature in the abstract. In class society there is only human nature of a
class character; there is no human nature above classes. We uphold the
human nature of the proletariat and of the masses of the people, while the
landlord and bourgeois classes uphold the human nature of their own
classes, only they do not say so but make it out to be the only human
nature in existence. The human nature boosted by certain petty-bourgeois
intellectuals is also divorced from or opposed to the masses; what they
call human nature is in essence nothing but bourgeois individualism, and
so, in their eyes, proletarian human nature is contrary to human nature.
"The theory of human nature" which some people in Yenan advocate as the
basis of their so-called theory of literature and art puts the matter in
just this way and is wholly wrong.
"The fundamental point of departure for literature and art is love, love
of humanity." Now love may serve as a point of departure, but there is a
more basic one. Love as an idea is a product of objective practice.
Fundamentally, we do not start from ideas but from objective practice. Our
writers and artists who come from the ranks of the intellectuals love the
proletariat because society has made them feel that they and the
proletariat share a common fate. We hate Japanese imperialism because
Japanese imperialism oppresses us. There is absolutely no such thing in
the world as love or hatred with out reason or cause. As for the so-called
love of humanity, there has been no such all-inclusive love since humanity
was divided into classes. All the ruling classes of the past were fond of
advocating it, and so were many so-called sages and wise men, but nobody
has ever really practiced it, because it is impossible in class society.
There will be genuine love of humanity--after classes are eliminated all
over the world. Classes have split society into many antagonistic
groupings; there will be love of all humanity when classes are eliminated,
but not now. We cannot love enemies, we cannot love social evils, our aim
is to destroy them. This is common sense; can it be that some of our
writers and artists still do not understand this?
"Literary and artistic works have always laid equal stress on the bright
and the dark, half and half." This statement contains many muddled ideas.
It is not true that literature and art have always done this. Many
petty-bourgeois writers have never discovered the bright side. Their works
only expose the dark and are known as the "literature of exposure". Some
of their works simply specialize in preaching pessimism and
world-weariness. On the other hand, Soviet literature in the period of
socialist construction portrays mainly the bright. It, too, describes
shortcomings in work and portrays negative characters, but this only
serves as a contrast to bring out the brightness of the whole picture and
is not on a so-called half-and-half basis. The writers and artists of the
bourgeoisie in its period of reaction depict the revolutionary masses as
mobs and themselves as saints, thus reversing the bright and the dark.
Only truly revolutionary writers and artists can correctly solve the
problem of whether to extol or to expose. All the dark forces harming the
masses of the people must be exposed and all the revolutionary struggles
of the masses of the people must be extolled; this is the fundamental task
of revolutionary writers and artists.
"The task of literature and art has always been to expose." This
assertion, like the previous one, arises from ignorance of the science of
history. Literature and art, as we have shown, have never been devoted
solely to exposure. For revolutionary writers and artists the targets for
exposure can never be the masses, but only the aggressors, exploiters and
oppressors and the evil influence they have on the people. The masses too
have shortcomings, which should be overcome by criticism and
self-criticism within the people's own ranks, and such criticism and
self-criticism is also one of the most important tasks of literature and
art. But this should not be regarded as any sort of "exposure of the
people". As for the people, the question is basically one of education and
of raising their level. Only counter-revolutionary writers and artists
describe the people as "born fools" and the revolutionary masses as
"tyrannical mobs".
"This is still the period of the satirical essay, and Lu Hsun's style of
writing is still needed." Living under the rule of the dark forces and
deprived of freedom of speech, Lu Hsun used burning satire and freezing
irony, cast in the form of essays, to do battle; and he was entirely
right. We, too, must hold up to sharp ridicule the fascists, the Chinese
reactionaries and everything that harms the people; but in the
Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and the anti-Japanese base areas behind
the enemy lines, where democracy and freedom are granted in full to the
revolutionary writers and artists and withheld only from the
counter-revolutionaries, the style of the essay should not simply be like
Lu Hsun's. Here we can shout at the top of our voices and have no need for
veiled and roundabout expressions, which are hard for the people to
understand. When dealing with the people and not with their enemies, Lu
Hsun never ridiculed or attacked the revolutionary people and the
revolutionary Party in his "satirical essay period", and these essays were
entirely different in manner from those directed against the enemy. To
criticize the people's shortcomings is necessary, as we have already said,
but in doing so we must truly take the stand of the people and speak out
of whole-hearted eagerness to protect and educate them. To treat comrades
like enemies is to go over to the stand of the enemy. Are we then to
abolish satire? No. Satire is always necessary. But there are several
kinds of satire, each with a different attitude, satire to deal with our
enemies, satire to deal with our allies and satire to deal with our own
ranks. We are not opposed to satire in general; what we must abolish is
the abuse of satire.
"I am not given to praise and eulogy. The works of people who eulogize
what is bright are not necessarily great and the works of those who depict
the dark are not necessarily paltry." If you are a bourgeois writer or
artist, you will eulogize not the proletariat but the bourgeoisie, and if
you are a proletarian writer or artist, you will eulogize not the
bourgeoisie but the proletariat and working people: it must be one or the
other. The works of the eulogists of the bourgeoisie are not necessarily
great, nor are the works of those who show that the bourgeoisie is dark
necessarily paltry; the works of the eulogists of the proletariat are not
necessarily not great, but the works of those who depict the so-called
"darkness" of the proletariat are bound to be paltry--are these not facts
of history as regards literature and art? Why should we not eulogize the
people, the creators of the history of mankind? Why should we not eulogize
the proletariat, the Communist Party, New Democracy and socialism? There
is a type of person who has no enthusiasm for the people's cause and looks
coldly from the side-lines at the struggles and victories of the
proletariat and its vanguard; what he is interested in, and will never
weary of eulogizing, is himself, plus perhaps a few figures in his small
coterie. Of course, such petty-bourgeois individualists are unwilling to
eulogize the deeds and virtues of the revolutionary people or heighten
their courage in struggle and their confidence in victory. Persons of this
type are merely termites in the revolutionary ranks; of course, the
revolutionary people have no need for these "singers".
"It is not a question of stand; my class stand is correct, my intentions
are good and I understand all right, but I am not good at expressing
myself and so the effect turns out bad." I have already spoken about the
dialectical materialist view of motive and effect. Now I want to ask, is
not the question of effect one of stand? A person who acts solely by
motive and does not inquire what effect his action will have is like a
doctor who merely writes prescriptions but does not care how many patients
die of them. Or take a political party which merely makes declarations but
does not care whether they are carried out. It may well be asked, is this
a correct stand? And is the intention here good? Of course, mistakes may
occur even though the effect has been taken into account beforehand, but
is the intention good when one continues in the same old rut after facts
have proved that the effect is bad? In judging a party or a doctor, we
must look at practice, at the effect. The same applies in judging a
writer. A person with truly good intentions must take the effect into
account, sum up experience and study the methods or, in creative work,
study the technique of expression. A person with truly good intentions
must criticize the shortcomings and mistakes in his own work with the
utmost candour and resolve to correct them. This is precisely why
Communists employ the method of self-criticism. This alone is the correct
stand. Only in this process of serious and responsible practice is it
possible gradually to understand what the correct stand is and gradually
obtain a good grasp of it. If one does not move in this direction in
practice, if there is simply the complacent assertion that one
"understands all right", then in fact one has not understood at all.
"To call on us to study Marxism is to repeat the mistake of the
dialectical materialist creative method, which will harm the creative
mood." To study Marxism means to apply the dialectical materialist and
historical materialist viewpoint in our observation of the world, of
society and of literature and art; it does not mean writing philosophical
lectures into our works of literature and art. Marxism embraces but cannot
replace realism in literary and artistic creation, just as it embraces but
cannot replace the atomic and electronic theories in physics. Empty, dry
dogmatic formulas do indeed destroy the creative mood; not only that, they
first destroy Marxism. Dogmatic "Marxism" is not Marxism, it is
anti-Marxism. Then does not Marxism destroy the creative mood? Yes, it
does. It definitely destroys creative moods that are feudal, bourgeois,
petty-bourgeois, liberalistic, individualist, nihilist, art-for-art's
sake, aristocratic, decadent or pessimistic, and every other creative mood
that is alien to the masses of the people and to the proletariat. So far
as proletarian writers and artists are concerned, should not these kinds
of creative moods be destroyed? I think they should; they should be
utterly destroyed. And while they are being destroyed, something new can
be constructed.
V
The problems discussed here exist in our literary and art circles in Yenan.
What does that show? It shows that wrong styles of work still exist to a
serious extent in our literary and art circles and that there are still
many defects among our comrades, such as idealism, dogmatism, empty
illusions, empty talk, contempt for practice and aloofness from the
masses, all of which call for an effective and serious campaign of
rectification.
We have many comrades who are still not very clear on the difference
between the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. There are many Party
members who have joined the Communist Party organizationally but have not
yet joined the Party wholly or at all ideologically. Those who have not
joined the Party ideologically still carry a great deal of the muck of the
exploiting classes in their heads, and have no idea at all of what
proletarian ideology, or communism, or the Party is. "Proletarian
ideology?" they think. "The same old stuff!" Little do they know that it
is no easy matter to acquire this stuff. Some will never have the
slightest Communist flavour about them as long as they live and can only
end up by leaving the Party.
Therefore, though the majority in our Party and in our ranks are clean and
honest, we must in all seriousness put things in order both ideologically
and organizationally if we are to develop the revolutionary movement more
effectively and bring it to speedier success. To put things in order
organizationally requires our first doing so ideologically, our launching
a struggle of proletarian ideology against non-proletarian ideology. An
ideological struggle is already under way in literary and art circles in
Yenan, and it is most necessary. Intellectuals of petty-bourgeois origin
always stubbornly try in all sorts of ways, including literary and
artistic ways, to project themselves and spread their views, and they want
the Party and the world to be remoulded in their own image. In the
circumstances it is our duty to jolt these "comrades" and tell them
sharply, "That won't work! The proletariat cannot accommodate itself to
you; to yield to you would actually be to yield to the big landlord class
and the big bourgeoisie and to run the risk of undermining our Party and
our country." Whom then must we yield to? We can mould the Party and the
world only in the image of the proletarian vanguard. We hope our comrades
in literary and art circles will realize the seriousness of this great
debate and join actively in this struggle, so that every comrade may
become sound and our entire ranks may become truly united and consolidated
ideologically and organizationally.
Because of confusion in their thinking, many of our comrades are not quite
able to draw a real distinction between our revolutionary base areas and
the Kuomintang areas and they make many mistakes as a consequence. A good
number of comrades have come here from the garrets of Shanghai, and in
coming from those garrets to the revolutionary base areas, they have
passed not only from one kind of place to another but from one historical
epoch to another. One society is semi-feudal, semi-colonial, under the
rule of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie, the other is a
revolutionary new-democratic society under the leadership of the
proletariat. To come to the revolutionary bases means to enter an epoch
unprecedented in the thousands of years of Chinese history, an epoch in
which the masses of the people wield state power. Here the people around
us and the audience for our propaganda are totally different. The past
epoch is gone, never to return. Therefore, we must integrate ourselves
with the new masses without any hesitation. If, living among the new
masses, some comrades, as I said before, are still "lacking in knowledge
and understanding" and remain "heroes with no place to display their
prowess", then difficulties will arise for them, and not only when they go
out to the villages; right here in Yenan difficulties will arise for them.
Some comrades may think, "Well, I had better continue writing for the
readers in the Great Rear Area; [10] it is a job I know well and has
'national significance'." This idea is entirely wrong. The Great Rear Area
is also changing. Readers there expect authors in the revolutionary base
areas to tell about the new people and the new world and not to bore them
with the same old tales. Therefore, the more a work is written for the
masses in the revolutionary base areas, the more national significance
will it have. Fadeyev in The Debacle [11] only told the story of a small
guerrilla unit and had no intention of pandering to the palate of readers
in the old world; yet the book has exerted world-wide influence. At any
rate in China its influence is very great, as you know. China is moving
forward, not back, and it is the revolutionary base areas, not any of the
backward, retrogressive areas, that are leading China forward. This is a
fundamental issue that, above all, comrades must come to understand in the
rectification movement.
Since integration into the new epoch of the masses is essential, it is
necessary thoroughly to solve the problem of the relationship between the
individual and the masses. This couplet from a poem by Lu Hsun should be
our motto:
Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers,
Head-bowed, like a willing ox I serve the children. [12]
The "thousand pointing fingers" are our enemies, and we will never yield
to them, no matter how ferocious. The "children" here symbolize the
proletariat and the masses. All Communists, all revolutionaries, all
revolutionary literary and art workers should learn from the example of Lu
Hsun and be "oxen" for the proletariat and the masses, bending their backs
to the task until their dying day. Intellectuals who want to integrate
themselves with the masses, who want to serve the masses, must go through
a process in which they and the masses come to know each other well. This
process may, and certainly will, involve much pain and friction, but if
you have the determination, you will be able to fulfil these requirements.
Today I have discussed only some of the problems of fundamental
orientation for our literature and art movement; many specific problems
remain which will require further study. I am confident that comrades here
are determined to move in the direction indicated.
I believe that in the course of the rectification movement and in the long
period of study and work to come, you will surely be able to bring about a
transformation in yourselves and in your works, to create many fine works
which will be warmly welcomed by the masses of the people, and to advance
the literature and art movement in the revolutionary base areas and
throughout China to a glorious new stage.
NOTES
1. See V. I. Lenin, "Party Organisation and Party Literature", in which he
described the characteristics of proletarian literature as follows:
It will be a free literature, because the idea of socialism and sympathy
with the working people, and not greed or careerism, will bring ever new
forces to its ranks. It will be a free literature, because it will serve,
not some satiated heroine, not the bored "upper ten thousand" suffering
from fatty degeneration, but the millions and tens of millions of working
people--the flower of the country, its strength and its future. It will be
a free literature, enriching the last word in the revolutionary thought of
mankind with the experience and living work of the socialist proletariat,
bringing about permanent interaction between the experience of the past
(scientific socialism, the completion of the development of socialism from
its primitive, utopian forms) and the experience of the present (the
present struggle of the worker comrades). (Collected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH,
Moscow, 1962, Vol. X, pp. 48-49.)
2. Liang Shih-chiu, a member of the counter-revolutionary National
Socialist Party, for a long time propagated reactionary American bourgeois
ideas on literature and art. He stubbornly opposed the revolution and
reviled revolutionary literature and art.
3. Chou Tso-jen and Chang Tzu-ping capitulated to the Japanese aggressors
after the Japanese occupied Peking and Shanghai in 1937.
4. Lu Hsun, "My View on the League of Left-Wing Writers" in the collection
Two Hearts, Complete Works, Chin. ed., Vol. IV.
5. See Lu Hsun's essay, "Death", in the "Addenda", The Last Collection of
Essays Written in a Garret in the Quasi-Concession, Complete Works. Chin.
ed., Vol. VI.
6. The "Little Cowherd" is a popular Chinese folk operetta with only two
people acting in it, a cowherd and a village girl, who sing a question and
answer duet. In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan,
this form was used, with new words, for anti-Japanese propaganda and for a
time found great favour with the public.
7. The Chinese characters for these six words are written simply, with
only a few strokes, and were usually included in the first lessons in old
primers.
8. "The Spring Snow" and the "Song of the Rustic Poor" were songs of the
Kingdom of Chu in the 3rd century B.C. The music of the first was on a
higher level than that of the second. As the story is told in "Sung Yu's
Reply to the King of Chu" in Prince Chao Ming's Anthology of Prose and
Poetry, when someone sang "The Spring Snow" in the Chu capital, only a few
dozen people joined in, but when the "Song of the Rustic Poor" was sung,
thousands did so.
9. See V. I. Lenin, "Party Organisation and Party Literature": "Literature
must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, 'a cog and a
screw' of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism set in motion by
the entire politically conscious vanguard of the entire working class."
(Collected Works, Eng. ea., FLPH, Moscow, I962, Vol. X, p. 45.)
10. The Great Rear Area was the name given during the War of Resistance to
the vast areas under Kuomintang control in southwestern and northwestern
China which were not occupied by the Japanese invaders, as distinguished
from the "small rear area", the anti-Japanese base areas behind the enemy
lines under the leadership of the Communist Party.
11. The Debacle by the famous Soviet writer Alexander Fadeyev was
published in 1927 and translated into Chinese by Lu Hsun. The novel
describes the struggle of a partisan detachment of workers, peasants and
revolutionary intellectuals in Siberia against the counter-revolutionary
brigands during the Soviet civil war.
12. This couplet is from Lu Hsun's "In Mockery of Myself" in The
Collection Outside the Collection, Complete Works,Chin. ed., Vol. VII.
Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.
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