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Twenty Years After the Yenan Forum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

T. A. Hsia
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Extract

In 1962, commemorative activities were held in Communist China to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Mao's Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art. In the same year, a group of scholars and writers working in America and Britain gathered near Oxford to ponder over Chinese Communist literature. Though the coincidence was not intentional, it did force on one's mind a disturbing sense of history. For no review of Chinese Communist literature, from our point of view or theirs, can escape the fact of control, and the control began with Mao's Talks. The success of the control, of course, is something to be celebrated in Communist China, but the defects in the Chinese Communist writing, noted at the conference in England, indicate the costs paid for that success. For these defects are made to order. It is beyond the power of any single writer in Communist China to correct them. He is bound to contribute to the collective errors if he wishes to avoid a political offence.

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Type
Special Survey of Chinese Communist Literature
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 13 , March 1963, pp. 226 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1963

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References

1 According to Hsueh-wei, Liu (Lunwen-hsueh-ti kung-nung-ping fang-hsiang (On the Worker-Peasant-Soldier Direction in Literature) [Shanghai: 1949], p. 90Google Scholar, cf. note 5), the official publication date of Mao, 's Talks was 10 1943Google Scholar. This is probably true, since so far as I can verify, Mao's Talks was not available in print in 1942. But in the Chinese Communist press, May 1942 is usually given as the official publication date, cf. Peking Review (06 1, 1962, p. 1)Google Scholar: “Last week literary and art workers everywhere in the country started a round of commemorative! activities, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication (italics mine) of Chairman Mao's Talks…”

2 People's Daily (Jen-min Jih-pao), 09 29, 1962.Google Scholar

3 People's Daily, 09 27, 1957.Google Scholar

4 The Times Literary Supplement, 08 24, 1962, p. 641.Google Scholar

5 Liu, , op. cit. p. 17.Google Scholar

6 The exact publication date is not available. But on a 1941 proscription list published by the KMT, there is the title Kei ch'u-hsueh hsieh-tso-che-ti i Feng-hsin (A Letter to Beginners in Writing). The translator is Chang Chung-shih. See Ching-lu, Chang, Bibliographical and Historical Materials Concerning Contemporary Chinese Publications, III (Shanghai: 1956), p. 221Google Scholar

7 Liu, , op. cit. p. 60.Google Scholar

7a Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.

8 Fu's article is found in Chung-yun, Fan, ed., China: The Last Ten Years (Shanghai: 1937), p. 680.Google Scholar

9 My brother gives high praise to Wu Tsu-hsiang and moderate praise to Tuan-mu Hungliang. He is reserved about Ai Wu but censorious of Hsiao Chün. See Hsia, C. T., A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Yale Un. Press, 1961)Google Scholar, under the respective authors.

10 Ch'in's article is found in Jen-min Wen-hsueh (People's Literature, hereinafter PL), 1956, No. 9.Google Scholar

11 See the editorial note in PL 1957, No. 7. Simonov's “Concerning Socialist Realismy” originally appeared in Novy Mir (The New World), 1957, No. 3.Google Scholar

12 Collected in Pao-wei She-hui-chu-i Hsien-shih-chu-i (In Defence of Socialist Realism), ed. by Yi-wen-she, (Translation Society), I (Peking: 1958)Google Scholar. Simonov's article originally appeared in Novy Mir, 1956, No. 12.Google Scholar

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14 The Saturday school carried on the sentimental tradition of the Dream of the Red Chamber and the satirical realistic tradition of Ju-lin-wai-shih (The Scholars). Its chief exponent Chang Hen-shui particularly deserves attention.

15 According to Chü-jen, Ts'ao, Wen-t'an Wu-shih-nien: Hsu-pien (Literary Life during the Past Fifty Years: Vol. II) (Hong Kong: 1955), p. 154Google Scholar and Hai, Lan, Chung-kuo K'ang-chan Wen-yi Shih (History of Chinese Literature during the War of Resistance) (Shanghai: 1947), p. 51Google Scholar, Lu Hsün Feng, a fortnightly, was published in Shanghai before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

16 Yang, Chou, Chlen-chueh Kuan-ch'e Mao Tse-tung Wen-i Lu-hsien (Resolutely Implement the Mao Tse-tung Line in Literature) (Peking: 1952), p. 72.Google Scholar

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18 On May 19, 1942, a Yang Wei-che wrote in the Liberation Daily, Yenan (hereinafter LD) that the CCP did not yet have a policy for literature and art. Mao's important concluding lecture was to be given only four days later.

19 Mao, , Talks. Selected Works (in English), IV, (New York: 1956), p. 63Google Scholar. (This volume is hereinafter referred to as Mao.)

20 Ch'en, Ho, “How Literature and Art in the Liberated Areas Marched Towards the People,” Ch'un-chung Weekly (The Masses Weekly) (Hong Kong), 1947, No. 15.Google Scholar

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24 Ibid. p. xlv.

25 LD 07 19, 1941, p. 2.Google Scholar

26 LD 05 19, 1941, p. 2.Google Scholar

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28 Ibid. p. 238. However, this collection includes one poem for 1945, one for 1946 and another for 1949.

29 Ling, Ting, Shan-pei Feng-kuang (Scenes of Northern Shensi) (Peking: 1950), p. 92.Google Scholar

30 Chao, , Yenan I-yueh (One Month in Yenan) (Shanghai: 1946), p. 114.Google Scholar

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33 Ch'u-huang, Miao, Chung-kuo Kung-ch'an-tang Chien-yao Li-shih (Shanghai: 1957), p. 132.Google Scholar

34 Mao, , p. 106Google Scholar. If the reader checks the Chinese version, he will puzzle over the meaning of the phrase “for a while” found in the official English version.

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36 LD 06 5, 1942, p. 1.Google Scholar

37 Compton, , op. cit., p. xxxiv and pp. 1–8.Google Scholar

38 The fact is revealed in an editorial of Wen-yi Pao (Journal of Literature and the Arts), 1957, No. 7, p. 2Google Scholar. The title of the editorial: “Chi-nien, hui-ku ho chan-wang” (“Commemoration, Retrospect and Prospect”).

39 Ti, Wei Wen, Tien-lun lun-wen.Google Scholar

40 Ch'i-fang, Ho, op. cit., pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

41 Ibid. p. 182.

42 “In the Hospital” was originally published in the Ku-yü, No. 1, and was reprinted in Wen-yi Chen-ti, a Chungking journal. Li Hsueh-wei reviewed it in LD December 5, 1941, p. 4. A damning criticism is found in Wen-yi Pao 1957, No. 25, p. 11Google Scholar. Liu Pai-yü, also writing in 1957, said that the story was not available to him (People's Daily, 08 28, 1957, p. 7).Google Scholar

43 This story is found in two collections: Wo tsal Hsia-ts'un-ti shih-hou (When I Was in Hsta Village) (Peking: 1950)Google Scholar or Yenan Chi (A Venan Anthology) Peking: 1954).Google Scholar

44 This story is also found in the above-mentioned collections.

45 LD 03 9, 1942, p. 4Google Scholar. It should be noted that on March 4, 1942, the Central Committee of the CCP gave instructions regarding the programme for the celebration of the International Women's Day. The propaganda was to emphasise these points: the establishment of the international women's anti-fascist united front, the promotion of unity in China, the active part that women should play in revolution, etc. Ting Ling's essay was an open defiance against such instructions.

46 LD 10 23, 1941, p. 4.Google Scholar

47 This essay was published in the Ku-yü, Vol. 1, No. 4Google Scholar. Mentioned in LD 05 26, 1942, p. 4.Google Scholar

48 Lu Hsün's lecture was given at Chinan University in Shanghai, on 12 21, 1927Google Scholar. It was collected in his Chi-wai-chi (Uncollected Works Collected) with his approval. Hsün, Lu, Ch'üan-chi (Complete Works), VII (Peking: 1958), p. 103.Google Scholar

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50 Miss Tseng mentioned these names at a forum sponsored by the provincial journal Szeckwan Wen-yi, in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Mao, 's Talks: Szechwan Wen-yi, Chengtu, 1962, No. 3, p. 87et seq.Google Scholar

51 Mao, , p. 91.Google Scholar

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53 Szeckwan Wen-yi, 1962, No. 4, p. 65et seq.Google Scholar

54 “Commemoration, Retrospect and Prospect,” Wen-yi Pao, 1957, No. 7, p. 2.Google Scholar

55 The anecdote is cited by Ho Ch'en. See footnote 20.

56 Cheng-feng Wen-hsien (Party Reform Documents) (Hong Kong: 1949), pp. 276–277Google Scholar. For “p'i-ku,” we find “li-tsu-tien” (“standpoint”) in the standard version. Mao, , Hsuan-chi (Selected Works), III, p. 859.Google Scholar

57 In LD 11 15, 1942, p. 4Google Scholar, Chiang Pu quoted Mao as having complained at the Forum about the writers “having neither life, nor Marxism-Leninism.” This phrase is not found in the published texts.

58 Wen-yi Pao, 1956, No. 14, p. 20.Google Scholar

59 PL, 1957, Nos. 5–6 (a combined issue), p. 2.Google Scholar

60 Ibid. p. 3.

61 People's Daily, 09 27, 1957, p. 2.Google Scholar

62 Mao, , p. 77.Google Scholar

63 People's Daily, 05 23, 1952Google Scholar. Reprinted in Hsin-hua Yueh-pao (New China Monthly), 1952, No. 6, p. 178.Google Scholar

64 Ch'in, , Lun Kung-shih-hua Kai-nien-hua (Peking: 1953), p. 60.Google Scholar

65 Mao, , p. 73.Google Scholar

66 Wen-yi Pao, 1962, Nos. 5–6 (a combined issue), p. 4.Google Scholar

67 Yang, Chou, “Wo-kuo she-hui-chu-i wen-hsueh-i-shu-ti tao-lu” (“The Road of Socialist Literature and Art in our Country”), People's Daily, 09 4, 1960, pp. 6, 7.Google Scholar

68 A recent instance of the fight is an article in Red Flag (Hung Ch'i) No. 21, 1962, p. 21Google Scholar, entitled “How Modern Revisionists Follow the Decadent Bourgeois Class in Literature and Art,” by Li Shu-chih.

69 Ho, , “Chan-tou-ti sheng-li-ti erh-shih-nien” (“Twenty Years of Battles and Victory”), Literary Criticism, 1962, No. 3, p. 5.Google Scholar

70 An essay by Feng, Li, Wen-yi Pao, 1957, No. 9, p. 11.Google Scholar