1936, Issue 21–22… The Chinese Soviet has been established for quite some time and has already accomplished many great and astonishing feats. However, in the realm of literary and artistic creation, we have achieved very little. The establishment of the Chinese Literary and Artistic Association today represents a pioneering step in the Soviet movement over the past decade. In the past, there were indeed many comrades who had an affinity for literature and art, but we lacked organized structures and systematic plans for their study and development. Engaging in literary and artistic work among the worker-peasant masses—this means that hitherto our efforts have been predominantly military in nature. Now, however, we need not only military strength but also cultural prowess; we must be both literate and martial. For at present China is engaged on two fronts: one is the anti-Japanese front, and the other is the civil war. To forge a united national front against Japan, drive out Japanese imperialism, and secure the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation, we must first bring the civil war to an end. Yet there are those who refuse to halt the civil war; instead, they are attacking the People’s Red Army—the mainstay of the anti-Japanese struggle—seeking to annihilate the leaders and the core institutions of the Soviet regime, to wipe out all forces committed to resisting Japan, and even to suppress anti-Japanese literature and art. Therefore, if we are to resist Japan, we must first put an end to the civil war. How can this be done? We must act on both the literary and the martial fronts. On the literary side, we should endeavor to persuade those who are unwilling to cease hostilities, mobilizing the broad masses through words and ideas to unite in the anti-Japanese cause. Should our literary efforts fail to convince these holdouts, then we shall resort to military means to compel them to stop fighting. You writers and artists, too, must go to the front lines to encourage the soldiers and vanquish those who persist in the civil war. Thus, in the campaign to achieve a cessation of hostilities and a unified resistance against Japan, the Literary and Artistic Association bears a most important mission: to promote Soviet literature and art rooted in the worker-peasant masses, as well as anti-Japanese literature and art born of the national revolutionary war. These two tasks constitute your noble and glorious responsibility.


Red China Supplement, No. 1, 1936, November 11, Speech by the Chairman