(April 28, 1938)

You have asked me to make a few remarks. But since I do not know much about art,
I can only give you a few rough and superficial ideas to consider.
1. What should our views be about the arts? This issue was once hotly debated
in China. You may all know that Mr. Xu Zhimo¹ once said: "A poem must sound
like a silver needle in a quiet valley." I do not know what a silver needle in a quiet
valley sounds like. But I do know that Mr. Xu believed in putting art above everything else. At that time, many people held the same views that he did; he is a
representative of this school of thought. Another school of thought, represented by
Mr. Lu Xun, is that of the believers in the Marxist theory of art. The theoretical
controversies between these two schools regarding art have a long history which I
cannot talk about now in detail. The view that we should put art above everything
else is an idealistic theory, and it is not correct. Now, however, we need a united
front in artistic circles too, in order to resist the Japanese. Just as Mr. Lu Xun said,
whether one is a realist, a romanticist, a Communist, or something else, we must
all unite to resist the Japanese. Of course, as far as we are concerned, it is necessary to maintain political independence in art. We can never give up our political
position in the realm of art, and so this art academy of ours must have its own
political standpoint. In matters of artistic theory we are Marxists, not partisans of
putting art above everything else. We believe in realism in art, but this does not
mean that we advocate that kind of "realism" which is simply an imitation of
nature, like bookkeeping, for art cannot simply replicate nature. Romanticism in
art is by no means entirely wrong. There are many different sorts of it: there is
active and revolutionary romanticism, and passive and reactionary romanticism.
Some people explain things through reading each line, and they look down upon
romanticism, believing it to be nothing but wind, flowers, snow, the moon, brothers, and sisters. They do not have the slightest idea that the primary spirit of active
romanticism is dissatisfaction with the status quo; it is to imagine the future with
revolutionary enthusiasm. This school of thought was once a progressive force in

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 121-26, where it is reproduced
from the draft record of Mao's talk preserved in the Central Archives.
1. Xu Zhimo (1896-1931), who had studied at Columbia University and Cambridge
University, launched the so-called modern poetry movement, whose members sought to
write according to the literary standards of the West rather than those of traditional China.

history. If a work of art only records the status quo and does not contain a desire to
search for an ideal in the future, it cannot impel people forward. Simultaneously to
discover defects in the present and the hope and glory of the future-this is the
revolutionary spirit, and it is this spirit that Marxists need.

There used to be a so-called third category of people in art circles in China, but
we will not exclude even them now. The first priority today is the National Anti-
Japanese United Front of all patriots, and our own political position in the realm of
art can only come second. Every artistic school has its own class position. We
stand on the side of the proletariat and the toiling masses, but under the guiding
principle of the united front, we will not use Marxism to exclude others. Exclusion
is closed-doorism, not a united front. Nonetheless, within this united front, we
must not give up our position; this was the orientation of Mr. Lu Xun. Your Lu
Xun Academy of Art must follow his orientation.

2. A work of art must have content, and must meet the demands of the time, and
of the broad masses. Like a good meal, a work of art must be both nutritious and
flavorful. The Chinese are the best people at cooking and eating. When we cook,
we use just the right amounts of ingredients, then add oil, salt, sauces, vinegar, and
every kind of spice. After skillful cooking, a wonderful flavor emerges, and the
nutritional value has been preserved. Great chefs learn how to cook well through a
long period of practical experience, not simply after studying for one day. When
they cook, they use the same ingredients as other people, yet are able to create
marvelous flavors. To achieve this, one must master blending spices, cooking time,
and cooking temperature. Believers in putting art above everything else pay attention only to whether something tastes good; they do not care if it is nutritious or not.
Consequently, the content of their work is often hollow or harmful. Art must stress
nutritional value; that is, it must have good content and meet the demands of the
time and of the masses. Take Beijing opera, for example. Today, one cannot find
advertisements for operas like *A Pleasant Dream in the Garden*, because tickets for
that sort of opera do not sell. When performing old operas today, we must increase
the performance of those that portray national heroes or resisting an enemy. These
are the demands of the time. Works of art must also have moving images and plots,
and must be close to real life; otherwise, nobody will want to see them. Stuffing
abstract concepts awkwardly into a work of art will never be popular.

3. The Lu Xun Academy of Arts must train a group of artistic workers with grand
ideals, rich life experiences, and excellent artistic skills. You should not become
artistic workers who are only able to record social life; rather, you should have the
grand ideal of struggling hard for a new China. That is to say, you should not only
resist Japan, but also strive to construct a new democratic republic during the
process of the War of Resistance. You should work not only for the democratic
republic but also for the realization of socialist and then communist ideals. Without such great ideals, it is impossible to become great artists. But ideals alone are
not enough; you must also have rich life experience and excellent artistic skills.
The fact that there has been no great work of art in China for the past few years is

certainly due to objective social causes, but as far as the artists themselves are
concerned, it is also because there are too few who fulfill these three criteria.
Many of our writers have grand ideals, but they do not have rich life experience,
and not a few of them lack strong artistic skills as well. If you lack any one of these
three criteria, you will not become a great artist.

As Mr. Lu Xun wrote in his afterword to *Destroy*, its author [Aleksandr
Aleksandrovich] Fadeev personally experienced guerrilla warfare, and so his description of the training of horses was that of an expert. Fadeev even noticed such
details as how to climb into a saddle, as did Mr. Lu Xun. This story tells us that
great writers do not sit at home, basing their writing on what they imagine. Stuff
written in that manner is no good. Many people now look down on the novel *The
Dream of the Red Chamber* and are in fact reluctant to mention it. *The Dream of
the Red Chamber* is actually a very good novel. In particular, it contains abundant
social and historical materials. For instance, it describes how Liu Xianglian, after
beating Xue Pan severely, "unfastened his horse, and vaulted into the saddle."²
Without real experience, nobody could come up with the phrase "vaulted into the
saddle." Without personally experiencing something, one cannot know it well.
Everything, no matter how trivial, has rich content that can only be learned through
real-life experience. You are young artistic workers, and the whole world belongs
to you. It is your field of activity. If you want your art to have rich content, you will
have to get nutrients from real life. You cannot stay here and study for the rest of
your lives. Before long you will scatter to different places and be in the midst of
real struggles. Like the words in "The Song of the Guerrillas" which you sing:
"We are all flying soldiers, how can we fear high mountains or deep water?" You
should not merely mouth these words, but act this way as well. Without abundant
real-life experience, there is no real content in art. In order to create a masterpiece,
you must first go and enrich your experiences through real struggle. Although it is
true that artists must have ideals, they also must study details like how to climb
into a saddle. In the past a man who studied *The Dream of the Red Chamber* said
that he did indeed tour and survey Prospect Garden. Now your "Prospect Garden"
is all China. Every one of you young artistic workers here is a Jia Baoyu or Lin
Daiyu;³ you need really to live in and study your Prospect Garden. In your work,
the "big outline" is all China, and the "small outline" is the Wutaishan district.
When surveying China, it is not enough simply to use the style of a reporter, for a
reporter's work has the quality of one who just passes by. An old expression says:
"Looking at flowers while riding on horseback cannot be compared to stopping
the horse to look at flowers; stopping the horse to look at flowers cannot be com-

² Cao Xueqin, *The Story of the Stone*, trans. and ed. David Hawkes (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1977), vol. 2, p. 444. (Professor Hawkes adopted for his translation this
alternative, and arguably more correct, title for the novel.)
³ These are the two central characters in *The Dream of the Red Chamber*.