To Ouyang Shanzun, Zhu Dan, and
Cheng Yin
(November 23, 1942)
Comrades Ouyang Shanzun, Zhu Dan, and Cheng Yin,1
I have received your letter. Thank you so much! I think that your plays2 are good.
Plays depicting the life of struggle in the areas behind enemy lines are exactly
what need to be seen in Yan’an and the border regions, and I hope that you will
produce more such plays.
Salutations!
Mao Zedong
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 205–6, which is a copy of the manuscript.
1. Ouyang Shanzun (1914–2009) was the director of the Combat Theater of the Eighth Route Army’s 120th
Division Political Office; between October 1942 and April 1943 he served as the dean of the northwest Shanxi
branch of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts and Literature. Zhu Dan (1913–1978) later changed his name to Zhu
Danxi. At this time he was serving as vice director of the Eighth Route Army’s 120th Division’s Combat
Theater. Cheng Yin (1917–1984) was serving as the political officer of this Combat Theater.
2. Mao is referring to plays by Cheng Yin and others, such as “A Village in Jin-Cha-Ji” and “Night in
Famine Village.” The Combat Theater performed in Yan’an in the winter of 1942.