Transform Old Art, Create New Art1
(December 21, 1947)
When it comes to opera, I am a layman and can only watch. Seated here among
us are some who come from Xi’an, Beiping, and other places, and we also have
some from Zhangjiakou, so let’s start by speaking of Zhangjiakou. Everyone was
probably very upset when Zhangjiakou was lost, but our military tactic is: “If
you come, then I leave.” Of course, it is not as though we could not have held
out by employing a great deal of military strength, but it would not have been
worthwhile. Our way of fighting is to use a large military force to eat up a small
enemy force. In a little more than a year of our war of self-defense, we have
already wiped out more than 1,600,000 enemy troops, of which roughly one million were taken prisoner. When we go to war, our troops primarily replenish their
ranks with soldiers captured from Chiang’s army, and our guns, artillery, and
ammunition also come primarily from Guomindang shipments, as we do not have
large military factories. In the past, we relied on the Liberated Areas to solve
supply problems of food and clothing internally, whereas we now rely on the
Guomindang areas. For example, when Liu [Bocheng] and Deng [Xiaoping]’s2
large army in the Dabie Mountains region and Chen [Geng] and Xie [Fuzhi]’s3
large army in the Funiu Mountains region go to war, personnel, guns, artillery,
and ammunition all come from the enemy side. This is characteristic of the way in
which our Liberation Army expands its ranks. This approach is rarely seen among
the world’s armies, but we have used this old method all along. The majority of
cadres in the Eighth Route Army come from the south. Before long, they will
attack southward, but right now they are living in the north. This is what we call
the southern bone putting on a bit of northern meat. Hu Zongnan4 has occupied
our Yan’an and wants to drive us entirely out of northern Shaanxi, but as of today
we are still here. When we withdrew from Yan’an, many people doubted we would be able to destroy Hu Zongnan, and the value of the border currency5 tumbled. But now they have changed their outlook, and they believe we can defeat
Hu Zongnan. We now have a slogan: “Fight to Nanjing, take Chiang Kaishek
alive.” As for how many years are needed to achieve final victory, this will be
decided by how much effort we put in. Right now, the Americans are convening
a meeting, and they will continue supporting Chiang Kaishek, but we are not
afraid. At most, it will be like however many hundred million dollars of aid they
provided last year, and wasn’t that all spent quickly? We are still preparing for
the Americans to send troops to aid [Chiang Kaishek]! When the Guomindang
launched all-out civil war in July of last year, it was because of the one million
Japanese troops that had not yet returned home and all the materials left behind as
well as the American aid that they could mount such a frenzied attack. The situation in all countries is like this: The ruler’s strength is great at first and then it
becomes weaker, while the liberators’ strength is weak at first and then it becomes
greater. Was not the Russian czar, who had once been so imposing, still toppled in
the end? When the Communist Party of the Soviet Union started out, it had very
few men and weapons. When our Liberation Army started out, it also had very
few men, but now it has grown to two million men. The Guomindang army currently has greater numbers than we do, but the final victory is ours. It is said that
a worker in the Soviet Union can finish in one year what it takes people elsewhere
five years to do. There is an essential truth in this, which is that liberated people
work for themselves and therefore possess limitless initiative and creativity. We
are fighting Chiang Kaishek and Hu Zongnan and we have no assistance whatsoever from other countries, but we can still break them—this is that same principle.
Before long, we will be able to take back Zhangjiakou and many other places.
Art organizations are also like this. You at the Beiping Opera Theater accept
the old art but must still create new art. The old art is flawed, especially its content; as I see it, it inverts right and wrong and blurs black and white. History was
created not by emperors, generals, and ministers, but by the laboring people. Yet,
in the old operas men like Kongming6 overwhelm everything else with their dramatic presence as soon as they appear onstage. It is as though the world belongs
to them, and the laboring people play nothing more than bit parts. Of course,
nine out of ten people in the world are workers and peasants; the houses in which
we live are built by their hands, while local tyrants and evil gentry are unable to
move even a post. Yet many old operas present laboring people as buffoons. Of
course, among the old operas there are some dramas that are good, such as Revolt of the Fishing Folk.7 There are some old operas that you can transform; having
mastered this art form using your own creativity and by drawing on politics to
make improvements, you may be able to write some new works. Fighting a battle
is also a form of creation, but it is won at the cost of many lives. When I was in
Wuhan in 1927, I was but a pale-faced student, but during the subsequent twenty
years of war, I created a new method of battle. In the same way, every working
member or cadre of our Party in every field of work has the opportunity to bring
his own creativity into play. The future is ours. We are not afraid to lose a battle,
for without losing battles we would not know how battles are to be fought. There
have been many controversies in Yan’an regarding the Beiping style of opera.
Beiping opera portrays lords, ladies, princes, and maidens as though they are the
whole world, and poor people count for nothing. For the time being, we need not
rush to change the form of Beiping opera, but we should pick out certain operas
that need revision and begin by transforming their content. In the past in Yan’an
we remade two operas, one of which was Forced to Rebel8 and the other of which
was Three Attacks on Zhu Village.9 Their flaw was that they were too long. I find
some old plays are written quite concisely. I hope you will boldly undertake the
transformation of art and in the future, after we have seized the big cities, you
will revise even more old operas. In the play Village of Evil Tigers, the character
Huang Tianba should be written as a spy.10 According to Marxist-Leninist thinking, the first among a country’s organizations is the army, for without an army
there is no strength; second is the government. Chiang Kaishek’s government
is one that oppresses the people, whereas our government is one that suppresses
local despots, tyrants, and evil gentry. As for the occasional cadres who bully the common people, we should punish them in line with the views of the common
people because they are criminals against the people.
China has many people who perform Beiping opera; there is a whole raft of
them in the areas controlled by the Guomindang. These comrades of ours have
enhanced their political level, and in the future, after we reach the big cities we
will take over the old Beiping opera troupes and lead them. If we rely solely
on performing old operas, we will not be able to outperform them. If we do not
enhance our political level, we will not be able to lead them.

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Notes

Our source for this document is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 324–27, where it is
reproduced from the transcript of the speech preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong gave this speech to the performance team at the Jinsui Beiping Opera
Theater in Yangjiagou, Mizhi county, in northern Shaanxi.

2.  Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping were commander and political commissar, respectively, of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) Field Army.

3.  Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi were secretary and deputy secretary, respectively, of the
Chen-Xie Group of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Field Army.

4.  Hu Zongnan was director of the Guomindang army’s Xi’an Pacification Office.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-59

5.  The “border currency” refers to the currency issued by the Bank of the ShaanxiGansu-Ningxia Border Region in 1941.

6.  Kongming was the courtesy name of Zhuge Liang (181–234), a politician, strategist, and the main adviser of Liu Bei during the Three Kingdoms period. He became prime
minister of the state of Shu after Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor.

7.  Revolt of the Fishing Folk (Da yu sha jia) is a traditional opera about the fisherman
Xiao En and his daughter who rebel against the abuses of a local tyrant, Ding Zixie.

8.  Forced to Rebel (Bi shang Liangshan) was a new historical play by Yang Shaoxuan
(1893–1971, born in Tangshan), Qi Yanming (1907–1978, native of Beijing), and others at
the Folk Art Research Society of the Central Party School. Inspired by the novel The Water
Margin, the play takes place during the turmoil of the late Northern Song dynasty, when
many famine refugees were killed.

9.  Three Attacks on Zhu Village (San da Zhujiazhuang) was a new historical play written by Li Lun (1916–1995, born in Taian, Shandong), Wei Chenxu (1917–?, born in Zhaoxian, Hebei), Ren Guilin (1915–1989, native of present-day Hebei), and the collective at
the Beiping Opera Theater of Yan’an in 1944. Inspired by the novel The Water Margin, it
describes the Liangshan outlaw Song Jiang’s successful attack on Zhujiazhuang after using
an agent to supply information and allying with the village’s poor peasants.

10.  Village of Evil Hungry Tigers (E Hu Cun) was a traditional opera adapted by Yang
Zhengang from the Qing dynasty novel Judge Shi’s Cases (Shi gong’an). It tells the story of
the magistrate Shi Shilun who is kidnapped by outlaws and then rescued by his bodyguard;
Huang Tianba enters Tiger Village as a blood brother of one of the kidnappers and assembles a mob to kill them and burn the village. Mao made some suggestions for revising the
opera after seeing it performed by the Jinsui Beiping Opera Theater.