Comment and Revision on the Explanation by the Chinese Writers’ Association Regarding the Public Distribution of Part of the Content of Hu Feng’s[1] Report to the Central Committee
(January 12, 1955)
Liu, Zhou, Deng,[2] read immediately and return to Comrade Lu Dingyi.[3]
Proceed as proposed.
Made some textual additions and revisions.[4]
Mao Zedong
January 12
[1]
Hu Feng, then a deputy to the National People’s Congress and a council member of the Chinese Writers’ Association.
[2]
Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, then Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council.
[3]
Lu Dingyi, then Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee.
[4]
See Part Two of this document. The text printed in Song typeface represents the words added and rewritten by Mao Zedong.

In July 1954, Hu Feng submitted to the CPC Central Committee a report of opinions on literary and artistic issues,[1] which was referred by the Central Committee to the Presidium of this Association for handling. The Presidium of this Association holds that the sections of the report concerning literary and artistic thought and organizational leadership touch upon important issues in the current literary and artistic movement and are primarily a counter-critique directed against the two articles by Lin Mohan and He Qifang criticizing Hu Feng’s bourgeois literary and artistic thought, published in *Wenyi Bao* in 1953.[2] Therefore, these sections should be openly discussed within literary and artistic circles and among the readership of *Wenyi Bao*, and conclusions should be drawn based on the results of the discussion. It is now decided to print the above-mentioned two sections of Hu Feng’s report as a separate pamphlet, to be distributed as a supplement to *Wenyi Bao* for readers’ study, so as to facilitate discussion. To aid readers’ study, the two articles by Lin Mohan and He Qifang will also be reprinted and distributed alongside.
Presidium of the Chinese Writers’ Association
January 12, 1955
[1]
Refers to Hu Feng’s July 1954 report submitted to the CPC Central Committee, “Report on the Practical Situation of Literature and Art over the Past Few Years.”
[2]
Refers to “Hu Feng’s Anti-Marxist Literary and Artistic Thought” by Lin Mohan, Director of the Literature and Art Division of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee (published in *Wenyi Bao*, Issue No. 2, 1953), and “The Road of Realism, or the Road of Anti-Realism?” by He Qifang, Deputy Director of the Institute of Literature, Peking University (published in *Wenyi Bao*, Issue No. 3, 1953).