The art of all the nations of the world is similar with respect to fundamental
principles, but different with respect to form and style. The art of the
various socialist countries each has socialism as its content, but each has
its own national character. They have both similarities and differences,
common features and individual characteristics. This is a natural law. All
things are like this, no matter whether they belong to nature, society, or
to the realm of the intellect. Take the leaves of a tree: at first sight
they all look much the same, but when you examine them closely, each one
is different; to find two absolutely identical leaves is impossible.

Class struggle, social revolution, the transition from capitalism to socialism
have the same fundamental principles in all countries. But when it comes
to some of the minor principles and manifestations which are dependent on
the major principles, then each country is different. The October Revolution
and the Chinese Revolution are like this. With respect to fundamental principles
the two revolutions are similar, but with respect to the form in which these
principles were manifested, the two revolutions have many differences. For
example, in Russia the revolution developed from the cities to the countryside,
while in our country it developed from the countryside to the cities. This
is one of the many differences between the two revolutions.

The art of the various nations of the world each has its own peculiar national
form and national style. Some people do not understand this point. They reject
their own national characteristics and blindly worship the West, thinking
that the West is better in every respect. They even go so far as to advocate
'complete Westernization'. This is wrong. 'Complete Westernization' is
impracticable; it will not be accepted by the common people of China. The
arts and the natural sciences differ in this respect. For example, removing
the appendix and taking aspirin have no national form. This is not the case
with the arts: with them the question of national form does arise. This is
because art is the manifestation of people's lives, thoughts and emotions,
and it bears a very close relationship to a nation's customs and language.
Historically the artistic heritage has grown up within the framework of the
nation.

Chinese art, Chinese music, painting, drama, song and dance, and literature
have each had their own historical development. In rejecting Chinese things,
the people who advocate complete Westernization say that Chinese things do
not have their own laws, and so they are unwilling to study or develop them.
This is adopting an attitude of national nihilism towards Chinese art.

Every nation in the world has its own history and its own strengths and
weaknesses. Since earliest times excellent things and rotten things have
mingled together and accumulated over long periods. To sort them out and
distinguish the essence from the dregs is a very difficult task, but we must
not reject history because of this difficulty. It is no good cutting ourselves
off from history and abandoning our heritage. The common people would not
approve.

Of course this by no means implies that we do not need to learn from foreign
countries. We must learn many things from foreign countries and master them.
We must especially master fundamental theory. Some people advocate 'Chinese
learning as the substance, Western learning for practical application'. Is
this idea right or wrong? It is wrong. The word 'Learning' in fact refers
to fundamental theory. Fundamental theory should be the same in China as
in foreign countries. There should be no distinction between Chinese and
Western things in fundamental theory.

Marxism is a fundamental theory which was produced in the West. How then
can we make a distinction between what is Chinese and what is Western in
this respect? Are we to refuse to accept Marxism? The practice of the Chinese
revolution proves that not to accept Marxism would be bad for us. It would
be unreasonable not to accept it. In the past the Second International attempted
to deny and revise the fundamental theories of Marxism and put forward some
arguments for this, but they were completely refuted by Lenin. Marxism is
a general truth which has universal application. We must accept it. But this
general truth must be combined with the concrete practice of each nation's
revolution. It was only because the Chinese people accepted Marxism and combined
it with the practice of the Chinese revolution that they won victory in the
Chinese revolution.

We learn foreign things because we want to study and develop Chinese things.
In this respect natural and social science are similar. We must master all
the good things from foreign countries and then apply them and, in the process,
develop them. In the field of natural science we must do our own independent
creative work, and use modern scientific knowledge and methods from abroad
to sort out China's scientific heritage, until we can form our own schools
of thought. Take, for example, Western medical science and other related
modern sciences such as physiology, pathology, biochemistry, bacteriology
and anatomy. Can you say we do not want to study them? We must study all
these modern sciences. But some of those who have studied Western medicine
should also study Chinese medicine, and use their modern scientific knowledge
and method to put in order and study our ancient Chinese medical methods
and materials. They should also combine Chinese and Western medicine and
pharmacy to create new unified Chinese medical and pharmaceutical sciences.

If this applies to natural and social science, how much the more should it
apply to the arts. We must learn from foreign countries and absorb the good
things from foreign countries, but when we have learnt them we must use them
to study and develop the arts of the various peoples of China, otherwise
our work will benefit nobody. Our aim in studying foreign arts, studying
their fundamental theories and techniques, is to create a new socialist art
of the various peoples of China, which will possess its own individual national
forms and styles.

We must acknowledge that in respect of modern culture the standards of the
West are higher than ours. We have fallen behind. Is this the case in respect
of art? In art we have our strengths and also our weaknesses. We must be
good at absorbing the good things from foreign countries in order to make
good our own shortcomings. If we stick to our old ways and do not study foreign
literature, do not introduce it into China; if we do not know how to listen
to foreign music or how to play it, this is not good. We must not be like
the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi [1] who blindly rejected
all foreign things. Blindly rejecting foreign things is like blindly worshipping
them. Both are incorrect and harmful.

In learning from foreign countries we must oppose both conservatism and
dogmatism. We have already suffered politically from dogmatism. Everything
we copied from abroad was adopted rigidly, and this ended in a great defeat,
with the Party organizations in the white areas losing one hundred per cent
of their strength and the revolutionary bases and the Red Army losing ninety
per cent of their strength, and the victory of the revolution being delayed
for many years. [2] The reason is that there were some
comrades who did not take reality as their starting-point, but dogmatism.
They did not combine the fundamental theory of Marxism-Leninism with the
concrete practice of the Chinese revolution. If we had not rejected this
kind of dogmatism the Chinese revolution would not have won today's victory.

In the field of the arts we should also learn this lesson and take good care
not to let dogmatism get the better of us. To study foreign things does not
mean importing everything, lock, stock and barrel. We must accept things
critically. We learn from the ancients in order to benefit the people of
today, and we learn from foreigners in order to benefit the people of China.

We must learn good things from foreign countries and also learn good things
from China. Half bottles of vinegar are no good: we must change two half
bottles into two whole bottles.[3] We must master both
Chinese and foreign things and combine them into an organic whole. Lu Hsün
did this. He was very well versed in both Chinese and foreign works, but
his brilliance was not primarily in his translations but rather in his creative
work. His creative work was akin neither to foreign things nor to old-style
Chinese things, but it is still Chinese. We should study Lu Hsün's spirit,
master both Chinese and foreign things, absorb the good points of Chinese
and foreign art, fuse them together and create a new art with a characteristic
national form and style.

Of course it is not easy to make a successful combination of Chinese and
foreign things. It is a process which takes time. There are some Chinese
things into which it is possible to blend foreign things. For example, in
writing novels, the language, characters and background must be Chinese,
but they need not be written in the Chinese 'instalment'
form.[4] You can produce some things which are neither
Chinese nor Western. If what comes out is neither a donkey nor a horse but
a mule, that would be not bad at all. When two things combine, their form
is changed. It is not possible for them to remain completely unchanged. Chinese
things will change. Politically, economically and culturally, the face of
China is undergoing big changes. But however much they change, Chinese things
will always have their own characteristics. Foreign things also change. After
the October Revolution, the face of the world underwent a fundamental change.
After the Second World War this change developed in a new direction. We must
give our attention to the critical acceptance of foreign things, and especially
to the introduction of things from the socialist world and from the progressive
people of the capitalist world.

In short, art must have independent creative qualities; it must be distinctly
imbued with the character of the times and also with the national character.
China's art must not look more and more to the past, nor must it become more
and more Westernized. It must increasingly reflect the characteristics of
the times and of the nation. In trying to achieve this we should not shun
experimentation. Especially in a country such as China, with a long history
and a large population, it is even more necessary to carry out such
experimentation as will serve the needs of the various nationalities the
better. We do not want complete uniformity. Uniformity leads to writing to
formulae.[5] No matter whether they are foreign or local
formulae, both are lifeless and are not welcomed by the common people of
China.

We have here the question of the treatment of bourgeois intellectuals who
have received a Western education. If we do not tackle this question properly,
it will have an adverse effect not only on art, but also on the whole
revolutionary cause. The Chinese national bourgeoisie and its intellectuals
consist of a few million people. Although their numbers are not great, they
possess modern culture. We must unite with them, educate them and remould
them. The comprador class has its own culture, which is a slave culture.
The landlord class also has its culture -- feudal culture. The Chinese workers
and peasants, owing to their having been oppressed for a long time, still
do not have much cultural knowledge. Until the tasks of the cultural and
technical revolutions have been completed, the bourgeois intellectuals have
comparatively more knowledge and skill. Provided our policy is correct and
we educate and remould them, we can get them to serve the cause of socialism.
Can we educate and remould them? We can. Many of the people here present
were bourgeois intellectuals in the past who have crossed over from the
bourgeoisie to the proletariat, so why should not they too cross over? In
fact there are already many who have crossed over. We must not fail to unite
with them, educate them and remould them. Only if we do this will they be
of benefit to the revolutionary cause of the working class, to the socialist
revolution, and to socialist construction.

You who are here present are all musicians. In studying Western music you
have many important responsibilities. The ordering and development of Chinese
music must depend on you who study Western-style music, just as the ordering
and development of Chinese medicine depends on Western-style doctors. The
Western things which you study are useful, but you should master both Western
and Chinese things, and should not 'completely Westernize'. You should devote
attention to Chinese things, do your utmost to study and develop them, with
the aim of creating our own Chinese things with characteristic national form
and style. If you grasp this basic policy your work will have a great future.


NOTES


1. In 1898, the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (1835-1908) resumed
control of the administration, which she had relinquished to her nephew the
Kuang Hsü Emperor in 1889, and crushed the 'Reform Movement'; she encouraged
the Boxers in their attacks on foreigners.

2. This passage refers primarily to the defeats suffered
by the Chinese Communists in 1933-4, which ultimately led them to abandon
their bases in Kiangsi and neighbouring provinces and embark on the Long
March. Mao blamed these reverses on the faulty tactics imposed by the
Moscow-trained 'Returned Student Faction' in the Chinese Communist Party,
and on the Comintern military adviser Otto Braun (Li Te), and their failure
to take account of differences between Chinese and Soviet conditions. Lurking
in the background is, of course, the memory of the bloody catastrophe to
which policies dictated by Stalin had led in 1927.

3. There is a Chinese proverb: 'A half bottle of vinegar
shakes; a full bottle does not.' Here, Mao is obviously using this metaphor
to indicate that what China needs is a true synthesis of Chinese and European
elements, not simply the juxtaposition of disparate ideas and styles.

4. Traditional Chinese novels, such as Water Margin,
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or the Dream of the Red Chamber
(translated by David Hawkes under the title The Story of the Stone,
Penguin, 1973), grew out of the story-teller's art. The chapters therefore
tend to be broken at a high point in the action, and to conclude with some
such sentence as: 'If you want to know how the hero got out of this fix,
read (or listen to) the next instalment.'

5. Literally, to writing eight-legged essays. This highly
artificial, stilted form in which candidates in the imperial examinations
were obliged to cast their compositions from the fifteenth century onwards,
has become a metaphor for pedantry and formalism in general. For Mao's most
extensive attack on this vice, see his speech of 8 February 1942, 'Oppose
Stereotyped Party Writing', in Selected Works (Peking: Foreign Languages
Press, 1961-5), Vol. III, pp. 53-68.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.