How many days has your conference been in session? How is it going? I have read all the thirty-three questions you collected.
Are there any other questions? Some have raised the point that writers detest bureaucrats so much—can they write their endings as failures, as deaths? Bureaucratism should of course be criticized.
There is a film called *To Whom Does the Honor Belong*, in which there is a railway bureau chief who is a bureaucrat, yet he continues to hold his post as bureau chief. Such a cadre should be dismissed from office.
To cure the sickness and save the patient, he can be sent for study.
The way this bureau chief is portrayed in that film is what is called incomplete, lacking thoroughness; anti-bureaucratism should be thorough.
Within the Party, criticism of subjectivism, bureaucratism, and sectarianism has been raised, but it has not yet been unfolded.
The Central Committee is to hold a meeting and issue a directive; preparations will be made this year, and implementation will begin next year. This also requires a period of gestation.
The resolution must be produced in the first half of this year.
At present, thinking within the Party is not yet unified; what bureaucratism is and how to criticize it—understanding is still not consistent.
Once rectification is launched, then it will be easier to criticize.
Just now, when a little criticism has been made, Chen Qitong and others have published articles, which are nothing but attempts to obstruct the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.
Rectification—rectifying subjectivism, with the emphasis on dogmatism; rectifying sectarianism—they always want one family to dominate, they always feel that six hundred million people are too many, that fewer would be better; rectifying bureaucratism—it is very widespread.
There has been no rectification for several years.
Among those present, some are inside the Party, some outside; you understand a little of the Communist Party’s principles. The point is to promote, to unify thinking, to have a common language.
Otherwise, you say it is bureaucratism, and he says it is not.
You say let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend, and he says do not let them blossom; when a little blossoming occurs and some undesirable things emerge, he panics.
In short, he is very much afraid of letting blossom.
We advocate letting a hundred flowers blossom; some people are very afraid of a hundred flowers. The environment for letting a hundred flowers blossom has not yet been created.
From the thirty-three questions collected and distributed, it can be seen that there are many problems.
They demand answers—how can one person answer them all? I think it is better for everyone to report and discuss publicly: one person reads aloud, everyone discusses, everyone answers.
There is a view which in fact holds that thought cannot guide creative work; this view is related to incorrect views on socialist realism.
It is impossible to demand that all writers accept the Marxist world outlook.
For the majority of writers, it will probably take several decades before it is possible to accept the Marxist world outlook.
During the period when they have not yet accepted the Marxist world outlook, as long as they do not form secret small cliques, they can each write in their own way, each with their own truth.
Here, of course, there must still be help.
There are those who genuinely support Marxism, and those who support it reluctantly.
The same applies to changing the social system. For example, the national bourgeoisie—when you take their means of production and communize them, are they willing? There is always some reluctance, though of course some are not very reluctant.
Changing the social system, from private to public, from individual to collective, for several hundred million people, there is always reluctance.
In short, the change of system is a great change.
Compelled by the general trend in all of China, some people have no choice but to reluctantly approve.
The present ideological confusion, the many questions raised in the collection, are reflections arising from changes in the social foundation.
In the past, our country was not a socialist state; it was a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. After overthrowing imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and feudalism, there still remained the national bourgeoisie and the several hundred million-strong petty bourgeoisie, and the ownership system had to be changed.
As for intellectuals, by class origin, eighty percent are sons and daughters of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists; of course, there are distinctions among big, middle, and small.
Calculated on the basis of the country’s six hundred million people, if one percent are intellectuals, that makes six million.
Intellectuals are not necessarily all university-educated; Xiao Chunü never attended any regular school; he was self-taught and was also an intellectual.
Suppose the country’s intellectuals number five million. Among these five million, how many actually believe in the Marxist world outlook? Is there one-tenth? One-tenth would be five hundred thousand.
They believe in Marxism, understand it fairly well, and use it to guide their actions.
Those who engage in subjectivism and dogmatism cannot be counted as understanding Marxism.
If there is one-tenth, that is a good thing.
How many such people are there in literary and art circles? It would be very good if there were one-tenth.
There are also some who are resistant to the Marxist world outlook; among them, some harbor hostile sentiments toward the socialist system. They not only do not believe in the Marxist world outlook, but they are not secret agents, nor do they take up knives to kill people; they just grumble and sometimes write articles.
Is there also one-tenth of such people? Most of these people do not speak; they resist in silence.
I am afraid neither extreme reaches one-tenth. Those who believe in Marxism do not reach one-tenth—not counting those in name only, not counting dogmatists. Those who resist Marxism also do not reach one-tenth.
Regarding Marxism, there are those within the Party who do not believe, and those outside the Party who do.
Now, removing the two extremes, the remaining middle accounts for about eighty percent, still the majority.
Among them, the majority support the socialist system, but they do not necessarily believe in Marxism, and even fewer use it to guide creative work.
Therefore, socialist realism cannot be forced upon people.
Then, what about works that are not socialist realism? They can only be allowed to circulate, as long as they do not harbor hostile sentiments toward the socialist system.
If works by Marxist writers are dogmatic, people will not want to read them.
Dogmatism is not Marxism, but anti-Marxism.
We want good, genuinely Marxist, genuinely socialist realist works. Even if they are few, just a few, written fairly well, use several decades of effort to influence that eighty percent of intellectuals, because these works serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers.
Some say the orientation of serving the workers, peasants, and soldiers should also be discarded. I think serving the workers, peasants, and soldiers is not wrong.
If you do not serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers, whom do you serve? The bourgeoisie must also be transformed into the working class, and intellectuals must also become the working class. If you say you do not serve them, then China has no other people.
Some say literature and art should have no purpose; once there is a purpose, it becomes conceptualized.
I think, works of literature and art without purpose can also be produced in some quantity.
Produce two kinds: one with purpose, one without purpose—will that do?
In short, educating the people is a long-term process.
To solve ideological problems, one cannot use methods of autocracy, arbitrariness, or suppression. To make people submit, one must persuade, not coerce.
Literary and art workers probably also need to undergo a process of tempering; some are still not conscious, have not undergone tempering.
Some who advocate that literature and art should have no purpose actually do have a purpose; they just do not want your purpose. Under the cover of having no purpose, they have their own purpose, which is the purpose of the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie.
Someone asked about the difference between bourgeois thought and petty-bourgeois thought; I cannot distinguish them.
The bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie belong to the same economic category.
As for class origin, when people of petty-bourgeois origin turn reactionary, they can be very fierce.
Intellectuals of bourgeois origin who have accepted Marxism are also quite revolutionary; I also count myself within this category.
Regarding bourgeois intellectuals, it is not only a matter of class origin; I mean that they received a bourgeois school education, and the bourgeoisie educates people according to its own interests. Some later accepted Marxism.
How to distinguish between bourgeois thought and petty-bourgeois thought—I think it is very difficult.
Newspapers, radio, cultural work troupes, theatrical troupes, literature, and art are all for educating the people.
Some say, “Don’t speak of education; just say entertainment.” That may be acceptable, but when you put on a play, it will always influence people.
Therefore, educators must first be educated; this is what Marx said.
We people should receive education; saying one does not need to be educated is untenable.
These people who educate others, the work they engage in, taken as a whole, is a process of educating people. It will take several decades to educate the six hundred million people well.
After the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, dogmatism was also very severe. The literary group “RAPP” at that time adopted commandism toward writers, forcing others to write in a certain way.
But I hear that during that period there was still some freedom of speech; there were still “fellow travelers,” and “fellow travelers” still had publications.
Can we allow someone to run a journal that sings a counter-tune? There is no harm in openly singing a counter-tune.
In the Soviet Union at that time, some openly admitted they were “fellow travelers”; this shows that point was different from our situation today.
In the first few years, it was still possible to sing a counter-tune, there was some freedom of speech; later, only good things about the Party and government were permitted, no bad things could be said, no criticism allowed, and a personality cult was developed.
Stalin often confused two kinds of contradictions.
Our cultural and educational policy does not adopt their methods; we adopt a guided policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.
The environment for letting blossom has not yet been created; there is still not enough blossoming. The hundred flowers want to blossom but dare not; the hundred schools want to contend but dare not.
I read the article by Chen Qitong and his three colleagues twice; they are nothing but “burning with anxiety,” fearing great chaos under heaven.
We should take into account China’s situation: the two ends are small, the middle is large. The petty bourgeoisie is so numerous; it is simply ideological confusion, demanding answers to questions.
In saying these things, I want to exchange views with comrades and see whether the objective situation is like this.
Those who believe in Marxism, among intellectuals, account for one-tenth—five hundred thousand. Are there really that many? Those who do not believe are so many; this cannot be forced.
If, after three or four five-year plans, one-third of the people believe in the Marxist world outlook, and it is not dogmatism, not opportunism, that would be good.
Lu Xun was not a Communist Party member; he understood the Marxist world outlook.
He spent considerable effort studying it, and through his own practice, he came to believe that Marxism is truth.
Especially his later essays are very powerful.
His essays are powerful precisely because he possessed the Marxist world outlook.
I think if Lu Xun were still alive, he would still write essays; he probably could not manage to write fiction anymore. He would likely be the chairman of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, speaking at meetings.
These thirty-three topics—if he spoke on them or wrote essays about them, they would be resolved.
He would certainly have something to say; he would definitely speak, and very bravely.
A genuine Marxist fears nothing, fears no one.
Not afraid of whether others will attack you; at worst, you have no food to eat, you beg, you are attacked, you go to jail, you are beheaded, you suffer injustice.
I have never begged for food.
To make revolution, one must be prepared to be beheaded; it won’t do otherwise.
Being killed by the enemy is not an injustice.
Being wrongly killed by one’s own people is very bad, so we have a rule within the Party: not a single one is to be killed.
But going to jail or suffering some attacks is hard to say.
Last time I spoke about the stories of Xue Rengui and Sun Wukong.
Xue Rengui fell ill, won battles, but the credit was placed on others.
Sun Wukong was also treated unfairly; naturally, his individualistic heroism was quite strong, he called himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, but the Jade Emperor only appointed him “Keeper of the Heavenly Horses,” so he caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace, opposing bureaucratism.
I think there was both sectarianism and subjectivism; Zhang Shigui had both sectarianism and bureaucratism.
What about literary criticism now? Here too we must see the basic condition of intellectuals: the two ends are small, the middle is large. This is why we must adopt the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.
Why are some people afraid of letting blossom? It is precisely because they do not see that the majority of intellectuals want to take the socialist road, hope for the nation’s prosperity, the people’s good livelihood, and cultural advancement, and that we must rely on them to educate China’s several hundred million people.
If we check class origins, eighty percent of university students are sons and daughters of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists, and fifty to sixty percent of middle school students as well. If you do not want them, whom do you want? These people can be educated and won over; the question is whether we have confidence.
On the question of literary criticism, I would like to bring it up for discussion.
I have not read many articles in this area; I have read a few. I feel that appropriate criticism is not abundant—criticism that is studied, analytical, discussed with the writer beforehand, truly helpful to the writer, not just a scolding—not very much, is there?
Some criticism is very crude.
In dealing with this kind of criticism, Lu Xun had a method: just ignore it.
Now, literary criticism can be said to fall into three categories: one type hits the spot, is not dogmatic, and is helpful; another type scratches an itch through a boot—empty and vague, from which one gets no help, writing it is as good as not writing; a third type is dogmatic, crude, beating a person to death with one blow, hindering the development of literary criticism.
Is this the case? I saw that in literary criticism, Wang Meng was being encircled and suppressed, so I wanted to convene this propaganda work conference.
Judging from the matter of criticizing Wang Meng, the people writing the articles did not even go and investigate how tall or how big Wang Meng is. He lives right in Beijing; if you want to write a critical article, you did not even consult with him first. When you criticize him, it is, after all, for the purpose of helping him!

When criticizing someone’s article, it is best to talk with the person being criticized and show them the article. The purpose of criticism is to help the person being criticized.
We can promote this kind of atmosphere.

There is an article in *New Observations* titled *A Tea-Drinking Chronicle at Huiquan*. Have you read it? It is in the second issue of January. You can take a look. The author is Yao Xueyin [11].
I find his description of the tea drinkers somewhat interesting. His article says that the people drinking tea there do not know how to drink tea, yet they still drink with great enthusiasm.
He also criticizes the tea house cooperative for being poorly managed and having shortcomings. This criticism is correct. There are many such cases where, after public-private partnerships and cooperativization, many of the original advantages have been discarded. This should be rectified.
However, his contempt for the tea-drinking masses is wrong. This reflects the viewpoint of "gentlemen" versus "petty men."
The "gentlemen" are there drinking tea, and the "petty men" also come. The article makes it seem as if this writer is aloof and out of place among the masses.
I have also read some articles refuting him. There is one by Yao Wenyuan [12], which is relatively persuasive, and I could read it through.
We must still help Yao Xueyin.
Whether it is bourgeois ideology or petty-bourgeois ideology, it still dominates among intellectuals. They have not yet integrated themselves with the masses.
In my view, only by integrating with the workers, peasants, and soldiers can there be a way forward. If you cannot integrate with them, what will you write about? Just about those five million intellectuals and trivial personal matters? You cannot write only about these people forever, and these people will also change.
Literary and artistic works must always depict the relationships between one group of people and another.
Writers in Shanghai could also write about the Shenxin No. 9 Factory, about that capitalist Rong Yiren [13]. If you want to write about Rong Yiren, you must write about his relationship with the workers.
We can also allow some people to write only about their own trivial personal matters. If they do not integrate with the workers, peasants, and soldiers but can still write, what can you do about it? In such a large country, there will inevitably be such people. This is also an objective reality.
But we must still help them and influence them. If they refuse to accept it, there is nothing we can do. Their books can still be published.

There are various ways to experience life. If it is not done well, the common people will not open their hearts to intellectuals.
Now, when some intellectuals go down to experience life, the common people feel it is a disaster. Especially in famous factories and agricultural cooperatives, they are afraid that you have come to investigate them, and they simply will not tell you anything.
The common people have all kinds of ways to deal with you.
In some places, "reporters have become a scourge."

Where did the history of conscious literary criticism in China begin? It began with Cao Pi’s [14] *Discourse on Literature* in his *Classical Treatises* and Cao Zhi’s [15] *Letter to Yang Dezu*, didn’t it? Later, there was *The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons* and others.
Han Yu [16] advocated ancient-style prose, but in fact, his ancient-style prose was a new ancient-style prose. There was not much in terms of reasoning, as long as the writing was new.
What others said was good, he said was bad; what others said was bad, he said was good.
There is also criticism in the *Zhaoming Anthology of Literature*. In the preface by Crown Prince Zhaoming, Xiao Tong [17], it says: "Matters arise from deep contemplation"—this refers to ideological content; and "Meaning returns to literary elegance"—this refers to artistic quality.
He did not want mere theory; he wanted both ideological content and artistic quality.

Everyone has reported that after writers became professionalized, some books have been printed very slowly or cannot be printed at all due to paper shortages, affecting the livelihood of writers.
Can the Writers’ Association set up its own printing factory? Allocate some machinery to you and provide some raw materials.
If professors’ and scientists’ works cannot be printed for a time, they still have salaries from universities and the Academy of Sciences to sustain their livelihood.
Writers, however, are different. They rely on royalties and manuscript fees for a living. If books and magazines cannot be printed due to a lack of paper, and they have no income from royalties, they cannot make a living.
I suggest that the Writers’ Association run its own printing factory. Of course, this does not mean having Mr. Lao She or Mr. Ba Jin [18] run it, but rather having Zhou Yang and Shen Yanbing [19] plan and manage it.

Last year, we produced just over thirty feature films in a year. That is far too few.
Japan, with a population of over eighty million, produced more than three hundred feature films last year.
China, with a population of six hundred million, produced only just over thirty. You had better produce over three hundred as well.
Zhao Dan [20] and Sun Yu [21]—have they not been properly assigned work? You have collaborated with him before.
If they have been assigned work, that is very good.
The film *The Life of Wu Xun*, which you two collaborated on, was once criticized. That is nothing. If a work is not well written, just write another one. One should always strive to write it well.

When you return, you should convey and implement the spirit of this propaganda work conference. Do not wait for the Third Plenary Session [22] to make a decision.
Among the more than ten thousand cadres at the level of prefectural Party secretaries and regional commissioners and above, it is hard to say whether even one thousand of them support "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend." The remaining nine-tenths are probably still not in favor. And these are all high-ranking cadres!

The issue of socialist realism cannot be fully clarified or concluded at this conference. There is no need to be anxious about it; it can be studied and discussed.

On the issue of inheriting cultural heritage, I do not approve of monsters and demons, but they can be performed and criticized.
There is much poison and dross in cultural heritage! We banned some traditional operas for a few years, and some people resented it. Now they have been opened up, and they can also be criticized, but criticism must be reasoned.
Some plays featuring monsters and demons can also be watched. Isn’t *The Investiture of the Gods*, which we watch, full of monsters and demons? If there are monsters and demons in society, it is not surprising that they appear in plays.
The Chinese people do not necessarily believe in ghosts very much. Watching them performed is nothing to be afraid of.
Many young people do not even know what monsters and demons are. Letting them see them is not a big deal.
Of course, it would be good to replace them with something better, but if we cannot produce something better yet, then let them be performed! As for monsters and demons, we watch the plays, but we do not necessarily believe in ghosts.
If we become alarmed at the slightest release, that shows a lack of faith in the people, a lack of faith in the people’s power of discernment.
Do not be afraid.
If some *Grass and Wood Verses* [23] appear, should we be so panicked? Tell me, don’t the *Book of Songs* and the *Songs of Chu* also contain "grass and wood verses"? Isn’t the first poem in the *Book of Songs* a work of the *Kiss* [24] type? But it probably cannot be published now, can it? As for that first poem in the *Book of Songs*, I do not find much poetic flavor in it either.
Do not be terrified just because there are some *Grass and Wood Verses* and some monsters and demons!

Printed based on the transcript of the conversation preserved in the Central Archives.

Notes
[1] This is the main part of Mao Zedong’s conversation with some representatives from literary and art circles during the National Propaganda Work Conference of the Communist Party of China.
[2] Refers to the *Collection of Some Issues Concerning Ideological Work*, printed and distributed by the General Office of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee on March 6, 1957, which compiled thirty-three issues.
[3] On April 27, 1957, the CPC Central Committee issued the *Directive on the Rectification Movement*, deciding to "carry out a universal and in-depth rectification movement against bureaucracy, sectarianism, and subjectivism once again throughout the entire Party."
[4] Refers to the article *Our Several Opinions on Current Literary and Art Work* published by Chen Qitong, Chen Yading, Ma Hanbing, and Lu Le in *People’s Daily* on January 7, 1957.
[5] Xiao Chunü, see p. 248, note [4] of this volume.
[6] See Marx’s *Theses on Feuerbach*. The original text reads: "The educator himself must be educated." (*Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995 edition, p. 55)
[7] "RAPP," the transliterated abbreviation of the "Russian Association of Proletarian Writers." It was founded in 1925. In 1932, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) issued the *Decision on the Reorganization of Literary and Artistic Organizations*, dissolving "RAPP" and establishing the Union of Soviet Writers.
[8] Xue Rengui (614–683), also known as Xue Li, was a native of Longmen, Jiangzhou (present-day Hejin, Shanxi), and a general of the Tang Dynasty.
[9] Zhang Shigui (?–c. 656), originally named Hulu, was a native of Lushi, Guozhou (present-day part of Henan), and a general of the Tang Dynasty.
[10] Wang Meng, born in 1934, with ancestral roots in Nanpi, Hebei, was born in Beiping (present-day Beijing) and is a writer. At the time, he worked in the Committee of the Third District (Dongsi District) of Beijing of the Chinese New Democratic Youth League. In 1956, he published the short story *The Young Newcomer in the Organization Department*, which was mistakenly criticized.
[11] Yao Xueyin (1910–1999), a native of Dengzhou, Henan, was a writer. At the time, he worked at the Wuhan Writers’ Association.
[12] Yao Wenyuan, born in 1931, was a native of Zhuji, Zhejiang. At the time, he worked in the Luwan District Committee of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.
[13] Rong Yiren, then General Manager of the General Management Office of the Shanghai Shenxin Textile Printing and Dyeing Company.
[14] Cao Pi (187–226), a native of Qiao, Peiguo (present-day Bo County, Anhui), son of Cao Cao, Emperor Wen of Wei, was a literary theorist and poet of the Three Kingdoms period.
[15] Cao Zhi (192–232), a native of Qiao, Peiguo (present-day Bo County, Anhui), son of Cao Cao, was a writer and poet of the Three Kingdoms period.
[16] Han Yu, a writer and philosopher of the Tang Dynasty.
[17] Xiao Tong (501–531), a native of Lanling (northwest of present-day Changzhou, Jiangsu), son of Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, of the Southern Dynasties. He was made crown prince in 502 but died before ascending the throne, posthumously honored as Zhaoming. He compiled the earliest extant comprehensive literary anthology in China, *Wen Xuan*, commonly known as the *Zhaoming Anthology of Literature*.
[18] Lao She (1899–1966), originally named Shu Qingchun, courtesy name Sheyu, was a native of Beijing and a writer. At the time, he served as Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association. Ba Jin, born in 1904, originally named Li Yaotang, courtesy name Feigan, was a native of Chengdu, Sichuan, and a writer. At the time, he served as Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association.
[19] Zhou Yang (1908–1989), a native of Yiyang, Hunan, then served as Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association. Mao Dun (1896–1981), originally named Shen Dehong, courtesy name Yanbing, was a native of Tongxiang, Zhejiang. At the time, he served as Minister of Culture and Chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association.
[20] Zhao Dan (1914–1980), a native of Feicheng, Shandong. At the time, he was an actor at the Shanghai Film Studio and starred in the film *The Life of Wu Xun*.
[21] Sun Yu (1900–1990), a native of Zigong, Sichuan. At the time, he was a director at the Shanghai Film Studio and wrote and directed the film *The Life of Wu Xun*.
[22] Refers to the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee. This session was held in Beijing from September 20 to October 9, 1957.
[23] *Grass and Wood Verses*, a set of prose poems written by Liu Shahe, published in the inaugural issue of *Stars* in January 1957.
[24] *Kiss*, a poem written by Yue Bai, published in the inaugural issue of *Stars* in January 1957.