Annotations and Revisions to Zhou Yang’s Article “A Major Debate on the Literary and Artistic Front” [1] (February 1958)  I. To Comrade Lin Mohan: This article is very well written. I have made a few minor revisions; please see whether they are acceptable. If the latest issue of the Literary Gazette has not yet gone to press, it would be best to publish this article simultaneously in both the Literary Gazette and the People’s Daily [2]. Mao Zedong, February 24

II. To Comrade Lin Mohan: There is one point of revision; please decide as you see fit. Mao Zedong, February 27 Printed according to the manuscript.

III. Add the words “and art” after “literature.” [3] Printed according to Mao Zedong’s manuscript.

IV. Indeed, at that time it was like “a storm is brewing, with winds filling every tower.” The winds in the literary and artistic circles were blowing to the right. Seeing this phenomenon, certain “leftist” dogmatists became alarmed and sought to suppress this unhealthy trend by means of crude, heavy-handed coercion. Of course, dogmatism and coercive methods cannot overcome revisionism. The reason these dogmatists fear free speech is that they lack confidence in the strength of the working class and the broad masses of the people, and in the power of Marxism-Leninism. Thus, their ostensible “leftism” actually betrays an underlying “rightism.” The Party resolutely adopted the policy of allowing full freedom of expression, for these forces were clamoring for it, acting frenziedly, and seeming to want to swallow the Communist Party in one gulp. They had completely abandoned all rational discourse. They betrayed socialism, betrayed the Constitution, and reneged on their own commitments. The Party had long since made clear that we do not fear weeds—we will dig them up and turn them into fertilizer; we do not fear monsters and demons—we will make them serve as negative examples for the people. Now that these weeds have begun to sprout, let them grow. For weeds are an objective reality, and their vigorous growth signals that the working-class weed-pulling force must now be mobilized. To attempt to bury or smother such objectively existing weeds, preventing them from ever emerging, or to crush them instantly as soon as they appear, is a foolish and ignorant approach that misunderstands the strategy of class struggle. It will inevitably leave behind future problems, requiring far greater effort to eradicate them later. The Party trusts the masses to recognize and overcome these weeds. The Party knows how to deal with class enemies. In this way, the right-wing elements in the literary and artistic sphere, like their counterparts in other sectors of society, revealed their true colors, baring their fangs and claws as they seized the opportunity to act, thus bringing about a confrontation between two opposing camps. Both sides rejoiced. The reactionaries were delighted to see the Communist Party seemingly on the verge of collapse and capitalism poised for restoration. The revolutionaries, meanwhile, were glad that the horde of monsters and demons had been unleashed, providing them with a chance to destroy them. Printed in the People’s Daily of February 28, 1958 (with Mao Zedong’s revisions).

V. In our country, only once every few years does a thoroughgoing socialist great revolution take place across the ideological and political fronts, delivering a fatal blow to bourgeois reactionary thought, liberating the productive forces of the literary and artistic community and its reserve ranks, removing the shackles imposed upon them by the old society, eliminating the threat of reactionary influences, and opening up a broad avenue for the development of proletarian literature and art. Prior to this, this historic task had never been accomplished. The work of clearing away the old foundations will continue in the future; it cannot be fully completed within a single year. Nevertheless, the basic path has now been opened, and columns—dozens, even hundreds—of proletarian literary and artistic warriors can now move freely along it. Literature and art too must build up their forces and undergo training. A completely new proletarian literary and artistic army is currently being formed, and its establishment can proceed only in tandem with that of the proletarian intellectual army, with their respective achievements roughly coinciding. Only those who do not understand historical materialism would consider this view incorrect. Printed in the People’s Daily of February 28, 1958 (with Mao Zedong’s manuscript).

VI. Marxism teaches us that the principal contradictions facing humanity are those between man and nature, and between different groups of people. These two fundamental contradictions manifest themselves as the struggle for production and the class struggle; after the abolition of classes, they will take the form of a conflict between the old and the new.

VII. A work of art is both a reflection of social reality expressed through artistic form and a medium through which society is influenced.

VIII. We hold that socialist realism is the finest method of creative work, but this should be advocated to writers—to encourage them to deepen their Marxist-Leninist theoretical understanding, to forge closer ties with the working people, and to allow socialist ideas to truly become part of their very being—rather than issuing them a mandatory order to adopt it.

IX. Our people are engaged in a mighty, overwhelming endeavor to transform the world and reshape the face of history. Their soaring labor enthusiasm and revolutionary zeal are manifesting themselves irresistibly in every sphere, and they must necessarily find their due expression in literature and art, this special form of ideology. Printed in the People’s Daily of February 28, 1958 (with Mao Zedong’s revisions).

Notes [ ] Zhou Yang was then Deputy Minister of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Leading Party Group of the Chinese Writers Association. “A Major Debate on the Literary and Artistic Front” was compiled and supplemented based on his speech delivered at the expanded meeting of the Leading Party Group of the Chinese Writers Association on September 16, 1957, following consultations with several comrades in the literary and artistic circles. The article consists of three parts: Trials Amid Stormy Winds; Two Irreconcilable Worldviews; The Revisionist Line in Literature and Art. After the article was completed, Lin Mohan, Director of the Literature Division of the CPC Central Committee’s Publicity Department, submitted it to Mao Zedong for review, and Mao made two rounds of revisions. This section (I) contains Mao’s annotations accompanying his first round of revisions; sections (II) and (III) contain his annotations from the second round. Sections (IV) through (IX) consist of six passages representing Mao’s specific revisions to Zhou Yang’s article, with the text typeset in Song typeface indicating Mao’s rewrites and additions. [2] Zhou Yang’s “A Major Debate on the Literary and Artistic Front” was subsequently published in the People’s Daily of February 28, 1958, and in the fifth issue of the Literary Gazette, released on March 11, 1958. [3 “Our literature should be guided by communist thought”] The original draft of Zhou Yang’s article stated: “We should educate the people and no longer indoctrinate them with feudal or capitalist ideas.” Mao added the word “art” after “our literature” and wrote this annotation.