Jiang Qing:
I've read this document twice and feel it's acceptable. I've made some minor revisions.
Please consider it. I suggest that this document be circulated in the name of the Military
Commission to some responsible comrades in the Central Committee for their comments.
Please point out any errors so that we can revise it. Of course, we must first seek the
opinions of the comrades in the Military Commission.
Mao Zedong
March 17
Jiang Qing:
I have reviewed all of them and agree with them all. I have only added a few words or
changed a few characters in a few places within the Minutes. Please make your decision. I
am now returning the original to you.
Mao Zedong
March 24
I have read it and agree.
Comrade Peng Zhen is dismissed.
I have not seen this document [2], and I heard that I still need to study and revise it.



Remove a sentence. [3]
These four works of Chairman Mao will be enough for us proletarians to use for a long
time.[4]
We must, in accordance with the directives of the Party Central Committee, resolutely carry
out a great socialist revolution on the cultural front and completely eliminate this black line.
Therefore, this is an arduous, complex, and long-term struggle, requiring decades, even
centuries, of effort.
The lesson of the past decade or so is that we were late in taking action. Chairman Mao said
he only addressed individual issues, not a comprehensive and systematic one. As long as we
didn't address them, many positions would have been left to the black line. This is a serious
lesson. After the Tenth Plenary Session of the Central Committee in 1962 decided to carry
out class struggle nationwide, the struggle to promote the proletariat and eliminate the
bourgeoisie in culture gradually unfolded.
This is more appropriate. [5]
The People's Liberation Army must play an important role in the Cultural Revolution. [6]
There were also good things in the 1930s, namely the militant left-wing literary and artistic
movement led by Lu Xun. In the late 1930s, some left-wing leaders, influenced by Wang
Ming's rightist capitulationist line, [7] deviated from the class perspective of Marxism-
Leninism and put forward the slogan of "national defense literature." This slogan was a
bourgeois one, while the proletarian slogan of "mass literature of the national revolutionary
war" was coined by Lu Xun. Some left-wing literary and artistic workers, especially Lu Xun,
also put forward the slogan that literature should serve the workers and peasants and that
workers and peasants should create literature themselves. However, they did not
systematically address the fundamental issue of integrating literature and art with the
workers, peasants, and soldiers. The vast majority remained bourgeois national democrats.
Some failed to overcome the democratic revolution, and some failed to successfully
overcome the socialist challenge.



We should also study the works of the ancients and foreigners. Refusing to study them is a
mistake, but we must study them critically, applying the past to the present and the foreign
to China.
We must also analyse the relatively outstanding Soviet revolutionary literary and artistic
works that emerged after the October Revolution. We must not blindly worship them, let
alone imitate them. Blind imitation cannot become art. Literature and art can only come
from life; only life is the sole source of literature and art. The historical process of literature
and art, both ancient and modern, both in China and abroad, proves this point.
Literary and artistic creation related to the Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin campaigns, as well
as other major campaigns, should be promptly initiated while the comrades who led and
commanded these campaigns are still alive.
We must promote revolutionary, militant, mass literary and artistic criticism, break the
monopoly of a few so-called "literary and artistic critics" (i.e., those critics with erroneous
orientations and who are weak and powerless), and place the more powerful weapon of
literary and artistic talent in the hands of the broad masses of workers, peasants, and
soldiers, thus uniting specialized critics with mass critics.
Don't be afraid of being called "sticks." We should analyse the criticisms we make about
being simple and crude. Some of our criticisms are fundamentally correct, but the analysis is
insufficient, the arguments are weak, and the persuasiveness is weak. We should improve on
this. Other criticisms are based on a lack of understanding, initially calling us simple and
crude, then later dropping the topic. But when the enemy calls our correct criticisms simple
and crude, we must resolutely resist.
The principle of Party spirit is the most distinctive mark that distinguishes us from other
classes. It's important to understand that representatives of other classes also have their
own Party spirit, and they are very tenacious. Whether in creative thought, organizational
line, or work style, we must uphold the proletarian principle of Party spirit.
The above content of the entire discussion record is for reference only by leaders.




[1]  This summary, originally titled "Minutes of the Symposium on Art and Literature in the
Army Convened by Comrade Jiang Qing," was revised during Mao Zedong's interrogation. Lin
Biao was then Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the
Central Military Commission. Sections 1 and 2 are Mao Zedong's comments to Jiang Qing
after reviewing the summary; Section 3 is a comment on the draft directive from Peng Zhen,
a member of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau and Secretary of the CPC Central
Secretariat, forwarding the summary, submitted for review on April 1, 1966; Sections 5 and 9
are two annotations to the summary; Sections 4, 8, 12, and 18 are additions to the
summary; Sections 6, 7, 10, 11, and 13-17 are revisions to the summary, with the text
printed in italics containing Mao Zedong's additions and revisions. Mao Zedong also made
several other revisions to the minutes, primarily changing "under the guidance of Mao
Zedong Thought" to "under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought,"
and "reading Chairman Mao's books all my life" to "reading Marxism-Leninism and Chairman
Mao's books all my life." He also deleted phrases such as "hold high the great red banner of
Mao Zedong Thought, the highest peak of literary theory," and "the People's Liberation
Army was created by the Chairman himself." On April 10, 1966, the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China forwarded the minutes. On May 3, 1979, upon request from
the General Political Department of the Central Military Commission, the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China approved the revocation of the minutes and, based on
facts, leniently rehabilitated individuals and literary works that had been wrongly punished
as a result of the minutes.
[2] This refers to Chairman Mao's conversation with music workers (August 24, 1956),
mentioned in the minutes. This conversation was edited and published in the People's Daily
on September 9, 1979, under the title "Conversations with Music Workers." It was later
included in the second volume of Selected Works of Mao Zedong, published by People's
Publishing House in 1986.
[3] The minutes mentioned that Jiang Qing's "conversation with us, watching films and plays
with us," and that "everyone agreed that this was equivalent to a short-term training
course." During the interrogation, Mao Zedong deleted the phrase "everyone agreed that
this was equivalent to a short-term training course" and wrote this annotation.
[4] The four works mentioned in the minutes refer to Mao Zedong's "On New Democracy,"
"Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art," "On the Correct Handling of
Contradictions Among the People," and "Speech at the National Conference on Propaganda
Work of the Communist Party of China." The phrase "enough for us proletarians to use for a
long time" originally read "enough for us proletarians to use for hundreds of years."
[5] Refers to the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China held in Beijing from September 24 to 27, 1962.



[6] The minutes mentioned that in the past three years, many "literary and artistic works
praising our great Party and the wise leadership of our great leader Chairman Mao" had
appeared. When Mao Zedong reviewed the minutes, he changed the quotation marks to
read "literary and artistic works praising our great Party, its leaders, and the wise leadership
of other comrades" and added this annotation.
[7] This sentence originally reads "The People's Liberation Army should take the lead in the
Cultural Revolution."
[8] Wang Ming joined the Communist Party of China in 1925. From the Sixth Plenary Session
of the CPC Central Committee in January 1931, he served as a member of the CPC Central
Committee and the Political Bureau. From then until the Zunyi Conference in January 1935,
he was the primary representative of "Left" adventurist errors within the Party. In November
1931, he traveled to the Soviet Union as the CPC representative to the Communist
International. Upon returning to China in November 1937, he attended the December
meeting of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau and subsequently became
Secretary of the CPC Central Committee's Yangtze River Bureau. During this period, he
committed Rightist capitulationist errors. He trusted the Kuomintang more than the
Communist Party, and was hesitant to mobilize the masses, develop the people's army, or
expand the liberated areas in Japanese-occupied areas. He advocated "everything through
the united front" and "everything subject to the united front," handing leadership of the
War of Resistance Against Japan to the Kuomintang. Because the correct line represented by
Mao Zedong already held sway throughout the Party, Wang Ming's errors only had a
temporary impact in some areas. The enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China, held from September to November 1938,
criticized Wang Ming's Rightist capitulationist errors and established the principle and policy
of the entire Party independently leading the anti-Japanese armed struggle.