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Fiction of the Yenan Period*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Cyril Birch
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Extract

During the Yenan period the Chinese Communists built up a literature as they built up a party organisation and an army: as an instrument of policy, fashioned in accordance with Marxist principles. Like the organisation and like the army, the literature served the needs of the time. Plays, poems, stories, novels, ballads, reportages flowed in profusion from professional writers emerged from Kuomintang jails; from trainees of the Lu Hsün Academy in Yenan itself; from farmers and soldiers who after initial success were welcomed into the ranks of “art workers.” These writings whipped up popular support for the new government and established flesh-and-blood examples of behaviour-patterns for the new society. More effectively than any textbook of theory, they gave instruction in practical Communism.

Type
Literature
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 4 , December 1960 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 Ssu-shih t'ung-t'ang, in three volumes, published between 1946 and 1949.Google Scholar

2 Piao-hsien hsin-ti ch'ün-chung-ti shih-tai (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949), p. 16.Google Scholar Passage quoted was written in 1942. Chou's quotation of Mao Tse-tung is from the essay “On Protracted War.”

3 Erh-fu, Chou, Hsin-ti ch'i-tien (Shanghai: Ch'ün-chung Press, 1949), p. 18.Google Scholar

4 Yüan-tung-li (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar (Text dated June 1948, Harbin.) English translation by Foreign Languages Press, Peking, under the title of Prime Moving Force. Most of the works cited in the present essay have been published by the Foreign Languages Press in English translations which are generally complete and accurate, if rather utilitarian in style (the fault to be traced to a mixture of idioms, as though the Dead End Kids were to play Love on the Dole).

5 Erh-nü ying-hsiung chuan, in 41 chapters, first printed in 1878.

6 Hstn Erh-nü ying hsiung chuan (Shanghai: Hai-yen Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar

7 Yang, Chou, op. cit. p. 67.Google Scholar

8 Lü-liang ying-hsiung chuan, 2 vols. (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar

9 Die Literatur des Befreiten China und ihre Volkstraditionen (Artia-Prag, 1955), p. 210.Google Scholar

10 Yü Lin, Lao Chao hsia-hsiang, published under this title together with the story Shuai Lung-wang (see below, note 18) (Hsin min-chu Press, 1949).Google Scholar

11 Li-po, Chou, Pao-feng tsou-yü (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar Chou Li-po was the translator into Chinese of Sholokhov's Virgin Soil Upturned. From the latter work Chou Li-po borrows the general theme of the attack on the kulaks, and even individual incidents and characters (compare, e.g., the attack by the kulak's watchdog on old Shchukar in Chap. 8 of Sholokhov's novel with that on old Sun in Part Two, section vi of Pao-feng tsou-yü). But Chou Li-po's peasants are idealised, anaemic figures in comparison; nowhere does he achieve the strong realism of his model.

12 T'ai-yang chao tsai Sang-kan ho-shang (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar

13 In Li Yu-ts'ai pan-hua (Peking: Hsin hua Book Co., 1949)Google Scholar, Li-chia-chuang-ti piench'ien (ditto), etc.

14 Hsiao Erh-hei chieh-hun, reprinted together with Li Yu-ts'ai pan-hua (see previous note).

15 Ch'uan-chia-pao, dated April 1949, reprinted in Chao Shu-li hsüan-chi, Kai-ming Selections Series, 1951.

16 Wei, Shu, Mai chi, dated 1948Google Scholar, in collection I-ko nü-jen fan-shen-ti ku-shih (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949).Google Scholar See p. 12 of this issue.

17 Ch'ing-fien, title-story of collection. (Hsin min-chu Press, 1949.)Google Scholar (Story dated May 1944, Shantung.)

18 Shuai Lung-wans, see above, n. 10.

19 Wu-ya kao chuang, in collection l-ko nü-jen fan-shan-ti ku-shih, see above, n. 16.

20 Ti-lei-chen, title-story of collection. (Peking: Hsin-hua Book Co., 1949.)Google Scholar