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Writers and Artists Confer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Jerome Ch'ên
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Extract

The third Congress of China's Literary and Art Workers, the first since the Hundred Flowers Campaign, was held in Peking from July 22 to August 13 “to review and assess” the literary and artistic achievements in the years between 1953 and 1960, “summarise and exchange experience, further define the road of development of socialist art and literature, and consider the tasks to be faced in the coming years.” The presence of Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, and other political leaders and the large space which the People's Daily devoted to the meeting indicated its importance. Of the 2,300 delegates there were professionals and amateurs working in local governments and the services and from them a praesidium of over 180 members was elected before the long speeches on the opening day began. Kuo Mo-jo, as the President of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, first spoke a few words of welcome and then went on to outline the circumstances under which the Congress was convoked and the general political lines along which China's art and literature had been and would be developing. These lines were repeated once more, and elaborated, by Lu Ting-yi, Director of the Party's Propaganda Department and Deputy Premier, who represented the Party and the Government, and subsequently they were to be repeated many times over. The third speaker on the opening day to recite them was Chou Yang, Vice-President of the Federation and a Deputy Director of the Party's Propaganda Department, who also laid down six tasks for the Congress.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 4 , December 1960 , pp. 76 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 The two previous meetings took place in July 1949 and September 1953.

2 Peking Review, 07 30, 1960.Google Scholar

3 People's Daily, 07 23, 1960Google Scholar, and Peking Review, 07 26, 1960.Google Scholar

4 People's Daily, 07 25, 1960.Google Scholar

5 Peking Review, 08 16, 1960Google Scholar, and People's Daily, 08 14, 1960.Google Scholar

6 Mao, , Selected Works, IV, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1956) pp. 64–67 and 85.Google Scholar

7 See MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Hundred Flowers (London: Stevens, 1960), pp. 174–194Google Scholar, and Chen, S. H. “Multiplicity in Uniformity: Poetry and the Great Leap Forward,” The China Quarterly, No. 3, 1960.Google Scholar

8 Wen-yüan, Yao, Lun Wen-hsüeh-shang-ti Hsiu-cheng-chu-yi (On Literary Revisionism), Shanghai, 1958, p. 286.Google Scholar

9 Chiin-jui, Ch'ien, “Uphold the Party's Literary Principles and Dismiss Modern Revisionism,” Wen-yi Pao, No. 8, 1960.Google Scholar “Humanitarianism of human nature” perhaps means “kindness.” The Chinese term, jen-tao-chu-yi, can mean either “humanism” or “humanitarianism.” It has been used freely to mean either or both throughout these campaigns by all participants, and the confusion has caused the downfall of several eminent writers. Readers of the highly polished translations of Mao Tse-tung's famous talks to the Yenan Forum will see that even the Chairman himself vacillates in using the term jen-tao-chu-yi between meanings of “the spirit of the Renaissance” and “love of mankind.”

10 Shih-lun (On Poetry), (Peking: 1953) p. 5.Google Scholar

11 Tsai-wen-yi-ssu-hsiang-chan-hsien-shang (On the Literary and Artistic Ideological Front) 1940, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

12 Jen-min Wen-hsüeh (People's Literature), 1960, No. 2, pp. 126–127Google Scholar, and No. IV, pp. 125–128, articles by Ch'en Ch'ing and Ch'i Ssu respectively.

13 Wen-yi Yueh-pao (Literature and Arts Monthly), 1959, No. 1, p. 6.Google Scholar

14 Wen-yi-yueh-pao, 1959, No. 4, p. 13.Google Scholar

15 People's Daily, 08 8, 1960, p. 4.Google Scholar

16 Mao, , Selected Works, IV, p. 77.Google Scholar

17 See an interesting summary of a Chinese article on love, New Statesman, 09 10, 1960, p. 326Google Scholar, in which a student of the Chinese press quotes: “Love is an ideological thing and the product of objective practice.” The premise of this observation is that men are born men.