Source 5: The Yan’an Conference on Art and Literature Wu Yinxian (1942)
Dublin Core
Title
Source 5: The Yan’an Conference on Art and Literature Wu Yinxian (1942)
Subject
The Yan'an Conference on Art and Literature
Description
During the Yan'an Conference on Art and Literature, Mao made the following speech:
Literature and art have been an important and highly effective part of the cultural front since the May Fourth [Movement]. During the Civil War the revolutionary literature and art movement showed great development, and in its overall direction was consistent with the Red Army’s struggle of that period, although in actual work the two were fighting in isolation, owing to the separation of the two fraternal armies by the reactionaries. Since the War of Resistance, a great number of revolutionary literature and art workers have come to Yan’an and every other anti-Japanese base. This is a very good thing. However, merely coming to these bases is not the same as identifying oneself with the people’s movement in the bases. If we are to push the revolutionary work forward, we will have to make these two become completely identify with each other.
The purpose of our meeting today is to make literature and art become a constructive part of the whole revolutionary machine; to use them as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for crushing and destroying the enemy, as well as to help the people wage the struggle against the enemy with one heart and one mind. What are some of the problems which must be solved in order to achieve this aim? They are the problems of standpoint, attitude, audience, work, and study.”
Source: Saich, T. (1996) The rise to power of the Chinese Communist Party. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1123.
Literature and art have been an important and highly effective part of the cultural front since the May Fourth [Movement]. During the Civil War the revolutionary literature and art movement showed great development, and in its overall direction was consistent with the Red Army’s struggle of that period, although in actual work the two were fighting in isolation, owing to the separation of the two fraternal armies by the reactionaries. Since the War of Resistance, a great number of revolutionary literature and art workers have come to Yan’an and every other anti-Japanese base. This is a very good thing. However, merely coming to these bases is not the same as identifying oneself with the people’s movement in the bases. If we are to push the revolutionary work forward, we will have to make these two become completely identify with each other.
The purpose of our meeting today is to make literature and art become a constructive part of the whole revolutionary machine; to use them as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for crushing and destroying the enemy, as well as to help the people wage the struggle against the enemy with one heart and one mind. What are some of the problems which must be solved in order to achieve this aim? They are the problems of standpoint, attitude, audience, work, and study.”
Source: Saich, T. (1996) The rise to power of the Chinese Communist Party. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1123.
Creator
Wu Yinxian
Publisher
Google images
Date
1942
Collection
Citation
Wu Yinxian , “Source 5: The Yan’an Conference on Art and Literature Wu Yinxian (1942),” Chinese History for Teachers, accessed April 23, 2024, https://chinesehistoryforteachers.omeka.net/items/show/59.