6—
Popular Culture in the Communist Areas

The profound political and social changes that took place in the Communist-controlled areas during the war cannot be fully understood without a careful analysis of the use and spread of popular culture. There is no question that Communist leaders were superb craftsmen in utilizing a rich array of popular culture forms to wage war against Japan, to win public support, and, most important, to spread revolutionary ideas and socialist reforms. The Communists experimented with and carefully manipulated various forms of popular culture, including dramas, cartoons, and newspapers. These forms became propaganda tools as well as political symbols, championing the cause of a socialist revolution. The Yan'an years (1937–1947) were a dynamic period during which fundamental changes occurred. Ironically, the new age also had a crippling effect on Chinese culture. To forge a unified front on both political and intellectual grounds, the CCP imposed strict guidelines on literature and art beginning in 1942, seriously limiting if not completely stifling artistic creativity and intellectual debate.

In the areas under their control, Mao Zedong and his associates tried to instill hope, optimism, and a sense of uniqueness by means of popular culture. Using drama and art, the Communists illustrated the very different outlooks and futures of people living in Japanese-occupied China, the Guomindang-controlled areas, and the Communist border regions. While people in the occupied sector lived under constant intimidation, and those in the Guomindang areas were "full of complaints and frustration," the people in the Red areas, it was shown, enjoyed a life of happiness and promise.^[1] The idea that the border-region culture was the future culture of all China was one of

the most persistent themes in the Communist propaganda effort. Portraying a backward countryside undergoing an exciting social transformation, the Communists painted rustic Yan'an as the center of China's future hope.

The popular culture activities in the Yan'an period, however, must be examined within the larger political ambience of the 1920s and 1930s. The Communist campaign, namely, did not develop independently; it was inspired in large part by the popular culture efforts first seen in the Guomindang regions. There were, it is true, some drama activities and folk song singing in Communist-controlled territories during the Jiangxi Soviet period (1931–1934)^[2] —such as the August First Drama Troupe (Bayi jutuan), established in 1932, which performed periodically in local villages in Jiangxi.^[3] But large-scale and systematic undertakings—most significantly, newspapers and cartoons—did not commence until the Yan'an years. The arrival in 1938 of such talents as the dramatist Cui Wei and the cartoonist Hu Kao, former members of the Drama Propaganda Troupe and the National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps, respectively also added momentum to the Communists' popular culture drive.

As we will see in this chapter, Mao's articulation of popular art and literature was a product of the times. The fact that the Communist experiment was initiated largely after Mao's Rectification Campaign (Zhengfeng) of 1942 allowed the leadership to benefit from what had already transpired in the GMD areas; they simply adapted existing forms to promote their message with single-minded determination. In the end, the fact that the popular culture drive in the Communist border regions was more effective than its counterpart in the Guomindang areas had more to do with centralization and coordination—or lack thereof—than with the actual tools used.

The Village Drama Movement

The Communist drama movement in the Yan'an era was in many ways distinct and ingenious not because it created new types of dramatic forms, but because it rejuvenated the old, infusing them with new ideas. For the Communists, the stage was an ideal political platform from which to enlighten the masses, and spoken drama was a powerful agent for socialization. These new dramas revealed the profound transformation of ideology, attitudes, and beliefs that had occurred in the Red areas. Through their widespread influence and subtle mix of symbolic idiom and stark realism, a new peasant political culture was created.

When Edgar Snow made his historic trip to the blockaded Communist area in Shaanxi in 1936, he witnessed a unique drama movement still in the process of developing:

People were already moving down toward the open-air stage, improvised from an old temple, when I set out with the young official who had invited me to the Red Theatre….

Across the stage was a big pink curtain of silk, with the words, "People's Anti-Japanese Dramatic Society," in Chinese characters…. The programme was to last three hours….

The first playlet here was called Invasion. It opens in a Manchurian village, in 1931, with the Japanese arriving and driving out the "non-resisting" Chinese soldiers. In the second scene, Japanese officers banquet in a peasant's home, using Chinese men for chairs, and drunkenly making love to their wives…. In the end, of course, all this proves too much for the villagers. Merchants turn over their stands and umbrellas, farmers rush forth with their spears, women and children come with their knives, and all swear to "fight to the death" against the Erhpen-kuei [Riben gui ]—the "Japanese devils." …

Another unique and amusing number was called the "United Front Dance," which interpreted the mobilization of China to resist Japan….

What surprised me about these dramatic clubs, however, was not that they offered anything of artistic importance to the world … but that, equipped with so little, they were able to meet a genuine social need. They had the scantiest properties and costumes, yet with these primitive materials they managed to produce the authentic illusion of drama. The players received only their food and clothing and small living allowances, but they studied every day, like all Communists, and they believed themselves to be working for China and the Chinese people….

The Reds write nearly all their own plays and songs…. There is no more powerful weapon of propaganda in the Communist movement than the Reds' dramatic troupes, and none more subtly manipulated.^[4]

Snow was sympathetic to the Communist drama movement. But it was a performing art still in its infancy. It soon developed into a full-scale and mature force laden with peasant idealism, though frequently couched in patriotic language.

Contrary to Snow's claim that "the Reds wrote nearly all their own plays," famous pieces such as Cao Yu's Thunderstorm, Ouyang Yuqian's The Death of Li Xiucheng (Li Xiucheng zhi si), and foreign

works like Gogol's The Inspector General and Ostrovsky's The Storm dominated the early theater in Yan'an and the other border areas.^[5] The staging of these plays—dubbed "big plays" (daxi) or "famous plays" (mingxi) by critics, often with a disparaging tone^[6] —stemmed partly from the shortage of scripts and partly from a fascination with accomplished works. It seemed natural and practical for those dramatists who had just arrived in Yan'an (for example, Cui Wei and Zhang Geng, both of whom came to the Red capital in 1938) to stage familiar pieces rather than to attempt something from scratch at short notice. Putting on a new play was both time-consuming and full of uncertainties. Nevertheless, Communist dramatists soon found that although these well-known pieces were popular with the cadres, they produced little resonance among the peasants. With soldiers and peasants "doz[ing] off in the middle of a famous play," as one critic observed,^[7] city-oriented works came increasingly under fire. Artistic merit was not at issue; rather, political questions were now paramount. "These plays were completely divorced from reality," Zhang Geng later recalled.^[8] Spending large sums of money on majestic and imposing sets in this barren and poverty-stricken land, another critic charged, was extravagant and nothing more than an ostentatious ploy on the part of the dramatists to show off their talent.^[9]

Putting on an urban-oriented or foreign play became even more controversial with the launching of the Rectification Campaign in early 1942, a thought-remolding push directed against party cadres and intellectuals that subsequently established Mao Zedong's ideological preeminence in the CCP. Mao's decision to build a new China with the Shaan-Gan-Ning (Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia) Border Region (which centered on Yan'an) as his testing ground implied sweeping changes in all aspects of Chinese life. Old ideas, he proclaimed, should be discarded and new ones introduced. Thorough reform was possible only with a correct political viewpoint and careful implementation of the "mass line." As is now well understood, Mao's rural background and the realities of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region allowed him to emphasize the peasantry. His concept of the mass line, however, was more than a class notion; it was a romantic belief in the masses (especially peasants) as the font of virtue and struggle. In comparison with Lenin and Stalin, Mao attributed to the masses a more critical role in fostering revolution and changing history. The CCP could not exist without learning from the masses, he said. In his famous directive of June 1943, Mao explicitly stated: "All correct leadership is necessarily from the masses, to the masses."^[10] Intellectuals should learn from and

become members of the masses through self-criticism and thought reform.

For Mao and his associates, a "big" or "famous play" production was more than a display of artistic arrogance: it was a sign of political insensitivity toward the needs of the people. Might "big plays" help to raise the standard of Communist dramas? Perhaps, but as Zhang Geng argued, one must never be divorced from the masses merely for the sake of raising the standards of drama. "We understand too little about China," he wrote in August 1942. "What we need to understand now is the life of the workers and peasants."^[11] Besides being a misplaced exercise in elitism, an "imported" production could also be interpreted as casting doubts on the ability of homegrown talent, definitely an insult to the wisdom of the folk.

The harsh criticisms against urban and foreign plays resulted in few, if any, of them being performed in Yan'an after 1942.^[12] General Nie Rongzhen (1899–1992), commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei) Border Region, perhaps detecting that the pendulum had swung too far, aired a rare difference of opinion in August 1942. While admitting that drama should be "popularized" to serve the people, Nie nevertheless insisted that "putting on a great foreign play like Gorky's Mother once a year can certainly raise our artistic standards."^[13] But Nie's voice belonged to the minority. The bone of contention now was not whether or not Gorky and Ostrovsky were great, conscientious writers; the mere fact that they were foreigners was enough to raise eyebrows among nationalistic drama critics in the Communist areas.

This controversy over foreign plays must be viewed within a wider perspective. For it was not simply a debate over the value of foreign literary forms. Rather, it reflected Mao's attempt to undermine the influence of Wang Ming and the International Faction, known commonly as the "returned Bolsheviks." Wang, namely, following Stalin's instruction, favored a resistance policy centering on the Guomindang, while Mao advocated a more independent line for the Chinese Communists, and hence avoidance of further subordination to the will of Moscow.^[14]

The dispute over foreign plays also reflected Mao's drive to forge a new revolutionary experience based squarely on Chinese soil, which necessarily included the sinification of foreign ideas in general and Marxism in particular. In a report to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in November 1938, Mao wrote:

There is no such thing as abstract Marxism, but only concrete Marxism. What we call concrete Marxism is Marxism that has taken on a national form, that is, Marxism applied to the concrete struggle in the concrete conditions prevailing in China, and not Marxism abstractly used…. Consequently, the Sinification of Marxism—that is to say, making certain that in all of its manifestations it is imbued with Chinese peculiarities, using it according to these peculiarities—becomes a problem that must be understood and solved by the whole Party without delay…. We must put an end to writing eight-legged essays on foreign models; there must be less repeating of empty and abstract refrains; we must discard our dogmatism and replace it by a new and vital Chinese style and manner, pleasing to the eye and to the ear of the Chinese common people.^[15]

As a Communist, Mao fully endorsed the need for international class struggle. Yet China and the interests of the Chinese people remained his top priority. Internationalism and patriotism were not in conflict, he told Agnes Smedley in 1937, "for only China's independence and liberation will make it possible to participate in the world Communist movement."^[16] The sinification of Marxism was thus more than the simple adaptation of a foreign political ideal to meet China's needs; it was also a definite manifestation of nationalism. For Mao, the sinification of Marxism was a defense against decadent Western bourgeois ideas, on the one hand, and a reassertion of national pride, on the other hand. The great tradition of China's past and the nation's bitter experience in the previous hundred years, he noted, should be brought to bear in the current struggle against imperialism. Hence, at the core of the Maoist-style socialist revolution lay not only the mass line, but also nationalism. In practice, nationalism often overrode Communist ideology when it came to making political or artistic decisions. Mao, of course, maintained that there was no inherent contradiction between the universality of Marxism as a political doctrine and China's peculiarities; indeed, their union was a sine qua non for a successful socialist revolution in China. The Yan'an experience led him to believe that the two blended well together.

The debate over foreign plays also underscored the desire of dramatists and party officials to find the artistic style best suited to the rural environment. In 1943, the Communist writer Zhou Libo (1908–1979) charged that students in Yan'an were drawn excessively to foreign classics, to the extent that some dramatists were captivated even by "the eyelashes of Anna Karenina"—an ominous sign of what he called

"book poisoning."^[17] Zhang Geng voiced a similar concern. He warned against "blindly adopting foreign methods," pointing specifically to the Stanislavsky System, a drama training method popular among urban Chinese dramatists in the 1930s that emphasized every detail of speech and gesture and the actor's profound psychological characterization.^[18] Following Western styles, Zhang cautioned, would mean falling victim to "foreign dogmatism" (yang jiaotiao) and ignoring China's harsh rural realities.^[19] Of course Zhang, an early participant in the left-wing drama movement of the early 1930s and a member of the drama propaganda troupe in 1937, did not belittle the contribution of the legendary founder of the Moscow Art Theater. He did, however, believe that Chinese dramatists, rather than imitating a foreign model, should create their own style to address problems in the countryside.

Although Communist playwrights agreed that a new kind of drama was necessary, few in 1937 had a clear idea of what it should be. Yet they wasted no time in looking for a new formula that would meet rural needs. To be sure, the search was not a new undertaking; the CCP had been involved in the field of drama since the mid-1920s when Mao turned his eyes away from the city to look for revolutionary change in the countryside. Realizing the potential to reach a wide audience, the Communists intended to turn the theater not just into an entertainment center, but into a lecture hall. By 1938, therefore, a fledgling village drama movement was already in evidence in north China.

The founding of the Lu Xun Academy of Art (Lu Xun yishu xueyuan; commonly known as "Luyi") on 10 April 1938 marked a turning point in the Communist drama movement. Headed by the dramatist Sha Kefu (1905–1961), Luyi comprised four departments: literature, music, art, and drama. With Zhang Geng as the director of the drama section and experienced teachers like Cui Wei as instructors, the academy (which became known as "the art center of the northwest")^[20] immediately emerged not only as the cradle of experimentation in art, but also as the headquarters of a full-scale drama campaign. A year later it was followed by the establishment of the All-China Resistance Association of Dramatists, Border Region Branch (Zhonghua xijujie kangdi xiehui bianqu fenhui) and other regional drama associations.^[21]

Early Yan'an dramas brimmed with patriotic fervor. Even urban-centered productions or foreign pieces were often staged with an unmistakable intention of unifying people to resist foreign aggression.

When the Northwest Front Service Corps (Xibei zhandi fuwutuan), organized by the writer Ding Ling in 1937, traversed remote villages to spread the news about the war, it brought along emotion-charged short plays like "Joining the Guerrilla Forces" and "Arresting Traitors."^[22] The same was true of the famous Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Popular Drama Troupe (Bianqu minzhong jutuan). The troupe, founded in 1938 and headed by the poet Ke Zhongping (1902–1964), spent a lengthy period traveling through numerous counties to spread patriotic news, earning the endeavor the accolade of a "Small Long March."^[23] From the beginning, however, it was clear that the Communists were not content merely to wage an anti-Japanese campaign. The proletarian cause was never far below the surface of the resistance battle. According to Mao and his associates, for a revolutionary struggle to be truly meaningful, it must embrace a larger cause. China needed profound social and political transformation if feudalism and imperialism—the twin evils that Mao believed under-lay the nation's problems—were to be vanquished. And this transformation must start with the countryside, where the majority of Chinese lived and where the sufferings of the people were most acutely felt.

Chinese Communist leaders firmly believed that the creation of a unified ideology required systematic coordination and careful planning from the top down. Even before Mao's famous "Yan'an Talks" of 1942, therefore, the Communists took steps to facilitate dramatic activities in the villages. Besides Luyi, they set up several regional art training centers to provide basic lessons to local cadres and artists (many of these also commemorated Lu Xun, the preeminent Chinese writer and a strong advocate of the leftist cause in his final years).^[24] Well-reputed drama clubs such as the Northwest Front Service Corps and Mt. Taihang Drama Club (Taihangshan jutuan) organized rural cadre training classes, teaching peasant activists and theater enthusiasts basic directing, makeup, and singing techniques, thereby producing scores of trained or semitrained personnel for grass-roots activities.^[25] "Model drama troupes" were simultaneously established in different border areas, charged with the task of teaching the peasants performing techniques, helping the village drama clubs to train directors and actors, and supervising their performances.^[26] In addition, dozens of special teams were created to print basic drama materials for distribution throughout the border regions. The results were remarkable: in the Mt. Taihang Region, for example, more than 100 village drama clubs had been organized by the summer of 1940;

in Central Hebei, 1,700 by 1942; and in Beiyue (western Hebei and northeastern Shanxi), 1,400 by the same year.^[27]

The numbers can be deceiving, however. The majority of the newly founded drama clubs were loosely organized, and many were relatively short-lived, lacking the managerial skills and firm ideological commitment required to sustain themselves. Worse still, as Sha Kefu pointed out, "the direction [of the drama movement] was unclear…. There was no mention of reforming art on the original basis of the peasants' tradition, and some cadres still retained a condescending attitude toward traditional folk artists and their crafts."^[28] Although cadres and intellectuals were encouraged to go the villages to make contact with the peasants, many never took the assignment seriously. "[The assignment] was treated as if they were just 'taking a bath' [xigezao ]," lamented one critic.^[29] Direction finally came from the top in 1942, when the CCP took on the role of arbiter of the arts.

As is now well known, in his historic "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art" in May 1942—part of the newly initiated Rectification Campaign—Mao stated explicitly and forcefully the basic party canon for literature and art. The Party was to oversee all cultural activities, and literature and art should unswervingly serve revolutionary causes. It was the task of writers and artists, Mao pronounced, simultaneously to "popularize" their products and "raise the standards" of the people. Although Mao's specific concern was with political issues, his "Talks" were all-embracing and stipulated a new direction for all kinds of literature and art, popular culture included. Mao called on intellectuals and cadres to serve the interests of "the broadest masses," to present their ideas in simple language comprehensible to all, to praise the bright side rather than to expose the dark facets of socialist reality, and to go to the countryside "to observe, experience, and study." He continued:

Our specialists in drama should pay attention to the small troupes in the army and the villages. Our specialists in music should pay attention to the songs of the masses. Our specialists in the fine arts should pay attention to the fine arts of the masses. All these comrades should make close contact with comrades engaged in the work of popularizing literature and art among the masses.^[30]

Mao's "Talks" effectively consolidated the CCP's ideological ground and provided guidance to intellectuals and party cadres embroiled in heated debates over literary policy. Studying Chairman Mao's

"Talks," one dramatist recalled years later, was "like a sick person suddenly discovering the right medicine."^[31] Although the "Yan'an Talks" reached different border areas at different times and were not officially published until 19 October 1943,^[32] they nevertheless had a profound impact on the course and nature of the rural drama movement. Perhaps no effect was more visible than the renaissance of the traditional yangge.

Yangge (rice-sprout songs) was a song-and-dance form of folk entertainment from north China. Performed during the lunar New Year in villages and cities alike, it was beloved by all the people. Although yangge dances varied from place to place—the northern Shaanxi version, for instance, was performed with considerable rhythmic freedom, whereas the Jin-Cha-Ji type was more rhythmically controlled^[33] —each generally involved a troupe of twenty to thirty male performers, with men playing women's roles. Led by an actor known as santou (the umbrella), who in fact did carry an umbrella to guide the troupe's movement, performers, sometimes in pairs, twisted and danced according to a set of prescribed steps accompanied by drums and gongs. Clowning was also an integral part of the dance. One of the most popular folk entertainments, yangge dances were always tumultuously received by the audience. Colorful and gaudy costumes made the procession exceptionally attractive, and erotic moves and flirtation during a dance often drew resounding applause.^[34]

A long history notwithstanding, yangge were not widely known to the Chinese intellectual world until the Mass Education Movement headed by James Yen made a serious effort to collect them in Dingxian, Hebei in the mid-1920s. The Dingxian researchers, motivated as they were by their anti-illiteracy campaign, discovered that these well-liked yangge dances and plays, an orally transmitted art, if carefully reformed could be an ideal tool to promote education. A valuable collection of yangge plays entitled Dingxian yangge xuan (Dingxian Plantation Songs) was published in 1933 to record their findings.^[35]

Inspired in part by the Dingxian reformers, years later the Communists in Yan'an turned this popular folk art into a political and social medium to promote socialism.^[36] A certain folk artist, Liu Zhiren, is said to have been the first in Shaanxi to incorporate political content into the old yangge as early as 1937,^[37] but systematic yangge reform did not occur until 1943, when Luyi began to experiment with a series of new yangge plays.^[38] Needless to say, the new type of yangge that would soon emerge was radically different from its predecessor.

In sharp contrast to what the Communists repudiated as old-

fashioned and harmful "flattery yangge " (saoqing dizhu), which focused on deplorable servility to landlords, a new type of "struggle yangge " (douzheng yangge) emerged,^[39] aimed, as one writer asserted, "at reshaping the mind of the people."^[40] Marked changes were made: the troupe leader's umbrella was replaced by a sickle and a hatchet, symbolizing the dawning of a new age; the clowns and clowning acts were discarded because, the critics maintained, they defiled the image of the common people; erotic gestures and love dances were likewise eradicated in favor of heroic stories of unstinting patriotic service to the nation. In the popular Brother and Sister Clear Wasteland (Xiongmei kaihuang), a play that commends tireless production and cherishes the spirit of cooperation, the original cast of husband and wife was changed to brother and sister—to avoid, said Zhang Geng, presenting "a wrongful image of flirtation."^[41]

Yangge plays appeared in abundance in 1943 and 1944, a time when the resistance war was suffering a stalemate. Although there was no dearth of anti-Japanese struggle in the new yangge plays, the emphasis had shifted to something quite different: building a new society with a new political philosophy. Besides two old mainstays—glorifying production and condemning the oppression of the landlords—Communist yangge plays manufactured a host of new themes to paint a bright society bursting with energy and joy: sexual equality (Twelve Sickles [Shi'erba liandao ]); female model workers (A Red Flower [Yiduo honghua ]); anti-illiteracy campaigns (Husband and Wife Learn to Read [Fuqi shizi ]); the founding of the new peasant associations (Qin Luozheng); local elections: an indication of democracy at work at the grass-roots level (A Red Flower); rural hygiene (An Old Midwife Enters the Training Class [Laoniangpo zhu xunlian ]); the harmonious relationship between the Red Army and the people (Niu Yonggui Is Wounded [Niu Yonggui guacai ]); and the correct leadership of Mao Zedong and the Communist Party (An Honor Lamp [Guangrong deng ]).^[42]

At the same time, a wealth of rich symbols—like the sickle and the bright lamp—were carefully incorporated into the plays to create striking new perceptions. Colloquial language was used, and the inclusion of popular tunes drawn from Meihu (the local opera of Shaanxi) provided a familiar indigenous flavor. The plays' ever-present optimism helped to portray the border region, though backward and impoverished, as a society full of promise and vigor. Indeed, the fact that the majority of these new yangge plays (such as Ma Ke's [1918–1976] Husband and Wife Learn to Read) drew inspiration from local culture

made them all the more significant: it showed that Mao's "learning from the masses" campaign was yielding political fruits.

To add authenticity, many new pieces relied heavily on actual events. Zhong Wancai Starting from Scratch (Zhong Wancai qijia) is a case in point. Zhong Wancai, a native of northern Shaanxi, was a sluggard and an opium addict—a type of social outcast known in the border areas as erliuzi (a bum). But thanks to the unceasing persuasion of the party cadres, Zhong finally gave up opium and became a model worker. He even earned himself the title of propaganda chief in the county, teaching others how to increase their food production. The dramatic turnaround of Zhong Wancai was singled out for praise by the Party as one of many similar success stories under the new government.^[43] Zhou Yang (1908–1989), the cultural commissar, proudly declared that in this new society "people are no longer being treated as clowns. They are emperors!"^[44]

While the Communist dramatists painted a rosy picture of the border region, they were unrelenting in their denunciations of the Guomindang government. As relations between the CCP and the GMD deteriorated during the last phase of the war, scathing attacks against Jiang Jieshi became increasingly common in the yangge plays. In An Honor Lamp, for example, Jiang is openly referred to as "a traitor, who sold China to American financial cliques."

This burst of creativity stemmed largely from the CCP's strong endorsement of the yangge form and from efforts made by such touring drama troupes as Luyi's Work Team (Luyi gongzuotuan), headed by Zhang Geng.^[45] By 1944, numerous yangge troupes had sprung up. In two northern Jiangsu counties (Maji and Jiaoxiang) in central China alone, for instance, more than thirty female teams emerged.^[46] Three yangge plays—Brother and Sister Clear Wasteland, A Red Flower, and Niu Yonggui Is Wounded —were even staged in Chongqing in the spring of 1945 under the auspices of the New China Daily.^[47]

The Communist village drama movement, however, involved more than just the production of yangge plays. Based on yangge and utilizing Western operatic techniques, a new type of drama known as "new opera" (xingeju) emerged. The phenomenal success of The White-haired Girl (Baimaoniü, 1945)—the story of a servant girl who, after being forced by a tyrannical landlord to flee to the mountains where her hair turns white, returns to take her revenge with the help of the Red Army—contributed to the popularity of this new opera type and reaffirmed Mao's notion of developing a new national form of art.

As in the Guomindang-controlled areas, traditional Beijing operas and regional dramas, their enduring popularity too obvious to be ignored, were revived and promoted as well. Beginning in the late 1930s, the Communists set up drama societies to remodel folk plays in the light of the current social and political struggle.^[48] Perhaps the most famous effort was the Beijing Opera Study Society (Pingju yanjiuhui), established in Yan'an in October 1942 and having two major aims: "to propagate the resistance cause and to carry on a distinguished tradition." In the early 1940s, determined to overcome what it called "the outdated idea that Beijing opera has nothing to do with revolution,"^[49] the society unleashed a series of reforms and infused the old dramatic form with new political content. Among others, two highly successful pieces appeared. Driven up Mt. Liang (Bi shang Liangshan, 1943), the first opera to emerge from this new endeavor, is based on a famous episode from Mao Zedong's own favorite. The Water Margin. It is a story about a military officer, Lin Chong, who, after being pursued by corrupt government agents, decides to join a group of bandit-heroes on Mt. Liang. The new opera, however, instead of focusing on Lin's personal adventure and individual heroism, praises the awesome force of the common people—for it is only when Lin Chong joins hands with the protesting masses that he is able to defeat the pursuing troops and begin a new life.^[50] The second equally successful piece, Three Attacks at Zhu Mansion (San da Zhujiazhuang, 1944)—also based on a story from The Water Margin —describes the familiar theme of popular revenge against a landlord and the power of peasant uprisings.^[51]

This outburst of drama activity in the Communist areas did not go unnoticed by the outside world. Gunther Stein, reporting for the Christian Science Monitor, was fascinated by yangge plays when he was allowed to visit this blockaded land in the spring of 1944. He reported enthusiastically: "Each time I saw [the play] performed I was under its spell like everybody around me…. A good yangko [yangge ] party goes on for hours with several shows, in a gay and happy community atmosphere such as I have never seen elsewhere in the Orient."^[52] The artist Jack Chen was equally impressed by the seemingly exuberant spirit and the profusion of artistic productions in this border region.^[53] And Huang Yanpei (1878–1965), one of the representatives of the People's Political Council who visited the Communist capital in early July 1945, lauded Three Attacks at Zhu Mansion, which he saw presented at Yan'an, as "a truly powerful weapon [in

winning the hearts and minds of the people]."^[54] These observations, superficial though they are, reflect well the buoyant atmosphere of success and hope created by the Communists.

Art for Politics' Sake

There is some evidence to show that already in the early days of the Chinese Communist Party, leaders like Mao recognized the potential of art as a propaganda medium. While serving as director of the Peasant Movement Training Institute (Nongmin yundong jianxisuo) in Guangzhou in 1926, for instance, Mao is said to have introduced courses on peasant art to its curriculum.^[55] In his "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (1927), Mao reminded people that "simple slogans, cartoons and speeches have produced such a widespread and speedy effect among the peasants that every one of them seems to have been through a political school.^[56] A certain amount of artistic activity was also apparent in the Jiangxi Soviet period.^[57] Such efforts, however, were scattered and unorganized. It was not until the Yan'an era that a coherent ideology embracing various forms of art was constructed, one that came to occupy a strategic position in the political education of the people. The influx of artists from the Guomindang areas breathed new life into the Communist art crusade.

In comparison with most Guomindang publications, such as the Central Daily with its unappealing layout and poor use of visual effects, Communist publications employed a variety of art forms to produce a more dramatic and striking appearance. During the war, a host of pictorials were printed and distributed in the border regions—even despite the acute paper shortage^[58] —and in them Communist artists demonstrated a real knack for using art to spark patriotic fervor in China. As early as 1937, the National Salvation Daily —first published in Shanghai and subsequently moved to Guangzhou and later Guilin, with the prominent left-wing writers Guo Moruo and Xia Yan as its publisher and editor, respectively—had devoted considerable space to patriotic cartoons.^[59] But that was not enough: beginning on 15 January 1938, a special weekly "National Salvation Art Section" was added, indicating the enormous significance cartoons carried for the Communists.^[60]

The Yan'an cartoon campaign gained new momentum with the arrival of such artists as Hu Kao, Zhang E, Cai Ruohong, Hua Junwu (1915-), and Zhang Ding in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Many of them—Cai Ruohong, for instance—had been affiliated with the

League of Left-Wing Artists. Others, such as Hua Junwu, were disillusioned with the Guomindang rule and made the trek to the Communist capital to seek a new life and fulfill a new dream.

Hua Junwu was already a veteran cartoonist when he arrived in Yan'an in late 1938 at the age of twenty-three, but predictably his style became more political. Revealing the influence of the German artist E. O. Plauen, creator of the cartoon strip "Vater und Sohn" (Father and Son), and the Russian cartoonist Sapajou, who worked for the British-owned Shanghai newspaper North China Daily News, Hua's early works were a bleak chronicle of urban life, depicting the chaos, hedonism, and alienation of modern society, especially in Shanghai—though without the bitterness and sarcasm that so marked Cai Ruohong's works.^[61] Hua found a new life in Yan'an. Moved by the mission of emancipating the proletariat and fascinated by the vision of a worker's paradise, Hua joined the CCP in 1940.

Realizing the enormous political potential of cartoons, Hua Junwu and his fellow cartoonists began to offer classes at Luyi.^[62] In 1941 Hua, together with Jiang Feng (1910–1982), set up an art workshop to promote cartoons and other artistic designs.^[63] He also designed a cartoon cloth banner (which he called a "wall paper") for public display.^[64] Cartoons began to appear everywhere. They could be found in pictorials such as Yan'an's Resistance Pictorial (Kangdi huabao) and Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region's Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Pictorial (Jin-Cha-Ji huabao). The work of Hua Junwu, Zhang E, and Cai Ruohong also became a constant feature in Yan'an's Liberation Daily, the CCP's official newspaper.^[65] The New China Daily, which was published in Guomindang-controlled Hankou and later in Chongqing, gave this powerful art even more prominence, frequently devoting its front page to biting cartoons. Hu Kao's "Japanese People Under the Oppression of the [Japanese] Warlords," which appeared in the 24 January 1938 issue of the New China Daily, heralded a new pictorial format for this Communist paper.^[66] In addition to promoting cartoons, Zhang E, art editor of the New China Daily, also labored hard to bring a variety of other art forms like woodcuts and comic strips to this influential newspaper, blending forceful messages with simple images. Yan'an and Chongqing, of course, were not the only places where cartoons were thriving. In the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region the political cartoons of Li Jiefu (1913–1976) and Ding Li (1916-) also reaped critical acclaim.^[67]

The Yan'an wartime cartoons drew the attention of the Communist leaders, especially Mao Zedong. In the eyes of Mao, however, the

early Yan'an drawings had some serious shortcomings. They focused too heavily on problems existing within the CCP, paying insufficient attention to the Communists' political struggle against external foes. In short, as one modern Communist art critic put it, the artists had failed to realize that there were two major enemies: "the national enemy [Japan] and the class enemy [the Guomindang]."^[68]

For Mao, nowhere was this deficiency more evident than in the famous "Three Man Satirical Cartoon Show" (Sanren fengci manhua zhan) held in Yan'an in February 1942. In their introduction to this exhibition, Hua Junwu, Zhang E, and Cai Ruohong declared their purpose in holding such a show: "We have seen the beauty and radiance of the new society. But we have also witnessed its ugly and dark sides, which are inherited from the past. These archaic dregs cling to the new society and are gradually corrupting us. Our responsibility as cartoonists is to root them out and bury them."^[69]

True to these words, the well-publicized show focused mainly on exposing the social and political problems that the three artists saw in Yan'an. Hua Junwu's "Modern Decoration," for example, criticized the casual attitude of party cadres in learning Marxism-Leninism, treating it as nothing more than "an ornament." Zhang E's "I Am No. 6 in the World" described the insolence of these same cadres, who consider themselves on top of the world—ranked right next to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.^[70] The show was an overwhelming success, creating a sensation in Yan'an because of both its novelty and its boldness in pinpointing problems within the Party. The three artists' attack on the arrogance, insensitivity, and incompetence of party cadres no doubt struck a chord among the audience. "Like a scalpel, satirical cartoons cure the sickness," hailed one critic.^[71]

But exposing the Party's weaknesses also touched a sensitive nerve among party officials. Unhappy with what he saw, Mao summoned the three artists to his residence for a discussion late one steamy summer afternoon. Over dinner, he criticized them for their incorrect attitude. Granted that the Party had its shortcomings, Mao said, one should not dwell on its demerits without simultaneously pointing out its merits.^[72] More serious still, the artists' attitude was also at variance with, if not totally contradictory to, the views Mao expressed in his "Talks": "For revolutionary writers and artists the targets for exposure can never be the masses, but only the aggressors, exploiters and oppressors and the evil influence they have on the people."^[73] In short, the three artists had committed a grave error by lumping friends and

foes together and by turning their criticisms against their own people rather than their enemies.

The significance of Mao's meeting with Hua Junwu, Zhang E, and Cai Ruohong can be understood only within the context of the Rectification Campaign. It was, in essence, a reaffirmation of what Mao called "concrete Marxism." Different forms of art, according to Mao, must be channeled or refashioned to meet the current needs. And in this task, the CCP had a responsibility to take command. He once again asserted the Party's authority to dictate the direction of art in the Communist areas. In a socialist revolution, he said, the political purpose had to be solved before the aesthetic: art was not to be judged by its quality, but by its intention. In reflecting CCP policy, art in turn reaffirmed ideological certitudes. The building of a new society, in the end, would follow radically restructured aesthetic principles that adhered to socialist ideals. Mao's meeting with Hua Junwu, Zhang E, and Cai Ruohong demonstrated once again that the Party was the final arbiter of right and wrong in art, and that artists had no choice but to show active support for the Party. Thus Mao instilled a rigid formalism in the artistic world that left little room for individual expression.

The style and content of cartoonists' work underwent a series of adjustments after Mao's "Talks." Instead of focusing on party cadres, cartoons now targeted "the aggressors, exploiters, and oppressed," and artists took pains to reach a wider audience through a closer and more realistic portrayal of the people's life (the practice of "popularization" that Mao stipulated). While Cai Ruohong, a diehard Marxist, was so affected by Mao's criticism that he admitted his past ideological errors and almost completely abandoned cartooning,^[74] Hua Junwu took a more positive step: as Communist dramatists had done with their foreign models, he relinquished the style of Sapajou and Plauen from his Shanghai days and attempted to "sinicize" his art, incorporating folk idioms (such as proverbs) into his cartoons to present a more familiar look to the peasants. He and Zhang E also turned their drawing pens against the Guomindang.

As the relationship between the CCP and the GMD continued to deteriorate, especially after the New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941, criticism of the Guomindang government mounted. Cartoonists depicted the ruling party as a corrupt regime that failed to take measures to improve the lot of the people. It is here that the Communist cartoonists left their strongest mark. Hua Junwu's memorable piece "Bumper Harvest" (1944, fig. 44) paints an anthropomorphic locust

Fig. 44.
Hua Junwu, "Bumper Harvest" (cartoon by Hua Junwu, woodcut by Cao
Guoxing). The sack is labeled "rice." From JFRB, 3 November 1944, p.1.

who, atop a bulging rice sack, sits comfortably with Jiang Jieshi and Kong Xiangxi (1880–1967), the minister of finance and Jiang's brother-in-law. Before them is a starving man delivering his last grain—a biting image of exploitation. Zhang Ding's "The Warlock 'Leader'" (1945, fig. 45) portrays another cruel aspect of Guomindang rule: a blatant breach of democracy. Here Jiang Jieshi is depicted as a wizard who holds up a wooden placard inscribed "Jiang's Democracy" as he mercilessly whips a crying, bound woman who embodies the people in the areas under Guomindang control. In another piece, "Close Resemblance," Hua Junwu compares the Guomindang's secret police with the Gestapo, and the Nationalist labor camps with Nazi concentration camps. "If European fascism meets its end, will its Chinese counterpart be far behind?" he asks.^[75]

The critical bite of Communist art was further enhanced by another powerful medium: the woodcut. During the war, if Communist cartoons excelled at painting the Guomindang as villains, woodcuts took a fresh course: they, like yangge, were at their best portraying the bright future China would enjoy under Communist rule. Woodcut art

Fig. 45.
Zhang Ding, "The Warlock 'Leader.'" The
placard in Jiang's left hand is marked,
"Jiang's democracy," and the characters on
the woman read, "People in the interior." From
JFRB, 1 April 1945, p. 4.

became extremely well loved in the Communist border regions, surpassing even the cartoon as the most innovative and forceful form of popular art. Not only did woodcuts draw the attention of millions of Chinese throughout China; they also earned Chinese artists international recognition when foreign magazines such as Life (9 April 1945) reproduced patriotic works to illustrate the combatant spirit and artistic ferment in that war-torn country. Indeed, the eight-year war against Japan has been called "the golden age of Chinese woodcut."^[76] For Communist artists, the cartoon and woodcut were twin developments that provided mutual nourishment and affirmation in a period of crisis.

In October 1942, after visiting a woodcut exhibition of left-wing artists from the Communist-controlled areas in Chongqing, the painter Xu Beihong made an interesting observation: "There is no doubt that right-leaning people never go near woodcut—a peculiar phenomenon in China."^[77] Xu's statement was no doubt exaggerated, for he overlooked woodcut artists like Fang Xiang (1920-) who were sympathetic to the Guomindang cause.^[78] Nevertheless, it is true that the woodcut circle was dominated by left-wing artists. The reason lies in the origin of the Chinese woodcut movement.

Although the art of engraving has a long history in China, the woodcut did not come on the scene until the 1930s.^[79] Its motivating

force was Lu Xun, "the father of the Chinese woodcut movement." In the late 1920s and early 1930s, at a time when he felt strong sympathy for the CCP and helped to launch the League of Left-Wing Writers, Lu Xun avidly introduced the work of Käthe Kollwitz, the Russian engraver Vladimir A. Favorsky (1886–1964), and the Belgian woodcut artist Frans Masereel (1889–1971) to China. He mounted woodcut exhibitions, published graphic art collections, and drew a group of devoted young followers, whom he urged to use their newly acquired craft to portray social ills and to represent the voice of the lower orders. To him, woodcut art, like the cartoon, should never be confined to the ivory tower. Instead it should be used to foster social change and promote political reforms.^[80]

Under Lu Xun's influence and inspired by the work of such Western masters as Kollwitz, a new generation of Chinese woodcut artists made their appearance: Li Hua (1907-), Yefu (Zheng Yefu, 1909–1973), Chen Yanqiao (1911–1970), and Li Qun (1912-), among others, became key figures in introducing this powerful art to a wider audience. Numerous woodcut associations were founded, including the influential Eighteen Society (Yiba yishe) and MK Woodcut Study Association (MK muke yanjiuhui, "MK" coming from the Chinese characters for woodcut, muke). Most of these organizations, however, were ephemeral. The government quickly suppressed them because of their close ties to Lu Xun and the League of Left-Wing Writers, and also because of the radical, sometimes subversive, content of their art. On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, therefore, the young Chinese woodcut movement, despite its thorny start, had already assumed a revolutionary outlook, and this tradition continued with added fervor in Yan'an.

Communist woodcut art made great strides after the artists Hu Yichuan (1910-), Jiang Feng, and Wo Zha (1905–1974) arrived in Yan'an in the late 1930s.^[81] Luyi began to offer systematic courses in the subject, later producing such prized students as Gu Yuan (1919-), a young virtuoso whom Xu Beihong praised as "the great artist in the Chinese Communist Party."^[82] The institute also sent woodcut teams to other areas to teach the techniques.^[83]

The potential of the woodcut medium was recognized early. "Relying only on black and white and no other colors," one art critic observed in 1933, "woodcuts can present the most moving and vivid pictures."^[84] To Communist artists, the woodcut was a convenient propaganda tool with endless possibilities. Its distinct, simple lines seemed austere and were well suited, as the German graphic artist

Max Klinger (1857–1920) once argued, to portraying the agony and sufferings of the people.^[85] Cheap and quick to produce, woodcut prints were readily available for low prices—a most economic mode of popularization. "It was the most convenient and the most combatant form of propaganda weapon [in the border regions]," one Communist artist later recalled.^[86] Even cartoonists, owing to the acute shortage of zinc plates and the high availability of wood in Yan'an, came to rely heavily on woodcut artists to prepare their work for publication in the newspaper.^[87] Many of Hua Junwu's pieces in the Liberation Daily were the result of help from woodcut artists, including his classmate and friend Gu Yuan.^[88]

The enthusiasm for woodcuts was apparent from the start of the Yan'an period. Woodcuts appeared in practically every newspaper, magazine, and book published by the Communists. The New China Daily even created a special "Woodcut Front" beginning on 11 February 1942. Their ease of production allowed soldiers in the New Fourth Army to turn out a deluge of woodcuts about the war.^[89]

Though their techniques might be largely foreign, the artists' work was rooted firmly in China's present. Like cartoons, Communist woodcuts had a strong anti-Japanese spirit. Li Shaoyan's' "Struggle," for instance, shows an unarmed peasant woman's fierce resistance against a Japanese soldier.^[90] An overwhelmingly large number, however, depicted a new society undergoing rapid change. Negative anti-Japanese slogans were often overshadowed by effusive praise of the CCP and its wise leaders, and tributes to devoted, unselfish cadres in turn led to repeated condemnation of the hopelessly corrupt and faction-ridden Chongqing government. Zhang Wang's (1916-) piece depicting "two different worlds" (fig. 46) employed a familiar technique of contrast: in the great interior, people's lives were miserable, under constant threat from the tyrannical Guomindang police; in the border areas, by contrast, peasants enjoyed a life of peace and abundance.^[91] The importance of production, land reform, the caring relationship between soldiers and the people, and a democratic government were perennial themes. Wo Zha's "The Eighth Route Army Helps the People at the Wheat Harvest" (fig. 47), for example, reinforces the good nature of the Communist troops, whose job it was not only to fight the invaders, but also to aid the humble masses in every conceivable way. Niu Wen's (1922-) "Measuring Land" (fig. 48) describes a happy and just social order under Communism where land has been distributed and landlordism eliminated. It is a society in which peasants no longer suffer; on the contrary, poor people who

Fig. 46.
Zhang Wang: Two different worlds—In the great interior: a life of destitution,
homelessness, hunger, and fear. In the border regions: a life of plenty, peace,
and contentment. From JFRB, 22 July 1943, p. 4.

Fig. 47.
Wo Zha, "The Eighth Route Army Helps the People at the Wheat Harvest." From
Jin-Cha-Ji huabao 4 (20 September 1943): n.p.

Fig. 48.
Niu Wen, "Measuring Land." From Jin-Sui jiefangqu muke xuan (Chengdu: Sichuan
renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 38.

were denied learning in the past can now study during the winter off-season (Li Qun's "Attending Winter School"),^[92] and they are eager to contribute to the public good for a noble cause (Li Qun's "Delivering Public Grain").^[93]

What made Communist woodcuts especially effective is that their themes were simple and drawn directly from local experience, and, most important, they were presented in a framework of optimism.^[94] Gu Yuan was a master at presenting this sense of vivacity under Communist rule. A Cantonese who arrived in Yan'an in January 1939 and became a student at the newly established Luyi, Gu Yuan was trained entirely under the new Communist artistic doctrines. Such early pieces as "A Cartload of Straw," "A Flock of Sheep," and "Home" (all 1940) showed a world in which people lived close to the soil, simple yet buoyed by confidence and joy. Subsequently, to portray a society full of promise, Gu Yuan turned to clearer lines and patterns to give a more optimistic appearance. This change can be seen well in "A Divorce Suit." While the 1941 version (fig. 49b) bears the unmistakable influence of Kollwitz with its dark shading and solemn air, two years later a simpler background and a brighter outlook convey a completely different message (fig. 49a); in this piece, the artist acknowledges his indebtedness not to the West, but to Chinese folk art.^[95] To Gu Yuan, more than a change in technique was at issue; rather, his new

Fig. 49a–b.
Gu Yuan, "A Divorce Suit." The book is labeled "divorce registry." From Gu,
"Chuangzuo suibi," Banhua yishu 1 (June 1980): 8.

approach was a testimony to Mao's call for the sinification of Western art. Although their world might seem idyllic, his work proclaimed, the peasants earned a good living through sheer hard work and determination. Gu Yuan "is a singer of the border region," lauded the poet Ai Qing (1910-).^[96] On the surface, Gu Yuan's pieces were simple and apolitical, yet they raised a fundamental political question: what made this cheerful life possible in a time of crisis?

Optimism was equally evident in other forms of popular art: comic strips (lianhuantu), wall paintings (qianghua), New Year pictures, and papercuts (jianzhi).^[97] The New Fourth Army even unleashed a "Wall Painting Campaign" to gain support for the CCP.^[98] Long popular in rural China, New Year pictures employed the bold lines and bright colors characteristic of Chinese folk art.^[99] Now, though, instead of traditional designs of heroes, gods, and good-luck charms, the pictures celebrated the glory of joining the Red Army, the jovial image of a hardworking peasant ready to devote his life to the Communist Party, and a multitude of boisterous rural activities centering on the collective goal. Such notions were applied also to door pictures, where fierce-looking generals from the past were replaced by soldiers carrying loaded rifles and standing side by side with peasant volunteers, exuding determination in defending their land against outside invaders.^[100]

Newspapers and a New Language

Newspapers were the most convenient carrier of cartoons and woodcuts to the people and a powerful channel for explaining the views of the CCP. Realizing their enormous influence, the Communists issued a

large number of newspapers in their Yan'an years. "Combine the barrel of a gun with the barrel of a pen" became a rallying cry of journalists.^[101] In the three Communist-controlled northern border regions alone—Jin-Cha-Ji, Jin-Sui (Shanxi-Suiyuan), and Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan)—an incomplete survey revealed that 120 newspapers were in publication in 1940.^[102] By 1945, 101 publications of various types were recorded in central China: 51 newspapers, 27 magazines, and 23 others.^[103] Although few of the newspapers were actually typeset, and most of them were mimeographed, they became, as one writer claimed, "the collective guiding force for the unity of the military, the government, and the people."^[104]

This "guiding force" did not, however, appear instantly. The Communist newspaper campaign in fact ran a twisted course as a formula for this powerful printed medium was sought. At the beginning, international news was routinely given front-page treatment, followed by events from the Guomindang areas. News in the border areas was generally given the lowest priority, appearing in the last pages of the paper and amounting to no more than one-eighth of the total space. Newspapers also followed Pravda and Dagong bao in having one editorial each day, a practice described by critics as lacking flexibility and identity. Worse still, as the propaganda chief Lu Dingyi (1906-) pointed out, in giving Guomindang news prominent coverage, publishers committed the grave mistake of not distinguishing between "enemies and friends."^[105] One commentator charged that most newspapers had "the four diseases"—deafness, blindness, muteness, and feebleness: they were unheedful of the people's suggestions, inattentive to the welfare of the general public, incompetent to explain CCP policy, and incapable of standing firm against the enemy.^[106] Mao sounded a similar alarm in March 1942.

In the history of the Chinese Communist press, Mao's March 1942 speech to a group of journalists concerning the style and format of the Liberation Daily ranks as a particularly important outline of policy. Delivered a month after the official launch of the Rectification Campaign and three months before his "Talks," the speech reiterated the rectification theme of combating "subjectivism, sectarianism, and stereotyped party writing (commonly known as the 'party eight-legged essay' [dang bagu ])." The press would play a central role in educating the masses about this policy, Mao insisted. Although his speech repeated the standard slogans of resistance against Japan, its main thrust was to assert the role of the Party in dealing with erroneous tendencies on the part of editors and writers. "Unless we act together and march

in unison, [this campaign] will never succeed…. Through newspapers [such as the Liberation Daily ] we can pass along experience from one section to others, thereby facilitating reform."^[107]

Like Lenin, Mao viewed the newspaper as "a collective propagandist, agitator, and organizer";^[108] but more than the Soviet leader, he paid particular attention to the peasant readers whom the Party was trying to reach. In the past, he charged, the newspaper had proceeded in a wrong direction; its editors ignored local news and paid little attention to actual happenings in China. The fact that two reports about Mao's Rectification Campaign appeared on page three of the Liberation Daily (2 and 10 February 1942) instead of being given front-page coverage enraged him. Furthermore, Mao argued, the paper's editors and reporters too often spoke in a language incomprehensible to the masses. They failed both to understand and meet the needs of the people.

Mao's criticism of the editorial policy of the Liberation Daily was a direct attack on Bo Gu (Qin Bangxian, 1907–1946), the paper's chief editor and a member of Wang Ming's International Faction. The faction pursued what Mao called the erroneous policies of "ignoring rural revolution" and "surrendering the independence of the Chinese Communist Party to the Guomindang." Still, the dispute reflected more than a power struggle for party leadership or a simple move away from Stalin's policy of close cooperation with the Guomindang. It was, rather, Mao's affirmation of what he believed to be the correct policy for building a socialist China. The effectiveness of a newspaper, in Mao's view, depended largely on its editors' ability to communicate with the masses, by drawing examples from everyday life and addressing their readers' immediate concerns. Mao suggested that the Party and the party newspaper should work together; in that way, serious mistakes could be corrected and a proper perspective restored.

Despite Mao's emphasis on the masses as the source of wisdom and experience, the need for a tightly organized party on the Leninist model was never far from his mind. As at his subsequent discussion with the cartoonists Hua Junwu, Zhang E, and Cai Ruohong, Mao reaffirmed the CCP's paramount role in deciding policy. "Let the whole party run the newspapers" (quan dang ban bao) became a slogan in Communist journalism.^[109]

The speech to the Liberation Daily reporters yielded instant results. On 1 April 1942, the paper assumed a new look: party instructions were now printed on the front page, and reports about activities in the Communist regions increased dramatically in number. At the same

time, international news was given less coverage. The paper also became increasingly critical of the Guomindang in general and Jiang Jieshi in particular, partly through the use of cartoons and woodcuts. The primary responsibility of the press was not to discuss, but to explain and justify the policies of the Party. Chairman Mao's speech, one journalist later said, "made us realize that every word, every sentence, even a punctuation mark, must be responsible to the Party."^[110]

Mao's directive was of course not limited to the Liberation Daily. Newspaper editors in other border areas were bound by it as well. In a September 1942 telegram to general Chen Yi (1901–1972), acting commander of the New Fourth Army, Mao made this clear: "Please pay close attention to newspapers and magazines in northern Jiangsu. Make sure that they serve the Party in propagating its current policy."^[111] But could opposing viewpoints be printed? Perhaps they could in the Communist newspapers printed in the Guomindang-controlled territories. In a March 1942 telegram to Zhou Enlai, who supervised the publishing of the New China Daily in Chongqing, Mao stressed that "non-Party members' viewpoints should be included."^[112] Yet despite this apparent openness, those viewpoints that appeared in the New China Daily were definitely sympathetic to, if not supportive of, Communist policy. Openness did not mean permissiveness, and inclusion of outside views did not rule out screening and bias.

Mao in fact tolerated no dissent in his own backyard. In the border regions, the press and the Party had to speak with one voice; and Communist journalists' self-censorship became a form of party devotion. Underlying Mao's speech was also a promotion of Chinese over foreign ideas. Rather than covering foreign events that took place in remote corners of the world, often in the form of exotic intrigues far beyond the comprehension of humble peasants, the press must address local problems and write about the joys and sufferings of the country folk. The battle against excessive "foreignism" received widespread support among party officials and intellectuals alike. The blind borrowing of "foreign eight-legged essays" (yang bagu) could sound the death knell of Chinese literature, Zhou Yang stated.^[113]

The result was a dramatic increase in newspaper coverage of local issues. The CCP instructed cadres to lend a hand in the production of local papers, supplying information and contributing articles whenever possible. Such tasks, as the Party's directive made clear, "should be regarded as part of your regular, important work."^[114] The ShanxiSuiyuan Daily (Jin-Sui ribao, later renamed the Resistance War Daily [Kangzhan ribao ]) adopted a policy of "localization and populariza-

tion" in 1942, devoting three-fifths of its space to coverage of regional events.^[115] Mao, in his meeting with a representative from the Shanxi-Suiyuan Daily in December 1944, made his argument even more explicit: "In the newspaper layout, local news is the most important, followed by national, and then international…. You are not running the newspaper for the New China News Agency [in Yan'an]," he told the representative, "you are publishing it for the people in the ShanxiSuiyuan Border Region."^[116] The presence of these local editors and reporters, be they professional or amateur, had a double significance: practically, it represented an important link between the Party and the peasantry; symbolically, it reaffirmed Mao's commitment to address China's issues at their most basic level.

"Localization," however, was by no means the only issue confronting Communist journalists. Finding a proper newspaper language became an equally challenging task. The early Communist newspapers used a language laden with elegant phrases and high rhetoric, which hardly evinced an emotional affinity with rural readers. Seemingly aware of these dangers, Deng Tuo (1912–1966), editor of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Daily (Jin-Cha-Ji ribao), urged his fellow journalists to restrict their vocabulary to combinations of no more than 3,000 characters.^[117] Literary essays interlaced with esoteric terms and opaque expressions, he warned, could form a wall between the writers and the people. For Deng, establishing direct contact with the people was more important than writing style. Political ideas and values were meaningful, after all, only if they could be comprehended and eventually assimilated. "It does not matter if the term is native or foreign; so long as it is understood by the people, it is a good term," he once said.^[118] The smaller number of Chinese characters used in his newspaper also met a practical need: flexibility. Given the constant threat of enemy attack, a "guerrilla-type" press needed to be developed for easy mobility. Simple printing equipment could be rapidly mounted on donkeys or mules and make a swift and safe retreat when enemy troops were approaching. This kind of operation earned the ShanxiChahar-Hebei Daily the sobriquet "The Paper Published on the Back of Eight Mules" (Batou luozi banbao).^[119]

Small newspapers appeared in profusion in the Communist areas, their target being semiliterate and illiterate villagers. While it is difficult to gauge their impact, the outpouring of such publications suggests that they commanded a wide readership in the countryside. In 1945, according to one survey, the border areas boasted more than seventy tabloids.^[120] Among these small newspapers, perhaps

the Border Region People's Press (Bianqu qunzhong bao), launched on 25 March 1940, was the most famous; as its editor, Hu Jiwei (1916-), put it, the goal was that "those who know a few words can read it; and those who are illiterate can understand it when it is read to them."^[121] Although both the Liberation Daily and the Border Region People's Press were official party papers (the former for the Central Committee of the CCP, the latter for the local committee), they targeted different audiences—on the one hand, cadres, especially middle- and high-level officials, and on the other, the general public. As the principal party paper, the Liberation Daily adopted a more traditional hard-news approach; the Border Region People's Press, by contrast, covered a broader range of lively topics. Its articles were relatively short, often less political, and written in a vivid style. The paper concentrated on concrete economic and social issues, such as raising literacy in the countryside, improving local sanitation, and increasing agricultural yield; thus it served as an information channel as well as a classroom for the peasants. To broaden its appeal, the paper also incorporated yangge, folk songs, riddles, and kuaiban.^[122] By addressing day-to-day problems, the Border Region People's Press reduced the general campaign of a socialist revolution to its most concrete and effective terms.

To many Communist intellectuals, "popularization" meant finding an ideal language with which to communicate with the villagers. Ai Siqi (1905–1966), author of the popular book Philosophy for the Masses (Dazhong zhexue, 1934), argued vehemently that a basic understanding of "the people's language" was essential in reaching both the heart and mind of the country folk.^[123] To the Communists, language was not simply a vehicle of communication; it was an essential ingredient in the shaping of a new political reality and hence a new social order. In many ways, politics in Yan'an became an unending search for a "people's language" capable of stirring up the masses and galvanizing their support.

The significance of language in driving a revolution is paramount. Political upheavals produce new vocabulary, rituals, and symbols that work together to shatter old political structures and renounce tradition while affirming new values or establishing a new community. Francois Furet has argued, for example, that during the French Revolution the political vacuum created by the French monarchy between 1787 and 1789 was filled by a new political language that attempted to redefine reality: "Language was substituted for power, for it was the sole guarantee that power would belong only to the peo-

ple, that is, to nobody."^[124] Similarly, Mona Ozouf contends that speeches at revolutionary festivals were aimed at establishing a new national identity based on space and time.^[125] In an unstable and transitional period, language becomes a symbol of power, and politics turns into a competition for words. New political language wields enormous power. It signals a new era and can be crucial in justifying the legitimacy of the event.

The Chinese Communists used language for just these purposes. But in contrast to a complex plural society where, in J.G.A. Pocock's words, people speak "a complex plural language,"^[126] Mao and his associates adopted a political language marked by both precision and force. There was little room for ambiguity in the Chinese Communist system. As a result, the language evolved not through consensus, but by being imposed from above. It was a powerful tool able to shape people's perceptions, carefully contrived to appeal to their emotions as well as their minds. In the hands of the Communists, language took on the Marxist function of an instrument for class struggle, fostering social change and revolutionary reform. It was also used in the Durkheimian fashion as a vehicle of cultural integration, pulling disparate elements together to face the common task of establishing a new order. To create a collective feeling in the Communist border regions, new political terms were created and old ones rejuvenated, all invested with lofty political ideals and high emotion. Clichés took on new life when the Communists used them to explain new social circumstances. Indeed, Mao and his associates had an astonishing flair for reducing complex ideas to a few simple, powerful slogans.

The aim in adopting a new political language was not only to signal a break with the past, but also to transfer individual loyalty to a collective goal. Nowhere is this notion better demonstrated than in the specific names given to an array of magazines and newspapers. The terms qunzhong (the masses), dazhong (the people), laobaixing (the common folk), and nongmin (the peasants) were widely used. In southwestern Shanxi, for example, one found the Common Folk (Laobaixing), The Peasant (Nongmin); in the Shanxi-Suiyuan Border Region, the Shanxi-Suiyuan People's Press (Jin-Sui dazhong bao); in western Hebei, the Common Folk's Press (Laobaixing bao); and in northern Jiangsu, Yan-Fu People (Yan-Fu dazhong).^[127]

None of these terms, of course, was exactly new. But each was infused with a strong sense of righteousness and a fresh political connotation. Thus the old forms took on new vigor, and clichés became battle cries for a new social order. The terms were also intended to

create a feeling of sharing: everyone was included, and all were working toward a common goal. Only through continuous struggle and numerous hardships could they bring about the painful birth of the new order. The fact that political terms like laobaixing and qunzhong were being used over and over again only added to their symbolic significance. The new community in Yan'an was therefore a laobaixing's community, a dazhong's world, radically different from past societies where kings and generals ruled, and completely at odds with a capitalist society, where personal gain and fame reigned supreme. In a socialist country, a community was not made up of "individuals"; rather, it was a community of "us," belonging to the common people. The term dazhong became so prevalent that Literature and Art Attack (Wenyi tuji), a well-known publication in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, was renamed People's Literature and Art (Dazhong wenyi), shedding its former belligerent image and becoming, as its editors claimed, "a magazine that truly belongs to the people."^[128]

But revolutionary language did more than just create a sense of belonging. The Communists used it as an instrument for political and social struggle. For them, revolutionary language was a means of empowerment, allowing the masses to feel control over their own destiny. The term fanshen (freeing oneself, standing up, turning over) is a good example of this rhetoric. In his book of the same name, William Hinton gives a good description of the term:

Literally, it means "to turn the body," or "to turn over." To China's hundreds of millions of landless and land-poor peasants it meant to stand up, to throw off the landlord yoke, to gain land, stock, implements, and houses. But it meant much more than this. It meant to throw off superstition and study science, to abolish "word blindness" and learn to read, to cease considering women as chattels and establish equality between the sexes, to do away with appointed village magistrates and replace them with elected councils, it meant to enter a new world.^[129]

Although Hinton's book treats dramatic social and political changes in a northern Chinese village in the late 1940s, the term fanshen had already gained currency in the Jiangxi Soviet period.^[130] In sharp contrast to most political vocabulary, which tends to be quite abstract, fanshen is highly specific and concrete. Like the term jiefang (liberation, as in Liberation Daily), it is a vivid metaphor that evokes an intense response. It is also a rhetorical exercise replete with potent political implications.

To be effective, the anthropologist Robert Paine argues, rhetoric must come across in such a way that listeners believe their interests are shared and reflected in what is said.^[131] Chinese Communists showed political acumen in fostering such a "we are together" feeling. They portrayed themselves as the representatives of oppressed people, fighting against a common enemy and sharing the same historical destiny. Used in opposition to shou yapo (oppressed), fanshen represents a new beginning, a new life free of oppression. And like all successful political terms, fanshen conjures up a vivid image: that of a new society, divorced from the past, in which humble people finally are capable of "turning" over. No longer at the bottom of the social hierarchy, they are masters of a new order.

While wartime newspaper vocabulary such as "paper bullets" inspired determination and patriotism, Communist political language had a different purpose: it provided a unifying political symbol for the common struggle ahead. Fanshen thus functioned as a tool of political integration and social transformation. It became a catch-all phrase, appearing in songs, folk tunes, novels, dramas, and yangge plays. Examples abound: the poet Tian Jian's (1916–1985) famous series "Songs of Turning Over" ("Fanshen ge") specifically praised the achievements and wise guidance of the CCP;^[132] organizations with names like "Fanshen Drama Club" ("Fanshen jutuan") sprang up everywhere;^[133] and comic strips using fanshen in their titles were not at all uncommon.^[134] The writer Zhao Shuli's (1906–1970) 1945 short story "Meng Xiangying Turns Over" ("Meng Xiangying fanshen"), allegedly based on a true story, depicts a poor peasant woman in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region who finds new life by joining the local Communist committee. In the end, she is selected as a model peasant in her county.^[135]

The passion for fanshen often ran high, especially when it concerned a sea of disgruntled peasants who had been aroused by Communist political suasion. A song from the yangge play Qin Luozheng reflects this strong political sentiment: "Like a sudden roar of spring thunder, the 'turning over' of the peasants has shaken heaven and earth." The term fanshen was more than a mere political slogan. It underlined, as Hinton rightly points out, a cultural transformation as well. The Communists argued that a profound cultural change should begin with basic education. Learning now belonged to everyone, no longer to a privileged few. Ma Ke's Husband and Wife Learn to Read, for example, depicts a peasant couple, Liu Er and his wife (curiously, her name is never mentioned, perhaps indicating a certain bias of the

author) striving to become literate. Ultimately, their hard work yields positive results:

Liu Er (singing):
We know nothing if we don't study.
In the past, when you were uneducated,
You were subjected to humiliation without even understanding
why.
Liu Er and his wife (singing together):
Now, we finally are "turning over"!
The suffering people have become the masters.
How can an illiterate person [zhengyan de xiazi] walk?
Learning to read is the most urgent task.
Oh, the most urgent task.

Fanshen kept appearing in yangge plays such as Twelve Sickles and An Honor Lamp, a compelling assertion that the peasants had finally stood up after centuries of being oppressed by evil gentry and ruthless landlords. It was an attack against the Guomindang, certainly; but even more it was a paean to Mao and his followers.

Creating a New Society

The notion of a new society undergoing thorough, exciting change and a land peopled by men and women pursuing a noble dream was reinforced by other popular culture forms. Many of these forms were brought to life through the familiar technique of "filling old bottles with new wine." Again, the Three-Character Classic was a favorite subject.

One of the earliest Communist Three-Character Classics to appear was a block-printed Workers and Peasants Three-Character Classic (Gong nong sanzi jing), issued in 1930 by the soviet government in Xingguo county, Jiangxi province. Instead of the familiar moral tone in the opening sentences in the Confucian version—"Men at their birth are naturally good/Their natures are much the same; their habits become widely different"—the new text, predictably, carries a strong political message from the outset:

In this world,
Human beings are the cleverest.
Among them,
Workers, peasants, and soldiers are the creators.^[136]  

Perhaps inspired by the popularity of Lao Xiang's Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic, the Communists in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Bor-

der Region also came out with a work bearing the same name in 1940. At first glance, it seems to be filled with the same anti-Japanese rhetoric and passion as Lao Xiang's; but closer scrutiny reveals the party line running strongly through the Communist Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic. Glorifying the Chinese Communist Party in its unswerving struggle against the Japanese, the 180-line propaganda piece is a glowing encomium to Mao's correct and wise leadership, including his theory on "protracted war."^[137]

The majority of the Communist Three-Character Classics were short, ranging from 130 to 260 lines. They became increasingly anti-Guomindang in tone after 1945 and seemed to inflame public feeling in the border regions. In 1944, the blind storyteller Han Qixiang turned the Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic into a story. "It was warmly welcomed by listeners," he recalled later in his autobiography.^[138]

The political intention of the Communist Three-Character Classics was obvious. So was that of street poetry. Inspired by traditional Chinese wall poems and the work of the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), a Futurist turned socialist, Tian Jian and Ke Zhongping introduced a new kind of "street poetry" (jietoushi) in Yan'an in August 1938. According to Tian Jian, a street poem was "a short, popular, rhymed poem intended for propaganda and agitation purposes." Written on the wall or handed out on a sheet of paper, it had to be brief yet potent in meaning. It acted, said Tian, "like a bayonet on the battlefield." It was with this combatant spirit in mind that the two poets launched the first "Street Poetry Day" on 7 August 1938. "Instantly," as Tian recalled years later, "city walls and street corners were packed with street poems."^[139]

As the name indicates, street poems were meant to encourage poets and writers to go to the streets, to merge art with reality. In Tian Jian's mind, a poet had to devote his pen to the service of the armed struggle against the Japanese and the capitalist system. His "A Volunteer" (1938) is a case in point:

Along Mt. Changbai [in Northeastern China],
Chinese sorghum thrives glowingly in the blood.
Amid wind and dust,
A volunteer soldier
Astride a horse passes through his hometown.
He has returned:
With an enemy's head
Dangling from his gun.^[140]  

This poem carries powerful symbols and strength. Mt. Changbai, which fell into enemy hands in the early days of the Sino-Japanese War, evoked bitter memories in the minds of the Chinese; yet life and struggle, like the hardy sorghum, continued to flourish in the occupied northeastern China. A volunteer's valor and an enemy's defeat promised hope for the future. "A Volunteer" was one of the best street poems and, together with other equally passionate pieces, earned Tian Jian a reputation, in the words of the poet Wen Yiduo (1899–1946), as "the drummer of our age."^[141]

The majority of street poems, however, were more direct in approach, devoid of the visual effect and rich symbols of Tian Jian's masterpiece. The following is an example:

A magpie cries on the branch,
A yellow dog wags its tail
With the arrival of the New Fourth Army,
People sing and hail.^[142]  

In reality, then, street poems were propaganda slogans dressed in poetic form. To send street poetry to the people, Tian Jian formed poetry groups and called on others to "let art and the people merge together."^[143]

But how could art and the people truly merge together? Should literary creation come from the people instead of from poets like Tian Jian and Ai Qing? Ai Qing, aware of this dilemma, answered the question this way: "New poets must come from the masses. What about us [intellectuals]? We are no more than a midwife."^[144] As a writer who enthusiastically embraced the Maoist cause, Ai Qing seemed perfectly willing to play a subordinate role to the common people. But to many the idea of playing "midwife" was unpalatable, not to mention easier said than done. Intellectuals soon found that learning from the masses was a difficult and often frustrating experience.

If writing street poetry was still essentially an intellectual exercise, perhaps a better approach to learning from the masses, some argued, was to collect folk songs and the stories of folk artists. While the latter effort proved quite challenging, the gathering of folk songs turned out to be relatively unproblematic.

As was true with other forms of popular and folk culture, folk song collecting became a highly visible campaign in the Communist areas. Such an undertaking, of course, was by no means new, having been pursued in the early decades of the twentieth century by such intellectuals as Gu Jiegang and Liu Fu.^[145] But here again, the Communists

sought to create an alternate mass culture based on a radical philosophy. Moreover, they paid special attention to local particularities. According to Jia Zhi, a veteran folklorist, interest in folk songs was evident during the Jiangxi Soviet era,^[146] but systematic collecting did not begin until the Communists were fully in control several years later in northwest China. And understandably, interest only grew after Mao's "Talks."

Folk songs, already one of the most popular forms of folk entertainment, became a basic ingredient in many new yangge plays, as the appearance of the popular tune "Embroidering a Purse" ("Xiu hebao") in Zhong Wancai Starting from Scratch demonstrates. More important, the Communists now began to collect folk songs systematically and on a large scale. Tian Jian and Li Ji (1922–1980) were two particularly avid collectors. One product of their labors was a published compendium of folk songs acquired by Tian Jian in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region in 1945.^[147] Li Ji's efforts were even more ambitious and successful. Li was particularly interested in a type of northern Shaanxi folk song known collectively as shuntianyou (literally, "follow-heaven-roam," also known as xintianyou), which, inspired by Mao's "Talks," he roamed the countryside to collect. "The more I collected," he exclaimed, "the more fascinated I became by them."^[148]Shuntianyou, one of the three most popular two-sentence folk song types in northern China,^[149] proved an ideal tool for the Communists to inculcate socialist passion, for by stringing the (generally rhymed) couplets together, the shuntianyou performer can spin a narrative story. It was with this narrative nature in mind that Li Ji wrote his famous long poem "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang" (1945), based on the shuntianyou form.

"Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang" concerns the familiar confrontation between the avaricious landlord Second Master Cui and the poor peasant Wang Gui. It also tells of the romance between Wang and the peasant girl Li Xiangxiang, a well-loved theme in the Chinese folklore tradition. At the end of the story, Wang Gui, helped by the Communist guerrilla forces, defeats the evil landlord, and Wang and Li live happily ever after. Li Ji's poem received widespread attention, partly because of the many interesting twists and turns in the story and partly because of its heavy dose of revolutionary romance. What made Li Ji's composition unique, Guo Moruo rightly observed, was not his technique but his message. The poem was fraught with what Guo called "people's consciousness." "This is a piece that signals the 'turning over' [fanshen ] of literature and art."^[150] Though Guo's comment had

a political focus, the true explanation for the popularity of "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang" must be Li Ji's adroit use of the popular shuntianyou style of folk song. So impressed was Li Ji with shuntianyou, in fact, that he went on to publish a fine collection of them entitled Two Thousand Follow-heaven-roaming Songs (Shuntianyou er qian shou, 1950).

For Li Ji and his comrades, folk song collecting was more than an artistic exercise. It was overwhelmingly a social and political activity. Consider Selected Folk Songs of Northern Shaanxi (Shaanbei min'ge xuan), a famous collection compiled by the Luyi in 1945, for example. Though this compendium might seem to bear superficial resemblance to the earlier one initiated by Lu Fu and Gu Jiegang at Beijing University, He Qifang (1912–1977), a poet and the head of the literature department at Luyi, was quick to point out that the two differed substantially both in methods of collecting and in content, and hence had different results. He Qifang argued that while the earlier collection assembled mainly children's songs gathered from urban university students and high school teachers, the Yan'an project sent students to the remote countryside to collect genuine folk songs from farmers, porters, and peasant women. The songs were received, therefore, from the mouths of the people rather than through the memories of intellectuals. "They [the Luyi students] went down to the countryside in northern Shaanxi, established a friendly relationship with the people, lived with them…and listened to their songs [before they recorded them]."^[151] For He, this project linked students and the folk together. To be scientific, the collectors were instructed to record exactly what they heard. The result was an uncommonly reliable record of folk songs of northern Shaanxi.^[152] Nevertheless, despite the inclusion of some traditional love songs and erotic songs, or what the editors called "old folk songs," their emphasis was unmistakably on new examples.

The juxtaposition of old and new songs was intended, as the editors admitted, "to mirror past and present life in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region."^[153] Thus the collection bore a strong political stamp. Indeed, the contrasts between the old and the new are stirring. "Contracted Laborer's Song," for example, tells a painful story of the past:

A contracted laborer's life is full of bitterness,
Oh, what a painful life!
Beginning in January and ending in October,
My life is as hard as that of an ox or horse,
And my food is as bad as a pig's or a dog's.

Under a new government, however, the future holds enormous promise, as the first part of "The Four-Season Production Song" tells us:

Peach blossom blooms in spring.
A new government directive has just arrived:
Mobilize the masses for production!
Everyone is full of exhilaration.
Peasants labor hard and long,
Becoming model heroes and
Spreading their names.
Being showered with accolades and songs.

The folk song drive was later turned into a political attack against the Nationalists as the relations between the CCP and the GMD deteriorated after the war, with the Communists denouncing Jiang Jieshi for everything from operating a police state to bankrupting the nation's economy.^[154]

The folk song collecting campaign in the Communist areas was important not so much for what it accomplished as for what it symbolized: a major commitment by intellectuals to go to the people and record their feelings and thoughts—an example of how Mao's "mass line" concept actually bore tangible results. This kind of commitment also spilled over into the storytelling campaign. But here it involved a different set of questions: How could traditional storytellers be brought into the Communist camp? Should their old repertoire be modified? What was the role of intellectuals vis-à-vis folk artists?

While intellectuals in the Guomindang-ruled territories used drum singing to fire patriotic passion, the Communists relied instead on storytelling. The value of this folk art form, which had a long and popular tradition in China,^[155] was recognized officially at a meeting of Communist writers in Yan'an in September 1944.^[156] As an instrument of propaganda, however, storytelling paled in comparison to yangge, for it was never as organized and well orchestrated by the Party. Yet it had a few distinct advantages. While yangge were performed only at festival times or in the New Year to celebrate the beginning of a new cycle, stories could be told anyplace and at any time. Moreover, whereas a yangge troupe required at least three to four and often twenty to thirty members to stage a show, storytellers could perform alone, traveling around the countryside to charm crowds with their individual talents. Finally, while a yangge performance necessitated extensive preparations and substantial props, a storyteller was normally accompanied by nothing more than a simple three-stringed plucked

instrument (sanxian). "To a certain extent," the writer Zhou Erfu (1914-) contended, "the simple nature of storytelling meets the needs of the common people far better than yangge. "^[157]

The popularity and high mobility of storytelling made it an ideal tool for mass education. And the abundance of storytellers made it an even more effective means for reaching obscure corners of the countryside. A casual survey in northern Shaanxi in 1941 revealed that Yanchang and Yanchuan counties had more than ten storytellers each, while Suide topped the list with ninety.^[158] Many of these performers were peripatetic blind singers who, armed with a broad repertoire of stories, made their living by bringing laughter and excitement to remote villages and towns where peasants otherwise endured a rather monotonous life. Before the Communists could make wide and thorough use of this popular folk art, however, they insisted on revamping it thoroughly, infusing it with new spirit and new content. For them, many traditional stories were filled with what they called "poisonous ideas," propagating harmful Confucian notions and encouraging fatalism. "Well-wishing Storytelling," (Ping'an shu), for example, preached superstition and servility. "They were active promoters of feudal thoughts," Zhou Erfu charged.^[159]

The reform began in earnest after 1944. First storytelling training classes were set up to assemble folk artists. In 1945, a Storytelling Group (Shuoshu zu) was formed under the direction of the Cultural Federation of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region. This group co-ordinated the reform movement, establishing a tie between the storytellers and the Party and serving as a school where socialist ideals and revolutionary thought could be transmitted to traditional storytellers. A series of recordings was also made to preserve this art.

Perhaps the most successful case to emerge from the reform was Han Qixiang (1915–1989), an illiterate and blind storyteller who became the most celebrated young folk artist in the border area. A man with a phenomenal memory, Han could recite with ease more than seventy stories and sing fifty different kinds of folk tunes.^[160] In 1940, at the age of twenty-five, Han arrived in Yan'an from his native town of Hengshan in northern Shaanxi. The Communist revolution moved him deeply. Under the guidance of the Storytelling Group, Han abandoned his old repertoire and began to compose new stories, producing twenty-four between July 1944 and December 1945—more than 200,000 words.^[161] Although storytelling was an oral tradition of collective creativity, Han was able to stamp his works with a distinctive, individual flavor. He based his stories partly on actual events and part-

ly on fiction, but optimism for a new socialist system knit them together as a coherent whole. Endowed with local flavor and full of propaganda rhetoric, Han's stories painted the picture of a backward border area vibrant with life and happiness. Among his many "new storytelling" works, "The Reunion of Liu Qiao" ("Liu Qiao tuanyuan," 1945) and "Zhang Yulan Participates in the Election" ("Zhang Yulan canjia xuanjuhui," 1946) are the most famous.

Based on a local Shaanxi drama, "The Reunion of Liu Qiao" tells of the hardworking, beautiful young woman Liu Qiao who, tricked by her avaricious father, breaks her arranged engagement with her impoverished fiancé, Zhao Zhu, whom she has never met. When her father forces her to marry a wicked, wealthy middle-aged shop owner instead, she escapes unscathed with the help of a friend. Later, Liu Qiao accidentally runs into her fiancé, now a labor hero, and realizes that she had been fooled by her father. Finally, with the help of the local Communist government, justice prevails. The young couple is happily reunited, and Liu's father repents and promises to start anew. The story comes to a happy end for everyone, concluding, just as it began, with an enlivening melody:

Plucking a three-stringed instrument hear my song,
I roam the countryside all year long.
Telling stories has an unmistakable objective:
Promoting culture and entertaining common folks.
Oh! Our border region is such a marvelous place,
Men ploughing and women weaving all day long.
Everyone is well clothed and properly fed,
Practicing democracy and celebrating new days.^[162]  

While "The Reunion of Liu Qiao" condemns the feudal tradition of treating marriage as a business transaction, "Zhang Yulan Participates in the Election" emphasizes the right of women to take part in politics. Set in the northern Shaanxi area, this story portrays an old-fashioned, jealous husband, Feng Guangqing, who refuses to allow his politically active and strong-willed wife, Zhang Yulan, to attend political meetings held by the local Communist government. A stubborn man but without much confidence, he never hesitated to beat his wife to exert his traditional male authority. Undaunted, Zhang Yulan, instructed by Communism, firmly believes in the equality of the sexes. She not only takes part in meetings, but also speaks out against the wrongdoings of the county head, winning wide applause from the audience. Her husband is at first enraged by her "unruly" behavior but later admits his

own mistakes. This story, too, ends happily with the couple enthusiastically participating in the election meeting together. It concludes with the following ditty:

The border region is bursting with democracy and peace, Practicing democracy is for the sake of the people.^[163]

If these stories appear crude and simplistic, their political messages are nevertheless direct and powerful. Both tell their listeners that the remarkable achievements in the remote, backward border areas were brought about by the selfless efforts of the Communists under the wise leadership of Chairman Mao. The Guomindang regime, by contrast, is condemned as insensitive to the needs of the people, corrupt, and incompetent. An old man vents his grievances during a political meeting in "Zhang Yulan Participates in the Election":

In 1942,
A terrible drought hit Hengshan.
The Guomindang demanded food and money,
Forcing our family to flee!^[164]

Han Qixiang also berated the Nationalist regime, dismissing it as oppressive and downright dishonest, in other works such as "A Current Affair" ("Shishi zhuan").^[165] This harsh criticism of the Guomindang contrasted sharply with the unreserved praise he showered on the new Yan'an government.

Han Qixiang, of course, was not the only folk storyteller to be recruited and reformed by the Communists. Other well-known story-tellers included Yang Shengfu and Gao Yongchang. Each came out with his own version of praise for the arrival of the new social order.^[166]

Communist officials encouraged intellectuals to help old storytellers like Han Qixiang immerse their work in the socialist ideal. In essence, intellectuals were asked to act as a bridge between the Party and the folk artists. At the same time, they were also advised to integrate with the masses. A number of writers (notably Lin Shan [1910-] and Gao Mindful [1905–1975]) were assigned to help Han Qixiang write his stories.^[167] Gao Mindful played an important role in the shaping of "The Reunion of Liu Qiao," for instance, and he also assisted Yang Shengfu in editing that blind storyteller's works. Yet overall, the encounter of these two worlds was far from harmonious.^[168] Although Gao Mindful said that he was pleased with his collaboration with Han Qixiang and believed there was a great future for what he described as "the close collaboration between intellectuals and folk artists,"^[169] others were

less optimistic. Zhou Erfu was frank enough to admit that intellectuals approached old-style storytelling in two ways: either they belittled it as unworthy, or else they called outright for its abolishment.^[170] The notion that peasants were hopelessly backward and notoriously superstitious country bumpkins prevailed among certain intellectuals; the fact that many storytellers were also fortune-tellers (Han Qixiang included)^[171] only added fuel to the fire. At the beginning, in fact, Han was referred to by Communist cadres as "Mr. Fortune-Teller" ("Suanming xiansheng")—hardly a sign of respect.^[172]

Conversely, folk artists were not entirely happy with the intrusion of outside intellectuals into their territory. For them, a Shanghai high-brow who knew nothing about rural China yet posed as an expert on local folk forms was unacceptable. Some, in fact, did not hesitate to offer a few suggestions to their urban mentors. One such case was Liu Zhiren, the yangge innovator and an early collaborator with intellectuals whom we met before. He made several recommendations for the yangge movement, including using youngsters to perform because "their movements are more supple and attract the viewer."^[173] Ellen R. Judd, in her study of the subject, suggests that the conflict between folk artists and Communist intellectuals also stemmed from their different conceptions of art. While the former thrived on performance, the latter were more interested in the political content of the reformed text.^[174] A fruitful collaboration required a thorough transformation on both parts, a process which would take years to accomplish.

While the elite-folk relationship was less than harmonious, the relationship between the government and folk artists was completely different, for it was built on neither collaboration nor willingness, but on obedience. Compliance became a test of one's loyalty and commitment to the Party. Disobedience was a crime that few dared to commit. The setting up of a Storytelling Group in 1945 by the Yan'an government was thus more than a means to facilitate artistic reform; it was a way to ensure the success of a socialist experiment with a popular folk art. As in the case of yangge plays, cartoons, and newspapers, the Communists believed that without supervision from the top, the reform of storytelling would go awry. The Party, especially after 1942, tolerated no public dissent from its followers.

The Border Region Culture

The change of Zhong Wancai from an opium addict to a model worker in the new yangge play Zhong Wancai Starting from Scratch conjures up visions of a new society full of reformed erliuzi, people

determined to abandon their disgraceful past and embrace a new life. But what the Communists were really trying to promote in these stories was the positive, purposeful attitude of characters like Zhang Yulan. Indeed, heroes and heroines were an all-important component of the Communists' efforts to inspire men and women with the socialist cause. The new Communist social order should be peopled by new citizens, different from their predecessors in actions as well as in thought. These "labor heroes" (laodong yingxiong), as they were called, represented the future of China.

In the vast, backward countryside, Chinese proletarians were simply nonexistent. Thus peasants became the pathbreakers, the "model workers," exuding fortitude and boundless energy in their reconstruction of a moribund society. In sharp contrast to the backward, submissive, ignorant peasant promulgated in the works of Confucian scholars, the new peasants of Communist popular literature were dedicated, intelligent, and politically active. Hardworking and selfless men and women who had finally "turned over" (fanshen), their first allegiance was to the collective. They acted in the service of the community, never hesitant to sacrifice themselves for the people. And they were no longer victimized by predatory capitalists or tyrannical landlords. Popular culture was a primary means of announcing the arrival of these "new men and women."

Among the many peasant heroes promoted by the Communists during the Yan'an years, perhaps none was more celebrated than Wu Manyou. Wu, a peasant refugee who once had to sell his three daughters to avoid starvation, moved to Yan'an from northern Shaanxi in the mid-1930s to eke out a living. On land allotted to him by the Communists, and by means of hard work, determination, ingenious cultivating methods such as deep ploughing, and sound management, Wu was able to increase his cultivated land manyfold, raise sheep and cattle, and live a comfortable life. In April 1942, the Liberation Daily launched a "Learning from Wu Manyou Movement." It lasted a considerable time, filling the newspapers with articles about the enormous a

chievement of Wu and his devotion to the collective.^[175] In its 11 January 1943 editorial, the Liberation Daily counseled the people to study Wu's spirit: "[Wu's] direction is the direction for all the peasants in the border areas."

Heeding the Party's call, Ai Qing added his voice to this well-publicized campaign, writing a long nine-part poem for the Liberation Daily in early March 1943. In sharp contrast to his early, pre-Yan'an poems, which were mostly melancholic in mood, Ai Qing's long "Wu

Manyou" evoked enthusiasm and strong passion. Using simple but emotionally charged language, the poet describes how Wu's bitter life takes a dramatic turn only with the arrival of the Communist revolution. In Ai Qing's portrait, Wu Manyou is a poor peasant who has a keen sense of right and wrong. What makes him special is his bound-less love of the border region and his total devotion to a just cause. Wu Manyou's world is a world of liberation and happiness:

The world has now completely changed….
Today the poor people are masters of this world.
They eat what they have planted,
They wear what they have woven.
They are not laboring for the warlords,
Nor are they working for government officials.^[176]  

To render his peasant hero Wu Manyou realistically, Ai Qing visited Wu and recited his work to him, in order, as the poet put it, to "observe his reactions." Wu, in turn, never hesitated "to suggest additions or corrections."^[177] The visit to Wu's home may have added a convincing touch to the finished piece. But perhaps even more important, it demonstrated that Ai Qing was responding affirmatively to Mao's call for intellectuals to learn from the masses.

Ai Qing's celebrated poem represented but one of many ways in which the Communists elevated the image of a model peasant. Gu Yuan's woodcut "Emulate Wu Manyou" (fig. 50), which appeared in the Liberation Daily of 10 February 1943, presented an even more vivid picture of this erstwhile refugee. In the bold strokes of Chinese folk art design, Gu Yuan paints a smiling, contented Wu Manyou surrounded by bumper harvests and fat livestock. Well fed and well clothed, he is living proof of the success of the Communist revolution. What Gu Yuan's piece lacks in subtlety and elegance it more than makes up for with its robust vitality. This woodcut, proclaimed Lu Dingyi, "blends art and propaganda skillfully together"; it was a lively example of "sending culture down to the village" and "a great achievement of the Rectification Campaign."^[178]

The "Learn from Wu Manyou" campaign spread the peasant's name far and wide.^[179] Yet Wu was not the only peasant to be singled out for praise. Communist publications abounded with heroic stories of selfless and energetic peasants who were willing to struggle for a new life. More important, they showed that the poor no longer needed to rely on the generosity of others. A glance at the Liberation Daily for a single year (from early 1943 to early 1944) reveals numerous heroes,

Fig. 50.
Gu Yuan, "Emulate Wu Manyou." From JFRB, 10 February
1943, p. 4.

including Zhao Zhankui, Zhang Chuyuan, and others.^[180] A certain model peasant named Yang Chaochen, whose achievements were said to "rival" those of Wu Manyou, vowed to "challenge" Wu Manyou in a "friendly competition" centered on production.^[181] To generate more enthusiasm, local party committees selected regional heroes and showered them with accolades. For example, Shanxi's Wen Xiangshuan was not only an excellent peasant, but he also helped organize village dramas in service of the revolution.^[182] The climax of this campaign came in the fall of 1943, when 180 "model workers" were publicly honored in the First Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Labor Hero Meeting held in Yan'an. Twenty-five of them were named "special model workers," with Wu Manyou topping the list. Their woodcut portraits were prominently displayed on the front page of Liberation Daily (19 December 1943). The government also showered them with material rewards: each received a hefty prize of 30,000 yuan.^[183]

The significance of promoting "model peasants" and "new men and women" through a variety of popular culture forms can be understood in the larger context of the Communists' attempt to create what they called "village literature and art" (xiangcun wenyi). This new peasant culture proved to be markedly different from that of the past, though its roots were still firmly planted in Chinese soil.^[184] This "village culture" represented nothing less than the future of China. In the eyes of the Communist party ideologues, their May Fourth predecessors had bequeathed a gloomy, tragic picture of a crumbling rural China; the Communists, however, viewed the countryside from a different perspective. Mao steadfastly argued that China must look to the primitive countryside for its future, and not to the urban centers where corruption and decadence ran rampant. Reshaping Chinese society would depend largely on a correct understanding of the life and thoughts of the peasants. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Communists made a dogged and enthusiastic effort to create a new village political culture suited to answer the pressing problems of rural decline and a ruined economy. This effort gained new momentum with the unleashing of the Rectification Campaign in 1942.

In many ways, Communist intellectuals equated this "village culture" with what they called "border region culture" (bianqu wenhua).^[185] In the border regions, people lived a harsh, guerrilla-like life under ceaseless attack from the Japanese and the Guomindang, yet in the process they won both the hearts and minds of the rest of the Chinese people. "The border area is more than the center of the antiJapanese struggle," Sha Kefu proudly declared; "it is the fortress of

new culture and new art"^[186] Pride in the border regions seemed to be everywhere. Brother and Sister Clear Wasteland, for example, starts with an upbeat song:

Loudly cries the rooster,
The bright red sun rises.
A robust young man,
How can I sleep late and be sluggish?
Carrying a hoe on my shoulder,
I march into the fields.
Atop the hill I look around,
Oh, what a wonderful sight!
The higher I stand, the farther I can see:
Our border region has now become such a marvelous place.

The border region culture and spirit as the keys to China's future were stressed repeatedly in all manner of Communist popular culture forms. These were in essence political and propaganda works full of the promise of salvation through class struggle and hard work. The pervasive emotion associated with the border area was optimism. There was no place for doubt or melancholy. People performed their assigned tasks with the utmost energy and enthusiasm. Through its well-coordinated and relentless campaign, the Party drove home the need to defend the collective entity and the marvels of Communism.

The image of Yan'an as a Spartan but happy land undergoing unprecedented transformation, of the CCP as the incarnation of China's future, and of Mao as a patriotic leader—a man who desired peace with his nemesis Jiang Jieshi but refused to yield an inch of land to the Japanese—was conveyed to the people outside the border regions through a variety of channels. Supplementing the official New China Daily, for example, Zhou Enlai brought woodcuts celebrating the life of the border area to Chongqing for display in the "National Day Festival Woodcut Show" in October 1942, and new yangge plays were staged in Chongqing in 1945. Despite the Nationalists' blockade, information about the border regions was filtered out by both Western and Chinese journalists,^[187] especially in the waning years of the war.^[188] Most Western reporters, if not all, were impressed by Yan'an's resistance policy, educational reforms, economic independence, equality of the sexes, leaders' sincerity, and, above all, its "air of gaiety."^[189] In comparison with the Guomindang, a regime wracked by corruption and internal turmoil and that had lost virtually all momentum in its reform efforts during the early 1940s, Mao and his Party presented a refreshing, even hopeful, alternative for China's future. The sociologist

Fei Xiaotong (1910-) made an incisive observation in May 1945: "To the ordinary layman who has never been to Yenan [Yan'an] and who has never had the opportunity to read reports on activities in the Red capital, the 'Border Region' is a land of mystery. Those who are dissatisfied with the reality surrounding them tend to regard Yenan as a romantic paradise."^[190] It was among those "dissatisfied with the reality," who desired a positive and forceful change, that Mao's message found the most receptive ears.

Within the border regions proper, however, the totality of Yan'an culture that the Party tried to impose did not meet with unqualified acceptance. The passage of time began to reveal many points of tension in the relationship between the Party and the intelligentsia. On the one hand, the search for a new ideal was emotionally appealing and morally gratifying; on the other hand, total submission to the Party aroused a sense of foreboding about the future of literature and art. The case of Wang Shiwei (1900–1947), who found the restrictions imposed from above unpalatable, is now well known. His "Wild Lilies" incident was but one of the few examples of open opposition to the party line. Ding Ling's criticism of the fate of women in Yan'an and Xiao Jun's (1907–1988) attack on party cadres fell under the same category.^[191] A lesser-known but equally significant case was Mo Ye's story "Liping's Distress" ("Liping de fannao"). Appearing in Northwestern Literature and Art (Xibei wenyi) in the Shanxi-Suiyuan Border Region in 1942, this story depicts an unhappy marriage between Liping, an educated patriotic young woman (who once played the role of Fragrance in Lay Down Your Whip), and an old-fashioned, middleaged army cadre. Insensitive, extremely jealous, and clinging to the obsolete idea that "wives must obey their husbands," he demands his wife's submission, hoping that she will stay home and give birth to a son. The differences in education, temperament, and background between the two results in divorce. Mo Ye, a female Fujianese author, had once been a member of a drama propaganda troupe and a student in Luyi's literature department. She delved into the dark side of the border region, uncovering loneliness, unhappy marriages, and the unruly behavior of party cadres.^[192] Her work provoked bitter condemnation from official critics. One charged that Mo Ye had tried to use "bourgeois intellectual thoughts to corrupt the revolution." The work, he said, was tantamount to an anti-Party act.^[193] Like Ding Ling's "In the Hospital" ("Zai yiyuan zhong," 1941), Mo Ye's piece touched on the sensitive issue of the fate of women under the socialist system. And like Ding Ling, she was chastised for voicing a dissenting opinion un-

acceptable to the Party. When the Communists launched their official rectification campaign in the Shanxi-Suiyuan Border Region in 1943, "Liping's Distress" was singled out for particularly vehement attack. In 1947, Mo Ye was criticized again and was imprisoned for a few months.^[194]

These bitter cases, of course, were not in line with the joyful image the Communists were trying to portray through a host of popular culture forms during the Yan'an years. But such incidents were the exception rather than the rule. The appeals and ideals of a bright socialist country were simply too powerful for most individuals to ignore. Despite their occasional brushes with Communist officials and unpleasant encounters with folk artists, intellectuals and artists in the border regions were not the victims of party coercion. On the contrary, most of them were willing participants in this new, carefully orchestrated political experiment, firmly believing that popular culture would help them realize their socialist dreams. Ding Ling, for example, soon admitted her "erroneous thoughts" about women and joined the Party in denouncing Wang Shiwei.^[195] She went on to support the revolution with great loyalty.

Thus in the use of popular culture as in so many other ways, the Communist border regions were significantly different from the areas under Guomindang control. While the Guomindang employed popular culture largely as a patriotic tool, the Communists used it as a political vehicle to promote socialism and to politicize the people's life. Mao and his followers seemed to believe that symbols and pictures were more potent than mere words, and they made sure that the script of this political campaign was carefully written and screened not by individuals, but by the Party, thus allowing little room for dissension. The Rectification Movement, therefore, can be viewed as a deliberate attempt by the Party to create a new political culture. The popular culture campaign in the Communist areas aimed not at abstractions or highbrow symbolism but at simple realism. Although it undoubtedly benefited from the efforts made earlier in the Guomindang areas, it was not an urban-oriented drive; instead, it delineated vividly a rural base undergoing profound revolutionary changes, and it painstakingly projected this culture as the future of China. The campaign proved vital in the subsequent victory of the Communist Party in 1949.