Abstract
In 1958, China was becoming a nation of poetry. On April 14, the People’s Daily called for a nationwide “deep drilling of the land of poetry” and anticipated “a blowout of popular verses, folk poems and ballads.”1 The New Folk Poetry Campaign soon reached its height.2 CCP authorities mobilized peasants, workers, and soldiers at all literacy levels to write poems in extremely large quantities. The Anhui Province CCP committee, for example, claimed that they collected almost 30,000 folk poems within just one month.3 But this was still a modest sum compared to the regional CCP committee of the Inner Mongolia, which set up a five year plan to collect ten million folk poems, or over 166 thousand per month.4 Once again, Mao’s words sparked the fanaticism. Interested by a few folk poems praising agricultural collectivization and farmland irrigation, he repeatedly remarked in the spring of 1958 that everyone should write poems and that every township should publish an anthology of poems.5 These new poems, he particularly noted, should combine realism with romanticism, because “one cannot write poetry with too much realism.”6
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Notes
Lengxi Wu, Yi Mao Zhuxi: wo qinshen jingli de ruogan zhongda lishi shijian pianduan (Remembering Chairman Mao: Fragments of certain major historical events which I personally experienced) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1995), 49–50.
Zhiyuan Cui, “Guanyu liangjiehe chuangzuo fangfa de lishi kaocha yu fansi (A reflective history of the creative method of the combination of Revolutionary Romanticism and Revolutionary Realism),” Hebei shifan daxue xuebao: zhexue shehui kexue ban (Journal of the Hebei Normal University: Philosophy and Social Sciences), 27, no. 1 (2004): 44.
This remark and its slight variations are quoted in a number of Chinese and English scholarly articles and books. Yang Lan’s article “‘Socialist Realism’ versus ‘Revolutionary Realism Plus Revolutionary Romanticism,’” in In the CCP Spirit: Socialist realism and literary practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China, ed. Hilary Chung and Falchikov Michael (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1996),
for example, quotes a marginally different version of this remark from Yafu Wang, Hengzhong Zhang, and Lifan Ding, Zhongguo xueshujie dashi ji (A chronicle of events in Chinese academic circles): 1919–1985 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1988). Zhou Yang’s article also confirms that Mao made a remark of this sort. The original source, however, remains unclear.
Andrey Zhdanov, “Soviet literature: The richest in ideas, the most advanced literature,” in Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934: The debate on socialist realism and modernism in the Soviet Union. Edited by Gorky Maksim and H G. Scott (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977), 21–22.
Hilary Chung and Falchikov Michael eds., In the Party spirit: Socialist realism and literary practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1996). 16. Both this official definition of SR and its revision discussed later in this chapter emerged amid clashes among multiple positions taken by Soviet politicians, writers and critics. Due to the scope of this research, I cannot discuss those debates in detail.
Yang Zhou, China’s new literature and art: Essays and addresses (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1954), 87–88. The Chinese original was published in the People’s Daily on January 1, 1953.
Marek Bartelik, “Concerning Socialist Realism: Recent publications on Russian art,” Art journal, 58, no. 4 (1999): 92.
Katerina Clark et al., Soviet culture and power: A history in documents, 1917–1953, Annals of Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 162–64.
See, for example, Yang Zhou, Zhou Yang wenji (Collected works of Zhou Yang), 5 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984), 58–73.
Yiwenshe ed., Baowei shehuizhuyi xianshizhuyi (Defending Socialist Realism) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1958).
Xiancai Yang ed., Gongheguo zhongda shijian jishi (A record of the major events in the PRC), 3 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1998), 640–48.
Benkan pinglunyuan. “Women de dianying luogu qiao qilai le (We have begun beating gongs and drums at movies),” Zhongguo dianying (Chinese cinema), no. 4 (1958): 2. Qizhi, Mao Zedong shidai de renmin dianying (People’s cinema during the Maoist era) (Taipei: Xiuwei zixun keji gufen youxiangongsi, 2010), 359–61.
See annals of Chinese film studios in Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zhipian juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Film production) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2006).
Di Wu ed., Zhongguo dianying yanjiu ziliao (Research materials of Chinese cinema): 1949–1979, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2006), 185.
Huangmei Chen and Fangyu Shi eds., Dangdai zhongguo dianying (Contemporary Chinese cinema), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1989), 171.
Sangchu Xu and Chuan Shi, Ta bian qingshan ren wei lao: Xu Sangchu koushu zizhuan (Crossing these green hills adds nothing to one’s years: An oral memoir of Xu Sangchu) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2006), 154.
Mingsheng Tang, Kuayue shiji de meili: Qin Yi zhuan (A cross-century beauty: Biography of Qin Yi) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2005), 184–86.
Han Tian, Tian Han quanji (Complete works of Tian Han), 20 vols., vol. 14 (Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000), 157–90.
Moruo Guo, Guo Moruo quanji: wenxue bian (Completed works of Guo Moruo: Collection of literary works), vol. 17 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1989). 10.
Yushan Zhao, “Xushui xian gongchanzhuyi shidian dashiji (A record of major events in the communist experiment in Xushui),” in Hebei dangshi ziliao (Materials of the Party’s history in Hebei) (Shijiazhuang: Zhonggong hebei shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, 1994): 360–370. The first People’s Commune in Xushui was established on the same day as Mao’s inspection. On August 10, all the cooperatives in Xushui turned into People’s Communes. On August 17, these communes were merged into seven major ones. Later the seven were nominally merged into one, namely the People’s Commune of Xushui.
“Chuangzao wukuiyu women shidai de yingpian (Create films worthy of our times),” Zhongguo dianying (Chinese cinema), no. 12 (1958): 2–3. The “three times better” requirement was made by Zhou Yang at a Film Bureau meeting from November 1 to 7, 1958; Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 448.
Yaping Ding ed., Bainian zhongguo dianying lilun wenxuan (Selected articles on film theory during the recent one hundred years), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2002), 475, 77.
See Zhao’s account in Dan Zhao, Yinmu xingxiang chuangzao (Creating characters on the silver screen) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1980), 47–53.
Ban Wang, The sublime figure of history: Aesthetics and politics in twentieth-century China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), 139.
Zhonggong Shanghai shiwei dangshi yanjiushi, ed., Pan Hannian zai Shanghai (Pan Hannian in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1995), 429, 82–91, 520. Yu’s illness was the official excuse to depose him from the position as head of the Shanghai Film Studio during this investigation; Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zhipian juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: film production) 153. Like Zheng and Zhao, Yu’s political situation was better after the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which he actively attacked the Rightists, such as Wu Yonggang; Hanwei Dang dui dianying shiye de lingdao xubian (Defend the leadership of the party in the film work: Continuation), 1–14.
Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), vol. 1, 453. Xing Fan ed., Yongyuan de hongse jingdian: hongse jingdian chuangzuo yingxiang shihua (The forever red classics: Historcial studies of the creation and influences of the red classics) (Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2008), 229–30.
Zedong Mao and Tse-tung Mao, Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung., vol. II (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), 376.
Yan Xia, “Wo de yixie jingyan jiaoxun (Some of my experiences and lessons),” in Lun Xia Yan (On Xia Yan), ed. Chunfa Tan and Xueming Wang (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1989), 441–42.
See Gao Bo (actor of Kuang Wentao)’s Cultural Revolution “confession” quoted in Chedi pipan fandong yingpian Nie Er (Thoroughly criticize the reactionary film Nie Er), 30. Wen Zichuan’s memoir confirms Gao’s description of Tian Han. See Zichuan Wen, Wenren de lingyimian (The other side of the writers) (Guilin: Guangxi shifandaxue chubanshe, 2004), 180.
Andrew F. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 74.
Zedong Mao and Tse-Tung Mao, Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. V (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), 427.
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© 2014 Zhuoyi Wang
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Wang, Z. (2014). From Revolutionary Romanticism to Petty Bourgeois Fanaticism: The Great Leap Forward and Filmmakers’ Stylistic Return to the Past, 1958–1960. In: Revolutionary Cycles in Chinese Cinema, 1951–1979. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378743_5
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