Title: Introduction to Chinese Cultural History / Slides / 5. Yanan to 1949

Front: When were The Yan'an Years?
Back: mid-30s to mid-40s

Front: What is Yan'an?
Back: - Centre of CCP base area in Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region after the Long March
- Yan’an Years: core of CCP foundational mythology
- Many writers, intellectuals, journalists (incl. foreign: Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley) travel to Yan’an
- “Yan’an Way” / “Yan’an Spirit”: patriotism, egalitarianism, community, simple life

Front: What are some virtues associated with the Yan’an Spirit?
Back: - patriotism,
- egalitarianism,
- community,
- simple life

Front: What was the political reality of the Yan'an Spirit?
Back: patriarchal and political hierarchies persisted; violence

Front: In the peasantry, how did people view the Red Army? How did they view the KMT and warlord armies?
Back: CCP/Red Army: still seen as patriotic, righteous, and defender of peasants and better option
KMT, warlord armies and rural landlords: corrupt, chaotic, and predatory

Front: Ideologically, what was the impact of the Yan'an Years?
Back: Mao’s writings and speeches of the Yan’an Years lay the ideological foundations of Mao Zedong Thought and future PRC.

Front: Where there significant personal developments for Mao in the Yan'an Years?
Back: - Mao divorces He Zizhen to marry Jiang Qing (formerly Lan Ping, actress in Shanghai)
- CCP leaders ban on Jiang Qing’s involvement in political work and public life for 20 years

Front: There was a significant folk dance in Yan'an cultural politics. Describe it.
Back: yangge (“rice-sprout song”)
Traditional folk dance of north rural China
"The yangge (literally ‘rice-sprout song’) is a popular traditional folk dance performed in the open air in rural north China. It is a performance that combines spirited dance, garish costumes and loud music to form a colorful blend of rhythmic movements. The dance was closely associated with New Year’s rituals and celebrations, intended to dispel evil and ensure a bumper harvest in the coming season. The dance troupe is led by a leader known as santou (Umbrella Head), who holds an umbrella to direct the movement, and consists of a few dozen to more than 100 dancers, with men playing women’s roles. They are accompanied by drums, gongs, cymbals and suona (a shawm-like instrument), and as well as dancing incorporate farcical acts played by clowns and erotic moves.”
—Chang-tai Hung, “The Dance of Revolution: Yangge in Beijing in the Early 1950s”, The China Quarterly (2005), 81-99

Front: Describe Yan'an cultural politics.
Back: - Lu Xun Academy of Art (music, dance, theatre)
- Yang’ge, local folk songs and stories adapted to new ideology
- Example: folk opera The White-Haired Girl (Baimao nü) by He Jingzhi and Ding Yi performed in 1945, based on oral folktale that circulated in the area in the early 1940s
- Illustration of ideas on literature and art outlined by Mao in the
- Yan’an Forum of 1942 (next slides)
- Several rewritings and adaptations since late 1940s
- Illustration of changing narratives with changes in CCP politics and ideology

Front: When was the Yan'an Rectification Movement?
Back: The Yan’an Rectification Movement (Zhengfeng yundong; 1942–1944)

Front: What were reasons for the Yan'an Rectification Movement?
Back: - Political dimension:
  - Power struggle within the Party: “Wang Ming faction” backed by Soviet Union, opposed to Mao’s idea of peasant revolution
  - Need to strengthen Party leadership (ideological work)
- Organizational dimension:
  - Rapid expansion of CCP: membership July 1937 – July 1940, 40,000 – 800,000
  - Simplify administration
  - Improve Party discipline

Front: When and how did the Yan'an Rectification Movement start out?
Back: Starts 1942 February: critical/polemical essays flood the Yan’an press:
criticism of shortcomings of CCP organization and CCP cadres (privileges, hierarchies, arrogance, gender inequality)

Front: What was the Literary Opposition during the Yan'an Rectification Movement?
Back: - assertion of writers’ right to express themselves without fear of political intervention
- assertion of writers as the true guardian of man’s spiritual needs
Notable members:
- Ding Ling
- Xiao Jun
- Ai Qing (father of Ai Weiwei)
- Wang Shiwei

Front: What did Ding Ling reflect about Women's Day?
Back: "When will it no longer be necessary to attach special weight to the word 'woman' and to raise it specially?"
Ding Ling: “Thoughts on March 8 (Women’s Day)", Liberation Daily, 1942 March 9^th

Front: What happened to the Literary Opposition?
Back: - Ding Ling labelled as a rightist and sent to “re-education” (hard labour, internal exile),
- Wang Shiwei beheaded in 1947 as CCP evacuated Yan’an during the Civil War with KMT,
- Violence of punishment showed CCP’s “renunciation of the humanistic, cosmopolitan, and individualistic elements of the May Fourth legacy” (Linda Jaivin)
- Model for future “thought reform” campaigns and purges (criticism, self-criticism, “struggle,” confession)

Front: The gist of Mao’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art?
Back: Mao’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art (1942):
- Artists and writers as “cultural workers” to live with the masses and draw inspiration from their art
- Art and literature must serve the revolution and the masses (workers, peasants, soldiers; gong nong bing)
- Art and literature are for/by/about the masses
- Mass culture (dazhong wenhua): all cultural works are dedicated to the masses and focus on the representation of their lives and struggles (class struggle)
- Popularization of language and style
- Writer’s depersonalization
Literary taboos:
- “Middle characters” who hesitate
- Psychological exploration, individualism, exploration of the self
- Humanism (detracts attention from class relations and struggle)
- Love that did not serve class solidarity; no romantic love, love can only exist as "class love". "We cannot love the enemies"
- Exposure (critical realism); do not expose the shortcomings of the masses; only expose the “dark forces” that endanger the masses

Front: How did Mao describe the tension between realism and idealism at the Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art?
Back: - “…unreservedly and whole-heartedly go among the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers, go into the heat of the struggle, go to the only source, the broadest and richest source, in order to observe, experience, study, and analyse all the different kinds of people, all the classes, all the masses, all the vivid patterns of life and struggle, all the raw materials of literature and art”
- “Although man's social life is the only source of literature and art and is incomparably livelier and richer in content, the people are not satisfied with life alone and demand literature as well. Why? Because, although both are beautiful, life as reflected in works of literature and art can and ought to be on a higher plane, more intense, more concentrated, more typical, nearer the ideal and therefore more universal than actual everyday life.”

Front: How did Mao frame the role of culture in the closing remarks of the Yan'an Talks?
Back: “We must ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy with one heart and one mind.”

Front: When was The Chinese Civil War?
Back: 1945–1949

Front: How was the Red Army called in the Civil War?
Back: The Red Army renames itself the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

Front: How was the PRC founded?
Back: - Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949
- Soong Ching-ling (widow of Sun Yat-sen) stands on the Tiananmen Gate rostrum with Mao and other CCP leaders
- December 1949: Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling move to Taiwan to become President and First Lady of the ROC in Taiwan
- Most prominent writers and intellectuals stay in China (Hu Shi goes to Taiwan)