“Everyone can write poetry, everyone can paint, everyone can sing”, “a county a Mei Lanfang”, “villages should have their own Li Bai, Lu Xun and Nie Er” …… Such slogans undoubtedly make people today dumbfounded, and are invariably regarded as absurd. However, this absurd scene was played out in China nearly 60 years ago.
In 1958, Mao and the Communist Party of China (CPC) proposed a “comprehensive leap forward” in the national economy. The wind of this leap forward also blew into China’s literary and artistic circles, which not only launched the “New Folk Song Movement” on a national scale, but also put forward the slogan of “poets in villages” and set the masses the task and target of writing poems. The book “The Chinese Intellectual World 1958-1962”, published in 2008 and edited by Luo Pinghan, gives a detailed account of the “madness” in the literary and artistic circles and the “grand words” of literary and artistic celebrities during this period, and some excerpts are given for the benefit of readers.
The Shanghai Writers’ Association called on writers to “leap forward, leap forward”
In February 1958, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee held a meeting of literary and artistic cadres, and Ke Qingshi, secretary of the municipal party committee, made a speech, “to make a great leap forward in the literary and artistic circles, to let a hundred flowers compete”, “if one day does not work, two days; if two days do not work, one month; if not during the day, then at night; if one person does not work, everyone will do it. “
Under the call of the municipal party secretary, the Shanghai branch of the Chinese Writers’ Association held an expanded meeting to discuss how to leap forward in the literary and artistic circles. The Shanghai branch originally planned to create 1,000 pieces of various literary works in two years, but after discussion it was changed to 3,000 pieces, and the original plan to create 120 large works and collections of key organizations was increased to 235 at this time.
Writers also put forward their own plans to leap forward. For example, a famous writer said that within two years he was going to write one collection of short and medium stories and one collection of prose features, talk about his own creation of more than 100,000 words, as well as edit, organize and revise nine volumes of his own anthology, and finish translating Gorky’s “Literary Memoirs” within the year.
On March 6, the Chinese Writers’ Association sent to all writers in China a “Writers! Leap forward, great leap forward” in an open letter. The letter asked writers to do the following: If you have never written poetry, try it; poetry can reflect current reality faster. For those who have never written lyrics, try it; new songs are urgently needed everywhere in the country to match the leap forward, and if everyone sings them, the energy will be greater. Those who write criticism try creative writing, and those who write creative writing try criticism. Likewise, try comic songs, drum lyrics, and even various operas. To make our plan together is a literary department store, what you want to have, and with a new style, and popular and improve the characteristics.
At the same time, the Shanghai branch of the Writers’ Association issued a competition initiative to local branches. The initiative letter proposed the creative targets to be accomplished by the Shanghai branch within two years, namely, to create 4,000 literary works in various forms, to compose 3,000 lyrics, to complete 12 monographs on literary theory and literary history, and so on.
The literary and artistic circles have launched “satellites”
On September 9, 1958, an exhibition on the leap forward in literary and artistic creation was held in the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building in Shanghai. The literary and artistic “achievements” made in Shanghai since the “Great Leap Forward” included: 3 million words of literary and artistic works created by the masses as amateurs, 638 films produced, more than 6,000 pieces of art works, and 2,053 plays created, which can be described as “All forms of literary and artistic creation have satellites in the sky”.
In October, in order to further release the “satellite”, the Ministry of Culture, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Chinese Dramatists’ Association, the Chinese Musicians’ Association, the Chinese Artists’ Association, the Chinese Dance Research Association, the Chinese Film Workers’ Association and other units also jointly formed an artistic “satellite” leadership group.
The leap forward in literature and art could not be achieved without the “support” of the public. Many peasant and worker writers and poets emerged over time, and Shanghai claimed to have a literary army of 700,000 people, with 200 amateur creative groups of workers and 1,000 creative groups of peasants.
Then there are 10,000 students at Tsinghua University, who have written more than 5,000 poems, 3,000 songs, 1,500 plays, 2,000 novels, essays, features, and compositions, more than 3,000 cartoons, and more than 700 departmental and class mimeograph publications, and “many classes have made everyone a poet”. While the quantity is mind-boggling, one can only imagine the quality.
The “New Folk Song Movement”
In early 1958, the Chinese Folk Art Research Association selected and compiled a book entitled “Selected Songs of the Great Leap Forward in Rural Areas”, in which a folk song called “I’m Coming” was written: “There is no Jade Emperor in the sky and no Dragon Emperor on earth. I am the Jade Emperor! I am the Dragon Emperor! I am the Dragon Emperor! I am the Dragon Emperor! This folk song was so appreciated by Mao that he ordered to collect more folk songs from the people.
On April 14, the People’s Daily published an editorial entitled “Collecting Folk Songs on a Large Scale,” and on April 21, the People’s Daily published Guo Moruo’s “Answer to the Editorial Department of Folk Literature on the Question of Collecting Folk Songs on a Large Scale,” singing the praises of the new folk songs.
At the second meeting of the Eighth Congress held in May, Zhou Yang gave a report on “New Folk Songs Pioneer the Path of Poetry”. The report was accompanied by more than one hundred folk songs. In his report, he said quite emotionally: “Now that mass literary creation has developed so much, our country can simply be described as a poetic nation. The boundary between folk singers and intellectuals will gradually disappear. At that time, everyone will be a poet, and poetry will be appreciated by everyone. Such an era is bound to come. Therefore, to collect folk songs on a large scale and in a planned manner, it will be necessary for the whole Party to take action and for all the people to take action.”
It was also at this meeting that Ke Qingshi made a speech about the “Great Leap Forward” in culture, in which he said about China’s literature and art in 15 years’ time: By then, the new cultural and artistic life will become a daily routine in the lives of workers and peasants, and every factory, mine and rural area will have libraries and pictorial newspapers, and their own Li Bai, Lu Xun and Nie Er. Their own Mei Lanfang and Guo Lanying. Ke’s speech played a catalytic role.
After the second meeting of the Eighth Congress, Zhou Yang sought assistance in selecting 260 new folk songs from a large number of them, and with the co-signatures of Guo Moruo and Zhou Yang, he compiled and printed a book called “Red Flag Ballads” with 24 beautiful illustrations by 11 artists, including Huang Zuo, which was published in November of that year under the name of Red Flag Press.
In addition to “Red Flag Ballads”, other folk song collections printed nationwide included “One Hundred Folk Songs”, “Selected Folk Songs of the Great Leap Forward in Industry and Mining”, “Selected Folk Songs of the Great Leap Forward in Rural Areas” and “Selected Folk Songs of the Leap Forward in Troops”.
Under the influence of the leap-forward wind, “everyone can write poems, everyone can paint, everyone can sing”, and “a county has Guo Moruo and Mei Lanfang”. This state of affairs continued until the second Zhengzhou Conference in March 1959, when it was decided that the “satellite” of sports and “poetry” would be cancelled.
Conclusion
When the years have passed, the creative achievements of that year have long gone into the garbage heap, but the absurd record of “satellites” in the mainland literary and artistic circles really makes us dumbfounded today. However, such absurdity does not end, but only in today’s China with a different face still exists, such as the economic growth rate. The reason for this is that the Chinese Communist Party, which has repeatedly concocted absurdities, has not yet retired from the stage of history.
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