A good pupil
Chinese Literature Magazine 1963
The Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966 didn’t come out of the blue. When Chairman Mao made the Declaration of the People’s Republic of China on 1st October 1949 it signaled the end of one struggle but also the beginning of another – the struggle to build Socialism.
This struggle would take place in many spheres, not least that of literature and art. So it isn’t a surprise that the pages of the magazine would, eventually, be another place where the struggle between the two lines were fought out.
Some within the Communist Party and the organs of state looked to the past for their inspiration and so promoted writers and artists whose ideas had become a hindrance to the development of the new Socialist man and woman. This meant that as time went on the reactionary elements in society sought to promote those ideas more and more and we see the struggle manifesting itself in the publication Chinese Literature.
Until this publication, amongst all the others produced in the country, was brought under the control of revolutionary forces the incidences of the writers of ‘old ideas’ being disseminated would increase. In the early 1960s these issues were being fought out but the revolutionary forces were still not confident enough to go fully on the attack. By 1966 it had gone too far and it became time to clamp down on these reactionaries and their counter-revolutionary activities. Thus was the Cultural Revolution born.
Chinese Literature: Introduction, 1951 (missing), 1952 (missing), 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 (missing), 1960 (missing), 1961, 1962 (missing), 1964, 1965 (missing), 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981.
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 7
Contents include:
A woman writer of distinction – the peasant writer Ju Chih-chuan
Face Designs in Chinese Opera
Chinese Translations of Latin American Literature
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 8
Contents include:
On the Militant Task of China’s Literature and Art Today
Stormy Years – a novel about the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression
How the “Bai” Learned a Lesson – Uighur folk tale
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 9
Contents include:
Stormy Years – more excerpts from the novel
The Collected Works of Chu Chiu-pai (Qu Qiubai) – later to be criticised during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76)
The Collected Works of Hung Shen – dramatist and film maker
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 10
Contents include:
Heroes of the Marshes – a classic tale of peasant resistance in 12th century China (an excerpt)
Japanese Literary Works in Chinese Translation
Some Thoughts on Cartooning
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 11
Contents include:
An interview with the Playwright Tsao Yu (Cao Yu) – he was also criticised during the Cultural
Revolution (1966-76)
Two stories by Lu Hsun – The white light and The lamp that was kept alight
Remembering Dark Africa – three poems from a collection by Han Pei-ping
Chinese Literature – 1963 – No 12
Contents include:
Two short stories by Yu Ta-fu (Yu Dafu) – Arbutus Cocktails and Flight
Truth, Imagination and Invention
Passages from an Autobiography of Chi Pai-shih (Qi Baishi) – a painter in the traditional style
