Mao Zedong / Zhao Shuli

Overall summary

Yan’an Talks on Literature and Art

(1942)

• Literature must serve politics and the masses

• Writers should support workers, peasants, soldiers

• Rejects elitist individualism

Zhao Shuli —

Young Blacky

• Rural story using folk language and peasant characters

• Accessible style meant for mass readership

• Reflects CCP cultural goals

Historical background

• Yan’an communist base during war

• Anti-Japanese resistance

• CCP mass mobilization

Dates

• 1942: Yan’an Talks

• 1935: CCP arrives in Yan’an

• 1949: PRC founded

Important names

• Mao Zedong

• Hu Feng

• Ding Ling

Theories / concepts

• Socialist realism

• Literature as propaganda

• Mass literature

• National forms

• Revolutionary culture

Themes

• Peasantry

• Revolution

• Collective identity

• Political education

• Class consciousness