Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai and the Chinese Marxist Conception of Revolutionary Popular Literature and Art

It is now generally agreed that the intensity and magnitude of social commitment witnessed in China's revolutionary literary movement of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s is unparalleled among literary movements of the modern period. Accordingly, an increasing amount of scholarly attention is being directed to the general problem of the relationship between literature and revolution in China. Unfortunately, however, our overall conception of the scope of this revolutionary activity remains exceedingly narrow. One reason for this may be that for many scholars the subject of literature and revolution immediately brings to mind the dynamic, but familiar, New Culture literary revolution and the May Fourth generation of westernized revolutionary writers. As a result, discussions on literature and revolution normally dwell on the literary activities and views of a familiar cast of literary intellectuals featuring Lu Hsün, Kuo Mo-jo, Mao Tun and a variety of new players “introduced” from time to time. Unhappily, this pre-occupation with revolutionary elites and the western culture which so profoundly inspired them tends to obscure the role of a second and equally important force on the revolutionary literary and cultural scene, the diverse popular literary and artistic movement.