Socialist Realism in China

Writing is in fact a crucial term from which to begin to understand the momentum and trajectory of cultural policy and practice in China. For the originality of the Marxist aesthetic developed within the Chinese Revolution lies in its precise re-definition of the relations of production of art-works in China, and the place of such activity within a whole network of ideological/writing practices, dominated by the famous wall-posters, the tatzupao . In traditional, Imperial China, possession of culture in this sense was a necessary qualification for a position of power, as political official or magistrate. Lu Hsun&s;s contribution was nevertheless an important one for Marxist writing as a whole, and in contemporary China he is honoured as the great precursor of today&s;s cultural policies. In China, however, an insistence on the continuing need for ideological struggle within the revolution has been at the forefront of cultural policy since 1949.