Chapter One. The ‘transition’ in literature

In the literary world of the late-1940s, though there were writers and groupings of writers with differing and artistic tendencies, only left -wing literature had an obvious objective and had the power to influence the trend of literature, to impose norms on the literary situation. After the discussions on literature and the arts in Yan'an in 1942, the base area's ideological and active steps in the world of literature and the arts gradually tended toward unanimity, the direction indicated by Comrade Mao Zedong to serve the masses of workers, farmers, and soldiers, became the road to which all gravitated. In studying the basic circumstances of literature, it is impossible to depart from an understanding of the literary thought of Mao Zedong. The first literary representatives congress was later taken to be the starting point of contemporary literature. Keywords: Comrade Mao Zedong; literature; first literary representatives congress; left -wing literature; Yan'an