On Literature And Art

This book contains Mao Tse-tungs Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art and other writings of his concerning culture and art. These brilliant contributions constitute a programme for the proletarian cultural revolution and a line for proletarian revolutionary literature and art. They serve as guiding principles for our cultural and art work and for the remoulding of the world outlook of intellectuals; they are a powerful weapon for defeating the modern revisionist ideology and all the different bourgeois ideology in the field of literature and art. This English edition of Mao Tse-tung on Literature and Art is reproduced from the Third Edition (Second Revised Translation) published by Foreign Languages Press Peking in 1967. The English translation of Mao Tse-tung on Literature and Art which was published by the FLP in 1960 was based on the first Chinese edition put out by the People’s Literature Publishing House Peking in December 1958. The present English translation is based on the new Chinese edition put out by the same publishing house in June 1966 and contains one additional article “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work.” The contents are arranged in chronological order except for “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” which appears first. Most of the titles are those of the original articles chapters or sub-sections. But the following four titles have been supplied by the editor of the Chinese edition: “Myth and Reality” “The Chief Concern of China’s Cultural Movement” “What to Praise and What to Condemn” and “On Literary Style.” The notes at the end of the chapters are compiled by the FLP.