Of Manchu ethnicity, Xiao's most famous work in China is his 1934 novel Village in August (八月的鄉村) which gained both popular and critical praise as anti-Japanese literature.
This period saw the unleashing of Xiao's creativity with a number of short stories, novellas, essays, and the beginning of his second masterwork Di san dai (第三代, Third Generation) which he wrote on and off for nearly twenty years.
His writings quickly drew the ire of many of the top level cadres at Yan'an whom he criticized for their pedantic treatment of the people, equating them one time to clowns who try to hypnotize their gullible audiences.
[2] His prestige however gained him a degree of immunity from punitive actions for over a year at which time a number of articles appeared attacking Xiao for his simplistic anti-Japanese nationalism and political immaturity for not engaging socialist class struggle.
Under this campaign, his essay On 'Love' and 'Patience' towards Comrades', along with Wang Shiwei's Wild Lilies and Ding Ling's Thoughts on International Working Women's Day, were republished in a Special Re-Criticism Issue as an example of the "great poisonous weeds" written by Rightists intellectuals.