Yan'an Forum

During the Long March (1934-1935), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) used song, drama, and dance to appeal to the civilian population, but did not have a unified cultural policy.

The immediate spur to the Yan'an talks was a request by a concerned writer for Mao Zedong to clarify the ambiguous role of intellectuals in the CCP.

The core concept of the Yan'an Talks was that art should translate the ideas of the Chinese Communist Revolution for rural peasants.

[2] Mao also encouraged literary people to transform themselves by living in the countryside,[1] and to study the popular music and folk culture of the areas, incorporating both into their works.

[3]: 127  Mao articulated five independent although related categories of creative consideration for cultural production: (1) class stand, (2) attitude, (3) audience, (4) work style, and (5) popularization/massification.

[6]: xvi  As summarized by academic Cai Xiang, the great writers of the period embraced this endeavor, while the practice was essentially inaccessible to hacks.

[11] The Gang of Four's dramatic interpretation of the Yan'an Talks during the Cultural Revolution led to a new CCP-sanctioned form of political art, revolutionary opera.

Conversely, certain forms of art, such as the works of Beethoven, Respighi, Dvorak, and Chopin, were condemned in CCP papers as "bourgeois decadence".

[6]: xix  After the death of Mao and the rise of reformist leaders like Deng Xiaoping, who condemned the Cultural Revolution, the Yan'an talks were officially reevaluated.