Comrade Zhou Yang:
I have read this article.2 It is very well written. You have given a simple historical description of the major issues in literary theory to prove that our general policies are correct. This is very helpful, and it has been a lesson for me, as well. I do feel, however, that it is inappropriate to put that talk of mine3 among the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. My words do not deserve being treated in this way. In addition, on page 10, where it is says that “art should combine the feelings, thought, and will of the masses,”4 it seems to me that this refers not only to “concentration” in the course of literary and artistic creation but also to taking these literary and artistic creations to the masses in order to “unite” the “feelings, thought, and will of the masses,” which are dispersed for economic, political, regional, and national reasons (in socialist countries there are no longer political reasons, but other reasons still exist), through the process of disseminating art. Or perhaps the main theme of these words by Lenin lies in the latter point, that is, the work of popularization, and then on this basis “to elevate them.” Please think it over to see if it can be explained this way, or talk it over with those comrades who know Russian and then decide. I have no objection to the rest.
Salutations!
Mao Zedong
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 228–29, where it is reproduced from the manuscript.
1. Zhou Yang was at this time president of Yan’an University and president of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts and Literature.
2. Referring to Zhou Yang’s “Editor’s Preface” to the book Marxism and Literature. It was later published in Yan’an’s Jiefang ribao on April 8, 1944.
3. Referring to Mao’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art.” See above, the text of May 2, 1942.
4. This is a segment of Lenin’s talk to the German Marxist Clara Zetkin, quoted by Zhou Yang in his “Editor’s Preface” to the book Marxism and Literature.