During the Yenan period the Chinese Communists built up a literature as they built up a party organisation and an army: as an instrument of policy, fashioned in accordance with Marxist principles. Like the organisation and like the army, the literature served the needs of the time. Plays, poems, stories, novels, ballads, reportages flowed in profusion from professional writers emerged from Kuomintang jails; from trainees of the Lu Hsün Academy in Yenan itself; from farmers and soldiers who after initial success were welcomed into the ranks of “art workers.” These writings whipped up popular support for the new government and established flesh-and-blood examples of behaviour-patterns for the new society. More effectively than any textbook of theory, they gave instruction in practical Communism.

A young girl was walking along the road to Hung-wu-chen, the road which led to market. You would say she was about seventeen or eighteen, and clasped in her arms she carried a white hen. Trotting by her side was a little girl of seven or eight who had come along to buy some little cakes and see what was going on. They were sisters, and their names were Kai-kai and Eh-eh. The sisters talked as they went.

In terms of his impact on the young intelligentsia of China, particularly in the 1930s, and of the emotional symbolism as patriot and reformer with which his name is charged, Lu Hsün (1881–1936) was the most powerful figure in modern Chinese letters. For the last seven years of his life he was openly identified with Communist-led left-wing cultural movements in China. Today he is honoured by the Chinese Communist Party as the great cultural hero of the Chinese Revolution. His homes have become museums, jiis tomb a shrine. He is presented as a Communist in everything but name.

On the first anniversary of the “Chinese People's Republic” (October 1, 1950), the Peking government had but eleven ambassadors abroad, eight of them accredited to Communist bloc nations. Most had only recently exchanged an army uniform for the proverbial pin-stripes. With such obvious exceptions as Chou En-lai, the men in the Foreign Ministry offices in Peking were ill-trained or untrained “diplomats.” Now, a decade later, there is a new picture. A significant part of the story of China's emergence on the international scene may be found in the rapidly developing foreign service—a service which staffs thirty-two ambassadorial outposts, as well as the various departments in Peking.

The fact that Liu Shao-ch'i, Chairman of the Chinese People's Republic, since last October has accepted a series of invitations to visit the Eastern European satellites “at an appropriate time” is one indication of Peking's growing interest in developing her relations with these countries. The now fairly close relationships between China and the Eastern European satellites are a rather new dimension in Communist China's foreign policy posture and represent a radical break with China's traditional non-involvement in European affairs. Geographical remoteness, the inability to communicate, lack of interest, and preoccupation with the problems of her more immediate surroundings effectively isolated China from involvement in European affairs until very recent times. It is true that traders intermittently journeyed between China and European trade centres, carrying on a limited exchange of goods, but these exchanges had only a very marginal significance. Western imperialist encroachment upon China in recent centuries, particularly the nineteenth, finally brought to China an awareness of the principal powers of Western Europe, such as Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Imperial Germany, France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. Much against her will China was eventually forced into unequal “treaty relations” with these European powers, as well as with Japan, Russia, and the United States of America. However China's political, commercial, and cultural relations with the nations now known as the “East European satellites” were virtually non-existent until 1949. The reasons for this lag lie in obvious historical, political, and developmental factors. When the Chinese door was kicked open in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century the East European nations either were not at the time independent or simply did not exist (East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) as national entities as yet. Even had they existed, it is doubtful whether they would have been in a position to participate in the scramble for trade advantage, concessions, and souls characteristic of the “treaty powers.”

Since the 1920s the pattern prevailing in the field of primary and secondary education in China has been that of a twelve-year cycle divided into three basic parts—a six-year primary or elementary school followed by a three-year “junior middle” or junior high school and a three-year “senior middle” or senior high. The six-year elementary cycle was further subdivided into four years of junior grades followed by two years of senior grades.

“This is an historic event of great significance in the political life of the Vietnam Workers' Party and people. With incomparable feelings of joy, we warmly congratulate the conference on its important achievements.” So ran the editorial in the Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily) on the morning of September 12, although—unless the Chinese are a nation of masochists, which I refuse to believe—it is hard to discover the reason for this jubilation, for China had just suffered her most humiliating defeat to date in the ideological war she is waging against the Soviet Union. The occasion was the Third Congress of the Vietnam Lao-Dong, or Workers', Party, which met in Hanoi from September 5 to 10. Since it was the first such congress for nine years, the Vietnamese Communists had spared neither trouble nor expense to make it a resounding success. Official delegations from the fraternal parties of eleven Communist states attended, together with representatives from Communist parties of seven non-Communist countries and fraternal diplomats stationed in Hanoi. The date of the congress had been carefully fixed so that proceedings would open three days after North Vietnam's National Day, and the foreign visitors had been invited to come a few days early to sample the delights of this celebration too.

The third Congress of China's Literary and Art Workers, the first since the Hundred Flowers Campaign, was held in Peking from July 22 to August 13 “to review and assess” the literary and artistic achievements in the years between 1953 and 1960, “summarise and exchange experience, further define the road of development of socialist art and literature, and consider the tasks to be faced in the coming years.” The presence of Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, and other political leaders and the large space which the People's Daily devoted to the meeting indicated its importance. Of the 2,300 delegates there were professionals and amateurs working in local governments and the services and from them a praesidium of over 180 members was elected before the long speeches on the opening day began. Kuo Mo-jo, as the President of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, first spoke a few words of welcome and then went on to outline the circumstances under which the Congress was convoked and the general political lines along which China's art and literature had been and would be developing. These lines were repeated once more, and elaborated, by Lu Ting-yi, Director of the Party's Propaganda Department and Deputy Premier, who represented the Party and the Government, and subsequently they were to be repeated many times over. The third speaker on the opening day to recite them was Chou Yang, Vice-President of the Federation and a Deputy Director of the Party's Propaganda Department, who also laid down six tasks for the Congress.

“As the motion picture is one of the most popular arts and one of the Party's most effective weapons of propaganda and education, in our film undertakings we must necessarily put political ideological work and the question of creative thinking in the leading position, strengthen the Party's leadership over the cinema.…” Thus declared Hsia Yen, Deputy Minister of Culture. But the problem is, how much artistic independence must be sacrificed in order to strengthen the Party's leadership over the cinema? The answer seems to be clear after viewing the dozen or so films from China shown recently at the National Film Theatre in London.

At some point in a debate one or all participants usually feel that it should come to an end. Professor Schwartz expresses this wish in his recent comments on my rejection of the “Maoist” thesis; but he does not tell us why. I also think the present discussion should be terminated; but I am quite willing to give my reasons. I see little benefit in continuing to argue the meaning of Mao Tse-tung's development with an opponent who employs methods of evasion, omission, and misrepresentation. However, the underlying issue has not disappeared, and certain points even in this debate require further clarification.