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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
It has long been recognized that there is a particularly close relationship between art and politics in post-1949 China. And indeed this is true. The relationship, however, has usually been viewed only in “macro” terms, as one in which the Party – or the Party through its agents – stifles dissent and makes demands on writers and artists for works reflecting “the Party line”. As a general description of course there may be more than a grain of truth in this, but put in this way nothing could be less interesting. A more complex and dialectical picture emerges when one focuses more sharply on the process of artistic production in its immediate social context. The study of village-level drama and song-and-dance is ideal for this kind of investigation, in spite of the fact that it is “mere propaganda”: not only does it allow us a closer look at the actual implementation and effects of cultural policy, rather than just policy formulation, but often evidence is sufficient for us to discern salient features of the local cultural context and the ways in which artistic form and content have been adapted to specific local issues and local personalities. At this level in Chinese society, where relationships between cadres, artists and their audiences are personalized and the deeds of local labour heroes re-enacted on stage, the distinction between art and reality is not all that clear, stage action mimics political action, and vice versa, and the roles of the Party cadre and stage director are intertwined.
1. It is significant that traditional popular prints showing scenes from recent history and current events follow the same conventions as scenes from opera prints: historical action is viewed as if on a stage. For examples, see Alekseev, A., Kitayskaya narodnaya kartina (The Chinese Popular Print) (Moscow 1962)Google Scholar.
2. Sheridan, James E., Chinese Warlord: the Career of Feng Yü-hsiang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar.
3. Holm, D., Art and Ideology in the Yan'an Period 1937–1945, unpublished D.Phil dissertation (Oxford 1979), pp. 13–14Google Scholar.
4. “Chuxi” in Southern Jiangxi was the local name for a hybrid form of opera combining Jiangxi opera (donghexi) and Qiyang opera from Qiyang in Hunan. See Xiaocang, Li, “Ganju zhuqiang de laiyuan yu yanbian”. Xiqu yanjiu (Opera Research) 1957, 2, p. 87Google Scholar. It is not to be confused with another form current in the Wuhan area, now also called “Chuju” (Hubei opera) which was originally a form of huaguxi. See Shousong, Liu, Zhongguo xin wenxueshi chugao (First Draft History of Chinese New Literature) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1956, I, pp. 312ff)Google Scholar. For geographical distribution of the genre, see map in xiehui, Zhongguo xijujia, ed., Zhongguo difang xiqu jicheng: Jiangxi sheng juan (Compendium of Chinese Local Opera: Jiangxi Province) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1962)Google Scholar.
5. Holm, , Art and Ideology, pp. 319–20Google Scholar.
6. Fangxia nide bianzi, the most famous of the propaganda plays first performed in the Beijing area during the December 9th Movement in late 1935. Demanding an end to landlord oppression of the peasants and a national united front against Japanese aggression, it continued to be performed during the opening years of the war.
7. This was a problem in the performance of huaju in particular, with its naturalistic stage scenery, curtains, lighting and props. Costumes for old opera and historical plays were also a major expense, well beyond the means of poorer villages.
8. See the opening paragraph of Mao Zedong, Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.
9. The policy itself was promulgated on 1 September 1942 in the directive “Guanyu tongyi kangri genjudi de lingdao ji tiaozheng ge zuzhi jian guanxi de jueding”: text in Mao Zedong ji, Vol. VIII, pp. 155–64Google Scholar. For a general discussion of the policy's operation and rationale, see Selden, M., The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 216–24Google Scholar.
10. Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), 19 October 1943.
11. “Zhonggong zhongyang xuanchubu guanyu zhixing dang de wenyi zhengce de jueding” (7 November 1943), text in xiaozu, Beijing shifan daxue Zhongwenxi xiandai wenxue jiaoxue gaige, ed., Zhongguo xiandai wenxue shi cankao ziliao (Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1959), Vol. 2, pp. 26–28Google Scholar.
12. “Little opera” (xiaoxi) is the general term for local dramatic genres performed by small troupes of semi-professionals. Compared with big opera (Beijing opera, Cantonese opera, Qinqiang and so on) little opera is musically less ornate, and includes a larger proportion of short comic plays with characters drawn from village and town life.
13. On all this, see Holm, Art and Ideology, Chap. 9, passim.
14. The exact location of this was Zhilan, a tiny village in the Xiyechuan valley a few li from Gudongdao. For an account of the military operations against it and Hua's role in them, see Gan, Zheng, “Guanghui de zhandou”, Geming wenwu, 1978, No. 3, pp. 15–16Google Scholar.
15. Kangzhan ribao, 1 February 1945, p. 2. “Jiaodong Geduo xingzhengcun an meiren suo chang zuzhi shengchan”.
16. Wen, Zhou, ”Jin-Sui wenyi gongzuo gaikuang jianshu” in xuanchuanchu, Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dahui, ed., Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dahui jinian wenji (Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1949), p. 313Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that new policy coincided with the intensification of class struggle.
17. Jin-Sui bianqu kangzhan yu jianshe gaikuang, n.p., no pub., n.d., mimeo., p. 21a.
18. These sources are: wengongtuan, Shanxi sheng Taiyuan shi Gujiao qu, “Hua zhuxi peiyu de Xiao-Mu Jutuan”, Renmin xiju, 1977, No. 5, pp. 8–10 – henceforth RMXJ (1)Google Scholar; guanlisuo, Taiyuan shi wenwu/jizhe, benkan, “Hua zhuxi he Xiao-Mu jutuan”, Geming wenwu, 1978, No. 3 pp. 10–14 – henceforth GMWW (2)Google Scholar.
19. RMXJ(l), p. 9.
20. Ibid. p. 10.
21. RXMJ(l), p. 10.
22. Ibid.
23. Nian, Chen, “Dikou xiju zhanxian sheng de yizhi jinglu (jieshao Zhandou jushe)”, Jiefang ribao, 6 09 1942Google Scholar.
24. Bo, Li, “Yan'an yangge yundong de pianduan huiyi”, Beijing wenyi, 1962, No. 5, p. 22Google Scholar.
25. Jiefang ribao, 15 February 1944, p. 2. “Gao siling de yanggedui: ji nanqu xuanchuandui zai nongcun li”.
26. See article in Jiejang ribao cited in note 25.
27. The use of temple fairs was also proposed. A serious effort was mounted after the 1944 Cultural and Educational Congress in Yan'an. See especially Jiefang ribao, 9 November 1944, p. 1. “Wenjiao dahui taolun, gaizao miaohui jiaoyu qunzhong, ge jutuan yinggai canjia miaohui gongzuo, jinxing xuanchuan jiaoyu”. Temple fairs were of course much bigger than periodic markets; daily attendance was sometimes as high as 10,000 and the catchment area several hundred li.
28. See supra, p. 3.
29. See for instance Jiefang ribao, 15 August 1944, p. 2 “Fuxian quxiang ganbu xuexi de xin banfa, xian chang yangge juben, ranhou an zi qu ren”.
30. Jin-Sui bianqu kangzhan yu jianshe gaikuang, p. 17b.
31. See, e.g. Kangzhan ribao, 6 December 1944, p. 2 “Sanfenqu Qiushui jushe, jiji fuzhi nongcun jutuan”, and 12 December 1944, p. 4 “Xitai dixia tan yanxi” (Wang Yan).
32. Kangzhan ribao, 1 February 1945, p. 2 “Jiaodong Geduo xingzhengcun an meiren suo chang zuzhi shengchan”.
33. Geng, Zhang, preface to Yangge ju xuanji, Vol. 3 “Qunzhong chuangzuo de xin yangge” (Kalgan: Changcheng congshu, n.d. [1946]) p. 3Google Scholar. Zhang's prefaces for all three volumes of this early collection of plays were also published in Beifang wenhua, 1:6 (16 05 1946), p. 23Google Scholaret seq. under the title “Guanyu yangge yundong”. Reprinted in Zhang Geng, Lun xin geju (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1958), pp. 103–118.
34. These were the “new people”. The political importance of the middle-peasant stratum to the CCP is brought out particularly well in David, and Crook, Isabel, Revolution in a Chinese village: Ten Mile Inn (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959)Google Scholar. (Ten Mile Inn was in Wu'an xian in the Taihang base area). It would be unwise to suppose that the “new people” constituted in all cases an overwhelming majority of the population in the villages, though they may have done so in areas where there had been a genuine land revolution (e.g. parts of North Shaanxi like Liulin as described by Myrdal). In other areas there was a great divide between the “new people” and those who for one reason or another were unable to take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the CCP: for a vivid account of such a situation, see novel, Zhang Ailing's, Yangge (Hong Kong: Jinri shijie chubanshe, 1954)Google Scholar.
In fact, poor peasants were often excluded from traditional yangge: Zhao Shuli, writing of the Taihang area, noted that yangge was “often managed by the rich peasant stratum with the participation of the middle-peasant stratum” and that the landlords and poor peasants did not as a rule take part, the former because they despised it, the latter because they could not afford to participate (Shuli, Zhao, “Yishu yu nongcun”, in Mei, Huang, ed., Nongcun xin wenyi yundong de kaizhan (Wuhan: Renmin yishu chubanshe, 1949), p. 20Google Scholar.
35. GMWW(2), p. 10.
36. Kangzhan ribao, 4 February 1945 “Minjian jutuan zhong de nü yanyuan wenti ji qita”. Text reprinted in GMWW (2), p. 13. Note, however, that the Mulianpo troupe did perform at least one old yangge play in the early years: this was “Chang E flees to the Moon” (Chang E ben yue).
37. The article cited above (note 36) gives a partial list. Similar mergers occurred in the Yan'an yangge movement at the same time, and seem to have been encouraged by Party policy. In this case it is hard to say what the underlying pattern of inter-village relations was, but we may observe that a practice traditional in nearby areas of west-central Shanxi – the Linxian Lishi area – was for villages to undertake the performance of yangge in rotation, and perform for all the villages in the she.
38. Peasant women propagandists are said to have been responsible for many of the revolutionary folk-songs composed during the period of land revolution in North Shaanxi in the 1930s. In Yan'an during the early years of the war it was standard practice to send women graduates of Party schools to outlying areas of Shan-Gan-Ning for propaganda work while men were sent to the guerrilla areas of North China.
39. Zhuo, Kang, “Nongmin de guanghui – Jixi nongmin xiju huodong shihua” Wenyibao, No. 2, (12 05 1949), p. 5Google Scholar.
40. This much is clearly implicit in the Kangzhan ribao report of 4 February 1945: “The Xiaoloufeng drama troupe was at first composed of village cadres and militia, but there were too few hands. … Thereupon, via the teachers, they mobilized a few primary school pupils to take part. But without female participants they still could not put on good plays” (my italics).
41. Kangzhan ribao, 4 February 1945.
42. Ibid.
43. I owe the translation to van der Loon, Piet, “Les origines rituelles du théâtre chinois”, Journal asiatique, 1977, p. 151Google Scholar. The terms appears as early as the Song dynasty.
44. yizu, Shan-Gan-Ning, “Zileban”, in Yang, Zhou et al. , Minjian wenyi he yiren (Kalgan: Xinhua shudian Jin-Cha-Ji fendian, 1946), pp. 72–73Google Scholar. Zileban performed different genres in different areas: daoqing in the Yan'an-Wayaobao area, in the Suide Subregion and in Yanchuan and Yanchang, east of Yan'an; in the Sanbian Subregion Meihu was the dominant genre, in East Gansu Qinqiang, in Guanzhong, Qinqiang and Meihu.
45. Zhu De was from such a family. See Smedley, Agnes, The Great Road (New York: Monthly Review Press 1956), p. 13Google Scholar. Mao's survey of Xingguo xian in Jiangxi (“Xingguo diaocha”) of 1931 divides vagrants (Humang) into the following categories of people: gamblers, beggars, water sellers and opium pedlars, geomancers, Taoist priests, Buddhist porters, fortune-tellers and wandering players (xi kezi) who performed with puppets. (Mao Zedong ji, Vol. II, pp. 230–32). Mao's report on the peasant movement in Hunan also notes that the ceremony of “beating in the spring” (da chun) was performed by vagrants in Liling xian.
46. See wenhuaju, Shanxi sheng, ed., Zhongguo difang xiqu jicheng: Shanxi (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1960), foreword, p. 13 and mapGoogle Scholar.
47. Fu, Qing and Li, Han, ed., Xibei mingeji, Vol. II (Jin-Sui zhi bu) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1950), pp. 25, 27, 30Google Scholar.
48. Ruiheng, Hao, “Jinsheng zhongbu de yangge”, Geyao, 2:13 (27 06 1936), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.
49. Geng, Zhang, Yangge yu xin geju (Dalian: Dazhong shudian, 1949) p. 9Google Scholar.
50. The titles are: (texts are extant for those marked with *) Geming tiaocai (Revolutionary herb-gathering); Fan mixin (Combat superstition); Jin Wu mai chai (Jin Wu sells firewood); Liu Huanwu zhuanbian (Liu Huanwu is transformed); Fang mianhua (Spinning cotton); Cha lutiao* (Inspecting road passes); Lan niurou (Rotten beef); Caozhuangtou qunzhong fan hanjian da douzheng (The great struggle of the Caozhuangtou masses against Chinese traitors); Zuguo de haizi (Child of China); Zhuo hanjian (Arresting Chinese traitors); Jian zu (Reduce rent); Gonggu huixin (Resolve to re-enlist); Lao jun (Cherish the army); Fan saodang (Combat incursion); Dongxue shengchan (Winter schools and production); Youkang guidui (Give preference to army dependents and return to the ranks); Quan fanzheng (Encourage a return to rectitude); Gaizao Zhang Liang (Reforming Zhang Liang); Zhangang fangshao (Sentry duty); Tao nan (Refugees); Xin Xiao fangniu (New little cowherd); Xueleichou* (Blood and tears hatred). In addition, the Nüxu bainian performed by the Nantou village troupe is almost certainly Sange nüxu bai xinnian, by Wang Van and An Chunzhen (n.p., Jin-Sui bianqu Lüliang wenhua jiaoyu chubanshe, 1944) (winner of the third prize for drama in the 1944 “Triple Seven” competition for literature and art in Jin-Sui). (Copy held at the Hoover Institution.)
51. Jianling, Ma, Cha lutiao (n.p., Xinhua shudian, 1944–1951) (copy held at Hoover)Google Scholar.
52. Jianling, Ma, Xueleichou (Kalgan: Xinhua shudian Jin-Cha-Ji fendian, 1945.12)Google Scholar (copy held at Hoover).
53. Kangzhan ribao, 26 January 1945, p. 4. No text is available, but various fragments, with music, are found in Meihu quxuan (Yan'an: Yingong hezuoshe, 1945.7)Google Scholar.
54. Da tiaocai is a yangge play of the Central Shanxi region. A text is available: Jiemei liaocai (Xi-Tai yangge), in Zhongguo difang xiqu jicheng: Shanxi, pp. 843–50. This has almost certainly been revised, however. Zhang Liang mai bu is a song and folk play current throughout North-west China: it is associated particularly with Meihu. The plot concerns a I man who is sent out by his wife to sell her cloth at the market: he spends all the money on gambling and, when he returns home, makes up all sorts of far-fetched stories to put his wife off the track – in short, a play of the domestic argument type. The text of a south-west Shanxi Meihu version is found in Zhongguo difang xiqu jicheng: Shanxi, pp. 653–78. New revolutionary versions of this play were also produced in Shan-Gan-Ning, for example, Ran, Pei, ed., Zhang Lian mai bu (Meihuju) (Yan'an: Bianqu Xinhua shudian n.d., 1945.12)Google Scholar.
Xiao fangniu is a folk play found throughout north China, and was mentioned by Mao in his Talks. An erotic skit performed by a herd-boy and a weaving-maid, it consisted mainly of riddling songs. New revolutionary versions were developed by local-level troupes; everywhere after 1943 or so: the text of one is found Geng, Zhang, Zangge ju yu xuanji, Vol. 3Google Scholar.
55. GMWW(2), pp. 11–12.
56. The following events, for example, are reported to have happened during a performance of the Yan'an Military Law Office's play “Zhong Wancai raises up his household”: “[During the performance] the Houjiagou layabout Li Mantang was pointed out derisively by a youth from the same village, who shouted mockingly at Li, “Now that you see the example of others, what are you going to do?' After Li had been shamed into contrition, he announced his resolution on the spot: ‘This year I resolve to work well. I will clear twelve or thirteen shang of land, all by myself (one labour power), and will even dare to compete with Zhong Wancai!’ Hou Hongfan of the same village said, ‘This is good propaganda. When those slippery layabouts see it, they can transform themselves without being campaigned against!” (Jiefang ribao, 20 February 1944, p. 4 “Junfachu de yangge” (Junfachu tongxun xiaozu)).
57. “Ji Zhuanyaowan luoma dahui”, in Ling, Ding, Shanbei fengguang (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1950), pp. 56–58Google Scholar.
58. This was the position adopted by Yang, Zhou, “Biaoxian xin de qunzhong de shidai”, in Siqi, Ai et al. , Yangge lunwen xuanji (Dalian: Zhong-Su youhao xiehui, 1947), p. 11Google Scholar. In fact, of course, fertility rites are found in a great many traditional societies throughout the world, with many characteristics in common, and would seem to be part of a stratum of culture dating from the Neolithic revolution: they thus ante-date the “feudal” stage in human history (so-called) by some thousands of years. To be fair, not all CCP commentators adopted the official explanation. Zhang Geng, in his essay Yangge yu xin geju, pointed out that “yangge is derived from superstitious ritual, and even today the old yangge retains this characteristic” (see supra, note 49). Zhang traced the pedigree of yangge-like observances back to the Nuo of Zhou times and the yingshen saihui (Races to welcome the gods) of the Tang. The official explanation, of course, was intended to obscure the connection of yangge with religious ritual.
59. GMWW(2), p. 11.
