From ‘use of old forms’ to ‘establishment of a national form’: A re-evaluation of Mao's agenda of forging a cultural–political nation

Abstract

This paper aims to re-examine the important debates about ‘use of old forms’ and ‘establishment of a national form’ in Chinese intellectual circles of the 1940s. It discusses the contemporary referents of the ‘form’ and ‘content’ in the term ‘(national) form’ and explores the intricate relationship among literary language use, class consciousness, and a national culture. As a conclusion, it suggests that Mao's agenda of creating a ‘national form’ was not merely a means of achieving popularization but an end aimed at creating a revolutionary culture to facilitate the establishment of a homogenized and egalitarian society, or to forge a powerful cultural–political nation. This effort merits reappraisal in contemporary China, when differing interests and newly divided classes make the national consensus highly vulnerable.

Keywords:

• national form
• class nation
• political nation
• cultural hegemony

Notes

¹Ai Siqi made a distinction between genuine realism (xianshizhuyi), referring to certain Chinese forms of art believed to offer a true reflection of social reality, and the classical nineteenth-century European realism (xieshizhuyi), which, he contended, was merely a specific stylistic effect but not necessarily more faithful to reality. Meanwhile, he also referred to the realism of old Chinese forms as a sort of ‘special method’ that gave exaggerated and stylized expression to characters and social institutions. For him, ‘the function of art did not originally require a minute and exhaustive delineation of reality, but only demanded that it could forcefully grasp reality’. On the other hand, he also saw a contradiction here: although the exaggeration of old forms reflected reality forcefully, this stylization also ‘represents the conservative aspect of Chinese society’ because of its routinization. We surely cannot take this argument merely as a sort of nationalistic rhetoric, and we need to note that the realities in the two forms refer to two differing ways of life. See Ai (1939, 17–20).

²He says, ‘Particular forms are suitable for particular kinds of content; they came about in the midst of the old social structure, had their roots in the old world outlook, and already have their own old set of images’ (Zhou 1945, 37).

³He says, ‘Old forms and old content, though they can work for each other harmoniously, are absolutely not appropriate today. New content and old form are a little bit incongruous. New content set to new form is not only harmonious but also very necessary, though oftentimes the masses cannot accept it very quickly and naturally … I propose that we let content determine form, and apply a modern, advanced viewpoint to produce new content’. Clearly, this content–form determinism is also premised on a teleological point of view. Somewhat contradictory to his strong argument, however, is the fact that he also praised the achievement of the Chinese musical tradition and proposed to combine Chinese and Western musical instruments in a special brand of Chinese symphony orchestra. His rhetoric reminds us of the enduring formula of Chinese intellectuals: ‘Western knowledge as the essence, Chinese knowledge for the use (or raw materials)’. See Xian (1939, 1). David Holm (1991, 70) points out that ‘Xian's proposal amounted to taking the Western theory of harmony and applying it to Chinese music’.

⁴He comes to the conclusion that ‘there is little evidence in this essay … that Xian Xinghai paid very much attention to the musical tastes of the Chinese masses per se’. In his artistic creation, Xian thus typifies the direction preferred by this group of intellectuals: ‘Rather than starting from Chinese opera and then modernizing, Xian and his colleagues worked in the opposite direction, reworking Chinese musical material and fitting it into a Western operatic structure’. See Holm (1991, 60–2, 70).

⁵So Zhou Yang could say that the contradiction between advanced content and backward form ‘can even elicit the laughter of an experienced readership or audience during a tragic scene’. See Zhou (1945). David Holm (1991, 64) aptly comments, ‘Such incongruities might not have been so obvious to the mass audiences for whom such works were presumably intended’.

⁶David Holm (1991, 55) points out that ‘One result of this was that the ringing phrases and activist slogans proclaimed by Mao in October 1938 were gradually surrounded by a conservative exegesis which neutralized them and deprived them of any clear implications for practice. It was this process which eventually led to further interventions by Mao in 1940 and again in 1942’.

⁷See Mao (1976a, 260–1). The text in this version is closer to the original. For the revised version, also see Mao (1967, 209–10).

⁸The other rationalization after Mao had determined to bypass capitalism and the ‘new democratic society’ to arrive at socialism would be that, as the aforementioned harshly disadvantageous conditions precluded the possibility of bourgeois revolution and the development of capitalism in China, national liberation must go hand in hand with social revolution to liberate the peasants from exploitation and oppression by the landlords. Therefore, China would bypass capitalist development and go directly to socialism. See numerous articles of Mao's in the early 1950s.