Devin Waugh

Dr. Luo

CHI 331

Section 001

7 November 2013

Communist China and The Arts

Communism and Socialism are two similar, yet different types of governing types that are seen throughout history and our world today. The Communist party and its leader Mao Zedong used both Communism and Socialism during the revolutionary period of China to bring stability after the Japanese occupation and the long Chinese Civil war ending in 1950.  China’s new government style completely changed the way China was run and created a great sense of nationalism for the people by using propaganda and mass media technology, like the radio, to reach out to the people. Though, with Communism now allowing the government in control of everything, it’s a wonder how the arts were affected at this time of China’s history. A common association with Communism is that it hinders the arts of a nation due to absolute control by the government and their ability to pick and choose what the people see. The Communist party of China is found guilty of hindering China’s artistic ideas and abilities throughout it’s government control by bolstering arts that saw the government a positive light and doing away with the traditional theater.

            The bolstering of plays in favor of the Communist party is obvious throughout the early years of its control. Plays and operas such as “The Red Lantern” brought about nationalism for the people of China and showed great Communist party members sacrificing their lives in order to defeat the Japanese by delivering secret codes to the Communist party army.  This is shown when Li says, “We’ll think of some way to send it, Tieh-mei. You’ve seen everything. I can’t keep this from you any longer. This is something more important than our own lives. We must keep it a secret even if it costs us our heads.” (Page 173) The acting and plot of the opera was not the only thing used to show the government in a positive lighting, but how the opera was run. This opera along with many others took on the western style of theater rather than sticking to the tradition ways. This was done in many ways such as using more instruments in the orchestra. “The Red Lantern” used 17 musicians for 25 instruments, including new instruments that added to bass and treble that were absent from traditional theater some 20 years before and allowed for an all around greater sound for the audience. The acting also changed in which the actors now had spoken dialog rather than the traditional singing conversations and portrayed regular citizens rather than great and ancient heroes. Lastly, the costumes and setting of theater greatly changed in which the setting was now a painted background instead of just spoken beforehand to the audience. All of these factors did revamp the Chinese theater during the early Communist ruling and brought more audience members, but hindered the creativity of the arts by doing away with the traditional theater. The traditional theater was looked down upon at this time due to it being associated with the “old society” of China, which went against the ideals of the Communist party. It also hindered the creativity of theater because most theater plays and operas focused on the greatness of the government and its devoted followers, thus not allowing for works that might have been done in traditional theater.

            The Communist party used the ideals of Communism and Socialism throughout its early rule in China. Some of these themes used were class warfare, which we see in the countryside when peasants overthrew the landlords. With this overthrow of the landlords came the land to be redistributed out to the peasants where all the crops would then be distributed evenly throughout all of China. These ideals were passed along to the general public from the government through propaganda, communist leaders traveling to spread the word, and mass media. The affects and reasons behind this redistribution of land are clearly shown by “Teahouse” Act one by Lao She. In act one the characters bicker amongst themselves about the state of China and its people. One of the main themes of act one is hat the countryside of china is extremely poor and the peasants cannot feed themselves and are forced to sell their own children in hopes they will have a better life as prostitutes and servants and the parents will have enough money to eat. We see this in the conversation between the Sixth-Born Kang and Pockface Liu when Pockface says, “There aren’t ten taels of silver to be found in your whole village. In the countryside you can buy a child for five catties of wheat flour. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.” (Page 24) Another supporting quote of the extreme poverty in the countryside and lack of food is the conversation again with Pockface Liu and now Fourth Elder Chang when they say,

“Fourth Elder Chang: ‘What’s going on in the countryside, that people are driven to sell their children?’


Pockface Liu: ‘Who knows? But the way things are, even a dog would prefer to be born in Beijing.


Fourth Elder Chang: ‘Elder Liu, you must really be ruthless to make your living at this trade.’
Pockface Liu: ‘If it wasn’t for me maybe they wouldn’t find buyers…’” (Page 26) This play was written in 1957, seven years after the Communist Party took over China. This was one of the few works that spoke out against the Communist party partially, but was allowed to it demonizing the “old society.” It showed the people of China what the old society was like before the Communist regime and how they could not revert back to such awful times, thus showing the Communist party in positive a light.

            The arts during the early time of Communist China were not to par with the traditional ways of theater due to it being considered a way of the old society. The mindset of living for your government and propaganda monopolized theater in a way that all production was about the government and its success or call to actions for the people rather than telling heroic stories of ancestors or tragedies like “The Sea of Regret.”

Work Cited

Literary Section: Chinese Peking Opera House. The Red Lantern. Foreign Language

Press, 1966. Print.

She, Lao. Teahouse, The Chinese University Press, 2001. Print.

Yang, Daniel S. P. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 13, No. 4, Politics and Performance

(Summer, 1969), pp. 167-180, The MIT Press,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144496.