Dear Readers,
Friends, much has happened since I have last written. In the past few years our homeland has come under attack by a truly devilish enemy bent on the destruction of our nation and our way of life. I myself have been driven from my family’s home in Beijing and there is no sign of when I might be able to return there. Since then, I have fallen in with a Group of refugees bound for the Communist held territories in Yenan. As we travelled it became apparent to me that a great many people were making the same journey, indeed it seemed at times as though the whole countryside was moving ahead of the Japanese advance. Since my arrival I have seen the great progress, the communists have made in their struggle to bring about new China. Spirits are buoyant here; everyone believes that this is the foundation from which we shall drive the Japanese from our shores.
I have had the opportunity to interact with a large cross section of the communist party. While I spend much of my time travelling in the local countryside, interviewing the regular members of the party and those living under communist rule, I have on several occasions had the opportunity to speak with the leadership as well. It is here that I believe is the core of why the people are so enthusiastic about the communist party. The leadership of the Communist party, particularly Chairman Mao, has been making use o their time here to put into practice many of the policies they have promised in the past. I have seen a great effort on the behalf of the party to take the great masses of people that have come here hoping for reprieve from the Japanese and to forge them into good members of the communist party. It is here dear Reader that I am skeptical of the methods of the Communist party, effective though they may be.
In an effort to increase the unity of the front that the Party is showing its enemies, both the Japanese and the Nationalists, a new strategy has been put in place to bring everyone around to the same pattern of “revolutionary thought”. The Chairman has on several occasion highlighted the importance of the masses, and that good leadership revolves around the ability to take the general population and make them active for the revolution. With that I must agree for it is the people which must bear the brunt of the burden of revolution and who will sustain it, but there is a very strange and potentially dangerous method of reformation of the thought that I believe has the potential to spell doom for the whole affair. This “thought reform” is based reconditioning a person’s thoughts to be more in line with the party’s goals. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of this new process was a conference that the chairman held last year where he laid out the groundwork for a new set of literary and artistic pattern where the works of the artists, the authors and the poets must be easily understood by the masses and must portray some aspect of the revolution. Increasing the availability and reach of art is clearly a boon both to the people and to the artist, but the control that the party wishes to hold over the production of art I consider to be worrying. A part of what inspired me to enter into higher education was the depth and breadth of the literature I was exposed to overseas, and I was enthused by the prospect that the revolution might break the hold that traditionalism held over the literature and art of our own nation. If the communist party is able to fully take control of it, have we not just replaced one stagnation for another? In any case it has still yet to be seen just how effective this new program is to be, and I shall be eager to watch and see if the artists and authors shall go along with it.
My friends, I shall write again soon,
Fare well
Huang Zhen Mu, I am glad you were able to escape safely from the Japanese. You do not mention your family though. Are they alive? Do you know their whereabouts? I apologize for touching on a sensitive topic but after I heard about the atrocities the Japanese were committing on our people, it is hard for me to not be concerned.
While I will also miss reading foreign publications, I do agree with what Chairman Mao said about arts and literature. I think about my father, who is too old but too stubborn to learn to read. I know he has the spirit of the CCP in him and I want him to be apart of the new China that we are building at Yenan. The arts is a method for him to comfortably understand the doctrines of the party. It will take some time to get used to but I am sure the new arts and literature that will be produced will be just as excellent as the books we were reading before.
Hello Huang Zhen Mu, I find your take on the situation very interesting. Being an ally of the CCP myself, I cannot agree with everything that you are saying. Although thought reform may sound scary, it truly is in the best interest of the party. With Japan invading our homeland and the Nationalist party doing very little to help the Chinese people, it is up to the CCP to provide a better life for many Chinese families. With the impending threats the CCP needs to be a united front and chairman Mao is attempting to create this unified party and can’t have individuals going against the best interest of the masses.
I am so sorry to hear that you were driven from your home my fellow writer but I am glad that you found a group to travel with. From my time in Yenan, I can confirm that spirits are most certainly high, as the people here seem to fully believe in the cause they are fighting for. I also think that you raise ce an interesting point about the so-called thought reform. While I strongly believe that our ways need to be changed, I do not think those with an education should be silenced, as they have studied to elevate the lives of themselves and of their families.