Letter to the Yan'an Beijing Opera Theatre After Seeing «Driven to Join the Liang Mountain Rebels»
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of Letter to the Yan'an Beijing Opera Theatre After Seeing «Driven to Join the Liang Mountain Rebels» has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following editions:
- Letter to the Yenan Peking Opera Theatre After Seeing «Driven to Join the Liangshan Mountain Rebels», in Five Documents on Literature and Art, First English Edition, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1967.
- Letter to Yang Shaoxuan and Qi Yanming, in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 8, Routledge, New York and London, 2015.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is a letter from Comrade Mao Zedong in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China to Yang Shaoxuan and Qi Yanming dated the 9th of January, 1944. It was first published in 1967 in Five Documents on Literature and Art.
The Beijing opera Driven to Join the Liang Mountain Rebels is an episode from Water Margin, the 14th-century classical novel. It tells how Lin Chong, spurred on by the strength shown by the people, resolved to join their rebellion against the reactionary rulers.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#LETTER TO THE YAN'AN BEIJING OPERA THEATRE AFTER SEEING DRIVEN TO JOIN THE LIANG MOUNTAIN REBELS
#LETTER TO YANG SHAOXUAN AND QI YANMING
#Mao Zedong
#9th of January, 1944
#★
#Comrades Shaoxuan and Yanming
Having seen your performance, I wish to express my thanks to you for the excellent work you have done. Please convey my thanks to the comrades of the cast! History is made by the people, yet the old opera (and all the old literature and art, which are divorced from the people) presents the people as though they were dirt, and the stage is dominated by lords and ladies and their pampered children. Now, you have reversed this reversal of history and restored historical truth, and thus a new life is opening up for the old opera. That is why this merits congratulations. The initiative you have taken marks an epoch-making beginning in the revolutionization of the old opera. In the area of historical drama, Guo Moruo has done excellent work. You have done the same in the realm of the old opera. I am very happy at the thought of this. I hope that you will write more plays and give more performances, and so help make this practice a common one, which will prevail throughout the country.
Salutations!