The Propaganda And Literary Tactics In The First Nationalist Revolution

By probing into the propaganda, literary tactics carried out in the first NationalistRevolution (1923-1927), my dissertation is expected to explain the followingquestions: What's the state of literature between the period of "literary revolution"period and the period of "revolutionary literature". Why the literary propositions ofthe Creation Society (Chuang Zao She) and those of Jiang Guangchi were notrecognized by Chinese Communist Party at that time? Why the proposal of"revolutionary literature" put forward by Deng Zhongxia and Yun Daiying in an earlytime didn't trigger off the "controversy over revolutionary literature" until the GreatRevolution was failed in1928? Why was the status of the intellectuals reduced frombeing the "teachers" to the "fellow travelers", then to "weak dual characters" andfinally to "renegades"?My dissertation demonstrates that the first Nationalist Revolution was a specialhistorical period between the "literary revolution" period and the period of"revolutionary literature". The investigation into the literary and artistic creationconducted by the intellectuals during the May4th Movement, who identifiedthemselves with the first Nationalist Revolution, should be closely linked to the studyof their political ideologies. Propaganda organizations in the co-operation of theKuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party provided the intellectuals with aplatform to realize their political ideals. The outlook of the intellectuals on literatureand art shifted from the national salvation by literature during the May4th LiteraryRevolution to the literature serving the social and political revolution and serving thepropaganda——propaganda and literature should be integrated with each other andtransform each other. In their revolutionary practice, the intellectuals should trace tothe sources and get at the roots of things and should draw nourishment for thestruggle from Russian and Soviet revolutionary theories and controversies overliterature and art. My dissertation traces the history of the Soviet ProletarianAssociation of Culture and the "Post Advocators", pointing out that in entering intocontroversy with Leon Trotsky and Aleksandr Konstantinovich Voronsky, the Soviet political party was always on the alert against the concept of "Proletarian Literature".Translation of the historical materials on Soviet literary and artistic controversiesaroused great interest in Chinese intellectuals. Men of letters like Lu Xun, Mao Dun,Qu Qiubai, Feng Xuefeng and Guo Moruo, etc., all digested and absorbed thematerials from different perspectives and started controversy on such a theoreticalbasis. In order to defend the co-operative framework of the bourgeois democraticrevolution, the Soviet-guided National Revolution did not advocate the "ProletarianDictatorship" for most of the time and,as a result, the concept of "ProletarianLiterature" was held in check during the National Revolution. After the May30thMovement, the rising awareness of the proletariat to seize power in the alliance of theKuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party made the policies during the NorthernExpedetion to vacillate between "expanding the revolution" and "deepening therevolution", and the line of compromise of Stalin advocating "expanding therevolution" held the "Proletarian Literature" in check once again. Under suchcircumstances, a large-scale debate on the concept of "Proletarian Literature" did nottake shape until the "Right-deviationist" mistakes were squared up in the wake of theGreat Revolution.