| This study deals with various patterns in China's policy towards literature and art, the main characteristics of each policy model, the factors explain the variation and replacement of policy models, and comparison of Chinese literary policy with other public policies in China and literary policies in other communist countries.;Distinct and recurring general patterns in China's public policies have long attracted scholars' attention. Between 1949 and 1989, there have been three variants in China's policy towards literature and art: the bureaucratic model (including the original and revised), the radical model, and the semi-market model. Each of these models covers a period of at least five years and has distinctive main features. Meanwhile, minor policy oscillation per se does not indicate the replacement of policy models. It is a common feature shared by all the three models.;China's literary policy has four main roots: ancient Chinese tradition, CCP revolutionary experiences, Leninist practice of the Communist Party, and influences of Western capitalism. Each of these origins has contributed to the formation and interaction of and among the three policy models. For instance, the Confucian doctrine helped to make China's intellectuals active participants in literary inquisitions. Instead of an independent and alienated intellectual class which has been constantly fighting against the Party control, China has experienced a distinctive unity of scholarship and power--top leaders, bureaucrats and intellectuals collaborated in creating and shaping the literary policy.;In every model of China's literary policy, there are "winners" and "losers". Winners and losers could form different clusters to give support or resistance to a certain policy. One of the causes for the replacement of policy models is not the uncompromising battle between the intellectuals and the Communist Party, but the conflicts between differently situated groups among the intellectuals.;One of the important themes in this study relates to the common factors which have affected a number of China's public policy fields, and a number of countries dominated by Leninist ideology and organization. It is concluded that a synthesis of the three models may be found in some other areas of China's public policy, and also in some other socialist countries. But not all the public policies in China, nor literary policies in all the socialist countries follow such a specific pattern of three trajectories. |
