Art, Literature and Culture

The following study guide was originally published by The Marxist-Leninist news blog:

“In the world today all culture, all literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines. There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause; they are, as Lenin said, cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.” – Mao Zedong, Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art

Poster for the opera, Red Detachment of Women

Beginning and Essential readings

• On Proletarian Culture by V.I. Lenin
• On Art and Culture by J.V. Stalin
• Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art by Mao Zedong

Supplementary readings

• Soviet Literature by Maxim Gorky
• Literature of a Revolutionary Period by Lu Xun
• The United Front in Cultural Workby Mao Zedong
• For Your Reference: About ‘Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art’ from Peking Review
• Summary of the Forum on the Work in Literature and Art in the Armed Forces With Which Comrade Lin Piao Entrusted Comrade Chiang Ching from Peking Review
• Literary and Art Workers Must Go Among the Masses by Hsin Wen-tung
• Has Absolute Music No Class Character? by Chao Hua
• Revolution in Literature and Art: Spring Comes to China’s Stage from Peking Review
• Notes on a Materialist Theatre by Louis Althusser
• National Culture and the Fight for Freedom by Frantz Fanon
• National Liberation and Culture by Amilcar Cabral
• Socialism and Man in Cuba by Ernesto Che Guevara
• Modern Art was CIA Weapon by Frances Stonor Saunders
• The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited by James Petras