The Creation of a New World
This essay will first discuss the importance of form for Chinese revolution. The success of the Yan'an revolution lies in its discovery of an appropriate national form, wherein Marxism transcended from the abstract realm to the material, and as a result, the arts that were produced were able to embody a Chinese style and spirit. In these rural reconstruction movements, in contrast to Republic-era rural reconstruction movements like Liang Shuming's, the arts served as a practice which, starting from the small tasks of everyday life, and a new family tradition to a new village custom, ultimately winning the heart of the masses and encouraging peasants to stand up. As cultural politics, the Yan'an arts movement also became an art that created a new world.