Chapter 8 1957 "The Cuckoo Crows Again"

Genre: Drama Author: Yang Lufang Premiere: June 1956 Director: Mo Yan Performed by: Frontline Drama Troupe of Nanjing Military Region Original publication: "Script" Published: Issue 1, 1957 From the summer of 1956 to the eve of the "Anti-Rightist" struggle in 1957, there was a short-lived but significant period in the history of contemporary Chinese drama, which was the "fourth script" period. In 1956, the entire domestic situation shifted from mass class struggle to large-scale economic and cultural construction, which is an inevitable requirement of history.However, the thinking style and work style of some people in the party and government departments at that time were far from meeting the needs of the situation.Ideological subjectivism, theoretical dogmatism, work bureaucracy, and organizational sectarianism have seriously hindered the development of the cause.In the literary and art circles, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, more and more "Left" critical movements formed a situation of "uniformity of public opinion".This kind of "uniformity of public opinion" undermines socialist democracy politically, and leads to the proliferation of formulas and conceptualizations in creation.

In 1956, which was also a year of turmoil internationally, the "Twentieth Congress" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held, and a trend of anti-"Stalinism" emerged, which caused great shock in the entire communist movement.The international and domestic situation made it necessary to launch an ideological emancipation movement in our country.At the Supreme State Council that year, Mao Zedong put forward the policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend", and for the first time clearly stated: "Different forms and styles in art can develop freely, and different schools of thought in science can freely debate", "art and science Questions of right and wrong should be resolved through free debate in the academic circles." ("On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People") Inspired by Mao Zedong's "Double Hundred" policy, the academic circles first showed unprecedented vitality and emancipation.Many problems that have not been resolved in previous literary and artistic movements have been brought up again for discussion and debate.For example, the direction of workers, peasants and soldiers, the relationship between political orientation and artistic authenticity, the worldview and creative methods, intervention in life, praise and exposure, the diversification of genres, themes and styles, as well as the simplification and vulgarization of literary criticism, the Formulation and conceptualization in creation.The discussion and debate on these issues opened a door of hope for the "let a hundred flowers bloom" in literary and artistic creation.As a result, a number of works that broke through the forbidden area, boldly intervened in life, and truly described people in real life came out one after another, thus beginning the creation period of the "fourth script" in the history of contemporary drama.

The leader of the "fourth script" is "The Cuckoo Crows Again" by Yang Lufang. Yang Lufang, formerly known as Yang Guanghua, was born on August 3, 1925 in Bishan County, Chongqing City.He loved drama when he was a student, and actively participated in some political activities and student movements. In 1947, he was admitted to the choreography research class of Shanghai Experimental Drama School (the predecessor of Shanghai Theater Academy). He joined the army in May 1949 and joined the Southern Jiangsu Military Region Art Troupe as a screenwriter and director. From 1952 to 1969, he successively worked as a playwright in the East China Military Region and the People’s Liberation Army Art Theater of the Third Field Army (the predecessor of the Frontline Drama Troupe of the Nanjing Military Region). In 1969, he was demobilized and worked as a screenwriter at the Ma'anshan Repertory Theater Troupe in Anhui Province. In 1978, he was transferred to the Shengli Peking Opera Troupe of the Wuhan Military Region as a creator, and later as a creator at the Art Research Office of the Art Troupe.His writing is mainly plays, as well as poetry and prose.Plays include: one-act play "Rushing for Coffins" (1948), (1948), multi-act play "Millions of Coastal Defense" (co-operation with others, 1955), "The Cuckoo Crows Again" (1956), "The Land That Never Sleeps" (one-act play ), "Our Team Toward the Sun" (1963), "Jiao Yulu" (1965) and Peking Opera "Qianqiu Festival" (1979), etc.

"The Cuckoo Crows Again" (hereinafter referred to as "The Cloth") is Yang Lufang's representative work, written in 1956 and published in the first issue of "Script" in 1957.The plot describes that after the establishment of a high-level club in a certain village in the south of the Yangtze River, it aroused the great enthusiasm of the members for production, and carried out a campaign to accumulate manure, turning winter leisure into winter busy, and even the women who turned around the pots became "half the sky" of productive labor.The protagonist, Tong Yanan, is a lively and cheerful girl. She competes and sings to the boys, so she is called "cuckoo".Yanan's fiancé, Wang Bihao, is a member of the Communist Youth League, but he is narrow-minded and selfish, and puts forward five ridiculous conditions to Yanan, restricting Yanan from singing and not allowing her to associate with the young Shen Xiaojia.In order to prevent Yanan and Shen Xiaojia from going to learn tractors together, he unreasonably removed Yanan's target, and stole Shen Xiaojia's diary to threaten Yanan.Yanan broke with him in a rage, and at the same time revived his love for Shen Xiaojia.Wang Bihao colluded with Kong Yucheng, another branch committee member, to illegally expel Yanan from the regiment. "Cuckoo" was dumbfounded.Wang Bihao and Kong Yucheng's behavior of using power for personal gain aroused the dissatisfaction of the members, and also attracted the attention of Guo Jialin, an old party member.Fang Baoshan, the branch secretary, only cared about production and not about the life of members. Guo Jialin used aggressive methods to make him realize the bias of his thinking.They severely criticized and punished Wang Bihao and Kong Yucheng, and supported Tong Yanan to learn tractors.Yanan got the chance to learn, and also got the love with Shen Xiaojia, and the singing of "Cuckoo" sounded again.The play reflects the reality of life in a specific historical stage, but the whole play is full of rural life and comedy, praising the socialist ideals of young peasants and their desire and pursuit of true love, especially in the portrayal of the heroine Tong Ya-nan. In the movie, the formulaic and conceptual creative mode was swept away, and her lively, enthusiastic, daring to love, and daring to hate characters were portrayed in flesh and blood, which was true and credible, and was deeply loved by the audience.Some people say that the "cloth" play is "a beautiful lyrical comedy full of passion for life and joy of labor" and "one of the best plays reflecting rural life in recent years".Some people say that through the description of "Cuckoo" and her love life, the author "shows the picture of the prosperous life of Woye in the south of the Yangtze River after the rural cooperatives" and "From her, we can see the rural youth who have got rid of oppression and exploitation. The brilliance of a new type of character". On June 6, 1957, Wu Qiang published the article "Looking at "The Cuckoo Crows Again"" in "Wen Wei Po" and enthusiastically praised this work: "This play is not out of date, that is to say, our writers are not like many writers. As the writer said, first draw up a square frame in the room, and then put the phenomenon of life into it one by one according to the prescribed schema like building blocks... (it) is similar to those formulaic conceptualizations The works have two different appearances, no matter how well-made those formulaic and conceptual works are, they are nothing but elaborate human puppets.”

The creation of this play fully demonstrates the vitality of realistic drama creation.Talking about the creation of the play, the author said: "From 1955 to 1956, at the height of the agricultural cooperative movement, as a reporter for Xinhua Daily, I went to some rural areas in southern and northern Jiangsu to experience life. I was deeply moved by the large number of new people, new things, and new atmosphere that emerged in the agricultural cooperative movement, and I also saw the resistance and interference in the agricultural cooperative movement. I think, from the perspective of fighting against class enemies to destroy the cooperative movement There are quite a few works praising the road of cooperation, but there are not many works praising the road of cooperation from the perspective of fighting against the old ideas and styles among the people. Issues such as life, love, labor, and ideals, as well as the resulting contradictions and struggles, in the form of comedy, reveal the theme of 'talent is the treasure of building socialism' and 'we must care about people'." ("On "Cuckoo" The Bird Crows Again "Some Creation Situations", "Script" May 1958 issue)

The play was premiered in June 1956 by the Frontline Repertory Troupe of the Nanjing Military Region, directed by Mo Yan.The Shanghai People's Art Theater also staged this play this year, and the director Huang Zuolin had a great influence.The play has been staged widely across the country and has been adapted into operas, operas and films. Li Hong (i.e. Liu Chuan) was very excited after watching the "Cloth" play performed by the Frontline Drama Troupe of the Nanjing Military Region. He published a review article in the "Nanjing Daily" on June 11, 1957, entitled "The Fourth Kind of Script—Comment on "The Cuckoo Crows Again".The article makes sharp criticisms on the problems and bad tendencies in the creation of dramas at that time, such as formula and conceptualization in drama creation, by commenting on the "cloth" drama, and at the same time clearly clarifies its own standpoints.The article said: "I remember someone said something like this: There are only three kinds of scripts on the stage of our drama: workers, peasants, and soldiers. Workers' script: the struggle between advanced ideas and conservative ideas. Peasant's script: the struggle between joining the society and not joining the society. Army script: The military struggle between our army and the enemy. Although this is a bit harsh, it also expresses a certain situation in the period when the concept of formulas ruled the stage. Audiences, critics and playwrights themselves cannot help asking the question: can we How about writing a fourth type of play that doesn’t fall into the above three boxes?” This passage was later misrepresented as Liu Chuan’s opposition to writing about workers, peasants and soldiers.In fact, Liu Chuan's point of view is very clear. What he opposes is only formulaic and conceptual descriptions of workers, peasants and soldiers, and he does not object to the real description of the lives of workers, peasants and soldiers.This can be proved from his praise of the "cloth" play.

In terms of characterization, many dramas at that time had the practice of determining the thoughts of characters according to their class origin and political status.In this way, the "person" in the work is no longer a living person in life, but the incarnation of a concept. The "cloth" drama boldly breaks through the old frame of character creation. It "does not classify the advanced and the backward according to the class formula at all, and does not label various ideas according to the party members and the masses." It completely follows the real life. Write about people by their true colors.Liu Chuan said: "The author did not consider identity first here, but he considered life, which is the unique form of life itself!" For this reason, he called on playwrights to be loyal to life and respect life, "Let thoughts obey life, not let Ideas take the place of life." (The Fourth Playbook)

At that time, "long-winded ideological debates" often appeared in many dramas. In the organization of drama conflicts, many authors were either over "love views" or "life attitudes"; Disagreement, they "preach" to the audience through this argument and disagreement.Liu Chuan was very dissatisfied with this. He pointed out that the "surprising" part of the plot arrangement of "The Cuckoo Crows Again" lies in: how the heroine "Cuckoo" made compromises at first, and wanted to reconcile with Wang Bihao, the Youth League branch committee member.Later, in pain and tears, she came to a conclusion: the one she should love is Shen Xiaojia, a young tractor driver.The audience is completely caught by the emotional entanglement of several people in the play, and it is not until the end that they suddenly realize: it turns out that this is a struggle that runs through two ideas and attitudes to life. "The author quietly taught us something—an irresistible and ingenious preaching!" "Preaching to the audience without hearing the dogma, this is the author's surprise." ("The Fourth Play")

However, the fate of "The Cuckoo Crows Again" did not go smoothly due to the audience's praise. In the expansion of the "Anti-Rightist Movement" in 1957, the slogan of "intervention in life" became a variant of the revisionist literary trend of thought.Many works that satirize and criticize the work style and life style of some party and government cadres are identified as "poisonous weeds born in response to the 'luck' of revisionism" and "weapons" of the rightists against the party and socialism".In this blow, several representative works known as "the fourth type of script"—Yang Lufang's "The Cuckoo Crows Again", Yue Ye's "Sharing Wealth and Wealth", and Haimo's "Dongxiao Blowing Horizontally"—were lucky enough to succeed. A "fish that slipped through the net".However, in the second criticism of "revisionist literary and artistic thought" in 1959, they were all listed as "mopping up".

This "mopping up" was directly related to the extreme "left" trend of literary and artistic thought at that time. The "cloth" play was widely performed throughout the country, and was praised by most audiences, but some people opposed it. In the autumn of 1958, when the Henan opera adaptation of the play was performed in Henan, some people expressed dissatisfaction.In November of this year, four people including Liu Xueqin of the Henan Shangqiu County Committee published "What kind of play is "The Cuckoo Crows Again" in the 22nd issue of "Literary News"? ", criticized the script, believing that the script "has problems in its ideological orientation".In the autumn of this year, Ke Qingshi suddenly raised a question about the "Bu" drama: "Are there such rural cadres? This is a distortion of rural cadres!" Ke Qingshi's question was a signal to encircle and suppress the "Bu" drama .Sure enough, Yao Wenyuan soon published the article "From What Criteria to Evaluate the Ideological Quality of a Work-Some Different Opinions on the Play "The Cuckoo Crows Again"" in the 12th issue of "Script" in 1958. The theme and characters of the book were completely negated.Then, "Literary News" and "Drama News" also published similar critical articles, forming a three-sided attack on "cloth".For this reason, the "Script" magazine organized "Discussion on "The Cuckoo Crows Again"" from the March 1959 issue, which lasted for more than four months. After Yao Wenyuan's article, Chen Gongmin, Wang Shide, Tong Yun, Ye Tao, Chen Baichen and many other articles.

Chen Gongmin was extremely disgusted with Yao Wenyuan's criticism methods of grabbing braids, beating sticks, and infinitely above the outline, so he bravely stood up and wrote "A Discussion on the Play "The Cuckoo Crows Again" and Its Criticism" ("Script", 1959 March issue) launched a tit-for-tat debate with Yao Wenyuan.The article comprehensively refuted Yao Wenyuan's article from the four aspects of the theme of "The Cloth", the understanding of Tong Yanan's image, whether Fang Baoshan, the branch secretary, is typical, and whether the work distorts the party organization.He believes that "cloth" play "whether in terms of the author's subjective motivation or the objective effect of the work, its basic idea is correct. Although the theme is not concentrated enough, it has positive significance. The author's attack on the remnants of the old consciousness is powerful. , The criticism of the shortcomings in the work is well-intentioned, and it is appropriate to explore the combination of various comedy factors and deal with the irony and ridicule of backward phenomena. This kind of enthusiastic exploration provides a good creative experience. "When making political conclusions on his works, he believes that "we should be particularly cautious, we must advocate the spirit of seeking truth from facts, and the attitude of reasoning with each other, and we should not just label them casually."In particular, he sharply criticized Yao Wenyuan's comments as "a typical example of vulgar sociology." Chen Gongmin's article hit Yao Wenyuan's vitals.A year later, Yao Wenyuan published another eloquent article "On Comrade Chen Gongmin's "Ideological Principles" and "Aesthetic Principles"". The set of "ideological principles" and "aesthetic principles" that are preached wrongly exaggerate the contradiction between the leadership and the masses, deny the class struggle in the contradictions among the people in a socialist society; praise the individualism and individual liberation of the bourgeoisie; oppose the proletariat The collectivist ideology of communism; under the pretext of criticizing "simplification and profiling", oppose literary works that must have a clear proletarian stance, oppose class analysis of characters' personalities, and oppose literary works that create excellent positive characters; Confusing non-essential phenomena with essential phenomena in life, opposing typicalization, and opposing Marxist analysis of life phenomena; denying that socialist literature should focus on praising the light... All of these are bourgeois political views It shows that Comrade Chen Gongmin has been deeply eroded by bourgeois ideology and bourgeois literary and artistic ideas." Yao Wenyuan is obviously not evaluating literary works and debate issues here, but is criticizing Chen Gongmin and the "cloth" drama. Make the final political verdict.Sure enough, since then, the "Blood" drama has become an undoubted poisonous weed, the adapted film was forced to stop, and Chen Gongmin's right to speak was also deprived.Originally, after reading Yao Wenyuan's second article, Chen Gongmin wrote an "Open Letter to Comrade Yao Wenyuan" to reply.However, due to the situation at that time, there was nowhere for Chen Gongmin's open letter to be "published". With the encirclement and suppression of the "Bu" drama, works such as "Sharing Wealth and Wealth" and "Dongxiao Horizontal Blowing" were also criticized, and they all suffered disasters. Li Hong, the author of the article "The Fourth Script", was almost expelled from the party. During the "Guangzhou Conference" in 1962, Lin Mohan, on behalf of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, vindicated "The Cuckoo Crows Again" and "Horizontal Flute" and criticized Yao Wenyuan's articles.Chen Yi said angrily: "A cadre can't be criticized?! A county party secretary's tiger butt can't be touched?!" However, during the Cultural Revolution, this script was once again labeled as a "poisonous weed", and the adapted film was listed by Jiang Qing as "anti-Party and anti-society". People involved (including Chen Gongmin) were implicated and persecuted.Haimo was restored in 1962 under the personal care of Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi. However, he became a "counter-revolutionary" during the Cultural Revolution and was persecuted to death in 1968.It was not until 1979, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, that the "cloth" play was truly rehabilitated, and the author was completely liberated. (written by Liu Ping) Yue Ye: "Sharing Wealth and Wealth", "Script" No. 10, 1956 Haimer: "Hole Xiao Blows Horizontally", "Script" No. 11, 1956 Wu Qiang: "Looking at 'The Cuckoo Crows Again'", Wen Wei Po, June 6, 1957 Li Hong (Liu Chuan): "The Fourth Script——Comment on "The Cuckoo Crows Again", "Nanjing Daily", June 11, 1957 Liu Xueqin and others: What kind of play is "The Cuckoo Crows Again"? ", "Literary News" No. 22, 1958 Yao Wenyuan: "From What Criteria to Evaluate the Ideological Quality of Works——Some Different Opinions on the Play "The Cuckoo Crows Again", "Script" No. 12, 1958 Chen Gongmin: "A Discussion on the Play "The Cuckoo Crows Again" and Its Criticism", "Script" No. 3, 1959