Hua Guofeng and the Village Drama Movement in the North-west Shanxi Base Area, 1943–45

It has long been recognized that there is a particularly close relationship between art and politics in post-1949 China. And indeed this is true. The relationship, however, has usually been viewed only in “macro” terms, as one in which the Party – or the Party through its agents – stifles dissent and makes demands on writers and artists for works reflecting “the Party line”. As a general description of course there may be more than a grain of truth in this, but put in this way nothing could be less interesting. A more complex and dialectical picture emerges when one focuses more sharply on the process of artistic production in its immediate social context. The study of village-level drama and song-and-dance is ideal for this kind of investigation, in spite of the fact that it is “mere propaganda”: not only does it allow us a closer look at the actual implementation and effects of cultural policy, rather than just policy formulation, but often evidence is sufficient for us to discern salient features of the local cultural context and the ways in which artistic form and content have been adapted to specific local issues and local personalities. At this level in Chinese society, where relationships between cadres, artists and their audiences are personalized and the deeds of local labour heroes re-enacted on stage, the distinction between art and reality is not all that clear, stage action mimics political action, and vice versa, and the roles of the Party cadre and stage director are intertwined.