Keyword

“Politics” occupies a special and prominent place in Chinese Marxist literary criticism and is an essential element of the Chinese form. Moreover, the relationship between literature and politics runs through the entire historical process of Chinese Marxist literary criticism and has become another major dimension.

1 Marx and Engels on Politics and Literature

The concept of politics, one of the most fundamental relational aspects of human civilization, has undergone an evolutionary process. During the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476/403 BCE) of China, Guan Zhong of the State of Qi said, “Politics is about righteousness. Those who are righteous determine the fate of all things.” In The Analects of Confucius, Yan Yuan says, “Politics is about being righteous.” In the ancient times, “politics” focused on people’s conduct, emphasizing the importance of being righteous as a person or an official. In modern times, the meaning of “politics” corresponds to the English word Politics. The word Politics originates from Polis (the ancient Greek city-state), whereas Polites (citizens) in Polis leads to Politikos (politics), the governance of the city-state. In his book Politics, Aristotle does not make a clear definition of politics but links it to taking part “in the constitution” or participation in the activities of the city-state (Aristotle 1995, p. 38). The meaning of politics has been interpreted differently in different times and by different statespersons. Thomas Hobbes, a British political philosopher in the seventeenth century, defined politics as an activity of the battle for power (Hobbes 1998, pp. 70–72). Dr. Sun Yat-sen also interpreted politics similarly: “Political affairs are the affairs of the masses, governance is management, and the management of the affairs of the masses is politics” (Sun 2011, p. 719). All these are interpretations of politics from the management side above, which differ from Aristotle’s political concept of “group interaction.” Daniel Bell, in his book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, gives a modern interpretation of politics: “The polity is the arena of social justice and power: the control of the legitimate use of force and the regulation of conflict (in libertarian societies within the rule of law), in order to achieve the particular conceptions of justice embodied in a society's traditions or in its constitution, written or unwritten” (Bell 1978, p. 11). Here, he emphasizes fairness and justice. The British scholar Andrew Gamble explains the meaning of politics in three ways: “However small the ‘court’ around the site of power, there will still be a struggle to control that power, to determine its policy and to speak on behalf of it…But to concentrate too much on politics as power neglects the other dimensions: politics as identity and politics as order” (Gamble 2000, pp. 99–103). Politics, thus, encompasses power, identity, and order. Then, how the concept of politics is regarded in Marxist tradition? And how Marxist interpretation of this concept informs us?

1.1 Classical Marxist View on Politics

Marx and Engels did not make a specific and systematic study of politics; however, all the concepts delineated in their writings, such as state, republic, commune, and political party, involve politics. We can sum up a threefold meaning of the concept of politics for classical Marxist writers: (i) politics as a component of the superstructure in the social structure; (ii) politics as class interests and class struggle; (iii) politics as human emancipation—the pursuit of human ideals. These three meanings have their own focus and yet interconnected, and together, they constitute the political view of classical Marxism.

1.1.1 Politics as a Component of the Superstructure

Marx’s study of political attributes is based on a critique of Hegel’s philosophy, which is synchronized with the change in Marx’s understanding of Hegel. From the standpoint of materialism, Marx discovered the material relations at the root of civil society in his critique of religion and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Subsequently, he turned from his study of Hegel’s philosophy of state to the study of political economy. Eventually, he put forward the famous argument positing that politics is a part of the superstructure built on the economic base in his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.

In his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law—written in 1843—Marx revealed the nature of religion and the German philosophy of state and right, implying that they were “an upside-down world.” According to Marx, Hegel was the master of German philosophy of state and right, and “The criticism of the German philosophy of state and law, which attained its most consistent, richest and final formulation through Hegel” (Marx 1975a, p. 181). Further, he indicated that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right was still “…abstract extravagant thinking on the modern state, the reality of which remains a thing of the beyond, if only beyond the Rhine…” (Marx 1975a, p. 181). For Hegel, the temple of philosophy builds on the external manifestation of the absolute spirit, and the state is the reality of ethical concepts, the image, and reality of reason (Hegel 2005, pp. 194, 271–272). The concepts and spirit become independent subjects, “The idea is made the subject and the actual relation of family and civil society to the state is conceived as its internal imaginary activity” (Marx 1975a, p. 8). Consequently, there is an “upside-down” in Hegel’s philosophy:

The concrete content, the actual definition, appears as something formal; the wholly abstract formal definition appears as the concrete content….Philosophical work does not consist in embodying thinking in political definitions, but in evaporating the existing political definitions into abstract thoughts. (Marx 1975a, pp. 17–18)

In his critique of Hegel’s philosophy, Marx discovered civil society and the political state, which originated in the “material relations of life,” and thus returned from the ideological world to the real world. In his “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” Marx, for the first time, briefly explained economic base and superstructure as well as their interrelationship, locating politics within the social structure:

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. (Marx 1989, p. 263)

Marx divided the social structure into the economic base and the superstructure, where the superstructure comprises the state apparatus as the “legal and political superstructure” and the “forms of social consciousness” arises (Marx 1989, p. 263). As such, Marx positioned politics in the social structure, saying, “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life” (Marx 1989, p. 263). In other words, the economic base determines the superstructure, and politics, as a component of the superstructure, is no exception. Marx also specified the components of “ideological forms,” including “…the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic….” (Marx 1989, p. 263). Therefore, according to Marx, politics has two aspects within the superstructure: (a) the institutional aspect, such as political organizations and institutions; (b) the form of ideology, such as political thoughts and ideas. Literature is related to both aspects—it is subject to the constraints of political organizations and institutions; however, it also has a closer connection with political thoughts and ideas—a form belonging to ideology. Additionally, these two aspects interact with each other—“Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But each of these also reacts upon the others and upon the economic basis” (Engels 2004, p. 265). In the case of literature, political institutions restrain literature by orienting political thoughts and ideas. Nevertheless, literature is able to affect the institutional aspect by influencing people’s thoughts.

Thus, Marx’s discussion of the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure, and even his prescription of politics as an ideology, did not come out of nowhere but were based on historical materialism and the assimilation as well as the critique of Hegel. As Marx was targeting Hegel’s idealist system, he emphasized especially the decisive role of the economic base. Engels further elaborated upon it in his later years to prevent distortion of the Marxist doctrine of the interrelationship between the economic base and ideology. He indicated that the determinant of the historical process is ultimately the production and reproduction of real life and that the development of politics, law, philosophy, religion, literature, and art is founded on economic development. However, economic factors are not the “sole” decisive factors. There are various other elements in the superstructure, such as religion and philosophy, which are “more rarefied ideological fields” (Engels 2001b, p. 61) than the political and legal systems. As Engels also pointed out, the superstructure and its various forms of ideology, while subject to the economic base, “reacts in its turn on the economic base and may, within certain limits, modify the same” (Engels 2001b, p. 61). Forms of ideology, as dynamic forces, can influence each other and react to the economic base in a direct or indirect, positive or negative way. In short, the course of history results from the interaction of various factors. Nevertheless, the determinant is the contradiction and conflict between the forces and relations of production.

Ideology is not a monolith block. Generally,

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. (Marx and Engels 1975, p. 59)

In the superstructure of the social structure, the ideology of the ruling class as the dominant ideology can domesticate the ideology of the ruled class. However, the repressed and shadowed elements in the thoughts of the ruled class are also potentially rebellious and raise some objections from time to time. Ideology exists as the medium in which “men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out” (Marx 1989, p. 263), and literature visually mirrors the contradiction of ideology as a whole with its vividness. Therefore, the study of the politics of literature requires a return to a specific historical context to grasp the complexity of its ideology.

Marx and Engels did not discuss which of the various forms of ideology played the dominant role. Although Engels recognized that economic factors were not the “sole” decisive factors, he failed to recognize the question of the pioneering role of the superstructure. Marx and Engels have left us with a significant blank in this issue. Lenin added to the status of politics in light of the nature of his time, arguing that “politics is a concentrated expression of economics” (Lenin 1962a, p. 83) and plays a vital role in the forms of the superstructure. Mao Zedong raised politics to a pivotal position in the realm of ideology and mentioned it along with economy, arguing that politics, like economy, plays a major and even determining role in culture and other ideologies.

1.1.2 Politics as Class Struggle

Another reference to the concept of politics by classical Marxist writers are class interests and struggle as a result of the increasingly acute struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century. The connotation of politics here is a continuation of its ideological nature and is reflected in the struggle between classes over the central issue of the ownership and mastery of the ruling power. In his “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy,” Marx, while criticizing Hegel’s philosophy, introduced the concepts of “class” and “proletariat”: “As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in philosophy” (Marx 1975a, p. 187). With the study of political economy, Marx examined the class problem from the relations of production and regarded the class struggle as the main driving force of social development.

In Marx’s view, labor and division of labor gave birth to classes:

Labour and the division of labour are essential…conditions of life of every human society. In Egypt there was labour and division of labour—and castes; in Greece and Rome labour and division of labour—and free men and slaves; in the Middle Ages labour and division of labour—and feudal lords and serfs, guilds, social estates etc. In our day there is labour and division of labour—and classes, one of which owns all means of production and all means of subsistence, while the other lives only so long as it sells its labour, and it sells its labour only so long as the employing class enriches itself by purchasing this labour. (Marx 1977, p. 259)

Class antagonism is displayed in the differences in the control of the instruments of production and means of subsistence. In this sense, class is a product of the relations of production, which leads to the contradiction and struggle between classes.Footnote 1 In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels indicated that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 482). They proceeded to say, “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 482). The bourgeoisie and the proletariat have their own characteristics as inevitable outcomes and historical forms of capitalist social production. This “has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 485).

The emergence, differentiation, and antagonism of classes give rise to the class struggle to win interests and attain power for the class. The essence of class struggle is the struggle for power or domination so that “…every class struggle is a political struggle” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 493). This political nature is evidenced at every stage of bourgeois development (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 486). Engels explained as follows:

Now Marx has proved that the whole of history hitherto is a history of class struggles, that in all the manifold and complicated political struggles the only thing at issue has been the social and political rule of classes of society, the maintenance of domination by older classes and the conquest of domination by newly arising classes....and in the same way the conceptions and ideas of each historical period are most simply to be explained from the economic conditions of life and from the social and political relations of the period. (Engels 1989, pp. 191–192)

In a class society, politics embodies the economic, social, and cultural contradictions and struggles of different classes, strata, and groups. However, in Marx’s time, it concentrated on the contradictions and struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the first step of the class struggle is to raise the proletariat to the level of the leading class.

Lenin and Mao inherited and developed the classical Marxist view of class struggle. Lenin demonstrated that “Politics means a struggle between classes; means the relations of the proletariat in its struggle for its emancipation, against the world bourgeoisie” (Lenin 1962b, p. 371). Mao said, “politics refers to class and mass politics and not to the small number of people known as politicians” (Mao 1943, p. 75). Mao integrated politics with the fundamental interests of the masses. Different classes or political groups, to protect and expand their interests, often adopt certain strategies, means, and forms of organization to deal with their internal relations or those with other classes, nations, and countries.

1.1.3 Politics as Human Emancipation

The third meaning of politics points to the total emancipation of human beings. The link between politics and human emancipation is consistent for Marx through his writing of different period. In 1843, in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy: Introduction,” he proposed to “overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being” (Marx 1975a, p. 182). In other words, the ultimate goal of politics is found in all aspects of social life related to the free development of the human spirit. In his critique of the Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer’s “The Jewish Question,” Marx, referring to the question of “what kind of emancipation,” underlined that “All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself” (Marx 1975b, p. 168).

Class struggles in the past were all about the replacement of political power. Regardless of whether it was the overthrow of the slave owner class by the feudal landlord class or that of the feudal landlord class by the bourgeoisie, they were all about the overthrow of the previous ruling class for the benefit of their own class. Moreover, they did not fundamentally eliminate exploitation and oppression per se but only replaced the old modes of exploitation and oppression with new ones. Engels explained this problem in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and State:

Since the exploitation of one class by another is the basis of civilisation, its whole development moves in a continuous contradiction. Every advance in production is at the same time a retrogression in the condition of the oppressed class, that is, of the great majority. What is a boon for the one is necessarily a bane for the other; each new emancipation of one class means a new oppression of another class. (Engels 1990b, p. 275)

According to Marx and Engels, only the proletariat can achieve the complete emancipation of man because proletarian politics, unlike all class politics in the past, has the long-term goal of the full emancipation of man, and the proletariat can liberate itself only by liberating all humankind. Therefore, the proletariat has to break this historical loop, terminate the old relations of production, and achieve real and complete emancipation through revolution. “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 506). Marx’s vision of proletarian politics represents not the interests of partial masses but the ultimate and highest goal of all humankind. The pursuit of full human emancipation is the ultimate implication of Marx and Engels’ political outlook. The supremacy of the people as held by the Chinese Communists today can be viewed as a major part of the transition from Marxist class politics to the politics as human emancipation.

1.2 Marx and Engels’ Political Criticism

The extension of Marx and Engels’ study of politics to the understanding and evaluation of literature and art constitutes the political dimension of Marxist literary criticism. Classical Marxist writers have always been paying close attention to the development of literature and art in the practice of proletarian revolution and struggle. The characteristics of the political dimension of Marxist literary criticism can be clearly outlined through the discussions in Marx and Engels’ political essays and letters. Marx and Engels highly praised the value of knowing the world and social criticism function of literary works, encouraged writers and artists to come to face-to-face the society, and explicitly proposed to write about the life and struggle of the proletariat. They claimed that literary works should be “Shakespearised” rather than “Schillerised” when discussing the relationship between authenticity and inclination in literature and art.

1.2.1 Raising Doubts About the “Eternity” of the Bourgeoisie

Marx and Engels, as proletarian revolutionaries, emphasized the political function of literature in their evaluation of literary works. They saw the importance of literature in promoting social change, highlighting the role of literature in understanding and transforming social reality.

Critical realism in the nineteenth century provided fertile ground for the practice of political criticism by classical Marxist writers. In 1854, in his essay “The English Bourgeoisie,” Marx spoke highly of the work of a group of outstanding novelists in modern England, represented by Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Charlotte Brontë. This was because “the present splendid brotherhood of fiction-writers in England, whose graphic and eloquent pages have issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together” (Marx 1980, p. 664). Marx considered these realist works superior to those by “all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together” (Marx 1980, p. 664) because the details contained in these novels demonstrate widely various social scenarios far more vividly than some textbooks. The political significance of literature is that it restores the historical context, provides fine details, and demonstrates the complexity of the historical ideology of the time, which is exactly the appeal of literary images.

The political element of realist works is prominently presented in the rebellion against capitalist society. Engels once praised the German painter Hübner’s painting reflecting the life of Silesian weavers, believing that it “…has made a more effectual Socialist agitation than a hundred pamphlets might have done” (Engels 1975, p. 230). Literary works revealed the ugliness of capitalist society through authentic, vivid images and raised doubts about the “eternity” of capitalism. In a letter to Minna Kautsky, Engels wrote as follows:

If the novel of socialist tendency wholly fulfils its mission if, by providing a faithful account of actual conditions, it destroys the prevailing conventional illusions on the subject, shakes the optimism of the bourgeois world and inexorably calls in question the permanent validity of things as they are, even though it may not proffer a solution or, indeed, in certain circumstances, appear to take sides. (Engels 1995, p. 357)

That is to say, Marx and Engels fully recognized the value of literature in the perception of the world and the important role of realist works in promoting social progress.

1.2.2 “The Courage of the True Artist”

In terms of writers’ creation, Marx and Engels encouraged artists to confront society and show “the courage of the true artist” in their critical practice—namely, they should dare to speak for the proletariat and depict the reality of social life.

In 1844, in his article “Rapid Progress of Communism in Germany,” Engels praised Heinrich Heine’s poem “The Silesian Weavers” and translated it into prose, regarding it as “one of the most powerful poems” (Engels 1975, p. 233). Engels stated that many of Heine’s political lyric poems disseminated socialist ideas. Georg Wirth, a famous German proletarian poet, was close friends with Marx and Engels. Marx considered Wirth’s death “an irreplaceable loss” (Marx 1983b, p. 374). Engels called him “the first and most important poet of the German proletariat” (Engels 1990a, p. 110) and praised his creative achievements, considering that “his socialist and political poems are indeed far superior to Freiligrath's in terms of their originality and wit, and particularly in their fervent passion” (Engels 1990a, p. 110). In the “Preface” to the 1893 Italian edition of The Communist Manifesto, Engels voiced his hope that a new Dante would emerge to herald the birth of a new era of the proletariat.

In his letter to Margaret Harkness, Engels, despite slightly disapproving of her failure to write about the resistant spirit of the protagonist, fully affirmed the different position she took in her writing from that of the “revolutionary swells” of the time. Engels said the following:

What strikes me most in your tale besides its realistic truth is that it exhibits the courage of the true artist. Not only in the way you treat the Salvation Army, in the teeth of supercilious respectability, which respectability will perhaps learn from your tale, for the first time, why the Salvation Army has such a hold on the popular masses. But chiefly in the plain unvarnished manner in which you make the old, old story, the proletarian girl seduced by a middle-class man, the pivot of the whole book. (Engels 2001a, p. 167)

The courage Engels spoke of was shown first by Harkness’s portrayal of the Salvation Army as “in the teeth of supercilious respectability” (note: namely, some leaders of the British socialist movement) who portrayed themselves as “revolutionary swells” but were indifferent to the workers’ living conditions and did not do any practical work. It undoubtedly took courage for Harkness to touch upon in her novel the prejudices and misguided tendencies of the socialist movement of the time. Harkness also demonstrated courage through her insistence on a realistic approach to life in her novel “A City Girl,” which depicts a stereotypical story of a proletarian girl named Nelly being seduced by a bourgeois man in a “commonplace character of the plot under heaps of artificial complications and adornments” and “simply telling it truly.” The loyal depiction of the living conditions of the English workers reveals the hidden class antagonism in the story.

1.2.3 “Sings…of the Proud, Threatening, and Revolutionary Proletarian”

“Sings…of the proud, threatening, and revolutionary proletarian” (Engels 1977, p. 235) was the new demand put forward by Marx and Engels for proletarian literature. It was a prominent embodiment of class politics in the field of literature and art. The attitude toward society and the proletariat became a significant measure of Marx and Engels’ works, which can be perceived in the letters of the classical writers to Lassalle, Minna Kautsky, and others.

Every era or class has its own ideal characters, which are the embodiment of social and aesthetic ideals under certain historical conditions. In The German Ideology, the classical Marxist writers took whether one had the intention and ability to change the social environment as the fundamental marker to distinguish the “new people” from those who remain “as of old” (Marx and Engels 1975, p. 214). The image of the “new people” of the proletariat is “new” because they are no longer the passive masses who are dull and insensitive. They are the protagonists who are determined and motivated to make progress in history. Marx and Engels wanted writers and artists to represent the “new man,” the new force in society. Engels made this point even more explicit in his “German Socialism in Verse and Prose.” In his evaluation of Beck’s “Songs about the Poor Man,” Engels used a mocking tone for his bitter criticism. The paper begins with the following: “‘Songs about the Poor Man’ begins with a song to a wealthy house” (Engels 1977, p. 235). To create a “kingdom of love,” Beck started with abstract humanism and philanthropism, portraying his characters with rather limited pity and sympathy. “Beck sings of the cowardly petty bourgeois wretchedness, of the ‘poor man,’ the pauvre honteux with his poor, pious and contradictory wishes of the ‘little man’ in all his manifestations, and not of the proud, threatening, and revolutionary proletarian” (Engels 1977, p. 235). These pathetic “poor man” who cannot help themselves and the humble “little man” who are full of vulgarity have no class self-consciousness, lack revolutionary demands to change their social environment, and become servile, pathetic characters who are subservient to the dominant power. Such a depiction was sharply condemned by Engels. He explicitly proposed that proletarian literature “sings…of the proud, threatening, and revolutionary proletarian” (Engels 1977, p. 235). Such an advanced social force represents the future of humanity and embodies the trend of historical development. It was in this sense that Marx criticized Lassalle’s Franz von Sickingen for not accurately reflecting class relations in sixteenth-century Germany and inappropriately representing “the diplomatic error of regarding the Lutheran-knightly opposition as superior to the plebeian-Münzerian” (Marx 1983b, p. 420).

The proletariat, as the creator of history, deserves to have their lives and struggle depicted in literature. Marx and Engels’ idea of shaping the image of the new proletariat is of epoch-making significance. And Mao’s idea that literature and art should portray new characters and exhibit a new world can be viewed as a continuation of the literary thought of the classical Marxist writers.

1.2.4 “The Tendency Should Spring from the Situation and Action as Such”

While Marx and Engels’ critical practice was focused on serving the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, they did not advocate sloganeering when discussing inclination in their works. As proletarian revolutionaries with profound knowledge of literature and art, Marx and Engels stressed the need to “Shakespearise” literature rather than “Schillering” it when discussing the relationship between literature and politics. In a letter to Minna Kautsky in 1885, Engels clearly expounded the political inclination and authenticity of literature as well as the relationship between them in the context of Minna Kautsky’s novel “Die Alten und die Neuen” and other works in the history of European literature. Engels stated the following:

I am not at all opposed to tendentious poetry as such. The father of tragedy, Aeschylus, and the father of comedy, Aristophanes, were both strongly tendentious poets, as were Dante and Cervantes, and the best thing about Schiller's Kabale und Liebe is that it was the first politically tendentious drama in Germany. The Russians and Norwegians of today, who are producing first-rate novels, are all tendentious writers. But I believe that the tendency should spring from the situation and action as such, without its being expressly alluded to, nor is there any need for the writer to present the reader the future historical solution to the social conflicts he describes. (Engels 1995, p. 357)

Here, Engels indicated that the inclination should spring naturally not as a blunt, flat, and dry expression. It should neither be a megaphone of the spirit of the times nor a subjective indication of the future, but a realistic depiction of life, revealing the trend of historical development. Engels even felt that “the more the opinions of the author remain hidden, the better for the work of art” (Engels 2001a, p. 167). Thus, the command the writer “has over his creatures” (Engels 1995, p. 357) involves having a good command and skillful use of various artistic techniques.

Regarding the question of authenticity and inclination, Engels gave a dialectical explanation in his evaluation of Balzac. In La Comédie humaine, Balzac “gives us a most wonderfully realistic history of French ‘Society’, especially of le monde parisien describing, chronicle fashion, almost year by year from 1816 to 1848 the progressive inroads of the rising bourgeoisie upon the society of nobles” (Engels 2001a, p. 168). Engels affirmed the authentic loyalty of Balzac’s portrayal, “in a chronicle fashion” (Engels 2001a, p. 168) while pointing out that, in the face of historical developments, “…Balzac thus was compelled to go against his own class sympathies and political prejudices, that he saw the necessity of the downfall of his favourite nobles, and described them as people deserving no better fate” (Engels 2001a, p. 168). The writer’s depiction of social development, whether cheering or longing, angry or critical, nostalgic, or even elegiac, depends on whether the writer grasps and judges the necessity of historical development and whether the work they create conforms to it. Balzac’s works faithfully express the necessary trend of French social and historical development and conform to the laws of historical development. This is why Engels called him “a far greater master of realism than all the Zolas passées, présents et à venir” (Engels 2001a, pp. 167–168). Those who are content “with producing an arid and boring catalogue of isolated instances of misfortune and social cases” can “provide no opportunity to relate the individual facts of the narrative to general conditions and thus bring out what is striking or significant about them” (Engels 1977, pp. 244–245). Works that depict singular events in isolation, even if they generate some success, can hardly reveal the underlining trends of the times. It is in this sense that the classical Marxist writers stress that “the chief protagonists in the action are representative of certain classes and tendencies, hence of certain ideas of their time, and derive their motives not from the petty appetites of the individual but from the very historical current by which they are borne along” (Engels 1983, p. 442). Thus, Marx and Engels, through their correspondence with the writers, elaborated their views on the organic unity of class consciousness, the edifice of the times, and historical development in literary works. Moreover, Engels hoped that the brilliant literary works would be “the complete fusion of greater intellectual profundity, of a consciously historical content, with Shakespearean vivacity and wealth of action” (Engels 1983, p. 442) which, in fact, involves the relationship among the philosophical, historical, and aesthetic aspects of literature. The greater artistic vision of classical Marxist commentaries on specific works is directly related to their profound artistic culture.Footnote 2 The classical Marxist writers’ deep affection of literature laid a solid foundation for their study of literary issues. Although Marx and Engels later chose to devote themselves to the cause of the proletarian revolution, they demonstrated their interest and fondness for literature and art throughout their lives.

Marx and Engels’ political criticism was aimed mainly at realist works, and some of their views may be somewhat outdated due to vicissitudes in literary trends and creation. However, their insights into the relationship between literature and politics are instructive for the analysis of the value and function of literature today. Today, we still face the same issues, such as the cognitive function of literature and its relationship with disciplines such as historical and moral studies, the responsibility and conscience of writers and artists, what to write and how to write, and especially how to properly handle the relationship between authenticity and inclination in a text. The views of classical Marxist writers supplement the basic principles and positions of research issues in literary criticism and open up space for further exploration of Chinese Marxist literary criticism.

2 Literature and Politics in the Chinese Form

The realities of each era put forward different tasks for theoretical research. The political dimension of the Chinese form has undergone some adjustments and transformations based on the inheritance of political outlook of classical Marxism. Further, the emphasis on the ideological function of literature has become a distinctive characteristic of the Chinese form.

2.1 Mao Zedong’s View on Art and Politics

The relationship between literature and politics occupies a prominent position in Mao’s system of literary and artistic thought. Mao viewed literature and art from the perspective of the overall situation of the Chinese revolution and determined their status and role considering the characteristics of the Chinese revolution and the tasks it faced. Therefore, when discussing the relationship between literature and politics, Mao focused on issues such as the direction and policies of literature and art, not on specific literary phenomena or characteristics.

2.1.1 Mao on Politics

Mao’s view of politics, an inheritance of classical Marxism, is defined by its own characteristics. As a Marxist, Mao also spoke of the superstructural nature of politics in terms of social structure and indicated the class attributes of politics in class society. Emphasizing the importance of class, Mao said, “Politics, both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary alike, concerns the struggle between classes” (Mao 1943, p. 75). He highlighted that the purpose of politics is to serve the majority and that politics represents the fundamental interests and wishes of the broadest masses of the people, which are in line with the political views of classical Marxist writers. Moreover, Mao put forward a new interpretation of politics according to China’s national conditions, which, to a certain extent, reflects the uniqueness of the political outlook in the Chinese form.

Based on the Marxist doctrine of economic base and superstructure, Mao, considering the history and reality of the Chinese revolution, made a specific and unique elaboration of the locus and role of politics within the social structure and its relationship with the economy:

Any given culture (as an ideological form) is a reflection of the politics and economics of a given society, and the former in turn has a tremendous influence upon the latter; politics is the concentrated expression of economics. This is our fundamental view of the relationship of culture to politics and economics and of the relationship of politics to economics. (Mao 2005, p. 331)

Mao recognized that material things determine spiritual things in the process of general historical development and highlighted the reactive role of the spirit to the material. Moreover, Mao argued that politics is often central and dominant within the superstructure and ideologies and directly linked politics with economy, believing that politics is the concentrated expression of economy and that both factors act upon culture. In Mao’s exposition, politics is endowed with a special nature, and he has shown foresight on the inosculation of the economic base and the superstructure.

Another characteristic of Mao’s political outlook is the combination of class politics along with the national conditions of China and the particular age. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, opposition to Japanese imperialist aggression was the primary politics of the period; therefore, class politics expanded into national politics. Mao stated, “The first and fundamental problem in China today is resistance to Japan” (Mao 1943, p. 76). The mentality of the society then inevitably had a strong political overtone of unity against Japanese aggression. The politics during different periods embody the characteristics of the times, and it is impossible to make a definite judgment about politics without considering a specific period of time. Thus, class politics and the overall politics of the times are interweaved. Mao extended class politics to the wider politics of the masses and further combined it with the contemporary age. He also underlined that the economic interests of a certain class and the masses can be duly guaranteed only by certain politics. As he said, “because class and mass needs can only be expressed in a concentrated form through politics” (Mao 1943, p. 75). Politics represents the voice of the people, and the utmost purpose of politics is to serve the people.

After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Mao stressed the significant influence and reaction of ideology in light of the reality of the Chinese revolution and construction of the Chinese nation. “It is man’s social being that determines his thinking. Once the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world” (Mao 2021, p. 17). Another principal aspect of Mao’s thought on literature and art is the estimation and the emphasis on the function of the “significant influence and reaction” on the superstructure, such as culture and literature. Among the classical Marxist writers such as Marx and Engels, Mao was the politician who attached the greatest importance to the ideological initiative of literature and art.

2.1.2 Mao on the Unity of Literature and Politics

Regarding the relationship between literature and politics, Mao expounded, “In the world today, all culture or literature and art belongs to a definite class and party, and has a definite political line. Art for art's sake, art that stands above class and party, and fellow-travelling or politically independent art do not exist in reality” (Mao 1943, p. 75). Mao made a universal judgment here using “in the world today” and “all culture or literature and art.” As an ideology, literature and art necessarily reflect the needs, wills, and aspirations of a certain nation, era, or social group and reform the world in accordance with the aforementioned aspirations and demands of certain social groups and its members. Mao incorporated literature and art into the entire revolutionary cause. He praised the significant role played by the May Fourth Movement: “For the last twenty years, wherever this new cultural force has directed its attack, a great revolution has taken place both in ideological content and in form (for example, in the written language)” (Mao 2005, p. 359). In China’s national liberation struggle, literature and art also played a crucial role: “Revolutionary culture is a powerful revolutionary weapon for the broad masses of the people. It prepares the ground ideologically before the revolution comes and is an important, indeed essential, fighting front in the general revolutionary front during the revolution” (Mao 2005, p. 369). Chinese people’s struggle for liberation requires both civil and military fronts, relying on both the army with guns and the army with pens. As Mao emphasized, “If literature and art did not exist in even the broadest and most general sense, the revolution could not advance or win victory” (Mao 1943, p. 75).

Mao, who wrote both On Contradiction and On Practice, also observed the dialectical relationship between literature and politics. In his “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art,” he said the following:

We do not support excessive emphasis on the importance of literature and art, nor do we support their underestimation. Literature and art are subordinate to politics, and yet in turn exert enormous influence on it. (Mao 1943, p. 75)

Mao deemed that good works should achieve the unity of the following:

What we demand, therefore, is a unity of politics and art, a unity of content and form, a unity of revolutionary political content and the highest artistic form possible. Works of art that lack artistry, however progressive politically, are nevertheless ineffectual. We are therefore equally opposed to works of art with a harmful content and to the tendency toward the so-called “slogan style,” which is only concerned with content and not with form. (Mao 1943, p. 78)

This discourse is extremely dialectical and theoretically discusses the relationship between politics and art as a unity of opposites.

As literary and artistic works embody the unity of ideological content and artistic form, the standards of literary and artistic criticism are characterized by two aspects. “There are two criteria in literary criticism, the political and the artistic” (Mao 1943, p. 77). In judging literary works, Mao saw “the unity of politics and art” on the one hand; on the other hand, he emphasized the priority of political criteria—“political criteria are always placed ahead of artistic criteria” (Mao 1943, p. 78) which is related to Mao’s identity as a politician. Mao also attached considerable importance to the social impact of literary and artistic works and advanced the theory of “the unity of motive and effect.” Good literary works should display aesthetic ideals in a realistic depiction of real relationships and achieve the purpose so as to unite and educate the people.

2.1.3 “Literature and Art for Politics”

Specific analysis is needed with regard to Mao’s proposals: “literature and art are subordinate to politics” and “literature and art for politics.” First, these slogans have their own specific historical background and relevance. At a time when national conflicts were bitter and revolutionary wars were frequent, the emphasis on literature and art serving the revolutionary struggle could indeed produce a strong realistic combative role for literature and art. In fact, numerous excellent works reflecting the combat life of workers, peasants, and soldiers emerged. Second, Mao is first and foremost a politician, not a literary critic. His views on literature and art were presented from an overall strategic perspective, and the problem he wanted to solve was the relationship between revolutionary warfare and literature.The slogan “literature and art for politics” is a product of combining Chinese literature and art with Chinese revolutionary practice. Furthermore, Mao’s political view of literature and art finds its origin in the traditional Chinese concept of “Literature is the vehicle of ideas or truth (文以载道).” This concept has existed for thousands of years and needs special study.

From today’s perspective, the slogan “literature and art for politics” is obviously inappropriate because it turns the relationship of mutual influence between the ideologies of the superstructure into a subordinate one, which makes politics the purpose of literature, creating an extreme and one-sided relationship between literature and politics. Additionally, this slogan has, to a certain extent, fettered the prosperity of literary and artistic creation. This is because attributing the entire objective and fundamental purpose of literature and art to serving the politics tends to simplify and vulgarize them. As the stormy nationwide class struggle came to an end, the task of the Party and the state shifted from revolution to the development of the productive forces, and the ideological nature of literature and art changed accordingly. In response to the country’s urgent need for rapid economic and cultural development, Mao proposed the “Double-Hundred Policy”: “The principle of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is a principle to promote the development of the arts and progress in the sciences; it is a policy to enhance the flourishing of the socialist culture in our land. Different forms and genres of art can develop freely, and different schools of sciences can contend and debate freely” (Mao 1957, p. 330). The introduction of the “Double-Hundred Policy” was a fruitful exploration in the field of cultural sciences. In particular, since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, China has ushered in a new period of historical development, and the slogan “literature and art for politics” is in urgent need of correction. In this new historical period, the ideological nature of literature and art, their development, and changes need to be re-addressed and re-explored.

2.2 Literature and Politics in the New Period

The rectification to restore order in literature and art in the new period began in the relationship between literature and politics. In the spirit of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, Deng Xiaoping, based on a careful summary of the lessons gleaned from history, proposed that literature and art should no longer be “subordinate to politics” but “for the people and socialism” (the “Two-For” approach). This was based on the premise that literature and art should not be “divorced from politics,” making adjustments and improvements to the ideological nature of literature and art in keeping with the laws of historical development.

2.2.1 Correction and Adherence to Politics

In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, the relationship between literature and politics was seriously distorted. Literature and art became political appendages, turning literary criticism into a political tool, which led to the desolation of the literary and artistic garden. People began to realize that, in this new historical period, the slogan “literature and art are subordinate to politics” was not conducive to the prosperity and development of literature and art. In 1979, the Fourth Congress of Chinese Literary and Art Workers was held, and dealing with the relationship between literature and politics became an urgent issue. In his “Message to the Fourth Congress of Chinese Literary and Art Workers,” Deng implied that the Party’s leadership “doesn’t mean handing out administrative orders and demanding that literature and art serve immediate, short-range political goals. It means understanding the special characteristics of literature and art and the laws of their development and creating conditions for them to flourish. That is, it means creating conditions that help writers and artists to improve their skills and to produce fine works and performances truly worthy of our great people and era” (Deng 1995a, pp. 205–206). In the following year, on January 16, 1980, Deng made it even clearer: “we will drop the slogan that literature and art are subordinate to politics, because it is too easily used as a theoretical pretext for arbitrary intervention in literary and art work. Long practice has proved that this slogan has done more harm than good to the development of literature and art” (Deng 1995b, p. 236).

Not mentioning that literature serves politics does not signify that literature is unrelated to politics; in fact, literature is inseparable from politics. In this regard, Deng thoroughly expressed the following: “Every progressive and revolutionary writer or artist has to take into account the social effects of his works and the interests of the people, the state and the Party” (Deng 1995b, p. 236). Literature cannot be detached from politics because of its position in the social structure. Literature as a part of ideology cannot be completely divorced from society. Depicting social life is the mission and responsibility of today’s socialist literature; thus, it is impossible for literary works to play a positive social role without being involved in politics. Moreover, the political implication of literature has changed enormously in the new period, and the concern and love for the people have become the most significant political tasks today.

2.2.2 The Proposal of “Literature and Art for the People and Socialism”

The “Two-For” approach is a new general slogan for literary and artistic work considering the new historical situation. On February 21, 1980, Zhou Yang gave a new interpretation of the relationship between literature and politics in his speech at a symposium on playscripts:

We say that literature and art should serve the people and socialism, isn’t this more appropriate and broader than saying that they should serve politics alone? The meaning of socialism includes not only politics but also economy and culture. In the Fourth Literary Congress, it was raised that our literature and art should cultivate new socialists, promote the improvement and development of a socialist society, broaden the spiritual realm of the people, and meet the growing cultural needs of the people. Isn’t this the main content of literature and art for the people and socialism? (Zhou 1981)

The politics expressed through literature and art should reflect the real-life occurrences and practices of the people—the politics that affects thousands of households and concerns everyone’s vital interests and even their future and destiny.

On July 26, 1980, the People’s Daily published an editorial titled “Literature and Art for the People and Socialism,” which formally put forward the “Two-For” approach: “The general slogan of our literature and art work should be Literature and art for the people and socialism.” The meaning of “literature and art for the people” is to serve the broadest masses—workers, peasants, and soldiers. The meaning of literature and art for socialism is to serve the fundamental needs of the political, economic, cultural, and military aspects of socialism. The editorial also made a historical and comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of the slogan “literature and art for politics” as follows:

In the past, for a considerably long time, we have put forward the slogan ‘literature and art for politics.’ This slogan reflects an important mission of literature and art and has played a positive role in history. ... However, we cannot help but see that this slogan has been inappropriately exaggerated and absolutized.

Additionally, the editorial implied, “The slogan ‘for the people and socialism’ summarizes the general task and fundamental purpose of the work of literature and art, which includes serving politics but is more comprehensive and sounder than mentioning serving politics in isolation” (“Literature and Art for the People and Socialism,” People’s Daily, July 26, 1980).

Hu Qiaomu (胡乔木) further explained the “Two-For” approach and argued that literature and art “for the people and socialism” are “more essential than those “for politics.” The scope of the former is much broader than that of the latter because “the people and socialism are the fundamental goals. They include politics, but they do not reduce it to politics alone. They are the ends of politics, and political correctness is ultimately measured and guaranteed by the interests of the people and socialism” (Hu 2012, pp. 560–561). Politics is no longer viewed as an end but as a means to achieve and serve the interests of the people, who are ultimately the subjects of socialist modernization. Thus, the people and socialism are essentially unified. In this sense, the “Two-For” approach is a sound positioning of the ideological nature of contemporary literature and art.

3 The Evolution of the Relationship Between Literature and Politics

The relationship between literature and politics has been revisited in the Chinese form primarily for the following reasons. First, there is still an incorrect understanding of the relationship between literature and politics. Some people have not completely freed themselves from the inertia of the ultra-left, and they can threaten to use their power, making political criticism look abominable. Others, out of fear of past politics, show their alienation from and aversion to politics. Therefore, it is essential to reflect on this kind of cognitive inertia. Second, the political factor exists in literature all the time. As long as literature is connected to society, it is impossible to completely avoid or ignore the potential influence of specific political and historical contexts on individual lives and literary creations, and depoliticizing or staying away from politics is only wishful thinking. Third, in the view of Chinese Marxist literary critics, literature should have its own responsibility and commitment—to express the destiny of human beings and reveal various phenomena and problems of society. Literature should face society, intervene in reality, and even lead people’s life. The existence of literature will become dubitable if it does not lead people to face society and reality. As such, the relationship between literature and politics needs to be re-examined based on the classical Marxist view of politics and China’s national conditions. If the issue of politics is avoided, it may directly affect the healthy development of China’s literary creation and criticism under new historical conditions.

3.1 Literature and “Re-politicization”

China’s literary theory and criticism have been innovative, and innumerable new ideas have emerged since the twentieth century. However, the relationship between literature and politics has not been properly examined, especially the lack of sufficient reflection on the relationship between literature and politics in the last century. It is necessary to make a brief historical outline of the relationship between literature and politics to develop the political dimension of the Chinese form, which is the starting point of our research question.

3.1.1 Historical Overview of the Relationship Between Literature and Politics

China has a tradition of “Literature is a vehicle of ideas or truth,” and the sentiments of the scholars, including the scholar-bureaucrats, of serving the society and the nation, are the cultural basis for the relationship between literature and politics. I have explored the influence of “pain” on literary creation in my textbook Comparative Literature and found that the connotation of “pain” in Chinese and Western poetry varies dramatically. The pain of Western poets is primarily due to love and affection, while that of Chinese poets is “the worry about the nation and the age,” the grief and indignation of “The road is as wide as the blue sky, and I am the only one who can’t find a way out,” and the chagrin due to the unfulfillment of their political ambitions (Hu 2016, pp. 182–183). Ancient Chinese literary criticism has its own characteristics such as “the theory of poetry following from emotions (缘情说)” and “taste theory(滋味说).” However, “Poetry as an expression of aspirations (诗言志)” is more dominant, and traditional literary criticism pays more attention to the edifying role of literature and “Xing Guan Qun Yuan (兴观群怨)” (Association, Observation, Gregariousness, and Resentment, i.e., the social, political, and moral function of poetry). In Mao’s Prefaces to the Book of Songs (毛诗序), there is a passage that proposes the following:

Emotions arise from the sound, and the sound becoming a text is called voice. If the voice of ruling the world is peaceful and happy, its government is harmonious; if the sound of troubled times is resentment and fury, its government is inharmonious; if the voice of a conquered nation is mourning, its people are stranded. Therefore, to face gains and losses, move the heaven and the earth, and touch the ghosts and gods, there is nothing better than a poem. The deceased emperors in former times used poetry to bring the ways of husband and wife into normalcy and make the children filial to their parents, human relations pure and honest, education satisfactory, and customs change. (情发于声, 声成文谓之音, 治世之音安以乐, 其政和; 乱世之音怨以怒, 其政乖; 亡国之音哀以思, 其民困。故正得失, 动天地, 感鬼神, 莫近于诗。先王以是经夫妇, 成孝敬, 厚人伦, 美教化, 移风俗)

This shows from one side that the connection between literature and politics is deeply rooted in the historical tradition and culture of China.

In modern times, numerous Chinese scholars, such as Liang Qichao, have studied literature from a political perspective. Liang Qichao’s notion that “if one wants to renew the people of a country, one must first renew the novels of a country” elevated novels to the level of offering wisdom to the people and highlighted the role of literature in enlightenment and revolution. During the May Fourth Movement, enlightenment and revolution became major themes in literature and criticism, and the works of realism and romanticism prevalent during that period also possessed a strong political tone. Mao Dun (茅盾) stated at the time that writers should depict the real society, “indicate implicitly the hope for the future and instill new ideals and new beliefs in people’s hearts,” and “guide the bored to the path of light so that the new ideals will resonate in their hearts” (Shen 1921). In his book Transmutation: Chinese Literature from the Xinhai Revolution to the May Fourth Movement, Liu Na reveals the dual role of politics in literature at the time: “Politics pushed literature onto a new path, and moreover, politics was obstinately bound to literature, encroaching on and changing its character as an art category” (Liu 2010, p. 247).

In the 1930s, when the Chinese nation was in a crisis of saving itself from subjugation and ensuring its survival, left-wing literature and art, such as movies, novels, operas, and operetta, highlighted the political mobilizing function of literature. Left-wing literary criticism also emphasized the intervention of literature in social reality. The reason why impressionistic and semantic criticism from abroad did not take hold was that there was no room for such leisurely criticism at a time of national crisis. In Yan’an, revolutionary literature served the workers, peasants, and soldiers with a clear stand. Zhou Yang clarified that “if literary criticism does not pay attention to the ideological content of works, cannot distinguish between good and bad tendencies in works, and does not fight for the correct direction of creative development, such criticism is of little value” (Zhou 1990, p. 30).

3.1.2 Politicization (Over-Politicization), Depoliticization to Repoliticization

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the relationship between literature and politics has undergone a process of politicization (over-politicization), depoliticization, and eventually repoliticization, which is a process of negation of negation.

The emphasis on the ideological function of literature is a “double-edged sword.” Although the emphasis on politics played the role of “uniting the people and fighting the enemy” during a specific historical period, this trend has evolved into the sole criterion of politics, wherein literary criticism judged works using only political concepts and class analysis instead of artistic analysis, and politics was misinterpreted and distorted as struggle. The criticism of Xiao Yemu’s “Between a Couple” in the early 1950s can be taken as an example. The novel is about the emotional entanglement of a couple. Li Ke, an intellectual husband, and Zhang Ying, a wife of worker or peasant origin, had a good relationship during the war years, although their personalities and experiences differed enormously. After moving to the city, the husband felt “as if he has returned to his hometown” in a new environment, but the wife was not used to carpets, sofas, dancing, etc., and interfered with her husband’s dancing and smoking. Despite his dissatisfaction with his wife’s behavior, Li Ke did some self-reflection and finally came to a mutual understanding. The work was initially well received and admired when it came out, but after a year and a half, criticism rose to the surface. It was pointed out that there were serious problems with the characterization of this work and that Li Ke was an “untrue and distorted image” that “obliterated the glorious historical facts of the long-term arduous reform of the revolutionary intellectuals under the leadership of the Communist Party.” The portrayal of his wife, Zhang Ying, was also “a serious distortion of our cadres who have been trained for a long time and have learned from good urban policies.” Regarding the novel’s content, some people accused the author of writing about trivial private life instead of the political movements such as the drastic land reform, the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and the suppression of counterrevolutionaries, making the subject matter the only condition to determine the tendency of the work (Yu and Chen 1989, pp. 257–266). Such criticism can hardly make a fair evaluation of works like this one. At that time, some critics put forward different views on taking literary criticism as a tool of class struggle. For instance, Qian GuRong(钱谷融) noted in his article “Literature, It is the Study of Man” that “the depiction of human beings is a tool and a means in literature as well as the purpose and task of literature” (Qian 2013, p. 9). However, these voices were extremely weak and even criticized. In the 1980s, “From the angle of theoretical criticism, amid the tidal wave of ideological emancipation, the first thing that literary theorists reflected on was the relationship between literature and politics” (Zhang 2009, pp. 102–107). Owing to the antipathy to the long-standing ultra-leftist trend of thoughts, as well as emancipation of mind and the influx of Western literary criticism since the Reform and Opening Up (1978), a trend of “depoliticization” emerged in the Chinese literary circle. With the introduction of various schools of Western literary criticism over the past century, especially the twentieth-century formalist criticism schools represented by Russian formalism, British and American New Criticism, and French structuralism, contemporary Chinese literary criticism turned its attention to the text and the form and discovered a world that had long been forgotten or obscured. People embraced the ideas of formalist criticism, such as advocating the self-autonomy of the text and starting with the language and form of the text first when doing literary criticism, to achieve objective and scientized criticism, etc. Despite the emergence of reflective “Scar Literature” and “Root-Seeking Literature” in the 1980s, literary criticism resolutely showed its detachment from politics. The suggestion that color of literature “never reflected the color of the flag which waved over the fortress of the City” (Trotsky 1925, p. 164) is a slogan of Russian formalism, a symbol of the “depoliticization” of literary criticism in this period.

In the Chinese literary world at the end of the twentieth century, the gap between literature and politics was narrowed, and literary criticism took a turn back to history and ideology. This repoliticization is a reflection of Chinese and foreign scholars on literary criticism in the twentieth century under new historical conditions. Scholars and critics gradually realized that any practice of detachment from politics is merely a cover-up, which ultimately hurts us and our social environment which we are dependent on. As Terry Eagleton said, “All criticism is in some sense political” (Eagleton 1996, p. 184). Even the schools of literary criticism that claim to be scientific or self-autonomous, such as Russian formalism, structuralist criticism, and deconstructive criticism, cannot escape from the penetration of politics into literary criticism. The core concept of Russian formalism, “defamiliarization,” is to shock people and produce profound political meaning by presenting a sharp contrast between images and reality. As long as the binary opposition advocated by structuralism is given a semantic meaning, it cannot avoid political factors either. The decentralization in deconstructionism is also a political act. Feminist criticism, postcolonial criticism, new historicism, and other strongly ideological schools of criticism in the West gradually move from the periphery to the center. Moreover, with the spread and promotion of postmodern trend of thought and cultural studies, power discourse and cultural hegemony have become hot topics within Western literary criticism. With the impact of globalization, national rejuvenation has become the self-consciousness of Chinese literary criticism, and nation and its related issues have become the frontier and realistic topics of literary criticism. Gender, race, ecology, and nation have now become the starting points of contemporary criticism.

In contemporary China, repoliticization is of special significance. Repoliticization is not a simple return to politics. Instead, it embodies a realistic concern and shows the responsibility of literary criticism to society, the people, and the nation. Repoliticization is also a resistance to excessive entertainmentization, and the rational element embodied in politics is undoubtedly complementary to aesthetic sensibility. In a consumerist society of material prosperity, value imbalance, and capital flooding, the repoliticization of literary criticism suggests that we must be wary of the perverse prosperity of literature caused by excessive entertainment. The blind pursuit of language labyrinths and sensory gratification suppresses and obscures the political elements in texts and dents people’s political enthusiasm for the real society in entertainment. More importantly, repoliticization does not intervene in literature via an external force but by reshaping human’s sensory and spiritual worlds. Repoliticization is closely related to aesthetics, helping people develop new views of the world through reshaping new feelings and forms. This fusion of politics and aesthetics is exactly the value of repoliticization and the theoretical basis for a new relationship between literature and politics.

3.2 The Contemporary Transformation of the Forms of Politics

The relationship between literature and politics has undergone a process of negation of negation over time, and politics has gone through a transformation in terms of its presentation. Owing to the turbulent economic and political dynamics and the volatile class relations in contemporary times, the end of politics has been mentioned by Western scholars after by the end of classical politics as proposed by Machiavelli, Hobbes, and others. In his book The End of Politics, Carl Boggs expressed his disappointment with the decline of American politics, although he said the end of politics was only metaphorical and hoped for its revival (Boggs 2001, pp. vii, 8). According to the development of social history, politics has never come to an end but has constantly transformed, and this transformation is where the vitality of politics lies. In the new historical context, the connotation and extension of politics are changing quietly and permeating all aspects of social life. It is the responsibility of Chinese Marxist literary criticism to provide new descriptions and explanations of the political situation in light of the new circumstances.

In China and the world, politics today no longer constitutes merely class struggle or party politics but becomes a much broader concept. The principal action in the political sphere has shifted from a few political leaders to the general public, and the mode of influence in political life has shifted from the social collective to every real individual. The expression of political ideas no longer appears in a condescending position but transforms from explicit to hidden consciousness and even becomes a “political unconscious.”

3.2.1 From Class Politics to People’s Politics

In the past, politics was mainly about the conflicts and struggles among different classes, and certain politics was supposed to safeguard the interests of certain classes. Today’s politics is not limited to class struggle or party politics but extends to the broader masses. Politics does not pursue only the interests of a certain class anymore but the true interests of all people and justice for the vast majority. The Chinese form of people’s politics is not intended to completely replace or cancel class politics but to show that the people, as an aggregation of classes, have a broader representation. People’s politics is the transition from class politics to politics as human emancipation as predicted by Marx, and it expands the political connotation in such a stage of history. In the framework of people’s politics, class divisions have not disappeared; instead, class differences and antagonism still exist. However, the differences and antagonism are not as explicit and distinct as they were in the nineteenth century. Today, workers and bosses can enjoy the same television programs, wander through the same scenic spots, and both drive Cadillacs (Marcuse 2006, p. 10). The wealth of society is not created exclusively by certain singular class, but all those who create it are entitled to claim their share and can speak of their particularity. The concept of people’s politics has significantly expanded the connotation of politics. People in China and the world, living amid change, are searching for their place and value, and experiencing a redefinition of their identity. The proposal of people’s politics has also clarified the target audience for literary creation and literary criticism, and the people have become the subjects of literary representation and reception.

The Chinese form of people’s politics differs from the identity politics proposed by Western scholars. People’s politics is the dominant and mainstream discourse in contemporary China. However, identity politics highlights the marginalized communities of people by gender and race, which is, in a sense, the discourse of the minority, a manifestation of the resistance of the disadvantaged. People’s politics proposes group and even national identity and simultaneously cherishes individual specificity and differences—“The people are not abstract symbols but an aggregation of concrete people, each of whom has flesh and blood, emotions, love and hate, dreams, and inner conflicts and sorrows” (Xi 2016, p. 12). Therefore, the abstract group consciousness is rendered into concern for the subsistence of concrete and diverse individuals, and this concreteness provides a space for literary creation and criticism to display their capabilities. The focus of literary creation and criticism is to find the particularity in the universality and pay attention to living circumstances, joy, and sorrow of ordinary people.

3.2.2 From Macro-politics to Micro-politics

While macro-politics refers to the state system,Footnote 3 international interactions, and social changes, micro-politics permeates all aspects of our daily life.The two most important keywords within the arena of micro-politics are “daily life” and “individual life.” People’s attention is now more focused on the reality of human existence and their daily life.

The rise of micro-politics is closely linked to today’s cultural studies, where learning is no longer limited to the “ivory tower,” and politics is embedded in everyday life, permeating media, shopping malls, bodies, and dwellings. The struggle for contemporary ideological influence is not primarily through daggers drawn and sabers rattling but through culture or consumption that shapes people’s views on everyday life and influences and changes their perceptions. The change from macro-politics to micro-politics does not mean that macro-politics is completely neglected but that micro-politics has become another major aspect of political life. Macro-politics and micro-politics cannot be completely separated. On the one hand, macro-politics may influence and constrain micro-politics. On the other hand, the role of micro-politics cannot be underestimated, as people often express their concerns and comments on various events in real life through social media. Some subtle events, like the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil, can give rise to a big storm over time. In this regard, the attention to micro-politics can promote macro-politics.

Considering the relationship between macro-politics and micro-politics, the political dimension of the Chinese form needs to notice this shift in focus, examine the political meaning of everyday life, and grasp cultural hegemony in giving voice to everyday life. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the negative impact of micro-politics and insist that ideals and beliefs should be integrated into everyday life.

3.2.3 From Explicit Politics to Implicit Politics

The first generation of Western Marxist theorists, such as Lukács and Gramsci, mainly talked about explicit politics. Their political thought was about capitalism and socialism, bourgeoisie and proletariat, nation and revolution, and their own reality. Nowadays, the overt and fierce class struggle and violence are no longer a common form of politics, and “on the heels of the wind,” politics “slips secretly into the night; silent and soft, it moistens everything.”Footnote 4 It now becomes invisible in all kinds of narratives and discourses of daily life and literature, thus becoming a type of “political unconscious.”

With respect to literature, the existence of implicit politics is a universal historical fact. The relationship between literature and politics is often unclear at first glance in most cases, and some works of literature that are so politically oriented that they are not easily well-received by readers. Most literary works, in both ancient and modern times, in China or elsewhere Chinese, all contain political elements either implicitly or explicitly, including those labeled as “pure literature” or “leisure literature.” The verses “While picking asters’neath the Eastern fence, my gaze upon the Southern mountain rests” (Tao Yuanming)Footnote 5 seems to be leisurely and light of heart, but a wise reader still can glean the dissatisfaction with reality and the hope for an ideal life between the lines. The same is true of the British Lake poets, who were resistant to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The self-autonomy of art seems to have nothing to do with politics. However, the autonomy itself is actually a kind of politics, since it confronts reality in a decided, sober, and clear way. Karl Liebknecht propounded views about the nature of “true art”: “From a historical and aesthetic point of view, the ‘non-discriminatory’ ‘true’ art is a myth” (Liebknecht 1987, p. 73). As the ideology of language has been studied in depth, the idea that literature as a language art cannot be completely free from political influence has become more widely accepted. The main task of the political dimension of Marxist literary criticism is to reveal the ideological conflicts inherent in literary texts, identify class, gender, and racial oppression in texts, and divulge the resistance of the oppressed.

In short, the political dimension in literature is present to varying degrees of intensity, depth, and conspicuousness, but it is never absent. More often than not, politics is submerged in literary texts, reflected in the thought inclination of the work or the attitude of the writer. To quote and re-phrase Wayne Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction on the relationship between literature and politics, we can say that in literature, politics may appear in varying disguises, but it cannot choose to disappear.

3.3 The Tension Between Aesthetics and Politics

Given the special context of contemporary repoliticization and the transformation of political forms, the ideological nature of literature and art has also changed in terms of connotation and extension. Therefore, the Chinese form needs to examine and foster a new type of relationship between literature and politics according to the changing times.

The concept of politics today reveals the deep connection and tension between aesthetics and politics. The relationship between literature and politics is such a big topic. Instead of discussing the relationship in general and abstractly, we will focus on the literary activity itself and explore the relationship between politics as an ideology and literary texts. Politics, as a type of ideology, must reflect the needs, wills, and wishes of any nation, age, or social group and transform the world in accordance with the wishes and demands of the same. Literature as an ideology also needs to reveal the truth with vivid images and must possess cognitive value. The similar position and nature of literature and politics within the social structure forms the theoretical basis for their intrinsic connection.

3.3.1 Aesthetics as Politics

There has been a view that the relationship between literature and politics belongs to the “extrinsic approach” to the study of literature as René Wellek famously suggested. This statement holds true from the perspective of politics as a policy and institution, but it needs to be scrutinized if it is based on literary texts. This is because whatever enters literary text is no longer “extrinsic” but an “intrinsic” part of it. In other words, aesthetics and politics in literature coexist in literary texts. Even within literary texts, aesthetics and politics are not always contradictory and antagonistic but are intricately related. In addition to antagonistic side, the two are also intertwined, interpenetrating, and even transforming each other—“In a true poetic work, ideas are not abstract concepts expressed in a dogmatic way but are the soul of the work that overflows in it, like light in a crystal” (Belinsky 1958, p. 51). Inquiring into the interweaving and transformation of aesthetics and politics within literary texts will shed light on the nature and function of literature as an expression of human thought and emotion. Consequently, the political dimension of Marxist literary criticism eliminates or blurred the boundaries between extrinsic and intrinsic criticism.

Moreover, aesthetics itself contain political elements. As soon as aesthetic categories, such as sublime, metaphor, irony, and salvation, enter the concrete level, they stir up certain ideological clouds, either explicitly or implicitly, and their political factors are expressed not through certain discourse but by their own characteristics. If we further associate politics with the all-round emancipation of human beings, the entire aesthetic process is none other than political. As far as aesthetic experience is concerned, its feelings, imagination, and even emotions are related to the emancipation of the human senses. Besides, aesthetics is not only about cognitive judgment—truth, but also about value judgment. In particular, the freedom and transcendence embodied in aesthetics all contain the pursuit of ideals, which often coincides with politics. For instance, Fredric Jameson specifically discussed pleasure as a political issue in The Ideologies of Theory: The Syntax of History.

Aesthetic forms are also related to politics. Contemporary artists break the shackles of daily experience to recode or reshape the world through creative deformation, and this “otherworld” is implicitly political. However, this manifests itself not through drastic action but primarily through the formulation of new ways of seeing, thinking, talking, and being. This is strongly felt in the exaggeratedly distorted Cubist painting Guernica (1937) by Picasso, which was a representation and indictment of the German bombing of Guernica, Spain. Aesthetic forms reshape people’s needs, desires, sensations, and imaginations and transform the world through the transformation of people’s aesthetic consciousness, thereby urging the possibility of social change.

3.3.2 Aesthetic Antinomy

According to Kant’s antinomies, behind everything, there is a seed of transformation to the opposite. In the aesthetic process, aesthetics and politics constitute such an antinomy, in which they reverse each other—each transforming to its opposite. From the perspective of aesthetics, the self-reflexivity of aesthetics is highlighted in its transformation into politics. Literature and art, through the pursuit of artistic ideals and the innovation of art forms, renew people’s imagination and emotions and realize the “negation of the realistic-conformist mind” (Marcuse 1978, p. 9) and their revolutionary nature exists exactly in aesthetics.As literature and art are full of imagination and possibility, the freedom and transcendence expressed by aesthetics imply the nature of human emancipation. Thus, aesthetics becomes a prerequisite for social change. Human emancipation must include the emancipation of the sensuous, and aesthetics thus returns from politics to itself, realizing a negation of negation.

The self-reflexivity of aesthetics is also demonstrated in its dual nature—the affirmation or maintenance of reality and the negation of reality coexist in literary works. Some excellent works contain both a certain criticism and compromise with reality. Such attachment to and transcendence of reality have existed throughout literary history, and contemporary literature and art are no exception. “As part of the established culture, Art is affirmative, sustaining this culture; as alienation from the established reality, Art is a negating force. The history of Art can be understood as the harmonization of this antagonism” (Marcuse 2007, p. 143). While the aesthetics of literature transcends reality, it is limited by the existing tastes, standards of behavior, and experience, failing to achieve complete freedom. This phenomenon is particularly evident in classical works. In a sense, the history of literature and art is a process of opposition and fusion of the two.

The mutual transformation of aesthetics and politics is based on the fact that both are part of a similar social structure. Moreover, their fundamental internal connection is the shared ultimate goal of the emancipation of human beings. Both aesthetics and politics comprise a concern for human nature and a consideration of the living conditions of human beings and the world order.

The politicization of aesthetics, however, should be limited; otherwise, going beyond the limit is as bad as falling short (see Hillach et al. 1979). When studying the relationship of aesthetics and politics in texts, we should not forget the harm done to literature by radical or vicious political ideas in history. Further, we should be wary of problems such as “amusing ourselves to death” caused by the complicity of aesthetics and politics in literary texts because such complicity can weaken people’s concern for and reflection on society. As such, the relationship between literature and politics calls for constant consideration and adjustment.

4 A Perspective on the Political Dimension

In view of the new interpretation of literature and politics, the political dimension, which was once neglected or snubbed in contemporary literary criticism, has resurfaced. Examining ideological factors in literary texts, grasping the nature and function of literature as an expression of human thought and emotion, and revealing the political nature of literary texts in a new dimension are the differences between the political dimension of the Chinese form and previous political criticism.

4.1 The Research Objects of the Political Dimension

The political dimension of the Chinese form confronts a literary text that is not an independent, self-contained world but a confluence of historical, cultural, and social factors. This view of literature within the political dimension of the Chinese form is dramatically different from the various formalist views of texts. Literary texts as discursive practices contain complex power and social relations. Literature is in a social network and it is full of political elements within itself.

4.1.1 Ideological Nature of Literature

The ideological nature of literature, a topic of concern today, is determined by the basic properties of literature. Literature is the artistic manifestation of language, and language cannot be separated from ideology; whenever one speaks, it is subject to the constraints of power discourse of a certain period of time. Literature as a language art thus cannot be free from the influence of politics. The rhetorical devices of language, such as ambiguity, irony, and metaphor, also have some political overtones. The common linguistic practice of changing the everyday meaning of language in new contexts, or even reversing it, also has political implications. Marcuse noted that “It is a familiar phenomenon that subcultural groups develop their own language, taking the harmless words of everyday communication out of their context and using them for designating objects or activities tabooed by the Establishment” (Marcuse 1971, p. 35). This is also the case with online language. The ideological nature of literary language is the foundation of the political dimension of the Chinese form.

Regarding the author’s creation, the description and reproduction of social life in literature are a kind of imaginative reconstruction. As Chinese ancient critics, Liu Xie (刘勰) stated, “When one concentrates on thinking, their thoughts connect the past and the present, and they feel that their eyes can see different landscapes thousands of miles away.” The author’s imaginative reconstruction of reality is not ordinary but imaginative with ideological undertones. The reason why some works have attracted attention and caused sensation is exactly because the authors have incorporated their own emotions, imagination, and views into the creation of these works, tugging at the heartstrings of readers and, thus, influencing people’s perceptions of society and life. Non-fiction texts nowadays also depict the author’s perspective and experience, and some are even more politically concerned. According to Eagleton, Marxist criticism “is part of a larger body of theoretical analysis which aims to understand ideologies—the ideas, values and feelings by which men experience their societies at various times” (Eagleton 1976, pp. xii–xiii). Literature is an artistic realm within which the author provides a virtual solution to the politics of reality through imaginative reconstruction.

In terms of its social function, literature must be ideological. Literature can help people understand society and experience life, and it can also intervene in life. For those authors who have a strong sense of mission for society and life, their works are of stronger political flavor. In his work What is Literature? Sartre stated that writing is intervention and that “…concrete literature will be …a Project, as an outline of a future order” (Sartre 1949, p. 159). Writers seek to achieve or deny something through the art of imagination. Moreover, by constructing “an entirely different and opposed reality” (Marcuse 1972, p. 103), the writer can show the public new possibilities and alternatives, influence people’s perception of reality, and defend or question certain social structures, thereby influencing or even transforming society.

4.1.2 Scope of the Political Dimension

If literature expresses human destiny and thought, it must deal with human life, which is the destiny of literature. As Bennett stated, “The politics of literature, on this construction, are inseparable from the politics of criticism. Marxist criticism has hitherto proceeded on the assumption that every literary text has its politics inscribed within it and that the role of Marxist criticism is to enunciate this politics, to give it voice by making it explicit” (Bennett 2003, p. 136). As for literary texts, the political element can be embedded in the ideal character of the work or hidden in the twists and turns of the plot. The specific circumstances presented in a novel can also be given a political meaning, such as the case of the image of the ocean in Joseph Conrad’s work, which can become an allegorical image of capitalist penetration abroad. For feminist critics, gender politics can be implicit in some of the fairy tales children often read—stories in which girls are described as always hoping to be ultimately rescued by a prince. Politics can also manifest via symbols, metaphors, and even gaps or blanks between lines, especially in silences, contradictions, and even paradoxes of literary texts. One of the examples is the tragic end of the Liang Shan warriors who accepted amnesty and surrendered in Water Margin (水浒传), which is a denial of “loyalty and righteousness.” All these works require critics to uncover hidden political connotations and latent ideological conflicts through symptomatic readings as Pierre Macherey proposed.

Over the course of history, the potential impact of politics on individual life is enormous and complex, and almost no one can break free from it. In literary creation, it is especially important to pay attention to the fate of the individual, and literary works depicting the potential complexities of individual life constitute exactly the politics. We can understand and grasp the struggles and sorrows of the characters from some excellent literary works. In Lu Yao’s novel Life, Gao Jialin was extremely lofty-minded and said that “everyone wants to go to the United Nations”; however, in the end, they return to the yellow earth. It is through the fate of each character that literature shows the ecology of society. We can understand and reflect on life and history from the perspectives of different characters and ultimately build a better society.

The focus on the politics of everyday life is a new requirement for the political dimension of the Chinese form. As a matter of fact, politics’ influence on life is omnipresent, and people’s perceptions of politics are often shaped by food, clothing, and housing. Benjamin’s revelation of urban planning and business alliances in his The Arcades Project is none other than a reflection of politics. The marriage of capital and politics is also implicit in cultural studies, which include film, television, and even clothing design. The study of the relationship between consumption, desire, and politics will become a new approach to the political dimension.

The political dimension should also maintain a certain degree of foresight and creativity, guiding literature to plan the blueprint of a reasonable future or what Jameson calls “the utopia” that “resonates a Marxist perspective on the future” (Jameson 1981, p. 224). All these needs are to be interpreted creatively in practice.

4.2 The Political Analysis of Literary Texts

Inquiring the relationship between aesthetics and politics based on the texts is an attempt to examine the political dimension of the Chinese form. The political dimension is not generalized political criticism; it focuses on the complex, hidden, and dialectical relationship between aesthetics and politics in literary texts. This section investigates the relationship between aesthetics and politics in literary texts using the keywords “narrative” and “desire,” which appear in twentieth-century literary criticism, to examine the operation of the political dimension in the practice of literary criticism.

4.2.1 Politics in Narrative

Although the term narrative was not invented by structuralism, it was structuralist narratology that pushed it to the center of twentieth-century literary criticism. Narrative, as a fundamental way for humans to confirm identify and express themselves, is far more than merely a form of behavior or rhetoric; it is inextricably linked to politics. Jameson defined narrative as “a socially symbolic act” (Jameson 1981, p. 1) and regarded it as an imaginary projection or resolution of the contradictions of social reality. He argued that all narratives contain a political unconsciousness—they imply the ideological aspirations or political fantasies of certain social groups or classes.

In the late twentieth century, there was a growing awareness that literary “narratives” could be by no means neutral. Through the political dimension of the Chinese form, the perspective and tone of narrative works, the gaps in the narrative, the structure of the plot, and even the O. Henry-esque endings can all convey political implications. For example, the perspective from which a story is observed demonstrates the position of the observer, and many examples show how the same story has different interpretations and conclusions depending on the concrete perspective of the observer. Another example is that the narrator’s position and attitude are consciously or unconsciously displayed in what content and how much the narrator or character is willing to tell—which is told first, revealed later, explained in detail, shared briefly, and left unsaid. Even the inner monologue is often characterized by the society to which they belong. Some women writers use narrative strategies such as building a female genealogy and narrating women’s inner experiences to rebel against oppression and evoke women’s autonomy. The narratives of marginalized people also seek to reinterpret their identities, reject the stereotypedness of their groups, and regain social recognition. In this sense, narratives function as “identity reconstruction” and as a way of communication between different social groups as well. The narrative time and narrative rhythm can also exhibit the author’s craftsmanship. In Tolstoy’s novel “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” a considerable part of the narrative is devoted to compression. The narrator concisely recounted the life of Ivan Ilyich and his family history, unsuccessful marriage, and rise and fall in officialdom. It is not until the last days of Ivan Ilyich’s life that the narrator slowed down the duration or the rhythm. Only when Ivan Ilyich lay on his sickbed did he begin to question the decent life that he had sustained and supported. “…Everything seemed to him weird and unnatural” (Tolstoy 2011, p. 125) and he developed a sense of reflection and nostalgia for life. The novel’s fast-paced narrative creates a feeling of “Life, …flies quicker and quicker to its end, to the most terrible suffering” (Tolstoy 2011, p. 63) and the control of the narrative pace here is considerably meaningful. Form IS meaning, and this reflection on life itself is imbued with political implications.

The characters and plots in the story are also inseparable from politics. An anonymous mini-novel, The Taste of Mineral Water, is about a father who worked outside the home all year round and brought his son a bottle of mineral water when he returned home and proudly told his son that he drank it every day in the city. Later, the father got cancer, and his son asked him what he wanted. The father’s wish was to drink that bottle of mineral water, so the son went to buy a bottle. His father took a sip and told his son, “Fooled! This water doesn’t taste like anything!” This is the power of narrative. It is concerned with individual life and the destiny of ordinary people. The narrative shows the current situation and history of society through every individual’s encounters. In philosophy, sociology, political science, and economics, individuals often become an emotionless number, and the vivid representation of these living and sensuous individuals is exactly the strength of literature.

4.2.2 Desire and Politics

Desire is related to narrative but focuses more on the activity of the human conscious. In both Chinese history and Western history, the concepts of desire and politics have been viewed as opposites. The public and rational nature of politics is opposed to the private and irrational nature of desire. Desire, as a personal unconscious, seems to be excluded from politics. Plato, in Republic, cast out the poets because they fostered inferior lust in humans and made people lack an indomitable will. The kind of open lust encouraged in the Middle Ages in the West was considered sinful and suppressed in the Protestant era. The concept of “Knowing the truth, exterminating the desire,” put forward by the Neo-Confucian during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) in China, also put the two in an incompatible position. In the twentieth century, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis was directed at the suppression of instincts by reason in modern civilization, highlighting the sensuous aspect of human beings and making desire the object of literary criticism.

Reason and desire are the two wings of human development, and it is best to understand them as interrelated, mutually constraining, and inseparable activities of consciousness. This forms the foothold to reconsider the relationship between desire and politics within the Chinese form. Throughout the history of Chinese and foreign literature, there has never been a lack of depiction of desire in literary texts. Therefore, the understanding and control of human desire are a matter for both psychologists and writers and literary critics. In literary texts, politics and desire are often wonderfully intertwined, with desire for sex, wealth, and power mostly referring directly to politics. For instance, sexual desire is often about the revolution of the body and gender equality. Some of today’s utopian novels are also intermediaries between politics and desire. Whether utopian or anti-utopian, their anxieties about reality and their hopes for the future both imply some kind of criticism and warning. Additionally, political factors in the text can be manipulated, repressed, or diverted by characters and plot occurrences to achieve certain intentions and obtain a certain calm. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in popular culture and media. For instance, through certain utopian desires and impulses, people are intoxicated by their visual images, replacing thought with the eyes. Therefore, the political dimension can start from the desires expressed in literary texts, discover the hidden connection between desires and political factors, reveal their inner revolutionary needs, and recognize the special social function of literature.

In literary criticism, the task of the political dimension is to reveal whether there are political elements in literary texts and, more importantly, consider whether they are reasonable and contribute to the development of society and the integrity of humanity. Some people believe that incorporating politics into literature will hinder its free development. Although some stiff slogan politics, especially those contrary to the interests of the people, are indeed harmful to literature, not all political manifestations are detrimental to literary works. Many excellent works have an everlasting appeal precisely because of their profound ideas. In addition to its artistic form, a work’s greatness can be attributed to its profound and complex ideas. The works of Shakespeare, Balzac, and Tolstoy have become classics because of their profound insights about society. Their works record the waves and folds of the times and leave people with endless thoughts. It is the mission and responsibility of literature and art to pursue social justice and the free development of human spirit.

In literary criticism, the political dimension is not the sole but one of the most important dimensions that aids the understanding of literature. The Chinese form must adhere to the political dimension because, without it, it would not be Marxist literary criticism. Additionally, the political dimension of the Chinese form needs constant expansion, and the practice of and reflection on political criticism will inevitably run through the Chinese form. The ideal politics should involve the pursuit of truth and the struggle for creative social transformation, and its ultimate goal is the complete emancipation of human beings. Along with politics, literature will serve as a carrier to realize the ideal and create a better life.