Art for the Masses: Mao Zedong’s Yan’An Lectures

At the 1942 Yan’An Forum on Literature in Art, held in the Shaanxi city of Yan’An, Mao Zedong delivered a series of lectures on the role played by the literary arts in shaping, and being shaped by, the “soldier, farmer, and worker.” While not literature per se, they still played a huge role in Party policy on art for decades to come.