Zhu Jiamu: Chen Yun and the Ideological Struggle After the Reform and Opening-up
Comrade Chen Yun was a great proletarian revolutionary and statesman, a distinguished Marxist, and a key member of both the first generation of the Party's central collective leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong at its core and the second generation with Comrade Deng Xiaoping at its core. From the latter part of the Yan'an era through a long period following the founding of the People's Republic, he consistently led the Party’s economic work—in his own words, he was "in charge of food and clothing." However, after the start of reform and opening up, he began to pay close attention to the struggle in the ideological field. He issued many deafening, farsighted, and strategic opinions, some of which still offer important insights for us today.
I. Firmly Uphold Ideals and Convictions in Communism
Our Party is engaged in the cause of socialism, and our ultimate goal is the realization of communism; this was never in question during the revolutionary years or the period before reform and opening up. If there were problems then, they mainly stemmed from impatience—at one point attempting to "take two steps at once," for which we paid a heavy price and learned bitter lessons. However, since the start of reform and opening up, some people within the Party, especially certain leading cadres, have swung from one extreme to the other. They believe communism is a utopia that can never be realized, and that China should first "make up for the missed lessons of capitalism" [1] and stop raising the banner of socialism. The fact that so many problems emerged in our Party conduct and social customs is heavily related to this. At that time, Comrade Chen Yun was concurrently serving as the First Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). His attention to this issue initially proceeded from the perspective of rectifying Party conduct, emphasizing the importance of firm communist ideals and convictions for Party members.
In the early stages of reform and opening up, some cadres returned from inspection tours abroad and gave reports everywhere, publicizing how advanced developed capitalist countries were and advocating that we should learn not only their technology but also their systems. In 1983, prior to the Second Plenary Session of the 12th CPC Central Committee, Comrade Chen Yun gave specific instructions while drafting his speech: he insisted on addressing the prevention of negative consequences arising from opening up to the outside world, and concluded that "Long live socialism! Long live communism!" must be written at the end. Later, in his speech to the Plenary Session, he pointed out: "When opening to the outside world, we also said we must pay full attention to the negative things it brings. But it now appears that the work of preventing negative consequences has not been sufficient." "Some people see foreign skyscrapers, highways, and so on, and think China is inferior to foreign countries, socialism is inferior to capitalism, and Marxism 'doesn't work' anymore. We must conduct criticism and education for such people; for those among them engaged in ideological work who refuse to change after education, we must transfer them from their posts."
Some passages in the speech were added by his own hand during the review process, such as: "China is still very poor, but we are a socialist country, and our fundamental system is far superior to that of capitalism. There are millionaires in capitalist countries, but their wealth is obtained by exploiting the working people. Capitalism will inevitably be replaced by communism; this is an unchangeable law. The existence of socialist countries led by Communist Parties in the world today is ironclad proof that socialism and communism will inevitably replace capitalism." At the end of the speech, he raised his voice and said to all members of the Central Commission: "We can be full of confidence and cry out: Long live socialism! Long live communism!"
In response to the view raised by some comrades that "communism is indefinitely far off," Comrade Chen Yun said: "This view is incorrect. It should be said that communism is definitely within sight; socialism is, after all, the first stage of communism." Though only one word separated "indefinite" and "definite," they vividly reflected two diametrically opposed worldviews and ideological states. Regarding the proposal by some that our Party should change its name, he said: "The name of the Communist Party indicates her goal of struggle; how could changing the name be acceptable! During the Yan'an period, someone suggested the Communist Party change its name. Chairman Mao said: 'What name would be good? The name "Kuomintang" [2] is the best! It’s a pity they already took it.'" To resist such erroneous thoughts, Comrade Chen Yun emphasized the issue of firming up communist ideals and convictions whenever he had the opportunity. In 1985, at a CCDI national meeting for exchanging experience on rectifying Party conduct, he pointed out again in a written address: "It must be made clear to all comrades of the Party that what we are doing is the cause of socialism, and the ultimate goal is the realization of communism. This point is extremely important." He also stated that the economic construction we are carrying out "is socialist economic construction, and the reform of the economic system is also the socialist reform of the economic system. Every Communist Party member must remember at every moment that we are pursuing the socialist Four Modernizations, not some other kind of modernization; the cause we carry out is the socialist cause."
Regarding the need for Party members to be firm in their communist ideals and convictions, Comrade Chen Yun not only frequently sounded the alarm for everyone but also advocated for struggle against words and deeds that violated communist ideals. While reviewing the draft report for the 12th National Congress of the Party, he specifically told the drafting group to add the concept of promoting a spirit of struggle. He said: "Currently, in our Party conduct and even in the general social atmosphere, there is a major problem: the failure to distinguish between right and wrong. Some comrades do not dare to uphold principles in the face of right and wrong; they 'blur the lines' and try to be 'harmonizers' [3], while those who uphold principles are isolated." He pointed out: "In the past, under the influence of 'Leftist' guiding ideology, there was an overemphasis on the philosophy of struggle; people were struggled against who shouldn't have been, and every issue was elevated to the level of 'line' [4] right and wrong. Now, another tendency has emerged: fearing conflict, fearing struggle, and fearing to offend people." He emphasized: "We must advocate for upholding principles and a spirit where 'yes' means 'yes' and 'no' means 'no.' Only if a climate of clearly distinguishing right from wrong is first formed within our Party can the Party’s unity have a foundation, can the Party have combat effectiveness, and will the social atmosphere follow suit and improve, allowing healthy tendencies to rise and perverse ones to recede." Later, in a speech at another CCDI meeting, he stated even more explicitly: "We must conduct resolute struggle against all erroneous words and deeds that violate communist ideals."
Comrade Chen Yun not only made these demands of others but also led by example. Before the Third Plenary Session of the 12th CPC Central Committee in 1983, he saw in a briefing that some rural Party members were receiving "lost-work subsidies" [5] in addition to food subsidies during intensive training sessions. He considered this practice highly unreasonable, saying: "Before Liberation, also in the countryside, people supported the war, transported shells and the wounded; not only was there no lost-work subsidy, but they were often wounded or killed as a result. By comparison, those Communist Party members taking lost-work subsidies should think: is this consistent with the standards of a Communist Party member? The standard for a Communist Party member is to struggle for communism for a lifetime, not hesitating to sacrifice one's own life." He proposed that anyone who demands money for intensive training or meetings cannot be a Communist Party member, and any member requesting lost-work subsidies should be expelled from the Party. He requested that these words be included in his speech to the Plenary Session. Some comrades, knowing his opinion and hearing he would speak on it at the session, raised a different view, arguing that worker-members do not have their wages docked during meetings, so why shouldn't peasant-members be allowed to take lost-work subsidies? Upon learning of this view, Comrade Chen Yun said that this issue involved two different distribution systems and they could not be mentioned in the same breath; he proceeded to deliver his speech at the Plenary Session exactly as drafted.
II. Strengthen Publicity, Ideological and Political Work, and the Advancement of Spiritual Civilization
Comrade Chen Yun was among the earliest to remind the Party to pay attention to the role of publicity work [6] in social stability. In July 1980, when the Solidarity trade union events occurred in Poland, Comrade Chen Yun keenly perceived the negative role played by publicity work therein. He timely proposed that both publicity work and economic work must be regarded as essential conditions for the stability of socialist political power. He said: "If we handle economic work poorly or handle publicity work poorly, a 'Poland incident' could occur." Later, he had someone tell the head of the People’s Daily: "If economic work is not done well or if publicity work is not done well, the boat will capsize. The publicity work I am talking about is not just newspaper publicity; it actually encompasses the entirety of the Party’s political work."
What issues must be addressed to handle newspaper publicity well? At least two points can be discerned from Comrade Chen Yun’s recorded remarks at the time. First, one must prevent making promises regarding living standards and welfare that cannot be achieved for the time being—this "whets the appetite" of the masses only to fail to deliver, thereby causing public dissatisfaction. Some things can even be "done but not spoken of." For example, at a 1980 meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and the Secretariat, he said: "The newspapers have been reporting heavily on solving the problem of couples living in separate locations [7]. Can you actually solve them all? Someone must guard the pass on publicity. We can do the work, but don't put it in the paper. Good deeds should be done, but within our means. Sometimes when doing a good deed, there is no need to speak of it." A month later, at a Central Work Conference, he again stated: "Some good deeds should only be done, not reported in the newspaper." Second, one must maintain a correct orientation of public opinion, providing more encouragement and less discouragement. For instance, in early 1981, he spent nearly a month carefully reading the People’s Daily supplements featuring literature and miscellanea; he found that for 20 of those days, there were negative elements. In a conversation, he pointed out: "Newspapers and magazines are important media for the Party’s publicity and ideological work; special care should be taken to maintain a correct orientation of public opinion and publish more positive, uplifting articles that inspire people to forge ahead."
How to view Comrade Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought was a focal point in the ideological field after the start of reform and opening up, and a pressing issue that publicity, ideological, and political work needed to resolve correctly. After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee corrected the erroneous policy of the "Two Whatevers," the work of "setting things right" [8] across all fields proceeded in depth. In particular, the successive rehabilitation of those involved in past cases of injustice, falsehood, and error greatly liberated thoughts that had long been shackled and suppressed, which was highly conducive to concentrating energy on socialist modernization. At the same time, however, some social problems accumulated during the "Cultural Revolution" became prominent, and erroneous trends of thought questioning and denying the Party’s leadership, the socialist system, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and Mao Zedong Thought began to spread in society. In response, Comrade Deng Xiaoping timely and clearly put forward the Four Cardinal Principles. During the drafting of the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China" (hereinafter the Resolution), he proposed the guiding policy of "establishing Comrade Mao Zedong’s historical position and persevering in and developing Mao Zedong Thought," along with the drafting principle that for historical issues, "it is better to be broad than over-detailed." He profoundly pointed out that evaluating Comrade Mao Zedong is inseparable from the history of our Party and country; discarding the banner of Mao Zedong Thought would mean denying our Party.
Comrade Chen Yun not only fully agreed with Deng Xiaoping’s opinions but also suggested adding a section to the Resolution reviewing the 28 years of history prior to the founding of New China, to more forcefully demonstrate that Comrade Mao Zedong’s merits were primary and his errors secondary. He said to Comrade Hu Qiaomu, the head of the Resolution drafting group: "We must settle the question of Mao Zedong’s merits and errors while our generation is still alive—settle it once and for all [9], and explain it clearly point by point. Only then will the Party’s thinking be unified, and the people’s thinking be unified. If we do not do this, a Khrushchev might emerge in the future to truly topple Chairman Mao. Not only would they negate Chairman Mao, they would negate those of us who made vague and general resolutions. Therefore, we must speak very thoroughly regarding the issue of Mao Zedong’s merits and errors." He also suggested that after the Resolution was passed, the whole Party and student youth should be organized to seriously study the classic works of Mao and Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, as well as the history of the Chinese revolution and the Party.
Because the "Gang of Four" [10] had engaged in "false, big, and empty" [11] publicity during the "Cultural Revolution," and because economic construction became the center of focus after reform and opening up, some people mistakenly believed that publicity and ideological-political work were optional. They even mocked and ridiculed the departments responsible for this work, causing their prestige to suffer and making it difficult to carry out tasks for a time. Comrade Chen Yun believed that the errors of the publicity and ideological-political work departments during the "Cultural Revolution" were the result of the Party’s temporary errors, and did not mean the work itself was unimportant. On the contrary, whether this work could be done well under the line of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee was crucial. In his speech at the National Conference of the Party in 1985, he pointed out: "Currently, some people, including some Communist Party members, have forgotten the ideals of socialism and communism and discarded the purpose of serving the people. For private gain, they 'look only to money,' ignoring the interests of the state and the masses, and even violating law and discipline." "The occurrence of these problems is related to our relaxation of ideological and political work and the weakening of the role and authority of ideological and political work departments; this should be taken as a lesson." He emphasized: "Party organizations at all levels should earnestly grasp ideological and political work and must actively maintain the authority of the ideological and political work departments."
Some individuals believe that as long as material civilization is properly developed, spiritual civilization will naturally improve; others argue that we should currently concentrate our energy on material civilization and that it will not be too late to return to spiritual civilization once the former is largely resolved. From beginning to end, Comrade Chen Yun resolutely opposed these viewpoints. In 1983, prior to the Third Plenary Session of the 12th CPC Central Committee, he mentioned that his speech at the plenum would address three issues, one of which was that "material civilization and spiritual civilization must be grasped together." He stated that we must pay close attention to certain negative phenomena and illegal acts emerging from competition, and carry out necessary management and education to prevent them from spreading unchecked and corrupting our Party's conduct and social atmosphere. "We are a socialist country; we must have both a high level of material civilization and a high level of socialist spiritual civilization. This is the direction of struggle we must always uphold." In 1985, in a written speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), he pointed out once again that the phenomenon of neglecting the construction of spiritual civilization must be ideologically corrected. "Socialist construction encompasses both material and spiritual civilization; the two are inseparable. The socialist cause cannot be purely the construction of material civilization, nor can it be purely the construction of spiritual civilization. Moreover, it is impossible for the socialist cause to first carry out material construction and only then address spiritual construction." He further stated: "Within the Party, if we neglect spiritual civilization and ideological and political work, it is impossible to have good Party conduct; in society, if we neglect spiritual civilization and education in communist ideology, it is impossible to have a good social atmosphere. In short, if we neglect the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, our entire cause may deviate from Marxism and the socialist road. That capitalist philosophy of 'everyone for themselves and the devil take the hindmost' [12], and that slavish mentality that disregards national and individual dignity, are factors that jeopardize the socialist cause." He cautioned everyone that the then-prevalent neglect of spiritual civilization "is by no means a small matter, and all comrades in the Party must attach great importance to it."
There was once significant debate regarding what should constitute the core of ideological and political education and spiritual civilization, and whether communist education should be that core. Ultimately, this question boils down to whether communist theory is scientific and whether our Party still intends to take communism as its goal of struggle. Regarding this, Comrade Chen Yun took a clear stand: "Education in communist ideology and propaganda for the Four Cardinal Principles should be the central content of ideological and political work." He also stated that within the construction of spiritual civilization, we must "conduct education centered on communist ideology in a targeted manner." He explained: "During the period of the Democratic Revolution, it was because we used communist ideology to educate Party members and the advanced elements among the masses that the Party maintained its combat effectiveness and the revolution achieved victory." "Socialist economic construction and the reform of the economic system require, all the more, a spirit of dedication to the communist cause." This discourse was essentially telling people that if education in communist ideology played such a vital role during the Democratic Revolution, then in the socialist period, we should certainly not be moving further away from communism.
III. The Need to Guard Against Imperialism's Plot of Peaceful Evolution
Comrade Mao Zedong was the first to raise the issue of guarding against the "peaceful evolution" [13] of socialist countries by imperialism. However, while imperialism still maintained a comprehensive blockade against China, it was not easy for this strategy to take effect. Yet, once China broke through the imperialist blockade—especially after implementing the policy of reform and opening up—they believed the time had come. They began to implement a dual policy of "engagement plus containment," intensifying the pace of peaceful evolution toward China and selecting the ideological and cultural spheres as their primary direction of attack. In the 1950s, the so-called "Ten Commandments" [14] directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency against socialist countries were widely circulated; although some doubted their authenticity, facts proved that this was exactly how they operated. For instance, a very important "commandment" was to use every possible means—films, books, television, and radio waves—to do a good job of dissemination, so as to attract the attention of youth toward pornography, sexual Promiscuity, hedonism, games, religion, and crime, thereby destroying their traditional values and undermining their moral character and popular support, making them gradually break away from communist "preaching." If anyone believes this example is insufficient to illustrate the problem, we can look further at the so-called "Tittytainment" strategy [15] proposed by the American politician Brzezinski in the 1990s. The general idea of this plan was that to prevent 80% of the world's population from developing resentment and resistance toward the gap between the rich and the poor, and especially to prevent developing countries from surpassing the United States in strength, one should stuff a "pacifier" (nipple) into the mouths of the people of those countries as one would an infant. This involves using "venting" entertainment and "satisfying" games—such as opening up the pornography industry, encouraging online gaming, reporting extensively on celebrities and entertainment gossip, filming idol dramas, and broadcasting reality shows—to stimulate their senses and anesthetize their nerves, making them indulge in pleasure and ease, thereby losing their capacity for critical thought. Subsequently, large photos of Chinese film stars did indeed begin appearing on the covers of American Time magazine, and waves of celebrity worship and the "Korean Wave" (Hallyu) indeed emerged among Chinese youth. Comrade Chen Yun was among the first to notice and place great weight on this phenomenon.
In the early 1980s, while cracking down on smuggling in coastal areas, Comrade Chen Yun discovered that smuggled goods from overseas included not only daily consumer items but also a significant amount of pornographic printed materials, video tapes, and audio tapes. Some of these, along with anti-Party and anti-socialist illegal publications, had already circulated among the masses, particularly youth. Addressing this situation, Comrade Chen Yun immediately pointed out: "Yellow [16] books, periodicals, and pictures must be handled the same way as illegal publications; they must be strictly investigated and dealt with... the ringleaders and abettors must be severely punished." In February 1982, he further told the Central Propaganda Department: "Currently, there are too many images of women and 'beauties' used in periodicals and advertisements. Our country should promote heroism. We must manage this issue with particular strictness." In September 1983, on an internal briefing reflecting the prevalence of obscene books and pictures in society, he wrote an instruction: "Obscene manuscripts circulating in society, and especially in schools, must be confiscated cleanly, thoroughly, and completely. In the future, those who produce them shall be heavily sentenced, and those who disseminate them shall also be punished." In March 1985, during a conversation with leading comrades of the CCDI, he pointed out again: "Currently, some tabloids talk about nothing but 'messy' things like sexual relations; this will corrupt cadres and corrupt youth. This is not just a Party issue; it also concerns the aspirations of our nation's youth. Directing the thoughts and interests of youth toward these filthy areas will lead to the ruin of the Party and the state." In the same year, in the aforementioned speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the CCDI, while emphasizing the need to pay special attention to the infiltration of decadent capitalist ideas and styles, he deliberately equated "trafficking and screening obscene and lewd videos, and inducing women into prostitution" with illegal criminal activities such as manufacturing and selling fake medicine or fake liquor for profit, categorizing them all as ugly behaviors that must be resisted and eliminated.
Regarding the unhealthy ideas, works, and performances emerging in Sino-Western cultural exchanges, Comrade Deng Xiaoping used the term "spiritual pollution" for summarization and viewed them from the heightened perspective of the future and destiny of the Party and the state. At the Second Plenary Session of the 12th CPC Central Committee in 1983, Comrade Deng Xiaoping delivered a specific speech on how the ideological front must not engage in spiritual pollution. He pointed out that in external cultural exchanges, some people were keen on writing about dark, grey, or fabricated things that distorted revolutionary history and reality, aggressively promoting the so-called "Modernist" trends of the West, and openly proclaiming that the highest goal of literature and art is "self-expression," with "individual works even promoting pornography." Some people "uncritically, indiscriminately, and blindly worship various Western philosophical, economic, socio-political, and literary trends... to the point that in recent years, many books, films, music, dances, videos, and recordings that are considered low-brow, vulgar, or harmful even in Western countries have been imported." He emphasized: "Do not think that a little spiritual pollution is nothing to worry about. Some phenomena may not show much harm in the short term. But if we do not pay timely attention and take firm measures to stop them, allowing them to spread freely, it will influence more people to take the wrong path, and the consequences could be very serious. In the long run, this issue concerns what kind of generation will take over our cause, and concerns the fate and future of the Party and the state."
The "1989" political turmoil [17] brought the issue of imperialist peaceful evolution of socialist countries to the fore in an even more acute form, prompting reflection from the older generation of revolutionaries such as Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun. Just after the turmoil, Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out: "The entire imperialist Western world is attempting to make all socialist countries abandon the socialist road, ultimately bringing them under the rule of international monopoly capital and onto the capitalist track." On September 8, 1989, in a conversation with a central leading comrade, Comrade Chen Yun also clearly stated: "Judging from historical facts, imperialist aggression and infiltration used to be primarily 'martial' (wu); later, 'civil' (wen) and 'martial' were used together; now, the 'civil' (including political, economic, and cultural) has become prominent, especially the so-called 'peaceful evolution' directed at socialist countries." He cried out: "The view that Lenin's theory of imperialism is outdated is completely wrong and very harmful." Eight days later, while receiving foreign guests, Comrade Deng Xiaoping further noted: "There is a formulation in the United States now: to fight a World War without the smoke of gunpowder. We must be vigilant. Capitalism wants to ultimately defeat socialism. In the past they used weapons, atomic bombs, and hydrogen bombs, which met with opposition from the people of the world; now they are engaging in peaceful evolution."
After the "1989" political turmoil, Comrade Chen Yun attached even greater importance to ideological issues. In 1990, after seeing several reports on the use of religion for infiltration—particularly materials on counter-revolutionary activities conducted under the cloak of religion—he immediately forwarded them to Comrade Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee. In the attached letter, he pointed out: "Utilizing religion to compete with us for the masses, especially the youth, is a consistent tactic of class enemies at home and abroad, and is also a painful lesson for certain countries led by Communist Parties that lost their political power. Now is the time for the Central Committee to earnestly grasp this major issue." Subsequent events clearly demonstrated that Comrade Chen Yun’s reminder back then was indeed a case of "seeing the spark and knowing the fire," [18] taking precautions before the rain.
IV. Inheriting and Promoting the Excellent Traditional Culture of the Chinese Nation
In the early stages of reform and opening up, while a large amount of beneficial foreign culture was being introduced, phenomena of nihilistic attitudes toward the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation emerged, along with biases in the education sector such as emphasizing science and engineering while neglecting the liberal arts. This situation similarly caught Comrade Chen Yun's attention. One of the issues he addressed early on was the rescue and collation of ancient texts. As an apprentice at the Commercial Press in his early years, he had come into contact with ancient Chinese classics and always regretted that the Classical Chinese (wenyanwen) therein lacked punctuation and was difficult to understand. After the founding of New China, the State Council had established a planning group for the collation and publication of ancient books, and the Department of Chinese at Peking University had also created a classical literature major to train talents in this field. Regrettably, these were forced to close during the "Cultural Revolution." It was only due to Comrade Mao Zedong's intervention that the punctuated editing of the Twenty-Four Histories and other classics could proceed. After the smashing of the "Gang of Four," Comrade Chen Yun also began to reflect on the issue of collating ancient texts. Precisely at that time, the Ministry of Education was adjusting the liberal arts curriculum and decided to abolish the classical literature major at Peking University—the only one of its kind in the country. This caused strong dissatisfaction among the relevant teachers and students, who reported their views to Comrade Chen Yun. Consequently, after careful consideration, he delivered a speech in the spring of 1981 that systematically addressed this issue.
In this conversation, Comrade Chen Yun spoke on the significance and methodology of collating ancient texts, while also providing clear opinions on organizational work, supporting institutions, document preservation, talent cultivation, and financial support. He pointed out: "Collating ancient texts and inheriting the precious cultural heritage of the motherland is an important task that concerns future generations." [19] He noted that our school education pays more attention to science and engineering; while this meets the needs of the national economy, it is unacceptable for those studying science and engineering to lack knowledge of Chinese cultural traditions, and that some classical Chinese should be read starting from primary school. It is said that there are over 80,000 or even 120,000 extant ancient Chinese books, but only over 2,000 have been collated and published, which is far from enough. Collating ancient texts cannot be limited to punctuation, annotation, collation, and historical linguistics [20]; there must also be modern translations so that the majority of people who can read newspapers find them intelligible, as only then will they have the interest to read them. He requested the restoration of the State Council's Planning Group for the Collation and Publication of Ancient Books and requested that they first formulate a 30-year plan. He emphasized the need to strengthen the protection, rescue, and reprinting of unique copies [21] and rare editions of existing ancient books, and to find ways to recover or duplicate those scattered overseas. Regarding classical literature majors in universities, he argued they must not be abolished but rather expanded in terms of faculty and student scale, with the establishment of research institutes. He emphasized: "Collating ancient books is a major undertaking that will take a hundred years; I hope we can earnestly grasp it now." His talk received high attention from the Central Secretariat, which issued the full text as the "Instruction of the CPC Central Committee on the Collation of Ancient Books." This led to the preservation and collation of a large number of endangered cultural relics and ancient texts, and allowed the few remaining research teams to grow and strengthen, playing a positive role in carrying forward the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation under the conditions of reform and opening up.
In addition to focusing on the collation of ancient books, Comrade Chen Yun also attached great importance to the inheritance and development of the art of pingtan [22]. Pingtan is a folk storytelling and singing art popular in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions of China; listening to pingtan was a hobby Comrade Chen Yun had developed since childhood. During the 1950s and 60s, while recuperating from illness, he revisited this hobby. Through listening to a large number of pingtan recordings and extensive contact with performers and creators, he expressed many profound insights on how to inherit and develop this ancient art, which were later compiled into his book Talks and Correspondence Regarding Pingtan. His opinions can be summarized into several points. First, "Literature and art are matters of ideology; they must serve the economic base, serve the people, and serve socialism." Second, traditional repertoires must be collated, preserved, and performed: "If they are not collated, the essence will not be accepted by the broad audience, especially the new generation." "Turning a blind eye to traditional stories with hundreds of years of history is a form of historical nihilism [23]. Only by performing new stories while striving to preserve the excellent parts of traditional ones can we achieve 'letting a hundred flowers bloom'." Third, "We should adopt an attitude of active support toward new stories with modern themes." "For old stories, we only applaud when they are 70% good; for new stories, we should applaud even if they are only 30% good." Fourth, pingtan "should be both serious and lively." Audiences come to hear folk art, "not to attend a political lesson. Even a report should include a few jokes. The purpose of ideological education must be achieved through artistic means." From these points, we can see that for him, pingtan was both art and ideology—it was art with ideological attributes.
After the start of reform and opening up, Comrade Chen Yun used listening to pingtan and contacting people in the pingtan circle as a way to relax after work, but also as a channel for understanding the situation in the literary and art circles and guiding literary and art workers with the Party’s policies on art. In 1981, addressing the situation in the pingtan community, he proposed the resonant slogan "Produce stories, produce talent, and walk the right path" (出书出人走正路), which had a great impact on the folk art community and even the wider literary, artistic, and academic circles, becoming an important guiding principle in the ideological and cultural spheres at that time. On the eve of the 1984 Spring Festival, to ensure good holiday news coverage, relevant central departments requested that all major central leaders participate in a public activity. Comrade Chen Yun proposed meeting with representatives of the folk art community at his home and prepared a talk transcript for news reporting in advance to further elaborate on "producing stories, producing talent, and walking the right path." He said: "To produce talent means to enthusiastically and actively cultivate young and outstanding creative personnel and performers so they can quickly catch up with or even surpass the older generation. To produce stories means to collate traditional repertoires with one hand and write repertoires reflecting the New Era, new society, and new things with the other—especially to write and compile more new stories. To walk the right path means to emphasize both entertainment and ideological content in repertoires and performances, avoiding low-grade tastes and crooked ways... As long as these points are achieved, folk art will surely adapt to the needs of the era and the masses, continuing to develop and flourish day by day." In that conversation, he also addressed the resistance of some in the literary and art circles to the spirit of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech on "the ideological front must not engage in spiritual pollution" [24], pointing out: "Now, some comrades are very sensitive to criticism and self-criticism, thinking that if a certain person is criticized, something terrible has happened. In fact, both criticism and self-criticism are effective old methods for our Party to resolve problems of an ideological nature. We should also promote this method in the literary and art circles, making it a trend and something people gradually become accustomed to." It was through such means that Comrade Chen Yun echoed Comrade Deng Xiaoping on the Party's ideological and cultural front, together defending the ideological positions of socialism.
The ideological position has always been one of the Party's important positions. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, our Party has not only undergone the test of long-term governance but also the tests of the market economy and the external environment. We must not only concentrate on developing the economy and increasing material wealth but also hold and expand the ideological position under circumstances where hostile overseas forces use the opportunity of our opening up to increase infiltration and "Westernization," and where domestic bourgeois liberalization [25] elements continuously create ideological confusion. Compared to some other socialist countries, it must be said that achieving this is very difficult. Why has our Party succeeded? There are certainly many reasons, but one that must be recognized is that our Party possessed a group of tested, experienced, and far-sighted revolutionaries of the older generation like Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun. Today, these revolutionaries of the older generation have passed away one after another, and the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has taken up their torch. It is leading the whole Party to continue struggling unremittingly to consolidate the Party’s ideological position while persisting in taking economic construction as the center. Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out: "At present, various hostile forces are constantly attempting to manufacture a 'color revolution' [26] in our country, vainly hoping to subvert the leadership of the Communist Party of China and our country's socialist system. This is a realistic danger facing our state's political security. One breakthrough point they have chosen is the field of ideology, attempting to throw people's thinking into chaos and then fish in troubled waters to win victory through chaos... History and reality warn us that once the position of thought and public opinion is breached, other lines of defense will be difficult to hold. In the struggle in the ideological field, we have no room for compromise or retreat; we must achieve total victory." [27] I firmly believe that as long as we act according to the requirements of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and dare to struggle and be good at struggling, we will certainly achieve complete victory in the ideological struggle and ultimately realize socialist modernization and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.