Editor’s note: The creation of the script “The Younger Generation” was a process of great struggle. The original author of “The Younger Generation” held reactionary ideas, had a decayed spiritual world, and worshipped bourgeois lifestyles. Therefore, the first draft of the script was permeated with all kinds of bourgeois complaints and vulgar love stories. It was only after strong demands from the masses, vigorous resistance from actors, and direct editing by the Shanghai Municipal Committee led by Comrade Ke Qingshi that the entire script was revitalized and took on the revolutionary appearance known to the public today. “The Younger Generation,” whether as a play or in its 1965 and 1976 film versions, was born under the revolutionary line implemented by the Shanghai Municipal Committee. The process of script creation itself reflected the struggle between the two lines of Marxism and revisionism during the socialist period. Although this article was written from a revisionist standpoint after the capitalist restoration, it objectively also fairly comprehensively reflects the revision process of “The Younger Generation,” allowing readers to see the ideological struggle surrounding the script’s revision. Therefore, it is published here for reference.
Creation and Development of the Drama "The Young Generation" (Excerpt)
Gu Zhenhui
The drama "The Young Generation" is a socialist education play created by Shanghai Theatre Academy teacher Chen Yun in the 1960s. As a play that caused widespread influence at the time, its final form was not completed by Chen Yun alone. Today, we can see the scripts published in 1963 in the magazines "Shanghai Drama" and "Drama" and the standalone script published the following year by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House and China Theatre Publishing House. There are significant and subtle differences in authorship attribution and specific content. Through整理 recent discovered historical materials, the author will outline the unknown creative background behind these two versions of the work.
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The drama "The Young Generation" was a work that was gradually shaped through multiple revisions. Based on preliminary整理 of historical materials, it can be roughly determined that "The Young Generation" underwent five rounds of revisions and resulted in two versions. The script's revisions roughly went through three stages:
The first stage was in spring 1963, from shortly after the script was created until just before the Shanghai Theatre Academy's performance on June 3. After modifications based on various demands, Chen Yun resisted pressure from Ke Qingshi to further revise and published this draft in Issue 8 of "Script" and Issues 8-9 of "Shanghai Drama".
The second stage was after September of that year, when the Air Force Political Department took the play to Beijing for performances. It received recognition from central leaders and also received specific suggestions for revisions from various sides. The author studied and integrated these suggestions during a visit to Beijing, then provided the revised script to Shanghai Theatre Academy and Qinghua for a new round of performances in Shanghai.
The final stage was to prepare the work for the East China performance at the end of 1964 to "set an example." Ke Qingshi convened members of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department writing team, as well as the director and actors of the play, to revise the script. The revised work was used as the performance script for the East China performance and was finally published the following year by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House and China Theatre Publishing House.
What this means is that it uses the backward ideas of young people to promote bourgeois lifestyles, advocating bourgeois love and friendship, but verbally it dares not admit it and claims it is very “simple.”
This is completely a manifestation of bourgeois spiritual emptiness, exposing Chen Yun’s own bourgeois worldview, which is to crazily pursue personal fame and fortune, pursue women, and when unable to obtain them, feel “empty,” even to the point of forcibly claiming that this bourgeois human nature is the common human nature of all young people. It is evident that Chen Yun’s life is far more vulgar compared to proletarian revolutionaries.
This reflects the author’s reactionary stance of the theory of the extinguishing of class struggle. The author deliberately aims to turn the entire play into a tool for promoting the theory of the extinguishing of class struggle, causing people to lose vigilance against the bourgeoisie’s fragrant wind and toxic fog, allowing the younger generation to be corrupted and lured by bourgeois lifestyles, and enabling China to achieve capitalist restoration.
In fact, this indicates that the author deliberately defames revolutionary cadres, vilifies the Communist Party, and attacking revolutionary cadres of the Communist Party is not only useless but also characterized by a tendency to be anti-party and anti-socialist, with the so-called “bureaucrats” who are detached from the masses.
It’s so disgusting. Chen Yun, right? Just like that reactionary Chen Yun. And he’s still messing around with love triangles. His thoughts are truly rotten to the core! Pure bourgeois love view! In socialist China, he still wants to screen pornographic films!
The indignant Chen Yun once wrote after the Cultural Revolution:
The script was written by me. They could modify my work arbitrarily, but they wouldn’t let me modify my own work according to my own ideas. They actually published the script for nearly a year, and after gaining recognition from the broad audience, they disregarded the author and randomly added or deleted based on their preferences. How霸也! (tyranny!)
Ke Qingshi originally wanted to wait for Chen Yun to return and then modify the script according to his requirements, but Chen Yun “felt that the script had already finished its performances across various regions and had been recognized by Premier Zhou and the broad audience, so there was no need for major changes, nor was it appropriate to make big changes, so he did not follow his advice.” This angered this big figure. Ke Qingshi’s dissatisfaction quickly led to Chen Yun being “pushed aside” in the final revision of the script.
Chen Geng and this revisionist article author are extremely reactionary, publishing such yellow literature and arts as if they were persecuted, and even fantasizing about using Zhou Gong, the biggest revisionist, to pressure others.