46
PARTISAN REVIEW
beings can only be class relations . This view not only does not con–
form to actual conditions , it also does not conform to Marxism. "
In October 1983, the Party officially launched a campaign "to
eliminate spiritual pollution," the chief architects of the campaign
being the orthodox ideologues of Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun . One
of the first victims was Wang Ruoshui, who was removed from his
position at the
People's Daily,
along with the editor-in-chief, HuJiwei .
Perhaps because of his fame, Zhou Yang was not attacked by name,
but his views on alienation were roundly denounced .
Although on the surface the campaign was meant to combat
signs of urban decadence as a result of Western influence (such as
pop songs from Hong Kong and Taiwan, videotapes of "obscene"
movies , etc.) the underlying motives were the reaction the former
Cultural Revolution "radicals," entrenched in the Party and the Peo–
ple's Liberation Army, had against liberalizing trends in literature
and thought.
(It
is not clear why Deng Xiaoping himself apparently
supported them, though it was rumored that he later regarded his
action as a major mistake.) Of the four major charges of "polluting"
influences made by Deng Liqun, head of the Party's propaganda
department, two are directly related to intellectual issues: "the pur–
suit of individual hedonism, individualism, anarchism, and
liberalism"; and "the expression of opinions in writing and speech
which are counter to the socialist system."
Deng Liqun's reference to the various "isms" points to a fairly
widespread phenomenon, especially among urban youth: the
spiritual disillusionment with both Marxism and Maoism . In the
search for alternatives, many in the younger generation have em–
braced such diverse trends as Western democracy, socialist systems
of East European and Scandinavian countries, social Darwinism,
existentialism, Christianity , religious mysticism, as well as various
kinds of individualism and "individual hedonism."
Many of these tendencies are reflected in a number of fictional
works which have generated considerable criticism from "conser–
vatives" in both Party and literary circles. Two stories by Shen
Rong, one of the leading women writers, depict the confused reac–
tions of lower-echelon Party cadres toward arguments of Western
literary modernism and existentialism; one story contains a long
discourse on Sartre . A novelette titled "On the Same Horizon" by
Zhang Xinxin, another woman writer, features a young protagonist
who paints tigers. Her story centers on an obsessive discussion of
Chinese and Bengal tigers and a comparison of their capacities for
