July 2-19 The First National Congress of Literature and Art Workers is held in Beijing.

1951

May 20 An editorial in the People's Daily condemns the film The Life of Wu Xun.

1953

Sept. 23-Oct. 6 At the Second National Congress of Literature and Art Workers, writers and artists are called upon to serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers.

1958

Beijing TV Station (later renamed China Central Television Station, or CCTV, in 1978) begins broadcasting on May 1, 1958. (See Television in China for more information.)

June 13-July 15 The Ministry of Culture holds a forum on drama in Beijing; it introduces the idea of “walking on two legs” in theater, i.e. emphasizing both traditional and modern drama.

1963

April 27 A meeting of the National Committee of the Chinese Federation of Literary and Art Circles opens in Beijing. It launches a campaign to eliminate bourgeois influence from the literature and the arts.

1964

April 1 Renmin Ribao calls for operas and plays that "uphold proletarian ideology and stamp out bourgeois ideology."

June 5- July 31: At the Festival of Peking Operas on Contemporary Themes, held in Beijing, Lu Tingyi, Propaganda Department director, declares that, "The greatest and most glorious task of revolutionary theatrical artists and workers is to educate the present generation and the coming generations, too, to be revolutionaries for ever... Peking Opera needs a new revolutionary flower." [Read his speech in its entirety.] The Red Lantern is performed, along with thirty-four other titles.

October 2 The East is Red premieres in Beijing.

October 3 The Red Detachment of Women premieres in Beijing.

October 16 Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Liu Shaoqi meet with the cast of The East is Red and announce that China has exploded its first atom bomb.

1965

In June 1965, sculptors from the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts are assigned to create a panaroma of life-size clay figures depicting peasants bringing their rent to a notorious landlord.

November 10 Yao Wenyuan's attack on The Dismissal of Hai Rui by Wu Han published in Shanghai's Wenhui bao.

1966

In February 1966, Jiang Qing convenes a forum on literature and arts in the army, commending operas such as The Red Lantern and Shajiabang, along with the Rent Collection Courtyard, as "pioneer efforts which will exert a profound and far-reaching influence on the socialist cultural revolution." Lin Biao's introductory letter and an official summary of the forum are both available in the Stages of History section of this site.

In May 1966, Jiang Qing critiques a number of feature films made in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Source: Mackerras, Colin, Modern China: A Chronology from 1842 to the Present. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1982.