Comments from the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers

"Rent Collection Courtyard", the large group of clay sculptures, has won the warm welcome and high praise of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers of the capital. Many people, with tears in their eyes, saw it four or five times or more. Some came back several days in a row, each time reluctant to leave the exhibition. Attendance reached several million. Such public enthusiasm is unprecedented in the history of art, Chinese or foreign.

The spectators praised this distinguished new group of sculptures, never seen in China or abroad either in the past or the present, as a living example of the revolutionization of the art of sculpture, an epoch-making milestone in sculptural art and a brilliant victory for the great thinking of Mao Tse-tung. It has opened the epoch of proletarian revolutionary sculpture.

The spectators said that this was the first time they had seen such a good art exhibition in the 17 years of liberation, and the first time that revolutionary sculptural art had so deeply moved them with such stirring power. This group of sculptures, they said, is like a torch that lights the flames of class hatred in the hearts of the workers, peasants and soldiers, powerfully stirs their revolutionary enthusiasm and inspires their revolutionary fighting spirit. "This is real art!" they said in praise, "This is art we labouring people need! It truly says what's in our hearts!"

Worker, peasant and soldier spectators unanimously consider the successful creation of "Rent Collection Courtyard" as another brilliant victory achieved by following the great thinking of Mao Tse-tung in the great cultural revolution and a heavy and telling blow to the lordly bourgeois "authorities" who attempted to occupy the positions of sculptural art.

The workers, peasants, and the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army were indignant that for thousands of years clay sculpture had portrayed only emperors, kings, warriors, ministers, scholars, ladies, idols, demons and gods - all poisons which the exploiting classes used to spread feudal and superstitious ideas and corrupt the people's revolutionary fighting will. Foreign sculptures likewise rarely portray workers, peasants and soldiers. The workers, peasants and soldiers had no desire whatsoever to look at them. This time the revolutionary artists have boldly spoken up for us proletariat. With the invincible weapon of Mao Tse-tung's thought, they have done what their predecessors had never done.

A GOOD SCHOOL FOR CLASS EDUCATION, A LIVING TEXTBOOK OF CLASS STRUGGLE

The "Rent Collection Courtyard" exhibit is an excellent school for class education and a living textbook of class struggle. Looking at it enraged the workers, peasants and soldiers, provoking their hatred of the landlords, bourgeoisie, imperialism and modem revisionism. They were reminded of the oppression and exploitation that made their life miserable generation after generation. They accused on the spot the landlords and capitalists and the dark rule of the reactionaries in the old society for their crimes. A woman commune member from Anhwei province, pointing to the sculpture of the little girl taken away and sold to the landlord as a slave, said just one sentence, "I was the same as she!" and burst out weeping. In tears, she accused the landlord of every kind of cruel enslavement, oppression and persecution in the decade in which she had been a slave girl to him. Hearing her story filled the spectators with irrepressible anger and indignation. There were endless moving examples like this in which the spectators and the sculptured character became one in thought and feeling. "Rent Collection Courtyard" has become a platform from which the most powerful accusation is made against the criminal old society and the exploiting class which killed people without blinking.

A soldier of the P.L.A. said that the group of sculptures is a picture of tens of thousands of rent collection courtyards in the rural areas of old China. It gave people a deeper sense of the truth that if one does not understand classes, and does not understand exploitation, one cannot understand revolution. It made them see better the great significance of Chairman Mao's teachings on classes and class struggle.

NEVER LET THE TRAGEDY BE RE-ENACTED!

A worker in the Peking No. 1 Cotton Textile Mill said that after seeing "Rent Collection Courtyard" he understood better the importance of the working people's holding the rifle and the pen in their own hands. He saw more clearly that the current great cultural revolution is a lifeand-death class struggle between the bourgeoisie attempting to restore capital

ism and the proletariat against it, that the cultural revolution is an event of primary importance to the destiny and future of the Party and the country.

A worker of the Peking No. 2 General Machinery Plant wrote in the visitors' book, "If we let the anti-Party and anti-socialist sinister gang carry out their sinister schemes, just take a look at "Rent Collection Courtyard" to see what kind of a world that would be like!" Many workers, peasants and soldiers said that "to forget the past means betrayal", that they would never allow the tragedy of "Rent Collection Courtyard" to be re-enacted. They said that the history of decades of revolutionary struggles was the history of the thinking of Mao Tse-tung taking hold of the masses of the workers, peasants and soldiers. It was under the guidance of the thinking of Mao Tse-tung that we have overthrown thousands of Liu Wen-tsais, smashed thousands of rent collection courtyards and built a new socialist China.

A member of the Evergreen People's Commune said, "Today in many countries in the world there are countless Liu Wen-tsais still oppressing and exploiting the labouring people, while those Liu Wen-tsais already overthrown in our country, never willingly accepting their due punishment, will always try to regain their power to again ride roughshod over the people. We must always remember Chairman Mao's teachings, never forget class struggle, never forget the sufferings caused by class oppression, and always remember the debt in blood and tears which the exploiting classes owe the labouring people. Hold fast to the gun, take up the pen, and struggle resolutely against all class enemies in and out of the country to the end. Sweep away all monsters and thoroughly destroy the old ideology, culture, customs and habits created by the exploiting classes to poison the people for thousands of years. Eliminate all roots of capitalism and revisionism so that all the rent collection courtyards in China will never return, so that all the rent collection courtyards in the world will be smashed forever."

THE UNITY OF POLITICS AND ART

While praising "Rent Collection Courtyard" for its deep political and ideological content, the workers, peasants and soldiers evaluated its artistic achievement highly. They consider that this new group of clay sculptures has achieved a unity of revolutionary political content and fine artistic form.

They warmly praised the revolutionary sculptors for their creative study and application of Chairman Mao's works and their persistence in following Chairman Mao's direction and line in literature and art for going among the workers, peasants and soldiers and becoming one with them. They said that precisely because the revolutionary artists followed Chairman Mao's teachings, they were able to create a brilliant artistic portrayal of the peasant masses with a clear-cut viewpoint of classes and class struggle and deep proletarian class feeling. They enthusiastically sang the praises of the heroic peasant masses daring to resist and struggle against oppression.

They also said that the artistic images are all well formed, true to life and finely delineated. Though all represent labouring peasants suffering from oppression, yet every image has its own distinct character, expression, attitude and movement, each seems alive and real, lively and moving. They look as if they would answer when you call and reply if you asked them a question. At the first glance you know what the peasants portrayed are thinking. You seem to be looking at the real person, and to be in the real place and surroundings. "When I saw those man-eating beasts," an athlete of the People's Liberation Army said, "those landlord's lackeys cruelly bullying the peasants, my heart seemed to burst with anger. I gnashed my teeth and raised my fist to strike the villains. I had to tell myself that they were only clay sculptures and not real men before I could force myself to draw back my fist."

Every worker and peasant, and every soldier of the People's Liberation Army who saw "Rent Collection Courtyard" walked out of the exhibition shaken with irresistible emotion. One visitor, unable to express the million words in his heart, wrote only:

Hate, hate, hate,
Hate the ten-thousand-times-criminal old society;
Love, love, love,
Love ten thousand times deeply our new China.

These words express the sincerest feeling of thousands of workers, peasants and soldiers.

Many visitors asked that the large clay sculpture group, "Rent Collection Courtyard", be kept on permanent exhibition in order to teach this and the next generation never to forget class struggle, never to forget the dictatorship of the proletariat, never to forget to give prominence to politics, never to forget to hold high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, to make revolution always, never let revisionism emerge, and safeguard our socialist state so it will never change its revolutionary red colour.

Comments from Foreign Friends

The group of large clay sculptures entitled "Rent Collection Courtyard" was enthusiastically welcomed and warmly praised by many foreign friends from every continent. They hailed the birth of "Rent Collection Courtyard" as an unprecedented miracle in the world's history of sculpture, a brilliant victory for Mao Tse-tung's thought.

E. F. Hill, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), wrote in the visitors' book: "The exhibition vividly demonstrates the ruthless oppression of the peasants in old China. It shows that the only way out is struggle. The wonderful exhibition also shows how art can and must be a weapon in the struggle for the emancipation of the people. It is truly an inspiration."

V. G. Wilcox, General Secretary of the National Committee of the Communist Party of New Zealand, congratulated the Chinese artists for their distinguished achievements. "To see these stirring clay sculptures of 'Rent Collection Courtyard'," he said, "is a very extraordinary experience."

José Venturelli, world famous Chilean painter, said, "The bourgeoisie claims that art is above classes and that art which serves class struggle must be mediocre art. However, all the great creations in the world serve class struggle and are created by the advanced class. The road you have taken is very correct. It is of vital importance that art should serve politics. Art must serve definite ideology, serve politics. You are engaged in a very important work, that is, work for the revolution. You see things in the light of the world revolution, and in this respect you have reached a very advanced level." He added, "Artistically, the sculptures are an outstanding success."

"Rent Collection Courtyard" vividly reflects in a penetrating way the deep misery of the Chinese peasants under the cruel oppression and exploitation of the landlord class before the liberation. It struck a strong chord of sympathy among foreign friends. The miserable life of the Chinese peasants in the past made a group of women visitors from Africa think of the life of the people in their own country today. They said that their people live in extreme poverty and have been suffering the same exploitation and oppression as the peasants of old China. Now they too have gone on the road of struggle as the Chinese people did. The exhibition, the women said, gave them strength in their struggle.

Many foreign guests highly praised "Rent Collection Courtyard!' for lauding the spirit of resistance and struggle of the peasants. A Norwegian friend said, "The exhibition tells us the truth that without class struggle there is no victory."

Many foreign friends considered "Rent Collection Courtyard" as the best classroom for studying Chairman Mao's thought and learning class struggle. They called it "a most educational lesson". H. M. Petrela, correspondent for the Albanian paper Zeri I Popullit, said, "It is not only a novel creation in sculpture but also a great event in revolutionary work. The exhibition serves as a good school for educating the younger generation so that they know what life was like in the past and will study harder and work better today."

A. R. Aboukoss, Syrian permanent secretary of the Afro-Asian Journalists' Association, said, "'Rent Collection Courtyard' has great educational meaning. One gains more by seeing this exhibition than by reading a thousand or ten thousand books."

While praising the tremendous part it plays in class education and its immense social meaning, foreign friends rated the artistic achievements of "Rent Collection Courtyard" high. In an enthusiastic letter, a Chilean friend wrote that the group of sculptures "combines outstanding social and educational meaning with art hard to describe with words. . . . The Szechuan artists gave astonishing artistic value to clay. The expression on each face, each unforgettable gesture, and the life these images portray, make up a deeply moving picture. Every detail contributes to artistic wealth."

Many foreign friends praised the "Rent Collection Courtyard" sculptures as lively and moving. They liked particularly those with "expressions of resistance and struggle" and with "hatred in their eyes".

A Chilean expert who works in China said, "Only those who have a deep understanding of the people and a deep hatred of the enemy can reflect all these through the special properties of art.... Through these works we see how the sculptors love and understand the people and place themselves among the masses; how they hate the class enemy who had enslaved the people; how determined they are to eliminate oppression and depart forever from the dark road of the capitalist society of man exploiting man. We also see how the artists express their views freely and live happily in today's China."