ABSTRACT
The most important "cultural reform" in the post-Mao period, strictly speaking, has been a reform not of culture itself but of cultural policy—specifically, the dramatic relaxation of controls on cultural expression. The Maoist slogan "Literature Must Serve Politics" was abandoned in the summer of 1980 after a lengthy debate and replaced by a carefully wrought, if vaguely expressed, compromise: "Literature Must Serve the People and Serve Socialism." During the post-Mao relaxation, the circle has become a better metaphor than the straight-line road for the expanding limits on expression. Some topics, such as the personal responsibility of Mao for the Cultural Revolution, have been only partially opened; that is, they have been made safe for veiled expression only. Writers, aware of the differing views of key individuals in different locales, began in the post-Mao period to submit their manuscripts according to editorial bent, even if it meant mailing them the length and breadth of China.
