Zhou Yang

Who was Zhou Yang?

Zhou Yang or Chou Yang was a Chinese literary theorist and Marxist thinker, active from the founding of the League of the Left-Wing Writers in 1930. His report On the Military Tasks of Philosophy and Social Science Workers, delivered to Mao Zedong in 1963, was one of the catalysts for the Cultural Revolution.

However, during the late stage of the Cultural Revolution Zhou was himself imprisoned after falling out of favor. After the Cultural Revolution ended, he was rehabilitated and given new political offices. At that time he apologized to victims of his literary witch-hunt campaigns in the past. He also advocated the humanist aspects of Marxism within the Communist Party near the end of his life, and was attacked again for such views.