So far as artistic form is concerned, Peking opera has a relatively long history and has attained a relatively high artistic level; it is a type of o… - Peng Zhen

Since World War II, U.S. imperialism has stepped into the shoes of German, Italian and Japanese fascism and become the chief enemy of the people of the world. Throughout the postwar period, repeated and intense struggles have been going on between the people of the world on the one side and U.S. imperialism and its lackeys on the other. The vast areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America are the main battlefields of these struggles.

You work on plays on contemporary revolutionary themes, but if your ideology is not revolutionized you cannot be at one with the workers, peasants and soldiers, you cannot establish flesh-and -blood relations with them. If your head is full of the ideology of the feudal landlord class or bourgeoisie, how can you identify yourselves with the proletariat and the working masses? Under such circumstances how can you establish flesh-and-blood ties with them? So, if you want to perform a play on a contemporary revolutionary theme you need, in the first place, to have a revolutionized ideology. You should be determined to remould yourself and raise your political level. Once you are determined to be revolutionary, things will go well. Change a little bit today and a little bit tomorrow, and you’ll build up a revolutionary ideology bit by bit.

The contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie on an international scale, between the socialist countries and the imperialist countries and between the Marxist-Leninists and the modern revisionists all find acute expression in these areas. And so do the contradictions among the imperialist countries.