DIGITAL DAZIBAO - ANALYSIS
Stylistic Analysis Section
Stylistically the book is relatively standard. I read that the text engaged in pretty stereotyped writing styles but didn’t really find that to be the case upon reading it. Generally speaking the book is quite literal, there are some euphemistic and metaphorical parts but they can’t be said to constitute the majority of the text in any real sense. Symbolism is more readily used throughout the text however.
"born, his mother had failed to lactate and he had howled from hunger under a shabby quilt beside her. Not a speck of rice was to be found in the house; his father could only scrape together wild vegetables which he cooked into broth for the newborn baby. Tiehan lived on chaff and vegetables for the next nineteen years. He never owned a stitch of decent clothing: in summer he wrapped a gunny sack around his middle and in winter he threw another one over his shoulders. He was famished, freezing and neglected, but he never fell ill; even a slight headache was rare. All in all he was much healthier than those who feasted on meat and fish and bundled up in silk quilted jackets. Believing he was destined to survive, his parents called him Tiedan (iron egg) and gradually everyone else picked it up. During the upsurge of land reform, a comrade from the work team who was helping him write an application for Communist Party membership persuaded him to change his name from Tiedan (iron egg) to Tiehan (iron man)."(Ran pp 1-2)[1]
This excerpt, right at the beginning of the text, is a prominent example of this. Perhaps this is what was meant by “stereotyped writing” in my research of this book and the author. This generally was the kind of symbolism used through the text. Another example would be the following passage:
"“Gee, you’re really putting yourself out!” “Now that the world belongs to us, I’m bursting with energy. Why shouldn’t I go all out? I’m going to work to double my crop this year and see the grain bins overflowing.” “That’s the way we poor peasants should feel. The road ahead is so clear we can just let loose and run. Nothing can get in the way of our good life. You should have your wife fix some good meals so you can work even harder.”"(Ran pp 8)[1]
Thematic Analysis Section
Now the thematic contents of the book are most intriguing compared to other socialist realist novels. Of note here is “How The Steel Was Tempered”, which I wrote an analysis and review of the first volume a few months ago.
What makes this novel unique is its heavy emphasis on a particular question of society. Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel pays more attention to the development of an individual toward being a communist and primarily follows an individual character and so in this sense is a kind of individualist in contrast to the Golden Road.
The Golden Road pays heavy attention to the one particular question of developing agricultural production in the wake of the land reforms which occurred the previous year and the “get rich” directive for the peasants from the party. Paying very close attention to it and dragging on the discussion through multiple chapters.
Eventually there is a sort of solution to the question however with the concept of “mutual aid teams” which are introduced to the village after some villagers head down to Beijing to help with rail work in support of the Chinese participation in the Korean war. They learn some new things about what what the goals of the party are and how the current policies are being laid out in the pursuit of the development of the national economy as the basis for socialism and ultimately communism. Upon learning these new things and bringing them back to the village they find themselves clashing with the village leader who interprets the directives as being for the pursuit of the wealth of the peasants rather than seeing the broader picture that it is the basis for industrial development in the country.
"“Those slogans written all over the village walls. At best they are one-sided.”
Jinfa smiled with relief. He had never expected that Daquan's first blast would be unrelated to his tearing down Crooked Mouth's wall. Jinfa queried, "Are they inappropriate? What do you mean by one-sided?" “Their content, their political content. It’s not just for personal enrichment that the government and the Party are calling on the peasants to increase production and plant more cotton.” “That’s new. Then what’s it for?” “They are mainly asking the peasants to support the reconstruction of our country, to aid the volunteer army defending our motherland and to consolidate the alliance.”"(Ran pp 168)[1]
He eventually decides to take his grievances with the county level leadership which they don’t approve of:
"The county head put his hands behind his back and, looking out of the window, elaborated. "Do you remember what I said to you last winter when we began implementing the policy of 'enriching individual families through hard work'? Our goal is to build a strong and prosperous new China. But it won't be smooth sailing. Our work will be hindered by many wrong trends of thought which all stem from one theoretical premise: the denial that we are now in a period of consolidating New Democracy. The people holding this view do not realize that socialism shouldn't be called for until we build the material base for it — that is, until we've greatly developed the forces of production. We need to enrich the peasants so that they can buy machines, but the state can only supply the peasantry with machines after the country is industrialized. Therefore collectivization is out of the question until we have mechanization. But some people can't be bothered with this. To be more specific, before spring planting, they entertained notions like the poorer, the more respectable. Their widespread influence made some peasants afraid of getting rich, afraid of showing their wealth. After we called on individual families to enrich themselves through work, the 'poor-is-respectable' idea no longer had a market. Then these same people switched and spread ideas about opposing exploitation and stepping into socialism immediately. They 310 are advocating extreme egalitarianism — a characteristic of agrarian socialism. It is just another version of 'everyone eating out of one big pot.' These shifting wrong trends have strongly influenced our low level cadres. The two Party members who wrote this letter are typical examples. I have a basis for saying this; I can see a trace of Comrade Luo Xu-guang in them.
Wang Youqing understood now. "That's right! That's right! I heard that Luo Xuguang filled a whole notebook with these ideas for Gao Daquan before he left."
Gu Xinmin continued, “This presents us leaders with a very serious task: How to educate the Party members and the masses of people to overcome the influence of these wrong trends. Is it hard? Indeed it is. But looking at this task from a more positive prospective, it is not that hard. The victory in spring planting proved the correctness of our policy and educated many people. We should not become conceited and relax our efforts but should work harder for a good harvest. When the majority of peasants have enriched themselves, we will again be proved right. Then those people will have nothing to say.”"(Ran pp 310-311)[1]
In addition to all this there isn’t really a “beginning-middle-ending” structure to the novel. It certainly has a beginning but the ending is quite non-traditional as the conflicts in the novel remain unresolved through its duration till the ending.
"What a pity," Qin Fu said. "Now I'm doing better than you."
"You've gotten that mess under control?" “Yes. Wenqing didn’t make a fuss at all. This time Daquan acted decent for a change. He told Wenqing not to push me and not to split. . . .”
Shaohuai immediately shook his head. "Oh, you! If you ask me, you're in the same boat as me, stuck in the mud!""(Ran pp 390)[1]
Alongside this there isn’t really a singular protagonist which I suppose isn’t so unusual for a novel to possess but I think this fact is very intentional and was made in distinction to non-socialist realist novels who do the same.
Now I mention these points despite them seeming like stylistic rather than thematic decisions because I think that they do in fact constitute thematic choices rather than just being stylistic.
The lack of a proper ending without a firm resolution is likely meant as an allusion to the fact that the struggle for the attainment of answers to the various problems of the new society won’t be so quickly resolved. And this in fact is a key principal of Marxism, expounded upon more by Mao, which is that the struggle for correct ideas endures for a long time. And so this incomplete ending is meant to symbolize that fact. The ending is literally one of the characters exclaiming that everyone is still in a bad situation, though enduring through it.
The consistent focus on the question of the “get rich” directive is utilized in a similar sense. The struggle on the question is continuing right up to the ending of the novel and as a result there is a lot of arguing within the novel. However in spite of the large volume of arguing scenes in the novel there is never quite a rupture between the different social groups of the village aside from one family. But even this family never quite completely disintegrates:
"Yu'e was overwhelmed with disappointment. What sounded like music to the rest of the family shattered her morale. Ever since her horizons had been broadened by the events in spring planting, she could no longer bear this confining household. She hoped the Qin family would break up, giving her and Wenji a chance to pull away from the pernicious influence of Qin Fu and follow Daquan down the new road. When the "get organized" hurricane shook this tiny courtyard, she thought her wishes were about to be fulfilled, that the final collapse of the family was imminent. Now Yu'e was lost in bewilderment: Wenqing's pronouncement was like giving to this household on its last legs."(Ran pp 388)[1]
This, I would argue, symbolizes the fact that all this struggling is not meant to advance disunity but rather form the basis for higher unity of the collective through criticism. Even the village leader who comes under increasing scrutiny as the novel progress is never completely denounced or deposed. Meanwhile the former landlord of the town is at one point used to make an example out of despite never actually committing any nefarious acts:
"Yongzhen poked his head through the gate and, clearly enunciating each syllable, said, “The village security team is carrying out its responsibility to make this crummy landlord report his thinking. We are exercising dictatorship to reform him and other counter-revolutionaries. Do you have any instructions, Village Head?”"(Ran pp 173)[1]
Obviously being an emphasis of how class enemies being principal rather than the ensuing ideological or other forms of disputes between the villagers.
And of course then the lack of a proper central protagonist, which there sort of is with Tiehan but the story isn’t so much centered around him as it is around the village. Likewise of the other main characters of the story they don’t really have an internal monologue or “personal world” divorced from the rest of the characters. Which of course is obviously in service of the general theme of promoting socialist collective thinking rather than individualist thinking among the readers of the book.
Which is what the real core theme of novel could be expressed as in one point. The exemplification of the socialist system and associated way of thinking. The characters multiple times through the book talk about how land reforms have improved their lives and given then a real hope for the future. And the novel ends with the advancing of the adoption of the mutual aid teams system which is meant to be an advancement upon the benefits acquired from the land reforms.
And so what really makes this novel unique from some other socialist realist novels is the focus and emphasis on the collective and model collective in departure from the Soviet style of writing, and economy too, which paid much more emphasis and attention to model individuals.