The League of the Left-Wing Writers was an organization of writers formed in China in 1930, at the instigation of the Chinese Communist Party and the influence of the celebrated author Lu Xun

Lu Xun

Lu Xun or Lu Hsün , was the pen name of Zhou Shuren , one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua as well as classical Chinese...

. Other members included leaders of the Sun Society and the Creation Society, and the later-infamous cultural commissar Zhou Yang. The League articulated theories on the political role of literature that foreshadowed the influential Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art

Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art

Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art is a seminal 1942 speech given by Mao Zedong on the role of literature and art in communist China.The "Yan'an Talks" effectively dictated the approved style in art and literature in China from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 until after the...

 of Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

, and engaged in running debates with the "art for art's sake" Crescent Moon Society

Crescent Moon Society

The Crescent Moon Society was a Chinese literary society founded by the poet Xu Zhimo in 1923, which operated until 1931. It was named after The Crescent Moon, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore...

.