Zhou Yang or Chou Yang (November 7, 1908 – July 31, 1989), courtesy name Qiying (起应), was a Chinese literary theorist, translator and Marxist thinker, and Communist Party official, active from the founding of the League of the Left-Wing Writers in 1930. In the 1930s he was notable for his sharp disagreements with other leftist writers, including Lu Xun, concerning leftist literary theory. Zhou also translated the works of Leo Tolstoy and other Russian writers into Chinese.
Zhou Yang had a long career as a leading member of the Chinese Communist Party and a high-level government official in the People's Republic of China, being the Deputy Head of the Party's Propaganda Department as well as Deputy Minister of Culture in the years leading up to the Cultural Revolution, and then as a member of the Party's Central Committee following the end of that period. During the Cultural Revolution itself Zhou Yang was denounced and stripped of his posts: the campaign against him was kicked off by attacks on his 1930s era concept of "literature for national defense", which was judged to be revisionist.
History
Zhou also translated the works of Leo Tolstoy and other Russian writers into Chinese. Shortly before the Yan'an Forum in 1942, he translated Nikolai Chernyshevsky's The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality into Chinese. Zhou described himself as being a "loyal follower" of Chernyshevsky, stating that Chernyshevsky's "famous formula of 'beauty is life' carries a fundamental truth."
In August 1956, Ding Ling was accused during the Sufan Movement of forming an anti-party clique. As part of her response to the allegations, she criticized Zhou for his extramarital affair. However, during the late stage of the Cultural Revolution Zhou was himself imprisoned after falling out of favor due to differing view points on the importance of art in politics.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, he was rehabilitated and given new political offices, being elected to the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee at the party's Eleventh National Congress. At that time he apologized to victims of past campaigns. He also advocated the humanist aspects of Marxism within the Communist Party near the end of his life, and was criticized again for such views.