Chen continued, “Taken in this context of war, Mao continues . . . ‘In our struggle for the liberation of the Chinese people, there are various fronts, among which are the fronts of the pen and of the gun, the cultural and the military fronts. To defeat the enemy we must rely primarily on the army with guns. But this army alone is not enough; we must also have a cultural army, which is absolutely indispensable for uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy.’” Indeed. But to be fair, Chen never had the teeth for violence. He would never have jumped on a truck and yanked out power cords and destroyed equipment. He was much too refined. He really believed in the cultural army, in liberation by means of the pen. So he continued.

“I realize, considering the violence we have sustained in recent days under the severe measures of the current administration—”such an oblique reference to our acting president—“it would seem to some that the gun might be the more appropriate tool. I want to make it clear that I am not advocating the gun. We are here to discuss contemporary Chinese literature, but we cannot examine that literature without also examining the political and social context that drives its formation during this time period.”

The students loved Chen. Suddenly his knowledge of the Chinese revolution and his Marxist point of view were in vogue. They sat around him mesmerized, as if he were Confucius himself, Chinese wisdom coupled with his contemporary knowledge of revolution. They all wanted revolution, but they didn’t know what revolution was. Paul, for example, wanted revolution, and he wanted this revolution packaged in the poet intellectual. But was he listening when Chen again quoted Mao? “Many writers and artists stand aloof from the masses and lead empty lives; naturally they are unfamiliar with the language of the people.” The language of the people was exactly the language our acting president had spent his life studying. Unlike Chen, he knew this language and how the common understanding of this language controlled society.