Talk:Engineers of the human soul

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I found a muddle of opinions from Google, including some people believing it began with Khrushchev. From this I got back to more accurate sources. Including its surprising use by Deng in 1979.

--GwydionM 21:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article has a small reference to Mao:

"Mao Zedong used same concept, though perhaps not the phrase itself

"Works of literature and art, as ideological forms, are products of the reflection in the human brain of the life of a given society. Revolutionary literature and art are the products of the reflection of the life of the people in the brains of revolutionary writers and artists." (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, 1942)"

I'm not removing it just yet, but it needs rewriting from its present form, as the quotation doesn't do the work the article claims it does - this quite clearly isn't the same concept as Stalin. Mao is making a standard base/superstructure point about the determination of art by the economic base. Engineers of the soul is about writers shaping their audience, not literature being shaped by the economy. I'll leave it for a bit, but if unamended, it needs to go. DionysosProteus 04:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]