linguistic:paraphrasing
Arts and literature

Drastic changes in art and culture took place. Before this period, few cultural productions reflected the lives of peasants and workers. The struggles of workers, peasants, and revolutionary soldiers became frequent artistic subjects, often created by peasants and workers themselves. The spread of peasant paintings in rural China, for example, became one of the " newborn things " celebrated in a socialist society. In poor and remote areas, movies and operas were shown for free. Mobile film units brought cinema to the countryside and were crucial to the standardization and popularization of culture, particularly including revolutionary model operas.

Jiang took control of the stage and introduced revolutionary operas under her direct supervision. Traditional operas were banned as they were considered feudalistic and bourgeois, but revolutionary opera, which modified Peking opera in both content and form, was promoted. Six operas and two ballets were produced in the first three years, most notably the opera The Legend of the Red Lantern. These operas were the only approved opera form. Other opera troupes were required to adopt or change their repertoire.

The model operas were broadcast on the radio, made into films, blared from public loudspeakers, taught to students in schools and workers in factories, and became ubiquitous as a form of popular entertainment and were the only theatrical entertainment for millions. Most model dramas featured women as their leads and promoted Chinese state feminism. Their narratives begin with them oppressed by misogyny, class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of internal strength and the CCP.

In 1966, Jiang advanced the Theory of the Dictatorship of the Black Line. Those perceived to be bourgeois, anti-socialist or anti-Mao (black line) should be cast aside, and called for the creation of new literature and arts. Disseminators of the "old culture" would be eradicated. The majority of writers and artists were seen as "black line figures" and "reactionary literati", and were persecuted, and subjected to "criticism and denunciation" where they could be humiliated and ravaged, and be imprisoned or sent to hard labour. For instance, Mei Zhi and her husband were sent to a tea farm in Lushan County, Sichuan. She did not resume writing until the 1980s.

Documents released in 1980 regarding the prosecution of the Gang of Four show that more than 2,600 people in the field of arts and literature were persecuted by the Ministry of Culture. Many died: the names of 200 writers and artists who were persecuted to death were commemorated in 1979. These include writers such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Deng Tuo, Baren, Li Guangtian, Yang Shuo and Zhao Shuli.

In 1970, the communist party came to view the Ministry of Culture as so disruptive that it decided to dissolve the Ministry and establish a Culture Group within the State Council in an effort to rein in cultural politics.

Only a few writers who gained permission or requalification under the new system, such as Hao Ran and some writers of worker or farmer background, could have their work published or reprinted. The principles for cultural production laid out by Mao in the 1942 " Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature " became dogmatized. The literary situation eased after 1972, as more were allowed to write, and many provincial literary periodicals resumed publication, but the majority of writers still could not work.

The effect is similar in the film industry. The Four Hundred Films to be Criticized booklet was distributed, and film directors and actors/actresses were criticized with some tortured and imprisoned. These included many of Jiang's rivals and former friends. Those who died in the period included Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli, Shangguan Yunzhu, Wang Ying, and Xu Lai. No feature films were produced in mainland China for seven years apart from a few approved "Model dramas" and highly ideological films. A notable example is Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy.

Loyalty dances became common and were performed throughout the country by both professional cultural workers and ordinary people.

During the Cultural Revolution, composers of Yellow Music, which had already banned following the communist takeover, were persecuted, including Li Jinhui who was killed in 1967. Revolution-themed songs instead were promoted, and songs such as " Ode to the Motherland ", " Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman ", " The East Is Red " and " Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China " were either written or became popular during this period. "The East Is Red", especially, became popular; it de facto supplanted " March of the Volunteers " as the national anthem of China, though the latter was later restored to its previous place.

Quotation songs, in which Mao's quotations were set to music, were particularly popular during the early years of the Cultural Revolution. Records of quotation songs were played over loudspeakers, their primary distribution, as the use of transistor radios lagged until 1976. " Rusticated youths " with an interest in broadcast technology frequently operated rural radio stations after 1968.