Sino-Soviet Relations under Class Discourse: Reading and Criticism of Wuthering Heights in China (1949–1966)

Abstract

From 1949 to 1966, the period from the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the discourse system that advocated class oppression and class contradiction dominated the fields of Chinese ideology and culture. Concurrently, on the other hand, the relations between China and the Soviet Union experienced changes from ‘close friends’ to ‘enemies’. The reading and criticism of Wuthering Heights (1847), a work from the Western world, became closely related to this mainstream discourse and the Sino-Soviet relations. The political manipulation of culture (literature included) has long been an important perspective of the Chinese cultural studies of this period, which can find a good example in the reading and criticism of Wuthering Heights.