Zhou Yang is the deputy director of the Central Propaganda Department, in charge of the Ministry of Literature and Art and the Ministry of Science. Presided over the compilation of liberal arts textbooks, and personally grasped the overall design, personnel arrangement, revision and publication of some textbooks in colleges and universities. Zhou Yang also attaches great importance to natural science research. In a report of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the slogan "Talent comes from achievements" is put forward, which requires natural scientists to produce more achievements and make more contributions. 1954 65438+In February, Zhou Yang published an article criticizing Hu Feng, "We Must Fight". Under the direct leadership of Mao Zedong, he launched a movement criticizing Hu Feng, which made many people feel wronged. 1958 published a great debate on the literary front. After reading it, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to Lin Mohan, saying, "This article is well written. I made some minor changes. Please see if it's all right. If the latest issue of Wenyi Bao has not been printed, it is best to publish this article in both Wenyi Bao and People's Daily. " 196 1 year, Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China held a national conference on cultural work and film creation. During the meeting, Zhou Yang and Qi Yanming, Vice Minister of Culture, reviewed and revised the "Regulations on the Work of Theatre (Troupe)" drafted by the Ministry of Culture, and sent it as a document of the Ministry of Culture to the national cultural administrative department for reference, so that the work of the national literary and art groups could be followed. At this time, his main essays include The Times of Showing the New Masses, Literature and Art of the New People, Resolutely Implementing Mao Zedong's Literary Line, Debate on the Literary Front and Red Flag Ballad co-edited with Guo Moruo. 1964, when Lin Biao and Jiang Qing started to make waves in the literary and art circles, as a gift to the 5th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China/kloc-0, Zhou Yang, under the instruction of Zhou Enlai, resolutely presided over the completion of the classic masterpiece of the new China revolutionary literature and art-the large-scale music and dance epic "Dongfanghong".

Since the 1950s, Mao Zedong has repeatedly criticized Zhou Yang for being politically right-leaning and soft on bourgeois intellectuals. Although Zhou Yang believes that literature and art should adhere to the ideological line of "class struggle as the key link", seeing a large number of outstanding talents in the literary and art circles defeated and unable to engage in socialist literary and artistic creation, Zhou Yang's mood cannot be said to be without contradictions. For Mao Zedong's instruction to position "Hu Feng Group" as a "counter-revolutionary group", especially when so many people in the literary and art circles were implicated, Zhou Yang hesitated at that time. 1957 autumn, when someone was arguing whether to turn a painter into a rightist, Zhou Yang stood up and stopped him diplomatically: the anti-rightist struggle did not need to be deepened in art, otherwise, all those who could draw would become Rightists who could not draw, and the rest would be "Left" who could not draw, which was not conducive to the development of art. His opinion can be said to have invisibly protected a large number of people. At that time, Kang Sheng and Jiang Qing called them the "Four Heroes" (namely, Zhou Yang, Xia Yan, Tian Han and Yang Hansheng), who dominantly controlled the literary and art circles and publicly criticized the three people behind them. 1965, Mao Zedong summoned two instructions from Zhou Yang. This time, it was also the last time that Zhou Yang met the great man whom he sincerely admired. During the conversation, Mao Zedong rudely pointed out that he was "politically inactive": "You are inextricably linked with the elderly in the cultural world, and you can't be warm." Zhou listened to the criticism modestly. But he didn't expect that a bigger storm was coming in the literary and art circles, and the dark clouds were already rolling in the sky.