From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, from the smashing of the "Gang of Four" to the eleventh session of the Third Middle School

From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, from the smashing of the "Gang of Four" to the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the mainland was in a period of great historical changes. In 1976, the "Gang of Four" was smashed, announcing the end of the Cultural Revolution, and the mainland entered a new historical period. After ten years of turmoil, the mainland society has accumulated many political, economic, cultural and other problems, due to the influence of long-term rigid dogmatism and other factors, in 1977 and 1978 there was a situation of stagnation, and in May 1978, the great discussion on the standard of truth was a great ideological emancipation movement, which completely smashed the spiritual shackles of "everything theory" and dogmatism, and made ideological preparations for the subsequent Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee.

It was in this historical context that "scar literature" was born. In 1977, the writer Liu Xinwu published the short story "Class Teacher" in the 11th issue of People's Literature, which took the lead in exposing the harm caused by cultural absolutism, obscurantism and the policy of ignorance to young people in literary works, thus opening the prelude to people's review of suffering. At that time, critics believed that the main value of this short story was to expose the "internal wounds of the flesh" formed by the distortion of the souls of young people caused by the Cultural Revolution, and some commentators believed that the call of "Class Teacher" to "save the children who were killed by the Gang of Four" corresponded to lu Xun's call to save the children poisoned by feudal etiquette in "Diary of a Madman", and the theme of the novel made people have a responsibility to reflect on history.

From the perspective of literary history, the concept of "scar literature" originates from Lu Xinhua's short story "Scars" published in Wen Wei Po on August 11, 1978. The novel reflects the internal wounds caused by the Cultural Revolution to people's thoughts, and calls for the significance of society to "heal" the wounds, which was approved by the people who promoted the new changes in literature at that time. Subsequently, novels exposing the historical trauma of the "Cultural Revolution" appeared one after another, and the most influential ones were "Lofty Tasks", "Noble Qingsong", "Fighting of the Soul", "Dedication", "Marriage" and other works of Zhiqing, as well as "Red Magnolia Under the Big Wall", "The Wrong Way of Laying Flowers", "Xu Mao and His Daughters" and so on.

In fact, while reflecting in the field of literature and art, all fields are reflecting. For example, Xu Chi's reportage "Goldbach Conjecture" in the field of science ushered in the scientific spring of the intellectual community. A philosophical article by Hu Fuming in Guangming Ribao entitled "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth" triggered a great ideological emancipation movement and straightened out the course of the ideological line. A letter from Pan Xiao, signed by Pan Xiao, questioned why the road of life is getting narrower and narrower, which triggered a great discussion about the value of life among young people, and so on.

Literature and art is the most active field in the reflection of the entire cultural undertaking, and scar literature enlightens people's hearts in the form of literature and art, inspires people to think independently and reflect on the role of history, thus promoting the progress of the trend of the times. Whether it is "scar literature" or "reflective literature", as a social consciousness phenomenon, its emergence always has its specific social and historical background, and whether literary works can produce social effects and resonate with everyone mainly depends on the degree to which it fits with the spirit of the times of a specific era and the common social psychological needs of people. "Scar literature" is precisely to adapt to the general trend of reflecting on history, correcting chaos, and creating the future.