Cao Yu
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Cao Yu became the director of the "Popular Theater Art League", a post he held for the rest of his life. In his youth Cao Yu had been critical of Communist ideology. But his first works, with their portrait of decline and cruelty brought on by bourgeois society, were admitting of a Marxist interpretation. Thus they became very popular in 1960s Chinese society, when the ideology of Mao Zedong demanded that all literary creation serve the Communist cause. During this period, Cao Yu beame a social activist.