When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, he became active in several committees and he worked as the Secretary and then the Minister of Culture for Mao Zedong until 1965. He started the monthly literary journal Chinese Literature, which became the most popular for western readers. He was dismissed from his position as minister in 1964 due to the ideological upheavals. Despite this fact, Mao Dun survived the Cultural Revolution and was afterwards rehabilitated. In the 1970s he became an editor of a children's magazine, and began working on his memoirs, which were serialized in the Party publication, the quarterly Historical Materials on New literature (), but he died on 27 March 1981, before he could finish it. His influence on Chinese literature continues to the present day because he used his savings to set up a fund called the Mao Dun Literature Scholarship to promote an atmosphere for writing fiction.
When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949 he became active in several committees and he worked as the Secretary and then the Minister of Culture for Mao Zedong until 1965 He started the monthly literary journal Chinese Literature which became the most popular for western readers He was dismissed from his position as minister in 1964 due to the ideological upheavals Despite this fact Mao Dun survived the Cultural Revolution and was afterwards rehabilitated In the 1970s he became an editor of a children's magazine and began working on his memoirs which were serialized in the Party publication the quarterly Historical Materials on New literature () but he died on 27 March 1981 before he could finish it His influence on Chinese literature continues to the present day because he used his savings to set up a fund called the Mao Dun Literature Scholarship to promote an atmosphere for writing fiction