5 days ago
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The thoughts of Mao Zedong, published in 1964 under the title Quotations, are considered the blueprint for Chinese communism and a guidebook to the Cultural Revolution. The collected soundbites from his speeches and writings have become known the world over as the Little Red Book.
But the red-covered Quotations of the former Chinese Communist Party chairman, who died in 1976, aged 82, went through many ideological iterations before the official version was settled on. The original cover was also a different colour – in fact, had some of those earlier thought experiments been declared the final draft, we could now be talking about Chairman Mao’s Little Blue Book.
For the first time, a huge collection of the various editions of Quotations has been assembled and is to be unveiled and presented for sale at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair next month, with a communism-busting price tag of £1m.
The collection is the work of more than two decades by Justin G Schiller, an American collector who began to visit China in the 1990s. Dr Matt Wills of London rare book dealer Peter Harrington, which is representing the sale, said: “At that time, the market for collecting the Little Red Book was only just beginning, and you could find all kinds of rare and one-off editions being discarded by institutions and private individuals if you knew where to look. Justin was in place at the perfect time to build a collection without parallel. It would be impossible to do the same today, as the majority of the rarer editions have long perished.”
The collection is some 200 items strong and includes many of the early versions as well as first editions and international printings of the book. Before the famous red vinyl cover was settled on, the prototype editions had brown, white and blue bindings.
And it wasn’t just cosmetic changes that were effected for the final printing. Many of the ideas in the book changed and evolved from 1960, when Mao’s sayings and slogans started to be compiled.
“The first widely published edition of the Little Red Book, released in May 1964, naturally opens with a quote on the vanguard role of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Wills.
“Look to prototype and trial versions and you will see that most do not open with this quote. As the Little Red Book became a ‘mass market’ publication, it became very important to put the party at the forefront on page one.
“You will also see, across editions from 1961 to 1964, that the text shrinks, and the quotes often become punchier and rhetorically impactful as compilers tried to make the selection as effective and user-friendly as possible.”
In fact, it seems that even 60 years ago spin doctors were at work to make the thoughts of Chairman Mao easily digestible for the masses.
Prof Christopher Marquis, Sinyi professor of Chinese management at Cambridge Judge Business School and author of the book Mao and Markets, said: “The original book was for the People’s Liberation Army so it focused a lot on Mao’s military guidance and quotes on discipline and loyalty.
“Following the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the book was transformed into much more of an element of propaganda and a more ideologically focused text to rally the populace behind Mao and his ideas.”
Wills agrees: “The final version represents a very specific way of presenting Maoism: short, punchy phrases, many of which became everyday idiomatic expressions during the Cultural Revolution, arranged in no more than three dozen easily digestible chapters produced in a cheap and durable binding.”
The Little Red Book has earned its place as an item of cultural significance – Prof Marquis points to China’s Red Guards waving the book in revolutionary fervour as an enduring image of Mao’s time and also its utilisation by 1960s leftwing movements.
The Little Red Book is more than just a piece of nostalgia though. “Many of the business entrepreneurs I have researched quote Mao and discuss his work as inspiration and in some cases a guide for their work,” said Marquis.
“And [Chinese president] Xi Jinping also quotes Mao and uses his ideas in guiding his policies.
“More broadly, I think it also shapes the general propaganda atmosphere and idea that political control through propaganda is essential to governing China. I think of the promotion of ‘Xi Jinping thought’ and literally hundreds of books Xi has ‘authored’. It reflects an attempt to create a written canon like Mao.”
Mao himself said in the Little Red Book: “It is dreadful to imagine a time when everyone will be rich.” So what would he think of his work going on sale for £1m?
“I think he would have a very mixed reaction,” says Prof Marquis.
“On the one hand, selling items for the rich to buy at such astronomical prices does point to the underlying problems with capitalism, which he strongly resisted.
“However, on an intellectual level, it is a great manifestation of commodity fetishism – a key idea of Karl Marx’s – so in some ways he might have found it reinforcing of his world view being right.
“But he might have actually been quite pleased, because aside from his ideological positions, he was an extreme narcissist and revelled in the cult of personality he created, so he might have been pleased that this book is getting such attention and is being so highly valued.”
