in 1933 and was influential in creating an international image of life in China, both through the China Today Series, begun in 1933, of which this is Volume III, and his English Encyclopedia of Modern China . In March 1940, at the establishment of the Wang Jingwei, Leang-li assumed formal office in the regime as director of the International Publicity Bureau, until its collapse in 1945. The work provides a fascinating insight into how the newly established Republic wished to present itself internationally. Octavo. Original grey cloth, spine lettered in black, bottom edge untrimmed. With the pictorial dust jacket. With 70 photographic plates, many of which portraits of key Republic figures. Spine very gently rolled and lightly toned, top edge foxed and faintly browned, a couple of faint marks to fore edge, small bump to upper tip of rear cover with consequent bump to rear few gatherings of book block; a very good copy in the uncommon dust jacket with significant loss to head of spine, chips to spine ends and tips, loss to head of rear panel, a couple of closed tears to edges, long split to fold of rear panel and rear flap. £500 [129298] 94 LENIN, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, as Nikolai Lenin. Zadachi proletariata v nashei revoliutsii. (The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution.) St Petersburg: Priboi Publishers, 1917 Lenin publishes his Bolshevik party platform, one month before the October Revolution First edition of Lenin’s elucidation and expansion of his “April Theses”, his statement of the principles the Bolsheviks must adopt in the evolving revolution, developed here into a coherent party platform, printed in September 1917 one month before the Bolsheviks seized power and put the policies into action. It is rare in any form, exceptionally so in the original wrappers. In April 1917 Lenin returned from exile, and moved to take control of the Bolshevik Party and reorientate it according to his own vision. He wrote and presented his desired policies the same month, urging the Bolsheviks to withdraw their support from the Provisional Government, withdraw from the war, distribute land to the peasantry, and seize power for the Soviets, who would control the production of goods. These policies, since known as the “April Theses”, were published in Pravda under the same title as the present pamphlet ( The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution ). Despite being initially rejected by a gathering of Social Democrats and then the Bolshevik committee, they were adopted by the party’s seventh all-Russian conference in late April. The principles became very popular among the workers and soldiers of St Petersburg, broadening the Bolshevik Party’s reach and support. Lenin subsequently developed and expanded the principles of the April Theses into a coherent party platform, which was printed in the present pamphlet in September, effectively comprising a manifesto of Leninism which guided the Bolsheviks as they overthrew the Provisional Government. The pamphlet includes a postscript written by Lenin since the first printing of the April Theses, and is appended with the
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1915 Zimmerwald Conference resolution calling for the end of the World War. A fragile publication passed between revolutionaries and workers, few copies survived the coming Revolution and Civil War. WorldCat locates copies only in Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Chicago, Library Hub adding Oxford; Rare Book Hub places the last appearance at auction in 1972, with no further listings by ABPC. To find the pamphlet untouched in the original wrappers and in sharp condition, as here, is exceptionally rare. Octavo. Original orange wrappers printed in black, wire-stitched. Very faint shadow of removed sticker to front wrapper, price altered from 50 to 60 kopecks on rear wrapper in contemporary hand (likely the rapid inflation of the unstable time), small nick to front wrapper fore edge, very light handling creasing and soiling. An excellent copy of a fragile publication. ¶ Lenin, Complete Works XXXI , 149–186; Zalesky 3526. For an English translation, see publication as no. 9 in the Little Lenin Books, 1932. £8,500 [138347]
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Peter Harrington
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