Leadership

85 MAO, Zedong. Mao zhuxi yulu (“Quotations From Chairman Mao”). Beijing: Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zong zhengzhi bu, 1964 the “little red book” First edition, first printing, of Mao’s “Little Red Book”. The modest print run of the first edition was soon followed by such an avalanche that by 1968 every Chinese person owned a copy. It is often cited as the second most-printed book of all time, following only the Bible; current estimates quote five billion copies printed, including foreign-language translations. The “Little Red Book” took the form of various thematic chapters of quotations on subjects ranging from philosophy to warfare to art. “This easily digestible format drew upon two distinct literary genres: an ancient Chinese genre of collected wisdom dating back to the Analects of Confucius, and a modern genre of ideological primers embraced especially, but by no means exclusively, by Marxist-Leninists around the world” (Cook, p. xiii). The first edition was issued either in red vinyl plastic, as the present copy, or in paper wrappers. According to the editor in charge of finalizing the text, those in paper wrappers were issued first for the individual use of high-ranking officers, while those in vinyl, which took longer to produce, were intended for brigades of up to eight men. The red vinyl design was maintained for subsequent editions and soon became an internationally recognizable symbol of Maoist fervour. First edition copies in vinyl may or may not contain a typesetting error found on pp. 82–3; this copy is an example of the corrected text. The “Little Red Book” was originally printed at the behest of Lin Biao, Mao’s second in command, to elevate Mao’s profile within the army, with first editions containing an endorsement in Lin’s calligraphy and a preface crediting Lin with promoting the study of Maoist ideas. Like many copies, the present example

was caught up in the widespread censorship precipitated by Lin’s desperate flight and death in 1971 – Mao and the party leaders quickly issued instructions for all traces of Lin and his support for Mao to be destroyed. The owner of this copy dutifully removed the Lin Biao leaves. Duodecimo. Original red vinyl, title and five-pointed star to front cover in blind. Housed in a red quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Tissue-guarded brown frontispiece portrait of Mao, epigraph leaf and title page printed in colour. With the calligraphic endorsement leaf and 2-page preface excised in the early 1970s by a previous owner. Vinyl bright, frontispiece presenting well, slight marginal finger soiling to title page, edges and rear free endpaper lightly foxed, contents clean and still sharp. A near-fine copy. ¶ Alexander Cook, Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History , 2014; Justin Schiller , Quotations of Chairman Mao 1964–2014: A Short Bibliographical Study , 2014. £13,750 [150556] 86 MAO, Zedong. Rubber bust from the Cultural Revolution. Beijing: Beijing huagong er chang, 1968 maoist iconography in the cultural revolution A prepossessing piece of political portraiture, now highly collectible, produced at the Mao cult’s apotheosis to celebrate his 15 August 1968 audience with exemplary revolutionaries in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Mao busts were ubiquitous in workplaces, schools, and homes during the Cultural Revolution; nearly all were mass-produced in porcelain, with other materials mainly employed for limited issue commemorative productions. The present example concerns one such Cultural Revolution convocation, reported with much fanfare in the state newspaper, The People’s Daily , on 16 August 1968. According to the gushing article, “smiling broadly, glowing with health, and radiating vigour, Mao, together with vice chairman Lin Biao, his closest comrade in arms, arrived at the hall amidst extremely warm

LEADERSHIP

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