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Mao Zedong, "Chairman Mao". Little Red Book

Chinese, a few rubber-stamps in red ink for "The Library of Propaganda Section, Military Committee, Air Force Political Department", original red vinyl with incised title and small red star on upper cover, small 12mo, Shenyang, compiled and printed by the Political Department, Air Force division of Shenyang Military Region, December 1963.

***Extremely important Maoist edition. Prior to the formal publication of Mao's Quotations in May 1964, widely distributed within the People's Liberation Army, the Air Force under the leadership of Lin Biao assembled a somewhat larger collection of abstracts from the Chairman's speeches and writings that formed 351 pages divided into 64 sections. This edition has the same title as the later version (250pp in 30 chapters), Lin's endorsement "Everyone should study the Chairman's writings, follow his teachings, act according to his instructions and be Chairman Mao's good soldier" from Lin's Resolution of the Expanded Meeting of the Military Committee on Strengthening Political And Ideological Education in the Army, here type-set in red (rather than calligraphic & abridged), and without Mao's portrait. Then follows seven pages of indexed content followed by a large selection of Mao excerpts. This larger anthology is barely known and not mentioned in any of the standard Mao bibliographies, nor is its relationship with the eventual publication five months later explained in the one citation located, Guo Dongpeng's Outline for Cataloguing Mao Zedong's Works (Harbin, 2006, page 71). Guo refers to two copies in different bindings, each with 351pp text: an undated edition without imprint that he ascribes to 1963 and this version (which is dated & detailed); the most recent selection from Mao's texts is dated 29 August 1963. As General Lin was Minister of National Defense for the PRC (1959-1971), it is assumed this may be a trial specimen created by the Air Force and possibly used as the model and source for editing down Mao's better-known version the following year..

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