Leaders of Communist China. Restricted. OIR Report No. 5126.
[Washington, D. C.]: Department of State. Division of Biographic Information. Office of Libraries and Intelligence Acquisition, August 4, 1950 [stamp on front cover]. First edition. Presentation copy “To the Royal Netherland’s Embassy. Compliments of the American Embassy, Moscow. USSR.” Ownership inscription of Carl Dietrich Barkman. In publisher’s printed green paper. Side wire stitched. Date stamped on the front panel. [9] 1–14 [1] 15–280 p. Corners bumped. Rust stain at the upper wire. Front cover creased with small tears, restored by tape at the lower wire. Rear cover with a light stain at lower left corner, chipped at upper edge. With a few contemporary notes in pencil (pp. 220–2; 251; 253). Overall in very good condition.
The first American biographical work of the Leaders of Communist China.
This handbook, containing 373 biographies of the most prominent persons of the earliest era in Communist China, was published by the State Department in 1950 as a restricted report of the Office of Intelligence Research.
According to the Taiwanese university quarterly, Issues & studies, studies on Chinese Communism started a boom in the United States right after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949, following the victory of the Communist forces over the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War. “Private foundations, the Federal Government, and universities provided funds for such endeavors. Leaders of Communist China is the first biographical writing in the forms of biographical notes […].”
The handbook contains a brief identification of the most important leaders of Communist China, gives the salient biographic data, and indicates the role of each person played in the development in the Kuomintang or the Communist Party. By showing the subject’s connection with important party events and association with other members of the Party, the study provides an overview of the compactness of Mao’s entire leadership.
Due to the nature of such restricted governmental publications, it’s extremely scarce. Besides the present copy, we could not find any others on the market. WorldCat shows only 4 copies in libraries (Harvard; Stanford; USC; University of Wisconsin).
Provenance: Ownership inscription of Carl Dietrich Barkman (1919–2006), a Dutch sinologist and diplomat, who served in Moscow in the early 1950s.
Literature: Issues & Studies. A Social Science Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs. Volume 13. Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taipei, 1977. p. 78.
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Price: €8,000.00