A Cultural Advertisement of Mao Zedong's Early Years

In 1920, Mao Zedong, Peng Huang, Yi Lirong and others organized a cultural publishing house in Changsha, Hunan, which mainly sold various books and newspapers reflecting ideological changes at home and abroad, such as Darwin's Origin of Species, Kropotkin's Thoughts, New Youth, Young China, New Life, etc., to spread new culture and new ideas and promote social change. After the opening of the book club, how to expand the influence and open the market has become a problem that Mao Zedong and others need to consider. In this regard, Mao Zedong is quite intelligent. He picked up the pen in his hand and drafted a number of cultural advertisements for publicity and promotion, including the "Cultural Book Club Announces the Good Learning", "The Cultural Book Club Advises the gentleman who bought this book", "The Book Club's Discussion" and so on. These cultural advertisements either focus on listing the types of books sold, or on an overview of ideological content, or on the introduction of reading methods. They are different and complement each other. They have no sense of advertising and promotion, but have the elegance of ideological inspiration and exchange. Among them, the article "The Discussion of the Reading Club" is worth mentioning.

The full text of "The Discussion of the Book Club" is less than 500 words. It analyzes the benefits of the book club from three aspects. In summary, it is: book sharing, discussion, and fund-raising to buy newspapers. You know, at that time, the dissemination of knowledge and information mainly depended on books and newspapers, and printing technology was far from the convenience of today, so books and newspapers were popular but expensive. Especially for young students, buying books is a luxury. Even Lu Xun, at that time, often complained about the high cost of buying books. In 1912, he wrote in his diary: "From May to the end of the year, every book purchased in August was more than 160 yuan, but there was no good book. The capital regards ancient books as antiques, only those who are strong can reach the ears. Today, people do not have to read books, and my generation has no power to buy books. I still spend more than 20 yuan a month to pack up several books to enjoy myself. It is also ridiculous to sigh."

From this, it is no wonder that people lamented: "When prices are soaring and life is difficult, salary income is used to deal with food, clothing and housing problems, how can we care about the spiritual food that cannot replenish the flesh and long muscles?" Naturally, Mao Zedong's finishing touch also fell on the issue of selling books: "If we want to prepare books, newspapers and magazines with new ideas, we will have everything we need, and if we accept them, we will welcome them. "Although Mao Zedong promoted the benefits of the book club for the sake of selling books, objectively speaking, his attitude towards the book club was sincere. This is not only because when he was studying in the first normal school in Hunan Province, Mao Zedong advocated that the children of the poor should organize reading clubs to buy books and exchange reading; and in the following years, he also organized reading clubs many times and gained a lot from them.

(From Beijing Daily, June 4, 2018)

Source: People's Daily Online