In December 1963, a department of the People's Liberation Army started work on a book of quotations by the Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong. It was to be used in drill sessions with recruits; short excerpts without context or analysis designed to be memorized and chanted. This was a difficult time for Mao. His Great Leap Forward, an attempt to propel a peasant society into the Industrial Age in a few years, had failed, resulting in mass famine. Mao had been criticized by his fellow leaders. By May 1964, under the guidance of Defence Minister, Lin Biao, the first edition appeared with the title "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung." Over the next decade the book was to be printed in more than a billion official copies and countless other versions, becoming a symbol of revolution in China and youthful rebellion around the world.
-- "Date with History ... Mao's Little Red Book, May 1964" (Chatham House: The Royal Institute of International Affairs)
On 16 May 1964, the first regular print edition of the "Quotations from Chairman Mao" appeared, classified as "internal" military reading. Its size, in accordance with feedback from study activists, had been reduced to neatly fit into the pockets of military uniforms. The "Quotations" appeared in two print versions: an ordinary edition with a white paper cover imprinted with red characters for the ordinary readership, and a special edition clad in a red plastic covering.
-- from "Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution" (Daniel Leese, 2011)
-- Image from International Institute of Social History
* PDF of Second Edition (December 1966; from www.marx2mao.com): @
* "Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History" (Alexander C. Cook, 2014): @
* "Mao's Way" (Edward E. Rice, 1974): @
* "Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution" (Jiaqi Yan and Gao Gao, 1996): @
* "The A to Z of the Chinese Cultural Revolution" (Jian Guo, Yongyi Song and Yuan Zhou, 2009): @
* "China After the Cultural Revolution" (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1969): @
* "Sources and Early Printing History of Chairman Mao's 'Quotations' " (Oliver Lei Han, The Bibliographical Society of America): @
* "Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution" (Jiaqi Yan and Gao Gao, 1996): @
* "The A to Z of the Chinese Cultural Revolution" (Jian Guo, Yongyi Song and Yuan Zhou, 2009): @
* "China After the Cultural Revolution" (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1969): @
* "Sources and Early Printing History of Chairman Mao's 'Quotations' " (Oliver Lei Han, The Bibliographical Society of America): @
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