V novom Kitae ("In the New China").

Moscow: Iskusstvo,, 1952. An artistic ode to the Sino-Soviet friendship First edition, first printing, of this album commemorating the visit of the first Soviet art delegation to socialist China in autumn 1949. Despite a seemingly generous print run of 10,000 copies, we have traced just 7 locations via WorldCat and other copies have not been previously encountered in commerce. This album marks a warm period in Sino-Soviet relations before ideological and geopolitical tensions derailed the cause of global fraternal communism. Konstantin Finogenov (1902-1989) was a Soviet propaganda artist and holder of the Stalin Prize of the second degree, making him a natural participant in the 1949 delegation. Unsurprisingly, his drawings glorify the Chinese Communist Party's cause, accentuate the noble pains and sacrifices required when making revolution, and stress the excitement accompanying the arrival of "New China". The first quarter of the album is dominated by drawings of Mao and other party leaders in various fitting situations such as discussing battle plans or standing atop the Great Wall, while the odd portrait of Stalin hanging on a wall or a poster board alludes to the close alliance between Moscow and Beijing. Several drawings are of historical events such as the 1921 founding of the Chinese Communist Party or the 1934 Long March, and Finogenov may have based these on artwork he saw while in China. Sketches of ordinary people including soldiers, farmers and city dwellers emphasise the broad support for the new communist cause. Other themes - industrial production, heroism in battle situations, scientific advancement, and cultural education - complete this tapestry of an energetic, positive revolution drawing its legitimacy from the people. This volume was published during the period when Sino-Soviet relations were at their warmest. When Mao Zedong declared at the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 that "the Chinese people have stood up" (a moment captured in one of Finogenov's sketches), he was nonetheless aware that the country desperately needed assistance developing its economy and military. Mao's visit to the Soviet capital in late 1949 and early 1950 cemented the Moscow-Beijing relationship, and in the following years huge amounts of Soviet aid, both financial and technological, spurred an ambitious agenda of industrial modernisation and social reform. The death of Stalin in 1953 and Khruschev's 1956 "Secret Speech" precipitated first a gradual, then rapid decline in relations between China and the Soviet Union. By the early 1960s, the friendship celebrated in this volume had given way to public mud-slinging, with Chinese propagandists denouncing Moscow for its "revisionist" and "deviant" form of Marxism-Leninism. The Cultural Revolution, with its charged political tenor, put an end to any chance of a rapprochement during Mao's lifetime. This album contains a foreword by Konstantin Simonov (1915-1979), a prominent Russian novelist who also participated in the 1949 delegation to China. His writings on Soviet literature, authored in his capacity as deputy head of the Soviet Writer's Union, were translated into Chinese in the early 1950s by China Youth Press to help aid the development of a new socialist children's literature in China. Landscape quarto (299 x 220 mm). Publisher's brown cloth, front board lettered in red and gilt with reproduction of one of Finogenov's drawings mounted in blindstamped panel, textured cream endpapers. With 50 captioned plates of Finogenov's sketches, red flag of "New China" to title page. Binding just a little rubbed at extremities, small loss to front cover illustration, a little toning to endpapers and edges, occasional faint stains to upper page margins, illustrations unaffected and bright. A near-fine copy.