This is about the copies of State and Revolution which I referred to in a previous post. I’ve just seen someone else with a copy of  ’the three component parts of Marxism’ formatted in more or less exactly the same way. I’ll ask him where his copy came from. In the meantime, here’s a photo of my book:

There’s a picture of Lenin on the inside, along with what I assume is his signature printed below it.

Also on the inside is what appears to be a receipt, I don’t recognise the coat of arms in the top left hand corner. I’d guess it was probably bought somewhere in… Turkey?

According to the preamble, this book was printed by Foreign Languages Press at the Peoples’ Publishing House in 1970 1975. They’ve got a website, which I see sells copies of the 2004 constitution of the People’s Republic of China. There’s a story from Xinhua about how they celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2002, and another story mentions Cypress Books in London as their British outlet. I’ll have to visit them at some point. Even with all these extra details there’s still no mention of an Indian printing house anywhere, so the case of the mysterious ‘Leninist literature printed in India’ remains unsolved.

There is an article in the latest edition of Praxis* called ‘the translation and publication of Marxist writings in China since 1949’, by Xi Weidong. It describes three historical stages: 1949-1965, 1970-1978 and 1995-2008. The introduction mentions Renmin Press and the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, who I believe are responsible for most of the translation of Marxist writings carried out in China. The only other useful information I can glean from the article is that there were two peaks in publication. One occurs in 1949-1954 with a total of 151 Marxist works published, and another in 1958 with a total of 74 works.

* Number 155, Spring 2012, ISBN 978-0-9561085-4-8, Pages 38 - 41.