La Nueva Democracia

Santiago: Talleres Gráficas, 1952. Good plus.. 204,[1]pp. Small quarto. Original pictorial wrappers. Spine ends and edges of wrappers chipping; front wrapper beginning to separate from foot. Browned, but not brittle, internally. Small, contemporary bookseller's stamp on half-title verso. A scarce translation into Spanish of selections from the writing and speeches of Mao Tse Tung, the primogenitor of the Chinese Communist Party. The book was printed in Santiago in the early 1950s, a decade during which the Communist Party was almost entirely banned in Chile by a 1948 law. The selections published here therefore serve as a sort of primer in Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse Tung thought for the underground Chilean proletariat, whose unhappiness with social, economic, and political conditions in their country ultimately brought about the election of Marxist Salvador Allende in 1970. Mao's work is preceded by a long poem titled, "A China," by Chile's literary master Pablo Neruda, and the book is bound in attractive pictorial wrappers that depict a young Chinese Communist work waving a red scarf in front of throngs of Chinese laborers and streaming Chinese flags. Actually quite rare; OCLC locates no copies in U.S. institutions. (Inventory #: 5598)