Bookstores
An article from The Economist titled “The Little Red Bookshop” was recently emailed to subscribers of the MCLC List (the email listserv of the Modern Chinese Literature & Culture resource center, and the source of a good deal of the announcements we make on Pap-Rep). The article notices a possible resurgence of leftist thought in China, centered around a bookstore called Utopia, “the term used to describe those nostalgic for Mao Zedong’s rule and worried that the country is abandoning its communist principles.” For anyone familiar with Marxist ideology, though, “Utopia” is a strange name: wouldn’t those really nostalgic for the pre-Reform & Opening-up era believe that Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong Thought was the only outcome of the capitalist class struggle, and therefore an embodiment of Scientific, not utopian, Socialism?
But “Utopia” attracts attention not only because of its false poli-sci consciousness. Following the posting of the original Economist article, somebody sent in a reply about the translation:
By Lucas Klein, February 13, 6:15a.m.