This article was first published on the WeChat public account: Shanghai Library.
Camouflage to keep the truth from the fake
Focusing on the theme of "A Thousand Miles of Books, Voices in the Mountains", Shanghai Library launched a series of theme sharing activities to further disseminate the red culture and red spirit in the new era.
On June 15, 2024, Wu Mi, Ph.D. in History from Renmin University of Chinese and Research Librarian of the National Library, came to the East Building of Shanghai Library to lead us to reveal the "invisible" way of camouflaged copies of revolutionary documents.
The following are the highlights of the event.
PART 01Why do books be disguised?
Wu Mi: Some people may not know much about camouflage. Actually, in the memoirs of the revolution, you can see some related circumstances. In the article "Unforgettable Special Battles", Liu Xin and Bai Yu recalled how the traffic officers delivered revolutionary literature. He mentioned the camouflage book, and he said that some books are disguised, for example, the cover is the book "The Travels of the Old Remnant" and the "Catalogue of Chinese Herbal Medicine", the first few pages are the contents of the original book, and the back is all kinds of documents and propaganda materials of our party, and then they are brought to the enemy-occupied areas in their entirety, which is a typical camouflage book.
Why camouflage? This is in response to various censorships or bans, and is a disguise of books. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was no need for these revolutionary books and periodicals to be disguised, and the disguised books became precious cultural relics.
The first article I noticed revealing the camouflage was titled "A Discussion on the Camouflage of the Shanghai Revolutionary Newspaper and Periodical during the Second Civil Revolutionary War" by Wu Guifang. Most of the texts mentioned in the article are disguised editions published in Shanghai in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. After the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927, the Party Central Committee moved to Shanghai to engage in secret work, so many camouflages appeared. Among them, the "Bolsheviks", disguised as the "Central Semi-Monthly", was also one of them.
At the exhibition site of the Shanghai Library's "Thousands of Miles of Books, Voices of the Rivers and Mountains" theme immersion exhibition, the figure of the camouflage book appeared! This "History of Chinese Culture" is not ordinary, it is actually a "Bolshevik".
Founded in Shanghai in October 1927, "Bolshevik" is a theoretical organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and has successively used nine camouflage covers, including "Chinese Professor Book in the New Era", "Chinese Cultural History", "Research on Gold and Silver Cheapness" and "Rainbow".
She never really left him, and even when she went to Nanjing, she wrote him letters every day, and these letters continued the previous collision of ideas...... She also asked someone to bring him books and magazines. "The Communist Manifesto", "Letters from Afar", "Bolsheviks", and her favorite collection of Nekrasov's poems. ”
- "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains"
PART 02什么是“伪装本”？
Wu Mi: Based on the camouflage books and various camouflage book catalogs I have seen, I have a definition of camouflage books. The camouflage book is directed towards the revolution, and if it is counter-revolutionary, then it is not considered a camouflage.
The practice of camouflage books began in modern times and continued until the founding of New China. Revolutionary historical documents printed by camouflage in order to counter the blockade, seizure and destruction of the reactionary authorities. The characteristics of camouflage books sound a bit boring, so I'll use a typical example to talk about what camouflage books look like.
The Revolutionary Army, under the name of "The Preservation of Pictures", is the earliest disguised book I have seen so far. This book is very characteristic, and I would say that it is the pinnacle of its debut. In the late Qing Dynasty, Zou Rong's "Revolutionary Army" was particularly influential, and it was the most printed revolutionary book in the late Qing Dynasty.
Feng Liberty said in "The History of the Revolution" that "The Revolutionary Army was popular at home and abroad, selling more than 1 million copies, accounting for the first place in the sales of revolutionary books in the Qing Dynasty." At that time, in order to avoid inspection, people would change their names and traffick, or "Revolutionary Vanguard", "Picture Preservation Chapter", "Salvation Mantra", etc., all kinds of names were available. After Su reported the case, Zou Rong was thrown into prison and died at such a young age. In addition, "Revolutionary Army" was printed together with Zhang Taiyan's "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution", and the title of the book was "Zou Zhang's Joint Carving", and "Revolutionary Army" had many different names, so why did it change its name? It is to evade the ban and deliberately disguise it.
(Su reported the case: In 1903, Zou Rong and Zhang Taiyan respectively wrote the sensational "Revolutionary Army" and "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution", propagating the revolution and criticizing the Qing government, and published articles in the "Su Bao" one after another.) The Qing government fabricated a literary prison in order to suppress the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary ideology, Zhang Taiyan was arrested, and Zou Rong was so angry that he voluntarily surrendered. ）
Back cover of "Picture Storage".
This is the back cover of the "Picture Preservation Chapter". I've read a lot of articles about Zou Rong and the Revolutionary Army, but it seems that no one has made it clear where the book came from. Please take a look at the back cover of this book, and there is a bar stamp that reads "Gift from Xinjiapo Tunan Daily Daily". Where was the book printed? It was printed in Singapore in disguise, because at that time, in order to rescue Zou Rong and Zhang Taiyan, some overseas Chinese in Singapore founded a "Tu Nan Daily" there to propagate the revolution and raise funds to reprint the "Revolutionary Army". It was there that the book was printed, so it is a camouflage copy printed overseas, and it is very valuable.
The camouflage book has just been briefly introduced. But how do you tell the camouflage book? There are some practical experience aspects to be aware of. First of all, the camouflage appeared in modern China, that is, during the period of the democratic revolution. If it is an ancient forgery, it is not a camouflage; If it is a pirated book published in modern times, it cannot be called a camouflaged book.
I found a pirated copy of Yu Dafu's book, which was renamed "The Flower of Love". Formally, it is somewhat similar to the camouflage. Genuine copies are on the left, pirated copies are on the right. Pirated books are works of deception and forgery, and cannot be regarded as a disguise.
PART 03哪些“外衣”足够隐蔽？
Wu Mi: Why, are there more classical treatises? Because these classical treatises have nothing to do with current events, they will attract the attention not only of the reactionary authorities, but also of interest to the reader. For example, "The Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen" is a work disguised as "The Travels of the Old Remnant". In addition, during the Second Civil Revolutionary War in Shanghai, some camouflage works also appeared, such as the "Shanghai Workers' Special Issue" disguised as "Persuasion of the World", and the "Central Newsletter" disguised as "Lisao" and "Song Sixty Famous Words".
And what is a covert way to disguise yourself? It is to disguise them as teaching books, such as textbooks or extracurricular reading materials, because such books have a large circulation, are in high demand, and are common, so it is safer to disguise them. For example, I found the cover of "The Bolshevik" disguised as "The Book of Chinese Professors in the New Era" and the cover of the textbook published by the Commercial Press, and you can compare whether they are the same.
There are also camouflage books with covers, titles, and contents. Titles with allegorical meanings, in addition to irony, have some metaphors.
For example, in "Yan Zhao Shilu", we often say that "Yan Zhao is known as a man who sighs a lot of sad songs", in fact, what it expresses is the spirit of heroic combat of the Eighth Route Army.
The disguised version of "Day and Night of the Great River" is a student of Peking University who broke through the blockade line and successfully arrived in Zhengding to interview the Liberated Area, mainly introducing North China University (the predecessor of Chinese Renmin University, Beijing Institute of Technology and other universities) in Zhengding, and the book has had a profound impact on many alumni of North China University. The title comes from Xie Hao's "Temporarily Envoy Xiadu Night Sends Xinlin to Jingyi to Present Xifu Colleagues" "The Great River Flows Day and Night, and the Guest's Heart Is Sad", and is extended in the book to "The Great River Flows Day and Night, and the Blood of the Chinese People Flows Day and Night." The author later recalled how to choose the pen name "Yikong", they imitated Lu Xun's method of naming "Yuxi", two people each took a book, each found a word, and then combined it, and finally got the name "Yikong".
"The Great River Flows Day and Night" Author: Wang Xiaoting
PART 04 Camouflage the story behind this study
Wu Mi: When did the term "camouflage" appear? This has to mention an old gentleman named Liu Huating, who was a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, and died not long ago at the age of 101. Mr. Liu has been engaged in publishing culture in Shanghai. I did this research and was very influenced by him. Although I didn't know him, he found a lot of revolutionary literature when he was working in a second-hand bookstore in Shanghai.
In 2019, the China Museum of Modern Press and Publication collaborated with him to produce an oral history, and he recalled the situation at that time. At that time, the Revolutionary Memorial Hall had just been established, and it needed to collect these materials, and the Shanghai Library also needed to collect revolutionary literature and periodicals.
This "Catalogue of Revolutionary Books and Periodicals in Camouflage" was compiled by Mr. Liu Huating, and although his name is not on it, through his recollections, I know that this book was compiled by him. Despite being a thin pamphlet, the book is the most detailed catalogue of 187 camouflaged editions to date. Many collectors want to find this book, but it's hard to get it.
The first time I came to the Shanghai Library, the above picture and the National Library attach great importance to the preservation and protection of revolutionary historical documents, both have special collections, Shanghai is the source and important town of red publishing, I would like to believe that there are also many revolutionary camouflage books preserved here, I hope to have the opportunity to see them in the future.
Explanation of the Catalogue of the Camouflage Book of Revolutionary Literature
Author: Wu Mi
Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
ISBN号：9787559862211
Due to the peculiar editions, the camouflage book confused the enemy during the years of the Revolutionary War, as well as the general librarian and reader. If you catalogue according to the disguised titles of books, such as "50 Kinds of Cauldron Dishes", who would know that this is Lenin's "On the State"? If we catalog according to the real title, for example, there are many editions of "On Protracted War", and we may not be able to find a disguised version of "Wenshi Tongyi" under the name of "Wenshi Tongyi". Therefore, it is not easy to do this kind of research, unless you have personally touched these artifacts, you will pay more attention.