China buys Karl Marx’s letters ahead of Communist party anniversary
China’s Communist Party has bought two of Karl Marx’s letters and scoured Russian archives for film footage of early Communists as it tries to shore up its founding myth ahead of its 90th anniversary.
The two handwritten letters will take China’s collection of Marx’s correspondence to five, split between the State Archive and the National Library, and will be put on display in an exhibition on “Marxism in China” during July.
The purchase came as the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 90th anniversary on Thursday, which has seen giant models of the hammer and sickle emblem erected across the country, even as many Chinese wonder whether communism has any relevance at all to their lives.
The letter came up at auction in 2009 in the United States, with an estimate of $14,000 (£8,740), but Chinese officials declined to comment whether they had purchased it then or at a subsequent sale....