On your Marx, get set, read

New livestreaming books

With the emergence of new media, increasingly more organizations and individuals have practiced the habit of video-recording their reading activities and sharing them on short video-sharing apps.

Bilibili, one of the leading domestic short video-sharing apps, is livestreaming videos of people reading Marxist classics almost every day. While most of the bestsellers are theoretical books such as Capital or On Practice and On Contradiction, the reading materials on livestreaming platforms include mostly stories about the revolutionary days before 1949. In the run-up to April 5, which was the Qingming Festival that is marked by the sweeping of tombs of ancestors, reading martyrs' works and letters was trending.

Among the things being read online, those that are most popular are words by Li Dazhao, one of the founding members of the CPC who was hanged by the warlords in 1925. His famous quote "The future of the globe will be full of red flags" has of late been cropping up in one video clip after another.

Answers in Marxist classics

Lyu Jia, an associate professor at Tsinghua University, said that the rising popularity of classics on Marxism shows that the Party's history education campaign launched on its 100th anniversary in 2021 is reaching people's hearts. "Only when we know where we come from, will we know better where we are headed," he said. "The fact that more people are reading Marxist classics these days shows that people want to know about our roots, which in turn grants them more confidence and more knowledge about building society. That will also serve as an essential constructive force in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

Yao said that they have seen a noticeable rise in the sales of Marxist classics in the past two years. But the commercial success of Marxist classics should not be viewed as merely a moneymaking process, Yao says. "Sales volume is a key index of people's enthusiasm. The fact that more people are willing to pay for a book says more than any ranking or survey. It reflects people's love for it."

Niu Xianfeng, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, talked about the reading of Marxist classics at a lecture in March. "You need to read the original text to understand the nature of Marxism," he said. "As a country that holds communism as its guiding thought, China needs to strengthen its education among students, and to organize them in reading classical scripts is a good practice of implementing that."

"Some tend to say that classical readings are 'outdated', but that's not true," Niu said. "They are like a torch that lights the way toward the future for the Chinese nation."