Serebryakova, Galina [Rickshaw]. Riksha. 

Illustrated by A. Korotkin.

[Moscow], Ogiz-Molodaya gvardiya, 1932.
32mo, 39, [1] pp., ill.

In pictorial publisher’s hardcover.
In good condition, wear to edges, small losses and cracks to spine, new endpapers placed over the old ones, owner’s mark to half-title.

First and only edition of these illustrations. One of 20 000 copies published.

While working as a journalist, Galina Serebryakova (1905-1980), a revolutionary, journalist, and writer, embarked on assignments in China, Geneva, and Paris during 1927-1928. She was initially married to the politician Leonid Serebryakov and later to Grigori Sokolnikov, who served as the Minister of Finance and Ambassador of the USSR to the United Kingdom. Tragically, Sokolnikov was executed during the Great Purge.
In 1937, Galina was arrested and subsequently spent over two decades in the Gulag prisons. All of her books were banned in Russia and kept in a special library storage section until 1956.
This particular story revolves around Li Fuang, a destitute Chinese man who worked as a rickshaw puller in Beijing. Before his demise, his friend introduced him to the ideas of Lenin and the Communists. Li Fuang was later forcibly conscripted into the army but managed to escape. During the Shanghai Massacre that occurred on 12 April 1927, he joined a rebel group and tragically met his end by gunfire. This incident marked a violent suppression of Communist Party of China organizations by the military forces of Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions within the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang, supported by the USSR, had previously been in a united front with the Chinese Communist Party until this tragic event. Many historians view this massacre as the catalyst for the commencement of the Chinese Civil War.
The unique black-and-white illustrations by A. Korotkin, who created several other editions about China for young readers, are a distinctive feature of this book. The drawings are seamlessly integrated onto the pages without margins.

OCLC locates one copy of this edition only: in the McGill University Library (Canada).