Site of Shanghai Bookstore

Site of Shanghai Bookstore

The site of Shanghai Bookstore is a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai Municipality.

The site of Shanghai Bookstore is located at No. 1025 Renmin Road (formerly No. 11, entrance to Zhenye Lane, Minguo Road, Xiaobeimen), which is an old-fashioned street-front building with a ground floor, a second floor, and a passageway overhead. It has a brick-and-wood structure, faces west along the street, and sits eastward.

Shanghai Bookstore was one of the early publishing and distribution institutions of the Chinese Communist Party. In the autumn of the 12th year of the Republic of China (1923), the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party decided to establish a public publishing institution in Shanghai. Xu Baimin, who was teaching at a girls’ normal school in Zhejiang, was assigned to come to Shanghai to take charge. They rented this street-front shop, using the ground floor as the bookstore and the upstairs passageway room as Xu Baimin’s living quarters and a secret venue for party activities. On November 1, Shanghai Bookstore opened. All of the Central Committee's externally distributed publications were published and distributed here, such as Guide, China Youth, Vanguard, as well as The Communist Manifesto, An Introduction to Marxism, Materialist Conception of History, and books like Qu Qiubai’s Lectures on Social Sciences, Outline of Social Sciences, Yun Daiying’s A Thousand Character Primer for the Common People, and The Anti-Imperialist Movement. In December of the 14th year of the Republic of China, the Central Committee sent Mao Zemin to Shanghai to serve as manager of the Central Publishing and Distribution Department, overseeing Shanghai Bookstore.

The site of Shanghai Bookstore is located at No. 1025 Renmin Road, Huangpu District (formerly No. 11, Zhenye Lane, Minguo Road), originally an old-style street-front building with a brick-and-wood structure that faced west. In 1923, to strengthen the Party’s propaganda efforts and expand its influence, following the establishment of the People’s Publishing House, the Party began preparations to set up a public publishing and distribution institution — Shanghai Bookstore. Based on Qu Qiubai’s suggestion, Xu Baimin rented No. 11, Zhenye Lane, Minguo Road, located at the junction of the Chinese-administered area and the French Concession. He arranged the ground floor as the bookstore and the upstairs passageway room as living quarters and a secret venue for party activities. After meticulous preparation, on November 1 of the same year, Xu Baimin hung a porcelain signboard above the door with the four large characters “Shanghai Bookstore,” and the bookstore officially opened. The former site of Shanghai Bookstore was verified in the 1950s based on Xu Baimin’s memoirs. In May 1989, the Nanjing District People’s Government opened a “Cultural Life Bookstore” at this location, which was later converted into a sundries shop in the 1990s.

On May 26, 1959, it was designated as a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai Municipality. On June 1, 1992, it was re-designated as a municipal-level protected cultural heritage site. Due to the construction of the Ancient City Park, the original site was demolished, and a memorial stele was erected.