Mao’s personal plea to Labour

HIS Little Red Book sparked consternation when Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell brandished it in the Commons last week.

Now China’s Communist Party leader Mao Zedong’s links to the Labour Party can be traced back to before the Second World War.

In 1937, he wrote to party leader and future prime minister Clement Attlee asking for support following the invasion of China by Japan. Signed by Mao, it is among his first communications with a Western politician.

The letter, which is expected to fetch up to £150,000 at Sotheby’s next month, was written before Mao seized power, and asks for ‘the support of your Party to any measures of practical assistance to China that may be organised in Great Britain’.