Peking U's Red Building to open CPC centenary exhibit

A new theme exhibition at Peking University's Red Building in downtown Beijing will open to the public on Tuesday, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, a senior publicity official from Beijing said on Sunday.

The new exhibition will feature dozens of key cultural relics and exhibit all 63 issues of La Jeunesse, a magazine considered the springboard of the New Culture Movement. Also on display will be multiple versions of The Communist Manifesto and a full set of The Communist monthly magazine, Zhang Aijun, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Party of China, said at a news conference in Beijing.

It will arrange a maximum 1,000 visits by appointment every day -- 500 visits in the morning and another 500 in the afternoon, he said.

The Red Building site was once the main campus of Peking University. In the building, China’s advanced youth, including Mao Zedong, developed the Marxist ideas that paved the way for the establishment of the Communist Party of China.

Zhang said the exhibition has six sections in 19 units, exhibiting 958 historic pictures, 1,357 precious cultural relics and 40 artworks. Relying on the main body of the Red Building and the structural layout of more than 60 existing rooms, the new theme exhibition restored six historical scenarios in the building.

"It concentrates on the main situation and history of Beijing as the center of the New Culture Movement, the origin of the May Fourth Movement, the main front of the early spread of Marxism in China, and a key locus in the CPC's founding," he said.

In addition, 31 sites of early revolutionary activities of the CPC opened to tourists in early June in Beijing after renovations or exhibitions were upgraded.

Scattered across five downtown districts in Beijing, the 31 sites not only constitute the same theme as a whole but also have their own emphasis and characteristics, Zhang said.