George Bryant says he's seen a lot of change in the 20 years he's been selling little red books and people's histories at Cambridge's Revolution Books.

Mostly, he says, people these days are just less concerned about their government.

"There was a certain urgency about [politics] that's missing today," he says. "There's no one really clear [focus] today like nuclear war."

"In the years since the store opened, rent control has been abolished in Cambridge and an affluent new class of professionals has begun to move into the city. Bryant says that modern-day Cantabrigians live with little connection to politics.

"They're not happy but they don't see it in the same political terms," he says. "They're looking for something but they don't know what they're looking for."

According to another volunteer, Ben O'Leary, people "trying to figure things out" are among those coming to Revolution Books, literally around the corner from Harvard campus. O'Leary says Harvard Square customers include "radical youth to intellectuals and people involved in social movements and people who are curious."

Revolution Books, situated on Mass. Ave. and flying a red banner, is politically affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party which is part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

O'Leary, one of the half-dozen volunteer employees who staff the store, says Revolution Books aims to promote Marxism, Leninism and Maoism.

The store has no manager and is run by "a collective," O'Leary adds.

O'Leary admits that juggling volunteering at the store with other, paying jobs can be taxing.

"It's a lot of strain on people," he says.

"[But] for five or six years now it's been a very big economic struggle, and the reason we're still here is that people came forward and donated books and money and time and energy."

Right on the front counter is a telltale sign of the store's precarious financial situation-a neon-hued can for donations.

"The can has been a permanent fixture," O'Leary says. "Something we hope to remedy in our 20th anniversary celebration."

Revolution Books is in the midst of a year-long fundraising campaign with a $20,000 target for May 1, the 20th anniversary date.