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57-525: In Red Star Over China , Edgar Snow recounts the months that he spent with the Chinese Red Army in 1936. Most of this time, he was at their then-capital Bao'an (Pao An) . They moved to the famous Yan'an only after he left. Snow uses his extensive interviews with Mao and the other top leaders to present vivid descriptions of the Long March , as well as biographical accounts of leaders on both sides of

114-528: A daughter, Sian (born 1951), named after the Chinese city Sian (now Xi'an) , who lives and works as a translator and editor in the Geneva region, not far from where her mother lived for many years prior to her death in 2018. Because of his relationships with communists and because of his highly favorable treatment of them when he was a war correspondent, Snow became an object of suspicion after World War II . During

171-641: A democratic movement. While working as a correspondent in Russia, he wrote three short books about Russia's role both in World War II and world affairs: People on Our Side (1944); The Pattern of Soviet Power (1945); and, Stalin Must Have Peace (1947). In 1949 Snow divorced Helen Foster and married his second wife, Lois Wheeler . They had a son, Christopher (born 1949) who died of cancer in October 2008, and

228-405: A movement which they interpreted as being anti-fascist and progressive. Snow reported the new Second United Front which Mao said would leave violent class struggle behind. Snow made it clear that Mao's ultimate aim was control of China. Only by taking Snow's thoughts out of context, concluded one scholar, was it possible for Harold Isaacs to claim that Red Star Over China was the origin of

285-422: A professional journalist." Other historians have been more critical of Snow. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday 's anti-communist biography, Mao: The Unknown Story , describes Snow as a Mao spokesman and accuses him of supplying myths, asserting that he lost his objectivity to such an extent that he presented a romanticized view of communist China. Jonathan Mirsky , a critical voice, stated that what Snow did in

342-570: A short account in China Weekly Review , then a series quickly translated into Chinese. Red Star Over China , published first in London in 1937, was an immediate best-seller. The book is given credit for introducing both Chinese and foreign readers not so much to the Communist Party, which was reasonably well known, but to Mao Zedong. Mao was not, as had been reported, dead. Snow reported that Mao

399-462: A surgery, Zhou Enlai dispatched a team of Chinese doctors to Switzerland, including George Hatem . Snow died on February 15, 1972, the week President Nixon was traveling to China, before he could see the normalization of relations. He died of cancer , at the age of 66, at his home in Eysins near Nyon , Vaud , Switzerland. After his death, his ashes were divided into two parts at his request. One half

456-544: A tourist or in his official capacity as President of the United States. Snow reached an agreement with Time magazine to publish his final interview with Mao, including the Nixon invitation, provided the earlier interview with Zhou Enlai was also published. The White House followed this visit with interest but distrusted Snow and his pro-communist reputation. When Snow came down with pancreatic cancer and returned home after

513-549: A work sympathetic to Mao, Lee Feigon criticizes Snow's account for its inaccuracies, but praises Red Star for being "[the] seminal portrait of Mao" and relies on Snow's work as a critical reference throughout the book. Edgar Snow Edgar Parks Snow (July 19, 1905 – February 15, 1972) was an American journalist known for his books and articles on communism in China and the Chinese Communist Revolution . He

570-701: Is married to author Robert Macfarlane . Lovell's book The Opium Wars: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China was widely reviewed in both scholarly journals and the press. Matthew W. Mosca, writing in the Journal of Asian Studies , wrote that the Opium War had "once ranked among the most studied events in Chinese history", but interest had notably declined. Lovell, he said, suggested that there were still holes in English language coverage and that Chinese scholarly and popular interest in

627-625: Is no more possible for any people to remain neutral than it is for a man surrounded by bubonic plague to remain 'neutral' toward the rat population. Whether you like it or not, your life as a force is bound either to help the rats or hinder them. Nobody can be immunized against the germs of history. By 1944, Snow was wavering on the question of whether Mao and the Chinese Communists were actually "agrarian democrats," rather than dedicated communists who were bent on totalitarian rule. His 1944 book, People On Our Side , emphasized their role in

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684-505: Is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London , where her research has been focused principally on the relationship between culture (specifically, literature, architecture, historiography and sport) and modern Chinese nation-building. Lovell's books include The Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature (University of Hawaii Press, 2006); The Great Wall: China Against

741-658: The Burma Road , and reported on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria . In 1932 he married Helen Foster , who was working in the American Consulate until she could begin her own career in journalism. She and Snow hit upon the pen-name "Nym Wales" for her professional work. In 1933, after a honeymoon in Japan, Snow and his wife moved to Beiping , as Beijing was called at that time. They taught journalism part-time at Yenching University ,

798-544: The Long March . Snow was taken through the military quarantine lines to the Communist headquarters at Bao'an , where he spent four months (until October 1936) interviewing Mao and other Communist leaders. He was greeted by crowds of cadets and troops who shouted slogans of welcome, and Snow later recalled "the effect pronounced upon me was highly emotional." Over a period spanning ten days, Mao Zedong met with Snow and narrated his autobiography. Although Snow did not know it at

855-587: The McCarthy period , he was questioned by the FBI and he was also asked to disclose the extent of his relationship with the Communist Party . In published articles, Snow lamented about what he saw as the one-sided, conservative , and anti-communist mood in the United States. Later in the 1950s, he published two more books about China: Random Notes on Red China (1957), a collection of previously unused China material which

912-546: The Nanking Massacre (December 1937 to February 1938), and he even reported on Japanese reactions to it, stating: In Shanghai a few Japanese deeply felt the shame and the humiliation. I remember, for example, talking one evening to a Japanese friend, a liberal-minded newspaper man who survived by keeping his views to himself, and whose name I withhold for his own protection. "Yes, they are all true," he unexpectedly admitted when I asked him about some atrocity reports, "only

969-528: The Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. One of these mothers was under house arrest and refused visits by others, while another was arrested after receiving financial assistance from Wheeler Snow. Wheeler Snow issued statements of protest to the international press and threatened to remove her husband's remains from Chinese soil. In her letter to the Chinese ambassador in Geneva, Wheeler Snow expressed her wish that

1026-452: The Xi'an Incident , bringing the narrative up to July 1938 as well as "many textual changes." Snow made the textual changes partly to polish but he also responded to friends and reviewers. Some of them felt Snow's account of party history had been too critical of Soviet policy, and others felt that he had given too much credit to Mao for independent Chinese strategies. Snow toned down but did not remove

1083-518: The anti-Japanese December 9th Movement . It was through their contacts in the underground communist network that Snow was invited to visit Mao Zedong 's headquarters. In June 1936, Snow left home with a letter of introduction from Soong Ching-ling (who was a politically important supporter of the Communists) and arrived at Xi'an . The Communist-held areas were blockaded by Zhang Xueliang 's army, which had been forced out of his Manchurian base when

1140-438: The 1930s was "to describe the Chinese Communists before anyone else, and thus score a world-class scoop." Of his reporting in 1960, however, he says that Snow "went much further than those who reckoned that Mao and his comrades would take power." He contented himself with assurances from Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong that while there was a food problem, it was being dealt with successfully," which "was not true", and "had Snow still been

1197-534: The Chinese Communist Party and its leadership, which he called "disastrously prophetic." Writing thirty years after the first publication of Red Star Over China , Fairbank stated that the book had "stood the test of time... both as a historical record and as an indication of a trend." Fairbank agrees that Snow was used by Mao, but defended Snow against the allegation that he was blinded by Chinese hospitality and charm, insisting that "Snow did what he could as

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1254-408: The Chinese Communists could indeed provide that nationalist leadership needed for effective anti-Japanese resistance. How dramatically the United States' policy-making attitudes have altered since then ... It provided not only for non-Chinese readers, but also for the entire Chinese people—including all but the Communist leaders themselves—the first authentic account of the Chinese Communist Party and

1311-647: The Japanese invaded in 1931, Zhang and his followers wanted to work with the Communists in order to oppose the Japanese and allowed Snow to enter. Snow was accompanied by George Hatem , who had worked with the Party, whose presence on the trip Snow did not mention for many years. Snow had been preparing to write a book about the Communist movement in China, and had even signed a contract at one point. However, his most important contribution

1368-622: The Japanese, through which Chinese workers would be provided with steady employment, education, consumer and industrial goods, and the opportunity to manage their own farms and factories. Snow's work in Indusco mainly involved his chairmanship of the Membership and Propaganda Committee, which managed public and financial support. Indusco was eventually successful in creating 1,850 workers' cooperatives. Snow again visited Mao in Yan'an in 1939. Snow reported on

1425-456: The London edition. --, (Garden City, 1939) "Revised", with six extra chapters. --, (New York: Modern Library, 1944). --, (New York: Grove, 1968) Extensive revisions, with notes and annotations added. The book has been called a "journalistic scoop" and a "historical classic", and the scholar Julia Lovell is among those who argue that the book played a key role in creating Chinese support and Western approval of Mao. Mao himself commented that

1482-538: The Making of China won the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. It was the first non-fiction book to win the prize. She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2010 in the category of Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern History. These prizes are given to young scholars who have made a significant contribution to their field. Lovell has written articles about China for The Guardian , The Times , The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement . She

1539-759: The Nationalist Party government of Chiang Kai-shek , used these events to build patriotic sentiment. Oxford University professor Rana Mitter wrote in The Guardian that Lovell's book "is part of a trend in understanding the British empire and China's role in it," and that the "sense of an unfolding tragedy, explicable but inexorable, runs through the book, making it a gripping read as well as an important one." A reviewer in The Economist commented: "Julia Lovell's excellent new book explores why this period of history

1596-711: The River , details his experience, including his reasons for denying that China's 1959–1961 Great Leap Forward was a famine . In 1970, he – this time with his wife, Lois Wheeler Snow – made a final trip to China. On October 1, he stood next to Mao during the National Day parade in Beijing, the first time an American was given that honor. In December 1970, Mao Zedong called Snow to his office one morning before dawn for an informal talk lasting over five hours, during which Mao told Snow that he would welcome Richard Nixon to China either as

1653-543: The World 1000 BC – AD 2000 (Atlantic Books, 2006); and The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (Picador, 2011). Lovell is also a literary translator ; her translations include works by Lu Xun , Han Shaogong , Eileen Chang and Zhu Wen . Zhu Wen's book I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China , which Lovell translated, was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize in 2008. Her book The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and

1710-405: The book "had merit no less than Great Yu controlling the floods". According to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday , Snow probably believed what he was told to be true, and much of it is still of basic significance, especially the "Autobiography of Mao". They also wrote that Mao omitted key elements from his accounts of party history and Snow missed others. According to Anne-Marie Brady , Snow submitted

1767-793: The book, Snow and his wife returned to the United States, where they separated. In April 1942, the Saturday Evening Post sent him abroad as a war correspondent. Snow traveled to India, China, and Russia to report on World War II from the perspectives of those countries. In Russia he shared his observations of the Battle of Stalingrad with the American Embassy. At times, Snow's defenses of various undemocratic Allied governments were denounced as blatant war propaganda, not neutral journalistic observation, but Snow defended his reporting, stating: In this international cataclysm brought on by fascists it

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1824-521: The communist movement gave his reports the stamp of authenticity. The glowing pictures of life in the communist areas contrasted with the gloom and corruption of the Kuomintang government. Many Chinese learned about Mao and the communist movement from the almost immediate translations of Mao's biography, and readers in North America and Europe, especially those with liberal views, were heartened to learn of

1881-691: The conflicts, including Zhou Enlai , Peng Dehuai , Lin Biao , He Long , and Mao Zedong 's own account of his life. When Snow wrote, there were no reliable reports reaching the West about what was going on in the communist-controlled areas . Other writers, such as Agnes Smedley , had written in some detail about the Chinese Communists before the Long March, but none of these writers had ever visited them or even conducted first hand interviews with them. Snow's status as an international journalist not previously identified with

1938-534: The early Communist movement in China. His literary agent in Japan, Yoko Matsuoka translated the book, as well as many of his other works, into Japanese. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the Snows became founding members of the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Association (Indusco). The goal of Indusco was to establish workers' cooperatives in areas which were not controlled by

1995-596: The facts are actually worse than any story yet published." There were tears in his eyes and I took his sorrow to be genuine. His report on the Nanking Massacre appeared in his 1941 book Scorched Earth . Snow met Wataru Kaji , and his wife, Yuki Ikeda . Both Kaji and Ikeda survived a Japanese bombing attack on Wuchang and met him at the Hankow Navy YMCA. Snow met them again a year later in Chongqing and he

2052-515: The fight against fascism. In a speech, he described Mao and the Communist Chinese as a progressive force which desired a democratic, free China. Writing for The Nation , Snow stated that the Chinese Communists "happen to have renounced, years ago now, any intention of establishing communism [in China] in the near future." After the war, Snow retreated from the view that the Chinese communists were

2109-450: The first connected story of their long struggle to carry through the most thoroughgoing social revolution in China's three millenniums of history. Many editions were published in China ... Snow was not available to read proofs of the initial London and New York editions, but he revised the text of the 1939 and 1944 editions. The Publisher's Note of the 1939 edition explains that Snow added a "substantial new section" of six chapters to include

2166-410: The first publication of Red Star Over China , Fairbank stated that the book had "stood the test of time... both as a historical record and as an indication of a trend." Fairbank agrees that Snow was used by Mao, but defended Snow against the allegation that he was blinded by Chinese hospitality and charm, insisting that "Snow did what he could as a professional journalist." In Mao: A Reinterpretation ,

2223-548: The implicit criticisms of Stalin. The 1944 edition was allowed to go out of print in the 1950s, but Snow made substantial revisions and annotations for the Grove Press reprint of 1968. Edgar Snow, Red Star over China London: Left Book Club , Victor Gollancz , 1937; this edition reprinted as Red Star Over China – The Rise of the Red Army . (2006; ISBN   1-4067-9821-5 ). --, (New York: Random House, 1938). Some changes from

2280-470: The leading university, and studied Chinese, becoming modestly fluent. In addition to writing a book on Japanese aggression in China, Far Eastern Front , he also edited a collection of modern Chinese short stories (translated into English), Living China . They borrowed works on current affairs from the Yenching library and read the principal texts of Marxism . The couple became acquainted with student leaders of

2337-483: The myth that the Chinese Communists were "agrarian reformers." Snow's Preface to the revised edition in 1968 describes the book's original context: The Western powers, in self-interest, were hoping for a miracle in China. They dreamed of a new birth of nationalism that would keep Japan so bogged down that she would never be able to turn upon the Western colonies—her true objective. Red Star Over China tended to show that

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2394-420: The people of China be liberated from oppression, corruption and misuse of power – just as she and her husband had expressed in 1949. Snow's reporting from China in the 1930s has been both praised as prescient and blamed for the rise of Mao's communism. Some Chinese historians have judged Snow's writing very positively. John K. Fairbank praised Snow's reporting for giving the West the first articulate account of

2451-484: The reporter he had been in the 1930s he would have discovered it." In Mao: A Reinterpretation , a work sympathetic to Mao, Lee Feigon criticizes Snow's account for its inaccuracies, but praises Red Star for being "[the] seminal portrait of Mao" and relies on Snow's work as a critical reference throughout the book. Julia Lovell Julia Lovell FBA (born 1975) is a British scholar, author, and translator whose non-fiction books focus on China . Lovell

2508-684: The stock market shortly before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 . In 1928 he used the money to travel around the world, intending to write about his travels. Snow arrived in Shanghai that summer and stayed in China for thirteen years. He quickly found work with the China Weekly Review , edited by J.B. Powell, a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He became friends with prominent writers and intellectuals, including Soong Ching-ling ,

2565-463: The time, party leadership carefully prepared Mao for these interviews and edited Snow's drafts. Snow claimed that he had been under no constraint, but made revisions in the book at the request of Mao, Zhou Enlai , and perhaps American communists who worried that Mao was creating splits in the International movement. After he returned to Beijing in the fall, Snow wrote frantically. First he published

2622-531: The transcripts of his interviews to be edited and approved by Party officials and changes in the American edition were made in response to the Communist Party of the United States . Snow's account of the Long March has been criticised by some, while others have maintained that it is basically valid. In his 1966 biography of Mao, the American Sinologist Stuart R. Schram wrote that Red Star Over China

2679-420: The war has, if anything, grown. Lovell, he concludes, "is certainly correct that the Opium War, as an event in the round, has been curiously neglected in Western scholarship" and hers is "the only book-length general history of the conflict in English by an author directly consulting both Chinese and Western sources." He noted that the book devoted much space to explaining how 20th-century politics, especially under

2736-735: The widow of Sun Yat-sen and an advocate of reform. During his early years in China, he supported Chiang Kai-shek , noting that Chiang had more Harvard graduates in his cabinet than there were in Franklin Roosevelt 's. He arrived in India in 1931 with an introduction letter to Nehru from Agnes Smedley , an American left-wing journalist living in China. He delivered it in Mumbai and Sarojini Naidu introduced him to her Communist sister Suhasini, who took him around to see mill workers. He met Gandhi in Simla, but

2793-407: Was a sincere communist, a patriot committed to resisting the Japanese invasion and world-wide fascism, and a political reformer, not the purely military or radical revolutionary that he had been during the 1920s. In the first four weeks after its publication, Red Star over China sold over 12,000 copies, and it effectively made Snow world-famous. The book quickly became a "standard" introduction to

2850-676: Was born on July 19, 1905, in Kansas City, Missouri . Before settling in Missouri, his ancestors had moved to the state from North Carolina , Kentucky , and Kansas . He briefly studied journalism at the University of Missouri , and joined the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Snow moved to New York City to pursue a career in advertising before graduating. He made a little money in

2907-583: Was buried at Sneden's Landing , near the Hudson River . The other half was buried on the grounds of Peking University , which had taken over the campus of Yenching University, where he had taught in the 1930s. His final book, The Long Revolution , was published posthumously by Lois Wheeler Snow. In 1973 Lois Wheeler Snow went to China to bury half of her husband's ashes in the garden of Peking University . In 2000 – together with her son Chris – she traveled to Beijing in support of women who lost their children in

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2964-449: Was irreplaceable in learning about Mao's early years and that despite "many errors of detail", it remains "by far the most important single source regarding his life" and offered important insights into "Mao's own vision of his past". John K. Fairbank praised Snow's reporting for giving the West the first articulate account of the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership, which he called "disastrously prophetic". Writing thirty years after

3021-677: Was not impressed. He covered the Meerut conspiracy case trial in which three British communists were involved, and wrote three articles about India. He began to make an international name for himself when he became correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post and widely traveled throughout China, often on assignment for the Chinese Railway Ministry. He toured famine districts in Northwest China , visited what would later become

3078-570: Was of interest to China scholars; and Journey to the Beginning (1958), an autobiographical account of his experiences in China before 1949. During the 1950s, Snow found it difficult to make a living through his writing, and he decided to leave the United States. He and his wife moved to Switzerland in 1959, but he remained an American citizen. He returned to China in 1960 and 1964, interviewed Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai , traveled extensively, and talked to many people. His 1963 book, The Other Side of

3135-553: Was reminded that: Japan was full of decent people like them who, if they had not had their craniums stuffed full of Sun goddess myths and other imperialist filth, and been forbidden access to 'dangerous thoughts,' and been armed by American and British hypocrites, could easily live in a civilized co-operative world if any of us could provide one. Shortly before the United States entered World War II, in 1941, Snow toured Japanese-occupied areas of Asia and wrote his second major book, Battle for Asia , about his observations. After writing

3192-524: Was the first Western journalist to give an account of the history of the Chinese Communist Party following the Long March , and he was also the first Western journalist to interview many of its leaders, including Mao Zedong . He is best known for his book, Red Star Over China (1937), an account of the Chinese Communist movement from its foundation until the late 1930s. Edgar Parks Snow

3249-479: Was the interviews that he had conducted with the top leaders of the party. When Snow wrote, there were no reliable reports reaching the West about the Communist-controlled areas . Other writers, such as Agnes Smedley , had written in some detail about the Chinese Communists before the Long March, but none of these writers had visited them or even conducted interviews with the leadership which had emerged during

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