Behind the Red Star over China

(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-10-22 13:55

Recording the history


The translated version of Edgar Snow's book "Red Star over China" published by the PLA Literature and Art Publishing House. [China Daily]
Snow used his movie camera to record this grand spectacle.

During the interviews, Snow explored into CPC's national salvation programme, its military strategy and tactics, its united front policy and measures, its policy towards prisoners of war, its policy towards ethnic minorities, its religious policy, its stand on the land revolution, on the marriage system, its policy on industry and commerce, its logistics and so on and so forth.

He told me that he had found answers to all of the 90 questions he had listed before his trip.

He said he'd gathered many lively impressions and gained a much deeper understanding of the Red Army and they were totally different from the bandits that Chiang Kai-shek tried to make them out to be.

By acting as Snow's interpreter, I had a rare chance to meet all the cadres and fighters he interviewed, to learn about their trouble-loaded early lives and their danger-packed struggles.

They had full confidence in the final victory of the Chinese people's struggle against Japanese aggression. They were concerned not only with their own struggle, but also with the anti-Fascist international united front, such as the Spanish Republicans' war against Francisco Franco and the struggle of the Ethiopians under Emperor Haile Selassie against Italian aggression.

Snow had originally intended to have Hatem and me in his photos, but we asked Snow not to include us in his photographs, nor to have our names mentioned in his articles.

Hatem had many relatives in the United States, and I might one day be sent for underground work in the Kuomintang-controlled areas, so any mention of me or photos with me in them might compromise my work.

Snow accepted our request and kept his word. Only after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 did he mention my role, in the second edition of his book. By that time, I had already changed my name to Huang Hua (from Wang Rumei) and George Hatem had become Ma Haide.

End of the journey

Early in September of 1936, news came that one of Chiang Kai-shek's crack armies had moved from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, to Xi'an and Lanzhou. This was a clear Kuomintang attempt to form an encirclement to crack down on the coming junction of the Red Army's three main forces.

Snow must therefore leave northern Shaanxi before any possible interruption of the road to Xi'an, otherwise he might not be able to return to Beijing and use the precious materials he had gathered through his interviews to write his envisioned book.

On September 7, Snow was getting ready to leave Yuwangbao for Bao'an. It was time for Snow, Hatem and I to part company. While the horses and guides were waiting, the three of us warmly embraced one another.

The first thing Snow did after returning to Beiping was to send dispatches to newspapers in the United States and Britain.

Snow's book, "Red Star over China," was translated into Chinese in 1938 by a few underground Communists and published in the foreign concession in Shanghai by a publisher pen-named Fu She.

To escape Kuomintang's censorship, it was renamed "Travels to the West" to look like a travelogue. Widely distributed and read by progressive intellectuals, it became a powerful weapon against Kuomintang's news blackout and its baseless anti-Communist smears.

Tens of thousands of young people travelled long distances to reach Yan'an to join the revolution, many becoming members of the armed forces. Outside of China, "Red Star Over China" was the first book by a foreign correspondent about "Red China," as well as the first one to introduce to the world Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other CPC leaders, the Chinese Red Army and the people in the CPC-led revolutionary bases, complete with on-the-spot interviews and photos.

After its publication in Britain, it had five reprints within a month. It truly was a book that shook the world.


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