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.