Edgar Snow | |
|---|---|
 Edgar Snow (left) withZhou Enlai and his wifeDeng Yingchao, circa 1938. | |
| Born | (1905-07-19)July 19, 1905 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | February 15, 1972(1972-02-15) (aged 66) Eysins, Switzerland |
| Alma mater | University of Missouri Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism |
| Occupations | Journalist Author |
| Known for | Chinese journalism,Red Star Over China |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Foster Snow (1932–1949) Lois Wheeler Snow (1949–1972) |
Edgar Parks Snow (July 19, 1905 – February 15, 1972) was an Americanjournalist known for his books and articles oncommunism in China and theChinese Communist Revolution. He was the first Western journalist to give an account of the history of theChinese Communist Party following theLong March, and he was also the first Western journalist to interview many of its leaders, includingMao Zedong. He is best known for his bookRed Star Over China (1937), an account of the Chinese Communist movement from its foundation until the late 1930s.
Edgar Parks Snow was born on July 19, 1905, inKansas City, Missouri. Before settling in Missouri, his ancestors had moved to the state fromNorth Carolina, Kentucky, andKansas.[1] He briefly studied journalism at theUniversity of Missouri,[2] and joined theZeta Phi chapter of theBeta Theta Pi fraternity.[3]
Snow moved toNew York City to pursue a career inadvertising before graduating. He made a little money in thestock market shortly before theWall Street crash of 1929. In 1928 he used the money to travel around the world, intending to write about his travels.
Snow arrived inShanghai that summer and stayed in China for thirteen years.[2] He quickly found work with theChina Weekly Review, edited by J.B. Powell, a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.[4] He became friends with prominent writers and intellectuals, includingSoong Ching-ling, the widow ofSun Yat-sen and an advocate of reform.[1] During his early years in China, he supportedChiang Kai-shek, noting that Chiang had more Harvard graduates in his cabinet than there were inFranklin Roosevelt's.
He travelled to India in 1931 with an introduction letter toNehru fromAgnes Smedley, an Americanleft-wing journalist living in China. He delivered it inMumbai andSarojini Naidu introduced him to her Communist sister Suhasini, who took him around to see mill workers. He metGandhi in Simla, but was not impressed. He covered theMeerut conspiracy case trial in which three British communists were involved, and wrote three articles about India.[4]
He began to make an international name for himself when he became correspondent for theSaturday Evening Post and widely traveled throughout China, often on assignment for the Chinese Railway Ministry.[2] He touredfamine districts in Northwest China, visited what would later become theBurma Road, and reported on theJapanese invasion of Manchuria.[1]
In 1932 he marriedHelen 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 Beijing. They taught journalism part-time atYenching University,[4] 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.[5] They borrowed works on current affairs from the Yenching library and read the principal texts ofMarxism. The couple became acquainted with student leaders of theanti-JapaneseDecember 9th Movement. It was through their contacts in the underground communist network that Snow was invited to visitMao Zedong's headquarters.[4]
In June 1936, Snow left home with a letter of introduction fromSoong Ching-ling (who was a politically important supporter of the Communists) and arrived atXi'an. The Communist-held areas were blockaded byZhang Xueliang's army, which had been forced out of his Manchurian base when 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 byGeorge Hatem, who had worked with the Party, whose presence on the trip Snow did not mention for many years at Hatem's request. 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 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 theCommunist-controlled areas. Other writers, such asAgnes 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 theLong March.[6]
Snow was taken through the military quarantine lines to the Communist headquarters atBao'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 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.[7]
After he returned to Beijing in the fall, Snow wrote frantically. First he published a short account inChina 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 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.[8]
In the first four weeks after its publication,Red Star over China sold over 12,000 copies,[9] and it effectively made Snow world-famous. The book quickly became a "standard" introduction to the early Communist movement in China.[2] His literary agent in Japan,Yoko Matsuoka translated the book, as well as many of his other works, into Japanese.[10][11]
After theJapanese invasion of China in 1937, the Snows became founding members of theChinese Industrial Cooperative Association (Indusco). The goal of Indusco was to establish workers' cooperatives in areas which were not controlled by 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.[2] Indusco was eventually successful in creating 1,850 workers' cooperatives.[12] Snow again visited Mao inYan'an in 1939.[citation needed]
Snow reported on theNanking 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 the facts are actually worse than any story yet published." There were tears in his eyes and I took his sorrow to be genuine.[13]
His report on the Nanking Massacre appeared in his 1941 bookScorched Earth.[13]
Snow metWataru Kaji, and his wife,Yuki Ikeda. Both Kaji and Ikeda survived a Japanese bombing attack onWuchang and met him at theHankow Navy YMCA. Snow met them again a year later inChongqing and he 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.[14]
His time reporting on the Second Sino-Japanese War would appear in his 1941 book "The Battle For Asia".[15]
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.[2] After writing the book, Snow and his wife returned to the United States, where they separated.[16] In April 1942, theSaturday Evening Post sent him abroad as a war correspondent. Snow traveled to India, China, and Russia to report onWorld War II from the perspectives of those countries. In Russia he shared his observations of theBattle 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 byfascists it is no more possible for any people to remain neutral than it is for a man surrounded bybubonic 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.[17]
By 1944, Snow was wavering on the question of whether Mao and the Chinese Communists were actually "agrarian democrats," rather than dedicatedcommunists who were bent ontotalitarian rule.[17] His 1944 book,People on Our Side, emphasized their role in 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 forThe Nation, Snow stated that the Chinese Communists "happen to have renounced, years ago now, any intention of establishingcommunism [in China] in the near future."[17] After the war, Snow retreated from the view that the Chinese communists were 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.[2][18][19][20] They had a son, Christopher (born 1949) who died ofcancer in October 2008,[21] and a daughter,Sian (born 1951), named after the Chinese citySian (now Xi'an),[22] who lives and works as a translator and editor in theGeneva region, not far from where her mother lived for many years prior to her death in 2018.[21]
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 afterWorld War II. During theMcCarthy period, he was questioned by theFBI and he was also asked to disclose the extent of his relationship with theCommunist Party. In published articles, Snow lamented about what he saw as the one-sided,conservative, andanti-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 was of interest to China scholars; andJourney 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 toSwitzerland in 1959, but he remained an American citizen.[2]
He returned to China in 1960 and 1964, interviewedMao Zedong andZhou Enlai, traveled extensively, and talked to many people. His 1963 book,The Other Side of the River, details his experience, including his reasons for denying that China's 1959–1961Great Leap Forward was afamine. In 1963, his new book was reviewed inThe Sydney Morning Herald which referred to his association withRewi Alley, a New Zealander who by then was "the Chinese Government's chief propagandist in English."[23]
In 1970, he – this time with his wife,Lois Wheeler Snow – made a final trip to China.[18] On October 1, he stood next to Mao during the National Day parade in Beijing, the first time an American was given that honor.[24]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 welcomeRichard Nixon to China either as a tourist or in his official capacity as President of the United States.[25]: 37 [26][27]Snow reached an agreement withTime magazine to publish his final interview with Mao, including the Nixon invitation, provided the earlier interview with Zhou Enlai was also published.[26]TheWhite House followed this visit with interest but distrusted Snow and his pro-communist reputation.[28] When Snow came down withpancreatic cancer and returned home after a surgery, Zhou Enlai dispatched a team of Chinese doctors to Switzerland, includingGeorge Hatem.
Snow died on February 15, 1972, the week President Nixon was traveling to China, before he could see the normalization of relations.[29] He died ofcancer, at the age of 66, at his home inEysins[22] nearNyon,Vaud, Switzerland. After his death, his ashes were divided into two parts at his request. One half was buried atSneden's Landing, near theHudson River. The other half was buried on the grounds ofPeking 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.[2]
In 1973 Lois Wheeler Snow went to China to bury half of her husband's ashes in the garden ofPeking University. In 2000 – together with her son Chris – she traveled to Beijing in support of women who lost their children in theTiananmen Square massacre of 1989.[18] 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 the people of China be liberated from oppression, corruption and misuse of power – just as she and her husband had expressed in 1949.[22]
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 the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership, which he called "disastrously prophetic." Writing thirty years after the first publication ofRed 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."[30] 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."[31]
Other historians have been more critical of Snow.Jung Chang andJon Halliday's anti-communist biographyMao: 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.[32]
Jonathan Mirsky, a critical voice, stated that what Snow did in 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 the reporter he had been in the 1930s he would have discovered it."[33]
InMao: A Reinterpretation, a work sympathetic to Mao,Lee Feigon criticizes Snow's account for its inaccuracies, but praisesRed Star for being "[the] seminal portrait of Mao" and relies on Snow's work as a critical reference throughout the book.[34]
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