Edgar Snow’s Red Star shines on
In 1936, a 31-year-old American writer ventured into a “no-go” zone in a remote part of Northwest China’s Loess Plateau with many questions in his mind.
Who were the Chinese Communists? How did “the Reds” dress, eat, play, love and work? What were the chances of the Red Army winning at all? What was their leader Mao Zedong like?
Edgar Snow entered, stayed and re-emerged with little doubt that the almost-isolated fighting force led by the Communist Party of China would ultimately succeed. He penned the book Red
Star over China, giving a rare, detailed and at times brilliant account of the revolutionary movement the world knew so little about.
In 1938, the Chinese version hit the market.
Eighty years later, the book is once again being widely read as people seek to understand the CPC.
The political party Snow introduced to the world is now behind the wheels of the world’s second-largest economy as it drives ever closer to the global center stage.
“The book’s charm is its true account of reality,” said Cao Wenxuan, a Peking Uniinside
No other Westerner had presented such insight into Chinese communism before.”
Gordon H. Chang, professor of history at Stanford University
versity professor, at a symposium last week to mark 80 years of the book’s Chinese edition.
Until the book’s publication, Mao and his comrades had usually been portrayed in the West as “Red bandits” fighting a losing guerrilla war. Reports about them often relied on hearsay or were pure fabrication since the “Red zone” was blockaded.
But Snow was undeterred. His trip to Bao’an, the makeshift CPC headquarters near the present-day city of Yan’an, opened his eyes. He was one of the first outsiders to gain an look at the Chinese Communists. Snow wrote about Mao, Zhou Enlai and other revolutionary leaders he spent four months living with in the hillside caves there.
“I remember a chapter in which Mao talked about his childhood,” says Men Liangjie, a journalism graduate student at Tsinghua University. “I felt like I was also sitting in that cave with Snow, listening to Mao.”
Gordon H. Chang, a professor of history at Stanford University, says he had an “electrifying” reading experience with the book.
“No other Westerner had presented such insight into Chinese communism before,” Chang says. “Edgar Snow was a singular individual who came along at the right moment. He was an excellent writer and a keen observer of history.”
He adds: “It was not just sympathetic but appeared to be grounded in real sources and observations. It felt truthful and I think many others who read it, even today, feel similarly.”
Red Star over China has become a must-read for people keen to learn about the CPC’s revolutionary past. And its Chinese editions proliferated over time.
One of the latest editions sold 3 million copies in just over a year since its release. The Ministry of Education has also suggested the book be compulsory reading for middle school students.
Douban, a popular online review site, has about 10 Chinese editions of Red Star Over
China and they all score ratings of more than 8 out of 10.
Snow discovered that communism genuinely stirred many young Chinese. Soldiers of the Red Army were described as “unbeatable”, demonstrating “sheer dogged endurance” and having “the ability to stand hardship without complaint”. The epic Long March was a perfect example of this.
Snow wrote about how the Red Army, whose members were mostly poor peasants, trekked over mountains, crossed rivers, while surviving on little food and dodging their Kuomintang pursuers on their journey to reach Yan’an.
“This had a big impact on Western readers,” says Wu Shulin, vice-executive director of the Publishers Association of China. “The Red Army’s resilience and ability to overcome hardships won them a lot of admiration.”
And the communists won support from the masses who suffered during the Kuomintang regime.
The CPC introduced extremely popular policies in the Red zone: they eradicated opium, child slavery and compulsory marriage, while promoting mass education at the same time.
Their honest, upright and down-to-earth behavior was in stark contrast to the arrogance, arbitrariness and corruption displayed by the Kuomintang, and helped them gain mass appeal.
The Red Army’s growing number of new recruits were often described as the “poor man’s army”.
At the end of his book, Snow wrote that the Communist revolution would “eventually win”.
Today’s China is a world apart from Bao’an in the 1930s. Yet the CPC carries on its traditions.
The Chinese leadership has called on fellow comrades to “remain true to our original aspiration”, and to “never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission”.
Over the past five years, many wide and far-reaching campaigns to rid the Party of corruption and undesirable conduct have been launched, leading to broad improvements in the political system.
Snow died in Switzerland in 1972. Some of his ashes were buried at Peking University.
Inscribed on the tombstone are words in both Chinese and English that read: “Edgar Snow, American friend of the Chinese people.”