In June 1944, Yan'an welcomed a group of special guests, the Northwest Visiting Group of Chinese and foreign journalists. The delegation consisted of 21 people, including 6 foreign journalists and 9 Chinese journalists. This is the largest news gathering group that has rushed to Yan'an since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
In June 1944, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army held a banquet in Wangjiaping Taoyuan to entertain Chinese and foreign journalists.
Prior to this, from 1939 to 1943, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region was tightly sealed, and Yan'an had almost no foreign friends. In Kuomintang propaganda, the Communists "attacked the Nationalist army" and "sabotaged the War of Resistance," which made foreign journalists in Chongqing even more curious: What happened behind the blockade line?
The trip to the northwest, which broke through many obstacles and broke the news blockade of the Kuomintang reactionaries, was the largest foreign journalist's coverage of Red China after Snow's "Journey to the West". Under the lens and pen of Chinese and foreign journalists, the mysterious Chinese Communist Party and the hidden and magnificent War of Resistance Behind enemy lines have gradually been unveiled, and a rudimentary form of a future China that has bred the hopes of the Chinese nation has been comprehensively displayed in front of the foreign public for the first time.
A press corps that went through several twists and turns
"It's a strange thing. China is fighting a life-and-death war against the deadly Japanese blockade. Yet China's elite army of 500,000 is said to be using it to blockade their own people, the Chinese Communist Party in the north. - Such a blockade could threaten to erupt into a bloody civil war at any time. ”
At the end of 1943, Harrison Forman was the first foreign journalist to formally apply to the Kuomintang authorities to go to Yan'an.
Foreman's interest in China has a long history. On the eve of the Lugou Bridge Incident, he arrived in northern Shaanxi and interviewed the Chinese Red Army, which was preparing to rush to the anti-Japanese front. At that time, Foreman greatly appreciated the anti-Japanese national united front cooperated by the Kuomintang and the Communists, but he did not expect that a few years later he would see a completely different situation.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army opened up wasteland in Nanniwan for production. (File photo, xinhua news agency)
In 1940, as a correspondent for the New York Times and the British Times and the National Broadcasting Corporation in China, Foreman came to China again. He was surprised to see that "China was fighting a life-and-death war against the deadly Japanese blockade." Yet China's elite army of 500,000 is said to be using it to blockade their own people, the Chinese Communist Party in the north. ”
While Chiang Kai-shek and other senior Kuomintang officials told Forman and his colleagues that the Communists "forcibly occupied the national territory," "attacked the Nationalist army," and "sabotaged the War of Resistance," they did not allow any journalists to travel to communist areas. Instead, it sparked more interest in the Communist Party among foreign journalists. "What the hell is going on behind the blockade line? Are these Communist Parties really as bad as the authorities describe them? Did they betray the Central Army? Have they ever refused to fight Japan? A series of questions prompted Foreman and his colleagues to apply again and again to the Kuomintang authorities for interviews in Yan'an.
In early November 1943, Foreman first applied, and Chiang Kai-shek replied: "The discussion should be postponed." In February 1944, 10 foreign correspondents stationed in Chongqing, including Gunther Stein, B. Atkinson, and Theodore H. White, wrote a joint letter to Chiang Kai-shek asking to go to Yan'an. Regrettably, the Kuomintang authorities rejected it on the grounds that "the conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party is an internal matter in China and has nothing to do with foreigners."
It's not just foreign journalists who want to go to Yan'an. Almost at the same time as 10 foreign journalists wrote a joint letter, US President Roosevelt telephoned Chiang Kai-shek and said that he would "be very happy to see an observation group sent to communist areas" and asked Chiang Kai-shek for his support and cooperation.
Americans had this bold idea as early as 1943. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United States, out of the overall consideration of fighting against Japan, urgently needed the Chinese battlefield to drag more Japanese troops, so it has been vigorously assisting Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government. However, the United States, which supported Chiang Kai-shek and resisted Japan, was not satisfied with Chiang Kai-shek and his army, and the Americans noticed another chinese force, that is, the Anti-Japanese Armed Forces of the Communist Party of China, which were active in the base areas behind enemy lines. In order to more accurately understand the military strength of the Communist Party and its combat situation, in 1943, American diplomats and officers began to exert pressure on the Nationalist government to send a military observation mission to Yan'an.
Under the pressure exerted by the US government and the strong demands of journalists from various countries, Chiang Kai-shek no longer had any reason to shirk. On February 23, 1944, Liang Hancao, director of the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, announced at a press conference that Chiang Kai-shek had "allowed foreign journalists to visit Yan'an."
Although foreign journalists were approved, Chiang Kai-shek feared that the journalists would be "redwashed" by the Communist Party. To this end, he painstakingly changed the interview group into a "Northwest Visiting Group for Chinese and Foreign Journalists, screening Chinese journalists and their entourage layer by layer, demanding that they should not only "be able to use the psychology of foreign journalists" but also "deeply understand the 'conspiracy' of the Communist Party and expose it," so as to "prevent foreign journalists from being tempted by the propaganda of the Communist Party" and "expose the weakness of the Communist Party's measures as much as possible." There were no qualified reporters, and the Kuomintang did not hesitate to arrange for spies to impersonate them. According to Yang Shangkun, director of the Yan'an Communications Department who was in charge of receiving the delegation at the time, "The reporter of the Central Daily was Zhang Wenbo, a CC member, and among the two reporters of the Central News Agency, there was a temporary reporter named Yang Jiayong, who was a fake reporter and his real identity was a secret agent of the Central Unification. When passing through Xi'an, they sent in a special agent section chief posing as a staff member. ”
In terms of the time and schedule of the interview, Chiang Kai-shek specifically instructed: "Foreign journalists must stay (at least) three months to go to Yan'an. "Why is Chiang Kai-shek so generous? Foreign journalists quickly realized the intent, "foreign news agency bosses will not be willing to let their very few precious reporters go so long to cover a topic," on the other hand, "a long time will definitely bring inconvenience to the Communist Party as a host party in terms of material supply and other aspects, which will lead to friction." ”
Sure enough, only 6 foreign journalists were able to make the trip, including Foreman, Associated Press reporter Stein, New York Times and Time reporter Epstein, Reuters reporter Takedo, TASS reporter Pujinko and American Catholic Signal Magazine reporter Father Shananhan, of which Father Shananhan was also a reporter with anti-communist tendencies carefully selected by the national government.
Even so, Chiang Kai-shek was not at ease, and designated Xie Baoqiao, deputy director of the Kuomintang Foreign Affairs Bureau, as the team leader, and Deng Youde, deputy director of the Press Inspection Bureau, as the deputy leader, demanding that Chinese and foreign reporters must act in unison, and that every report of the reporters must go through news inspection. In order to be "preconceived", it was also stipulated that the interview route must first visit Xi'an and Western Jinxi controlled by Yan Xishan before entering northern Shaanxi.
After several twists and turns, on May 17, the 21-member Northwest Delegation of Chinese and foreign journalists finally flew from Chongqing to Baoji on a DC3 Douglas plane, then changed trains and arrived at xi'an, the first stop of the interview.
Identifying the "Performance" of Xi'an Training Camp
"In this city, wherever we go, there are people following us – shameless stalking."
— Epstein's Letter from Xi'an, May 20, 1944
Chiang Kai-shek's painstakingly arranged trip to Xi'an miscalculated from the very beginning.
Not long after arriving in Xi'an, Foreman received a letter exposing the "painstaking efforts" of the Nationalist government. According to Foreman's "Report from Red China", the letter read: "Chairman Jiang allocated 5 million yuan as a fund for the 'unfortunate event' of your visit, of which 3/5 was used for secret agents - 'special arrangement fees', that is, blockade, deception, surveillance and 'guides'... Many of the secret police were prepared to impersonate interpreters, receptionists, servants, and errand boys. ”
The letter even elaborates on the main points of the Nationalist Government's defense against press corps, such as "restricting and preventing you from making 'free visits' and occupying your entire day with prescribed procedures", "your house is guarded by secret police officers and plainclothes persons", "All officials designated to speak with the press corps must follow the 'outline of the talk' and must count the faults of the Communist Party in terms of wording", and so on.
Presumably to protect the letter writer, Foreman did not list the letter writer's name, but the letter undoubtedly caught his attention, and he decided to confirm it as much as possible. After staying in Xi'an for 4 days, the reporters quickly discovered that what was said in the letter was not empty.
According to the arrangement, the reporters visited Hu Zongnan's Military Department, the provincial chairman's residence, the Xi'an Kuomintang Party Department, and the Provisional People's Senate in Xi'an. However, they invariably avoided talking about the "Yan'an" or "Communist Party" issues of interest to the reporters, and they really avoided it, and as far as the left and right were concerned, he listed the crimes of the Communist Party. At the military headquarters, Hu Zongnan's chief of staff, Luo Zikai, spoke on behalf of Hu, stating conclusively that "the Communist-led Eighth Route Army has never fought a war with the Japanese since the beginning of the war." Epstein asked: Why did the Tokyo League repeatedly report on the war between Japan and the Communists? Luo Zikai avoided answering, but asked sharply: "If you believe in the Allied Society, why is the United States still fighting with the Japanese?" At the provincial chairman's residence, Chairman Zhu Shaozhou denounced the Communist Party's "opium trafficking, saying that "1/3 of the best land in the border areas is planted with poppies." This lie was so clumsy that Foreman wrote only one sentence to refute it: "I traveled for five months in the Communist Areas and could not find a trace of opium of any kind." ”
Stein, who served as a correspondent in the Far East for 12 years, has always had a sympathetic attitude toward the Chinese's war of resistance. He was dissatisfied with the treatment of his party in Xi'an, where officials "welcomed everywhere with elaborate musical teams, processions and mass demonstrations", two extravagant banquets a day, special performances, and visits to local attractions, and reporters heard countless "empty and solemn" speeches, but "almost no time to arrange their own affairs freely."
Not only that, Butman also found that "the Officials of Xi'an were closely monitoring and recording our every word and deed." Later, we learned that even the rickshaw pullers were sent to the guest house, and they always insisted that we hire them. When we refuse to take the car, they follow you wherever you go. We politely protested, and the rickshaw drivers disappeared immediately, followed by well-dressed people, wandering outside the gates of the guest house, and if we hired a car on the street, they followed on bicycles. This special treatment made Epstein can't help but satirize in the article "Anti-Communist Fortress Xi'an": "As a military and political fortress, Xi'an deserves it." Here, one's actions are not one's private affair. ”
The "visit" in Xi'an, which slightly broke through the procedure, was probably a visit to the "concentration camp" to investigate. Foreman heard that it was a political prison for those who had come out of the Communists, but according to the Kuomintang, it was a training camp "for the homeless young people who had fled from the Communists to Xi'an, to give them short-term training," so that the youth could live a new life. Therefore, the reporters offered to visit, and the officials in Xi'an finally agreed to it after two days.
On May 20, the press corps arrived at the training camp. Foreman saw, "The camp has been cleaned and tidied, and several of the newly painted places have not yet dried." He interviewed campers, who poured bitter water and "accused" the Communist Party of "crimes." However, Fuhrman, who has extensive experience in interviewing, only asked a few questions to expose the campers.
A 20-year-old camper, who claimed to have been seduced by the Communist Party, went to the Normal College in Yan'an and later escaped and volunteered to come to the camp. Foreman asked if she would bring a letter to her former teacher or former friend, to which she replied, "They are all bad things there," and she forgot their names.
Fu Xiuying, a 23-year-old camper, said she was the daughter of a wealthy family in Sichuan, and the Red Army cut off her parents' heads and dragged her to Yan'an. Curiously, she did not attempt to flee during the arduous Long March, but escaped after arriving in Yan'an. She claimed that after escaping from Yan'an in 1938, she came directly to the training camp, but in fact the training camp was only established in the winter of 1939.
The story of the bootcamp isn't over yet. Stein's years of professional journalistic qualities did not make him credulous about the dark stories he heard at the boot camp, so when he arrived in Yan'an, he asked around if anyone knew the young people who claimed to have lived and worked in Yan'an, but no one had heard of them.
Just as Stein was about to be suspicious, two young men suddenly came to him—Stein, Epstein, and Foreman all remembered that they had seen them at the training camp in Xi'an. It turned out that these two young people had escaped from the training camp!
At first, Stein certainly didn't fully believe the two youths, but when the two of them told the reporters a number of details about the interviews they interviewed at the Xi'an training camp, such as "what clothes we wear, where we take pictures, who we ask questions to?" and so on, Stein believes that "these two young people are undoubtedly not impersonating." From their mouths, the reporters learned that in order to cope with the visit, the training camp not only borrowed new clothes and bedding, but also mimeographed the questions and answers that the reporter might ask, and let the campers recite them repeatedly in order to "perform" to the reporters. As for the so-called life stories of the campers that Foreman interviewed, of course, they were also made up.
Enter another world
"I have complete freedom to do the investigation, to go wherever I want, to talk to whomever I want. There are no questions that are not allowed to be asked, no answers that have been rejected. —Stein, The Challenge of Red China
On May 31, 1944, a large wooden boat swung across the raging Yellow River, and the delegation finally entered the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region from the Yanxishan Defense Zone in Shanxi Province. With no flags, no slogans, no orders, the crowd jumping and cheering in unison, and only two cheerful peasants came to greet the group, and Epstein felt that he had entered another world.
After a night of rest, the delegation met General Wang Zhen. Because the Kuomintang deliberately changed the location of the river crossing temporarily, Wang Zhen had to drive 250 miles in one day, so when he appeared in front of everyone, he was wearing a dusty gray uniform, a pair of straw shoes, and bandages wrapped around his big toes, and bloodstained. Epstein lamented: "He was a general, but he did not have any signs of rank on his body, and he looked like an ordinary soldier—how different in appearance and attitude he looked from the Kuomintang officers in tailor-made military uniforms and white gloves." ”
Covered in dust, Wang Zhen calmly led everyone on the road, one moment up the mountain, the next down the ditch. The group rode horses for several days, and along the way, cattle and sheep filled the mountains, and the fields were planted with wheat, millet, cotton and corn. Amazingly, some of the hoes and ploughs used by the peasants in the fields were made of steel, and when asked, they learned that their raw materials came from enemy rails demolished in northern China. The people here are also different, in other parts of China, the people are full of sadness when they see the soldiers, and the people here not only bring hot tea to the soldiers, take the initiative to help the soldiers take care of the horses, but also go forward to inquire what these "strange" people they escort are doing.
When he walked to Nanniwan, Fuhrman saw groups of people working in the fields, and when he approached, he found that they were soldiers participating in the large-scale production movement. "They were brandishing hoes, rakes and shovels while singing. Their rifles, machine guns, grenades, and mortars were piled up nearby in an orderly manner. Almost all of these ordnances were made in Japan and captured on the battlefield. ”
Foreman (left), riding on a mule, is passing through a militia post where Eighth Route Army escorts show the militia a route.
All this made Epstein "both surprised and excited." However, the group soon discovered that when they officially arrived in the long-awaited Yan'an on June 9, they were greeted by a more intense and surprising life.
The delegation was placed at the Yan'an Junction on the south side of the New Market outside the South Gate, which is a newly opened cave with more than 30 holes. According to jin cheng, then deputy director of the Yan'an Communication Department, Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai instructed eight big characters for the work of receiving the visiting group, "Publicize it and win it over.", be warm and thoughtful in life, and give preferential treatment to materials as much as possible, but do not engage in extravagance and waste.
According to the instructions, before the arrival of the reporter, the staff of the communication office worked together to clean the lawn in the courtyard of the communication office, the guest rooms were arranged in a simple and simple way, and they also made their own "dirt sofas". The so-called "earthen sofa", some are excavated on the wall according to the style of the sofa when excavating the cave, and the wooden cushion is added; some are long wooden board chairs with wooden boards and cotton cushions, which are bandaged with blue and white earth printed cloth. The elaborately arranged cave dwellings made Foreman marvel that "it is better than our press guest house in Chongqing." The abundant supply of three meals a day has made the reporters feel that the border area is "well-fed". Zhao Chaoju, a reporter from Xinmin Bao, described it this way: "Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is to enjoy that hearty breakfast. Egg butter bread is served on a large plate on the table, as much as you want, in addition to steamed buns, red dates and millet porridge. Chinese dinner, is four dishes and one soup, usually eat steamed buns, rice is rare. There are also preparations for eating and drinking, as long as you are commanded. ”
Stein, who had just settled down, found that the Communists did not seem to be in a hurry to propagate, and their attitude seemed to be, look at it with your own eyes. It didn't take long, though, for Stein to get busier than ever. Because he realized that here he could "do his research with complete freedom and go wherever he wants." There were no questions not allowed to be asked, and there were no rejected responses. Thus, from the government of the Border Region to the press units, from the Central Hospital to the Arsenal, from the universities to the model farms, from the meetings of the autonomous organizations to the Japanese Workers' and Peasants' Schools, a new world that had been so tightly sealed that it seemed to the outside world to be distorted for a long time was gradually revealed to Stein and others.
Unbeknownst to the reporters, zhou Enlai emphatically pointed out to the communication office long before their arrival: "In propaganda work, we must seek truth from facts, introduce our achievements, and also explain that we have mistakes and shortcomings in our work, and that we have methods to overcome our mistakes and shortcomings. It was this open, open and confident gesture that made Stein sigh greatly: "I talked to communist leaders, non-communist leaders, and responsible officials for a few hours, and I am afraid that I did not pay much attention to their precious time." I repeatedly tortured them, asked them the details of their political life in spite of politeness, and asked all sorts of inconspicuous questions based on the Kuomintang's attacks on the 'bandits'. In the East I haven't met anyone who can make someone visit like this, but the people of Yan'an don't seem to care. ”
Interview with Mao Zedong
"When I say that Mao Zedong is one of the great figures of our time, I don't think I'm wrong."
—Epstein, "This is the Leader of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong"
On the morning of June 12, a light red invitation from Mao Zedong was delivered to Chinese and foreign journalists. Before leaving for the banquet, Zhao Chaozhao suddenly found that he was barefoot wearing newly purchased sandals, which was not solemn, he wanted to wear a pair of socks, but the people who entertained them resolutely assured that it did not matter, "This side does not pay attention to these details." Sure enough, when I arrived at the conference room behind the Yangjialing Central Auditorium, many Yan'an cadres were wearing straw shoes, and Mao Zedong's woolen uniform was also old.
Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and the Northwest Delegation of Chinese and foreign journalists at Wangjiaping.
Mao Zedong shook hands with everyone with a smile on his face and said in his speech: "Welcome to Yan'an in such a hot weather. We have a common goal, which is to overthrow the Japanese militarists and all the fascists of the world. You have come here for this common goal. After a brief speech, he began to answer the reporters' questions in detail.
With regard to the kuomintang-communist negotiations, Mao Zedong said: Negotiations are still under way, and we hope that the negotiations will make progress and achieve results.
When the delegation entered the border area, it coincided with the opening of a second battlefield in Europe. Regarding this new situation, Mao Zedong said: The influence will be very broad, directly affecting Europe, and in the future, it will also affect the Pacific and China. However, "China's problems still depend on the efforts of Chinese themselves, and the improvement of foreign conditions alone cannot solve the problem." ”
Regarding the CPC's stand, Mao Zedong emphasized the relationship between democracy and reunification, saying: Only democracy can win the War of Resistance. We need unity, but only unity based on democracy is true unity. This will be true at home, and so will the new League of Nations. Only democratic reunification can overthrow fascism and build a new China and a new world.
The conversation lasted for three hours. After dinner, Mao Zedong invited reporters to watch plays such as "Ancient City Society" together. It was 11 o'clock at night when the scene was over, and Mao Zedong smiled and sent the guests off. The first meeting made Zhao Chao feel "completely unexpectedly relaxed".
Later, Stein was the first to break through the "discipline" of the Kuomintang's unified action and interviewed Mao Zedong alone. His conversation with Mao took place in Mao's simple cave reception room, where furniture was sparse and an old orchard looked out. Mao Zedong sat in a rocking chair, cigarette after cigarette, and sometimes he would stand up and pace back and forth through the cave while answering questions slowly and systematically. In the evening, American journalists from afar and the leaders of the Chinese Revolution sat down to dinner under the apple trees in the courtyard and then returned to the cave to continue the conversation. During the conversation, Mao noticed that the small table in front of Stein was shaking, so he turned and walked outside, took a flat-bottomed stone, and put it under the leg of a table.
Mao did not shy away from any of Stein's questions, and Stein had many questions to ask, but he noticed that it was getting late and proposed to resign several times. Unexpectedly, Mao Zedong insisted on more meetings, and in this way, the two talked from three o'clock in the afternoon to three o'clock in the evening, and finally, Stein was already delirious, and Mao Zedong "was still as fresh and energetic as the afternoon, and the conversation was well organized." ”
Epstein's greatest surprise was Mao's gracious and easy-going, when he discovered, "In Yan'an, Mao was accessible and very simple. He would walk in the streets of the loess and talk to the common people, and he would not have guards. When taking pictures with a group of people including us, he was not standing in the middle, and no one was leading him to stand in the middle, he was standing anywhere, sometimes on the side, sometimes behind others. "When Chairman Mao and other leaders and reporters ate, there was no etiquette or scale of the banquet, no more than two or three tables in total, and it was convenient to talk and simple to eat.
Another impression that Mao Zedong left on Epstein was "calm and self-satisfied." He is very good at entrusting someone else with something in order to give him enough time to consider and analyze a larger vision. This is in sharp contrast to Chiang Kai-shek's demeanor, and Epstein believed that Chiang Kai-shek was "rigid, rigid, neurotic, monotonous", "often in a state of tension", and unnecessarily asked too much tedious affairs.
The delegation paid non-stop visits to Yan'an for more than a month, and the reporters had close contact with Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders. Not only Mao Zedong, but also the equality and different personality charm of each leader who "mingled with the people" left a deep impression on the reporters.
Zhou Enlai looked like a scholar on the outside, he spoke forcefully and clearly, never perfunctory or boring. Jude looks "more like anyone's father, after a hard day's work, he returns home contented, unbuttons his clothes, sits relaxed and squints at you." "Nie Rongzhen is slender and tall," his long face with keen wisdom, like his whole person, showed great willpower, discipline and enterprising spirit. Yet he was very human, he was very humble, he had a good sense of humor. As soon as He Long appeared, the atmosphere would be active. Wang Zhen, who was clearing up the wasteland in Nanniwan, spoke so bluntly, like a cropper, and his hands were covered with cocoons.
The style of the CCP leaders was so different from the rumored Communists that Epstein wrote a newsletter titled "What Kind of People are the Chinese Communist Party?" In his newsletter, he introduced a large number of Communist Party members with very different lives, including leaders such as Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Li Fuchun, Deng Fa, and Nie Rongzhen, as well as some brigade commanders or government members who did not even have their names recorded. Ultimately, Epstein came to the conclusion that the Chinese Communist Party and its current supporters represent the broadest and most comprehensive strata of the country.
The people themselves are doing things for the people
"In this most backward region of China, many farmers are living a new, hopeful life. They have awakened from ancient feudalism. They wisely participated in autonomy and proved in fact that the chinese people were up for democracy. — Stein, The Seeds of Democracy in the Far East
Is there democracy in the border areas at the rear of the blockade line? This was one of the most important issues concerned by Fuhrmann's visit to Yan'an, and it was also one of the key points of the Kuomintang's deliberate efforts to smear the Communist Party. Wang Shuhui, who was working at the Central Daily at the time, recalled that one of the tasks of the Central Daily reporter's visit to Yan'an was to expand anti-communist propaganda, and the first focus of the propaganda was to "slander the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region as feudal and the people have no real democracy." ”
However, facts speak louder than words, and when the delegation came to Yan'an, all lies were self-defeating.
On July 13, Five foreign journalists, including Foreman, were invited to attend a meeting, which was a joint meeting of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government and the Standing Committee of the Border Region Senate.
The Remaining Corps presented a plaque to the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. On the right is Li Dingming, vice chairman of the Border Region Government and a democrat.
The day before, the Chinese members of the delegation and Father Xia Nanhan left Yan'an early. The tour leader Xie Baoqiao and deputy tour leader Deng Youde seem to realize that Chairman Jiang's permission to visit Yan'an is a big mistake, and if he thinks that foreign journalists have been living in the border areas for a long time, he will be even more aware that "the CPC's administrative work is only a farce, and the combat efforts are only deception," and the mistake is even greater. They tried to take the foreign journalists with them, but they were relentlessly refused: Didn't Chiang Kai-shek ask us to stay in Yan'an for at least three months?
The five foreign journalists who remained saw a scene that had never been seen before: more than 20 members of the committee sat around a long table, and sparrows flew in and out of the gaps in doors and windows. The Senate of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, which was formally established in January 1939, is the highest organ of power in the border region. As "officials" of the highest organs of power, these senators have a special image, regardless of age, their faces are sunburned copper and wrinkled, and some of them come on horseback. The more than 20 members present had different identities and occupations, ranging from landlords and gentry, intellectuals and teachers, doctors and soldiers to Muslims, shop clerks and sharecroppers, of whom only 8 were Communists.
This is because, in 1941, the "three-three system" was introduced in the border areas, that is to say, in any town or region of the Senate and government posts, the number of Communists should not exceed one-third, and the other two-thirds of the posts were reserved for non-Communists in all classes and nationalities who advocated resistance to Japan and democracy. If more than a third of the Communists were elected, they would voluntarily give up their surplus positions.
Presiding over the joint meeting was Li Dingming, one of the most representative democrats in the "three-three" government. The 64-year-old enlightened gentleman, who had worked hard for 30 years to develop local education and had superb traditional Chinese medicine skills, was well known in northern Shaanxi. He paid little attention to politics, but from 1941 onwards he was elected vice-chairman of the Border Region Government.
When he first met the old man with "tooth loss and fragile body," Stein disagreed, and he suspected that the Communist Party had singled out the mild old man, who had a high reputation in the county, only as a puppet to praise New Democracy. However, after talking to Li Dingming and people large and small such as farmers and workers, his thinking changed.
"You are a landlord who is not a member of the Communist Party, do you think you can really play any role in the government of the Border Region?" Stein's question was poignant.
Li Dingming's "parchment-like" face quickly revealed a smile full of pride. He replied slowly: "I met Mao Zedong for the first time when I visited Mao Zedong's cave after I was elected [vice chairman of the border region]. I told him at the time that I had a bill to put forward. Mao Zedong was interested. I told him frankly that because of the difficulties, it is now necessary to implement lean and lean government in the army and the government. I said, we have to cut down troops and reduce officers, and increase efficiency. ”
Mao Zedong immediately agreed to this bold proposal, and soon Li Dingming put forward the bill in the Senate and passed it unanimously. "I have never been so happy in my life, because this is the first time I have seen real progress since I became interested in social reform during the Xinhai Revolution." Li Dingming told Stein.
In order to actually observe the democracy led by the Communist Party, the reporters also made "surprise" visits. Foreman walked 2 hours to a village to watch one of the most ordinary elections. He saw that the villagers were electing representatives to the local people's senate, and the names of the village's 650 voters were posted on a bulletin board. As the Communist Party put it, voters "have no class, party, faction, religion, creed, private property, gender or ethnicity." After screening, only 3 were declared ineligible, one of whom was incompetent and the other two under the age of 18. Subsequently, the candidates stood up one by one and explained their policy framework.
Illiterate peasants substitute popular methods for voting. In addition to the well-known American writer Anna Louis Strong described the "throwing beans into the bowl", Zhao Chaoju also introduced several voting methods in his 1945 publication of "Yan'an January", some places called elections as "burning incense holes", that is, burning a hole in the name of the elected person with incense; in some places, a person carries a box and travels to the voters' homes to ask them to vote, which is called a back box.
Witnessing the "grassroots democracy" in the border areas, Epstein couldn't help but write a letter to his wife Qiu Jasmine, who was far away in Chongqing, exposing the fact that it had been distorted by the Kuomintang: "I don't know how real this sounds in the muddy and dreary atmosphere of Chongqing, but it is true, it is absolutely true... This is the model of new China and the new world. This is democracy, not the people who claim to be friends of the people who are doing things for the people, but the people themselves doing things for the people. ”
Experience the battle first-hand
"As to whether the Eighteenth Army is fighting the enemy, I can answer: 'Yes.'" I saw such battles in northwestern Jin, I saw wounded and killed Chinese soldiers, and I spoke to captured enemy and puppet troops, just a few hours after they were captured. ——Wu Dao, "I Came Back from Northern Shaanxi"
Maurice Budo's status in the tour is special. Zhao Hong, a professor at Yan'an University's School of History and Culture who has long been engaged in research with international friends in Yan'an, told reporters: "Wu Dao came to Yan'an as a reporter for Reuters, Star Weekly and Baltimore Sun, and in fact he was also an adviser to the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee. It can also be seen from Wu Dao's interview with Mao Zedong that he was originally biased toward the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee. ”
It is said that when Wu Dao first heard that he had become a member of the delegation, other foreign journalists in his travels protested one after another, and some even thought that he was a "running dog" sent by the Kuomintang government, which hindered the objectivity of the press corps's reporting on Yan'an news. Unexpectedly, after wu dao personally visited Yan'an and saw the Chinese communists fighting the Japanese army, he wrote a special report entitled "I returned from northern Shaanxi" and published it in Chongqing's "Damei Evening News" to refute the Kuomintang's rumors that the Chinese Communists were swimming without attack.
He wrote in the report: "As to whether the Eighteenth Army is fighting the enemy, I can answer: 'Yes.' I saw such battles in northwestern Jin, I saw wounded and killed Chinese soldiers, and I spoke to captured enemy and puppet troops, just a few hours after they were captured. At the same time, I also saw a large number of booty seized from the enemy, smoked Japanese paper cigarettes with Japanese matches, drank Japanese sherry sauce, and ate Japanese biscuits and cans. ”
Budo has personally fought more than once. It was September 1944, and he, along with Foreman, Epstein, Stein, and Pujinko, accompanied by the Eighth Route Army and interpreters, crossed the Yellow River from Yan'an to the Jinsui Military Region. During the trip, the reporters met Major Casburg, a medic of the U.S. Military Observation Group, who was visiting the front line. That night, they camped together in a village just 20 miles from Fenyang City. At this time, it coincided with the Night Attack of the Eighth Route Army and guerrillas on the enemy's important strategic stronghold in Shanxi, Fenyang County. So the reporters and Major Casburg climbed up the hill only ten miles from Fenyang and saw with their own eyes that the Eighth Route Army had burned down the enemy's railway station, airfield, and a match factory, taken a pillbox outside the city gate, killed and captured the Japanese puppet army, and captured two machine guns, 70 rifles, cigarettes, biscuits, and other trophies.
In September 1944, Epstein (left) and Foreman (right) interview the anti-Japanese base area in northwestern Jin.
After the victory of the battle, the people of the surrounding villages slaughtered pigs and sheep one after another, carried baskets in groups, filled with melons, fruits and eggs, and rushed to the army station to comfort the soldiers and international friends. This scene deeply touched Foreman, who could not help but sigh: "In the past, some people told us that the Eighth Route Army did not fight, did not wound soldiers, did not take prisoners, and the people feared the Eighth Route Army and hated the Eighth Route Army. ”
A few days later, the reporters came to the town of Lou Fu, north of Fenyang, and encountered the Eighth Route Army encircling the Japanese stronghold. After a long stalemate, the 300 Japanese troops and more than a hundred puppet troops in the stronghold refused to surrender, so the Eighth Route Army and the guerrillas decided to dig tunnels and blast the enemy's turrets. Epstein recorded the situation in his newsletter: "We reached only 300 yards from the enemy turret under the cover of troops. When the enemy saw that we were digging tunnels, they opened fire with rifles, machine guns, mortars and 75 mm field guns, and we lay on the ground... The next night we heard a violent explosion as we camped in another village, indicating that the battle had been won. ”
Under the guidance of young intellectuals, the people in the base areas have produced all kinds of landmines. Photo by Foreman
On October 2, five foreign journalists, together with Major Casburg, left the Jinsui Liberated Area and returned to Yan'an. Epstein made a rough count and found that during their stay in the northwest of Jin for more than a month, this military subdivision alone destroyed more than 20 enemy strongholds.
And what Wu Dao was quite touched by was that not only did the Eighth Route Army fight bravely against the Japanese army, but even every ordinary villager had a strong will to resist. In his article "I Returned from Northern Shaanxi," he wrote that in northwestern Jin, there were areas only a few miles away from the enemy, and that "every man, woman, child, and soldier had a strong desire to fight the enemy" and that "the common people cooperated with the army in various ways to help care for and evacuate wounded soldiers." They also attacked the enemy's fortified strongholds independently, and on many occasions they planted so many mines around the village that the enemy did not dare to enter. ”
Foreigners' eyes lit up
"I was stunned to find such a warm new society behind the blockade line. In Chongqing, for five years, I, who had heard nothing of the Communist Party except malicious slander, wiped my eyes in amazement at what I had found in Yan'an. — Stein, The Seeds of Democracy in the Far East
In late October 1944, five foreign journalists returned to Chongqing, ending their five-month trip to Yan'an. Before leaving Yan'an, Mao Zedong went to the social office to say goodbye to them and gave each of them a signed portrait of Mao Zedong, which Epstein later hung on the front wall of his living room, and Foreman solemnly wrote a line in his notebook: "Yan'an, China's star of hope is twinkling..."
China's hope is in Yan'an, and this is not the feeling of Foreman alone. As early as the visiting delegation was still in Yan'an, reports from foreign journalists from Red China were successively published in overseas newspapers and periodicals. On July 1, 1944, the London newspaper The Times carried Mao Zedong's conversation with all the members of the Chinese and foreign press corps; on the same day, the New York Times published a commentary based on Epstein's report, "The army under the leadership of the Chinese Communists is the most powerful", saying that the Chinese troops were "our valuable allies" in the war against Japan. What annoyed the Kuomintang the most was that even Father Xia Nanhan, who had high hopes and anti-communist tendencies on Chiang Kai-shek, said that "I did not see in Yan'an the things that were reported denouncing the Communist Party." ”
However, due to the Kuomintang's press censorship, "most of the more than 100 telegrams written by foreign journalists based on field visits and inspections were withheld in their entirety by Kuomintang news inspectors or the main content was deleted." Professor Zhao Hong told reporters, "This led to the further deepening of the contradiction between foreign journalists and the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, and the activities of the visiting group not only failed to give Chiang Kai-shek extra points, but accelerated the failure of the Nationalist government in public opinion propaganda." ”
News censorship can only be controlled for a while, and the books published by foreign journalists after returning to China spread so quickly and widely that they quickly broke through the Kuomintang's news blockade. In 1945, Foreman was the first to publish "Reports from Red China" in the United States; in 1946, Stein published "The Challenge of Red China"; in 1947, Epstein's book "China's Unfinished Revolution" came out. The three books of the three reporters invariably used a large number of facts, investigations, and dialogues to show the charm of the Communist Party of China and the great potential of the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines under their leadership to counter-attack japan. These monographs were not only widely distributed in foreign countries, but also later translated into Chinese and widely disseminated to the Kuomintang-ruled areas.
In addition, because he was good at circumventing "censorship" and skillfully using his pen, Zhao Chao, a reporter of Xinmin Bao, made an objective report on his trip to Yan'an, which was also assembled into the publication and distribution of "Yan'an January", which was welcomed by readers in the Kuomintang region. Mao Zedong once commented on "January in Yan'an", "The author's courage to publish such an article in Chongqing is precious." The bold Zhao Chaojian was actually selected by the Kuomintang after many studies. According to Wang's recollection, who was working at the Central Daily at the time, the Kuomintang Central Propaganda Department was very uneasy about the field reporters of the Ta Kung Pao and the Xinmin Bao, believing that most of them were inclined to the Communist Party and were not easy to control. The candidates for these two newspapers were rejected several times, and finally the Kuomintang Central Propaganda Department reluctantly agreed to send Zhao Chaoju, the chief writer of the Xinmin Bao, to Yan'an, because his hearing was very poor, he was known as "Zhao Deaf", and he did not like activities on weekdays and was not an activist. Unexpectedly, it was Zhao Chao, who seemed to be "safe", who wrote "Yan'an January" that the Kuomintang regretted unceasingly.
On August 15, 1944, Mao Zedong said in an editorial in the Liberation Daily: "Facts speak louder than words, truth is above all else, and the eyes of foreigners and Chinese will one day light up." Now, sure enough, it slowly lit up. ”
Indeed, as the American scholar Kenneth Shoemaker put it: "In a sense, the press corps' trip to the Northwest can be compared to Edgar Snow's 1936 trip to security... Between 1944 and 1945, foreign journalists' articles showed people something that had long since disappeared: authoritative information about the Chinese Communist Party. It is precisely under the lens and pen of these journalists that a rudimentary future China that nurtures the hopes of the Chinese nation has confidently and frankly stepped onto the world stage.
Source: Beijing Daily Reporter: Yang Lijuan
Process Editor: L006
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