Speaking of Edgar Snow, many Chinese are no strangers. A "Red Star Shines on China" (also known as "Journey to the West") has long made the American journalist famous in China, and has also established his lofty position in the history of world journalism. In fact, Edgar Snow also did many pioneering things during his time in China, which is far from being summarized by a "Red Star Shines on China".
Edgar Snow
Edgar Snow was born on July 19, 1905 in Kansas City, Missouri. He enrolled in the University of Missouri's journalism department in 1925 and a year later began traveling expeditions and writing for newspapers and periodicals. In 1928, at the age of twenty-three, Snow came to Shanghai, China, and successively served as an assistant editor of the Miller's Review and a special correspondent in China for several European and American newspapers and periodicals such as the Daily Herald. Around 1930, he traveled to northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan and the southwestern provinces, and made long-term trips to Japan, Korea, India, and Burma. During this period, from April 1933 to June 1935, he also served as a lecturer in the Department of Journalism of Yenching University in Peking. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Snow served as a war correspondent for the Daily Herald and the Saturday Evening Post. In 1942, he went to Central Asia and the Soviet front to interview and left China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he also visited China three times and once again continued his outstanding interview and reporting activities. For nearly half a century, Snow has forged an indissoluble relationship with China. In particular, between the late 1920s and early 1940s, Snow lived and worked in China for fourteen years. These fourteen years were the golden age of his journalism career, when he promoted China, and China made him a success.
In the first half of the twentieth century, China was in the midst of great turbulence, with many foreign media and their journalists flocking to this ancient and young country, constantly paying attention to every change that took place, and striving to discover and expose eye-catching explosive news, so as to take advantage of the news competition. However, snow, with his unique acumen and talent, and a more valuable sense of justice, stood out in the news reports and other propaganda against China, and created remarkable brilliant achievements. Briefly, he left at least ten insurmountable "firsts" in China:
I. In June 1936, Snow broke through the Ten-Year News Blockade imposed by Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang on the Red Zone of the CPC, ventured to visit the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, had close contacts with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high-level CPC leaders and Red Army officers, wrote a large number of correspondence reports with an objective, impartial, and honest character, and began to publish them in major newspapers and magazines in the world after returning to Beiping at the end of October, letting the world see "China under the Red Flag," sensationalizing the Chinese and foreign press circles, and becoming the first Western journalist to interview the Red Zone. This interview and report shattered all kinds of myths about the "red bandits" created by the Kuomintang authorities, so that the struggle of the Chinese people for progress won the understanding, sympathy and respect of the people of all countries in the world, and was praised as "like Columbus's discovery of the American continent, it is an achievement that shocked the world."
Mao Zedong and Snow
On the eve of the Lugou Bridge Incident in 1937, Snow, who returned from an interview in northern Shaanxi, finally completed the writing of "The Red Star Shines on China" ("Journey to the West") after several months of writing. In October of that year, the book was published in London, England, causing a great sensation among progressive readers at home and abroad; in February 1938, the Chinese translation was published in Shanghai, allowing more people to see the true image of the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Army, and becoming an immortal new famous work. In the book, Snow vividly reports to the world for the first time on the heroic deeds of the Chinese Red Army's Long March.
"Red Star Shines on China"
Third, he was the first and only person to interview and write the "Autobiography of Mao Zedong". The Autobiography of Mao Zedong is a faithful record of Mao Zedong's life and deeds, dictated by Mao Zedong and recorded by Snow in northern Shaanxi, and revised by Mao Zedong himself, and published in the american monthly magazine ASIA (Asia) in a serial form from July to October 1937, and the Chinese edition was also published serially in the Shanghai Digest magazine (later renamed "Digest Wartime Magazine") from August to November 1937, and then published in a single book by the Shanghai Dawn Book Company on November 1, 1937. This is an extremely precious and important document in the history of the Chinese revolution, and it is also the only biography of the leader of the Communist Party of China published in the form of an autobiography, which can be described as "China's first autobiography".
Snow is in northern Shaanxi
Fourth, he was the first American to translate Mr. Lu Xun's works. In search of a spark of hope in China, Snow began translating and studying short stories by Chinese left-wing writers from 1931 with the assistance of some progressive Chinese youth. In July 1936, the translations were published by George Halep In London under the title Living China. Among them, the first part is compiled with seven short works by Mr. Lu Xun, including "Medicine", "A Small Thing", "Kong Yiji", "Blessing", "Kite" and "Divorce". Snow himself revealed his intention to compile modern Chinese short stories: "I wanted to understand how Chinese intellectuals really saw themselves, how they talked about and how they wrote when they wrote Chinese. ...... Here, as if overlooking its plains and rivers with giant eyes, the mountains and valleys can see the heart and mind of living China, and occasionally even glimpse its soul. ”
Fifth, he was the first American journalist to report on the Shanghai War of Resistance. On January 28, 1932, the Japanese army attacked Shanghai Zhabei, and the 19th Route Army fought back, and the fierce fighting lasted for 34 days. Despite the danger, Snow braved artillery fire to reach the forward position to observe closely, interviewed General Cai Tingkai and Chinese soldiers, and wrote many excellent field reports. This was the first time in his life that he had covered actual combat. Soon after, Snow wrote and published his first book, The Far Eastern Front, which was the first monograph to introduce the historical background and experience of Japan's invasion of China, and the Chinese military and civilians carried out resistance struggles in various ways.
Sixth, he was the first journalist to publish the true situation of the "Anhui Southern Incident" to the world. Just as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entered a stalemate and the war situation gradually improved, chiang kai-shek of the Kuomintang single-handedly created the Anhui Southern Incident in January 1941 and ambushed the New Fourth Army, which was ordered to be transferred. After Snow learned the news from Comrade Liao Chengzhi, he immediately sent an urgent telegram from Hong Kong and was the first to report the truth of the incident through the Saturday Evening Post of the United States. Subsequently, china's domestic newspapers also reported the truth of the incident. To this end, the Kuomintang Chongqing government was furious and ordered the cancellation of Snow's journalist privileges. In February of that year, Snow had to leave China and return to the United States.
Snow visited New China and spoke with Mao Zedong
Seventh, he was the first American journalist to report on new China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Snow visited New China for the first time in June 1960, met mao zedong and other leaders, and conducted a five-month field trip in 14 provinces and 19 cities in China. In 1963, based on what he saw and heard during this visit, he wrote and published another masterpiece, "Red China Today: The Other Side of the Ocean", which is known as an encyclopedia for understanding New China.
Eighth, he was the first foreign journalist to report on the "Cultural Revolution." In 1966, the year after Snow's second visit to New China, the ten-year Cultural Revolution began. He has been following the progress of the movement and has applied to visit China again. In August 1970, Snow and his wife, Lois Wheeler Snow, made their third and final visit to New China, becoming the first American journalist to visit China after the cultural revolution began. Based on the contents of his conversations with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai during the visit, as well as the situation of the "Cultural Revolution" he saw during his visits to various places and his views on some issues, Snow completed a new work, "The Long Revolution", the English version was published by Randrom Press in New York in 1971, and the two Chinese translations were published by the Shanghai People's Publishing House in 1975 and by the Nanyue Publishing House in Hong Kong in May 1976. There is a special chapter called "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."
On October 1, 1970, Mao Zedong and Mr. and Mrs. Snow were in the Tiananmen Tower
9. He was the first foreign journalist to be invited to climb the Tiananmen Tower to attend the National Day ceremony with Mao Zedong. In the autumn of 1970, on October 1, Snow and his wife met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai on the upper floor of Tiananmen Square and took pictures with them. Subsequently, major newspapers around the world published this historically significant photo, and Snow also published articles such as "A Conversation with Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai's Conversation". This sends a signal that there will be important changes in Sino-US relations. In February 1972, US President Richard Nixon's official visit to China finally opened the door to Sino-US exchanges.
On February 15, 1972, Snow died of illness in Geneva, Switzerland. According to his last wishes, on October 19, 1973, Mrs. Snow buried part of her ashes in China, on the beautiful shores of the unnamed lake of Peking University. On the same day, the Chinese Government held a solemn memorial service for Mr. Snow at the Great Hall of the People, which was the first time in the history of the Republic.