Huang Renyu, a well-known overseas historian, said in his memoir "The Green Mountains of the Yellow River" that when he traveled in the United States in the 1950s, ordinary Americans often asked him whether the description of China in "China's Thunder" was true. The Book of "China's Thunder" greatly influenced the American view of China's affairs at that time.
"China's Thunder" was written by the famous American journalist Bai Xiude and Jana, and immediately after its publication in 1946, it was widely praised by the Western press, and the American Monthly New Book Club once listed the book as the best reading, and recommended it to its million readers as one of the best-selling books of the year.
The book "China's Thunder" profoundly analyzes the difference between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and believes that the key to China's future is in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
The famous American sinologist Fairbank greatly appreciated the book and immediately wrote a book review:
My review of the book published in the New York Times Book Review (October 27, 1946) was published on the first page of the newspaper, and the article was not embellished, but only the content was striking: The democracy that Chiang Kai-shek advertised was not what we call democracy, and it was very different from Mao Zedong's democracy. In between, while we strongly support the former, in fact Chinese may ultimately choose the latter. ”
Harrison Salisbury, former deputy editor-in-chief of The New York Times, commented on Beauschuk's "China's Thunder": "It is comparable to the work of Snow that gives us an understanding of the nature of the Chinese communist movement that emerged in Yan'an under Mao Zedong in the thirties." ”
Bethud (1915-1986), an American, famous journalist, whose real name is Theodore Harold White, because of his love of Chinese history and culture, he named Bethud, his father was a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States, considered himself a socialist, and had expectations for China's revolution. A graduate of Harvard University, Heyud was a proud disciple of the famous American sinologist Fairbank, and became a journalist at The Suggestion of Fairbank. Famous teachers and apprentices, Bai Xiude became the most influential American journalist in China in World War II.
When He came to China, he was initially employed by the Kuomintang Propaganda Department, but later submitted his resignation and became a full-time reporter for Time magazine in the United States. As the leader of China's anti-Japanese resistance, Bai Xiude still maintained a reverential mood, believing that Chiang Kai-shek was China's "symbol of unity and an idol of the people."
Bai Xiude's suspicion of the Kuomintang began with a small matter, and during a march, Bai Xiude and a small Group of Kuomintang troops went to a local village to find horse food. They did not say that they were a Kuomintang army, but told the villagers that they were the Eighth Route Army. Bai Xiude was puzzled by this, and the platoon leader of the Kuomintang lieutenant who led the team hurriedly said to him, "Don't make a sound! If you tell them we are a Kuomintang army, they will not feed our horses grass and water. "The Kuomintang is so unbearable in the minds of the people, why is the Communist Party deeply rooted in the hearts of the people?" Bai Xiude naturally had doubts.
At the beginning of 1943, after Bai Xiude personally experienced the henan catastrophe, he tried his best to publish the truth in the Western media, completely disappointed in the Nationalist government, and his attitude toward Chiang Kai-shek was completely changed. Chiang Kai-shek did not believe that there was a catastrophe in Henan at all, and Bai Xiude personally showed Chiang Kai-shek a photo of a dog eating a corpse.
After witnessing the great famine in Henan and the defeat of the Kuomintang army, Bai Xiude said in a letter to Luce: "This country is dying before my eyes. Bai Xiude was completely disappointed in Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, and completely eliminated a good impression that Bai Xiude retained about Chiang Kai-shek, he wrote:
"In his head... Dominated by the perfidy of pigs and dogs, the ferocity of warlords, and the ineffable ignorance of governing a modern country ... When I first came to China, I thought he was a national hero, but then I became more and more widely heard, and a series of events turned this hero into a nasty character in my mind, and then a hunk. ”
The first chapter of "China's Thunder" is "Chongqing, the focus of the stormy meeting", "the city is steaming with opium, cholera, dysentery, syphilis and trachoma corroding the health of the people", "the city walls are filled with muddy, time-stagnant air".
Faced with the corruption of the Nationalist government, Bai Xiude lamented in "China's Thunder", "China must either change or perish." Bai Xiude found that "more strong men were tortured to death than dead soldiers", that "the brutality, ruthlessness, and corruption of conscription are terrible even in the darkest historical sites in China", and that "there is no gap like the one between Chongqing's ministers and his trembling and ragged secretary".
Tired of the "gloomy atmosphere of Chongqing," Bai Xiude went to Yan'an in 1944 for a three-week interview. Bai Xiude discovered a new world in Yan'an, "where the air is different from Chongqing, the summer is dry and glowing, the winter is cold and pleasant", "these leaders all have the character of backbone, they are proud, and some even despise everything." On their shoulders there was no burden of intrigue and routine that bothered Chongqing officials. ”
Bai Xiude deliberately compared Mao Zedong with Chiang Kai-shek: "Mao Zedong was a Hunan man of great stature, with a round face, without a trace of wrinkles, particularly cheerful, and his face was much livelier and more smiling than Chiang Kai-shek's dignified appearance. ”
Paschut said that Chiang Kai-shek "pretended to be holy, and his words were as sincere as puritans, but his ferocity was like that of Jehovah."
In Yan'an, Bai Xiude believed that "Mao Zedong's personality dominated the whole of Yan'an", "a symbol for love", and "the indisputable dominance of the Party is closer and more difficult to describe than Chiang Kai-shek's domination of his left and right." ”
As for Chiang Kai-shek, Bai Xiude concluded, "At first I respected him, then I felt sorry for him, and finally I despised him." ”
Mao Zedong calmly and calmly gushed in front of Bai Xiude, "There is no dialogue between us; I am a student, listening to his teachings." This prestigious figure does not allow others to disagree or argue with him, and it is daunting. "It's not like Chiang Kai-shek convulsing when he's nervous about a problem. Mao Zedong left Berdych indelible impression that he was a man who could think with a gun and that his ideas could force history to move toward his ideals.
Bai Xiude believes that Yan'an is a factory of production ideas in the CCP, training party cadres. "In Yan'an, politics is supreme. Above everything else, Yan'an is a factory that produces ideas. The materials transported to the front line by the Yan'an base area are equal to zero, and all the war zones are self-sustaining. Yan'an exports people—cadres who can spread ideas. ”
Based on his own experience and observations in Chongqing and Yan'an, Bai Xiude concluded that Yan'an was China's hope and that victory belonged to the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, Bai Xiude wrote "China's Thunder", telling people why the Kuomintang lost and why the Communist Party won! Another author of "China's Thunder" is Jia Anna, a female journalist from Time magazine who has worked for Soong Mei-ling and is well aware of the corruption of the Kuomintang regime. In a telegram, she also argued with Luce, editor-in-chief of Time magazine, that it would be a mistake to continue to defend a dictator and his Nationalist government.
The famous American scholar Fairbank wrote in "A Trip to China" that "the War of Resistance Against Japan was a turning point in China's history, and the Kuomintang regime was dying out of itself and embarking on the road of losing power."
He saw for himself who was about to take control of China's destiny, criticized U.S. foreign policy toward China, and insisted that "the Chinese civil war was caused by the United States." In the early 1950s, with the rise of McCarthyism in the United States, White Wasduther was blacklisted and became an "object of care" by the government. Telling the truth comes at a cost.