Agnes Smedley (1892–1950) was a well-known progressive woman writer and journalist in modern America, a friendly figure to the Chinese. At the end of 1928, she went to China as a special correspondent for the German newspaper Frankfurt, where she remained for most of the next 13 years.
After her death in Oxford, England on May 6, 1950, according to her will, her ashes were transported back to China and buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery in Beijing.
In her lifetime, in addition to carrying out a large number of news reports on the Chinese revolution and the War of Resistance, she wrote many works about China, such as "The Fate of the Chinese", "The Chinese Red Army is Advancing", "China is Counter-Offensive", "China's Battle Song" and so on.
After the Xi'an Incident, Smedley came to Yan'an in early January 1937, and it was not until mid-September that the Eighth Route Army rushed to the front line to resist Japan that she left Yan'an to conduct interviews and reports on the anti-Japanese front.
In Yan'an, she met Zhou Enlai again after being received by Zhu De and Mao Zedong. In her Battle Song of China, she wrote:
Another unforgettable contemporary figure I had the privilege of meeting in Yan'an was Zhou Enlai.
He was of medium height or above, with a very beautiful, extremely intelligent face, especially his eyes shining brightly.
He was born in Shuxiangmendi, studied at Nankai University in Tianjin, studied in France, Japan, and stayed in the Soviet Union for a short period of time.
When he talked to comrades in the Party, foreign friends, and senior Kuomintang officials, he always stood upright, stared into the eyes of the other side and expressed his views, openly and honestly, without reservation.
He is knowledgeable, experienced, insightful, frank, and does not have a portal view.
In the years that followed, he, on behalf of his Party and the Permanent Central Government of the Red Army, won the admiration and admiration of many foreign friends, including General Joseph Stilwell, Colonel Frank Dorne, and the British Ambassador to China, Archibald Clarke Kyle.
It is said that Chairman Chiang Kai-shek and his wife have great admiration for Zhou Enlai, and judging from the rumors spread by some Kuomintang officials, the Kuomintang authorities want him to leave the party and change his religion to serve the country, and this conspiracy has never been successful. Because he did not care about personal well-being, honor, and position of power.
His public and private life is consistent in appearance, both new and enlightened, and he lives a modern and civilized public and private life.
He formed a lifelong partnership with Deng Yingchao, one of the most educated, most intelligent and capable leaders of the Chinese revolutionary women's movement, and their revolutionary love was eternal and unwavering.
This is The Zhou Enlai in Ms. Smedley's eyes!