红星照耀中国（畅销600万册，八年级（上）语文教科书名著导读书目）

Red Star Over China #1-2

by 埃德加·斯诺

The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorized account of Mao’s life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution, and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Politics, Asia, Biography, Journalism

524 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1937

Reviews

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with From Opium War To Liberation and Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village, 'Red Star Over China' is one of a small handful of indispensable English-language accounts of the Chinese Revolution. The first foreign journalist to make his way into the Red-controlled territories during the Civil War, Edgar Snow had unparalleled access, conducting extended interviews with Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai and many other key figures of the Chinese Revolution. He tells the story of the revolution in detail, with a particular focus on the establishment of the first liberated zones in Hunan and the south-east, the Long March, the establishment of the massive liberated zone in the north-west, the Xi'an Incident, and the establishment of a united front against Japanese aggression.

A great piece of writing, and a great example of investigative journalism. A fascinating story told with warmth and humility. Definitely worth the effort - trying to understand modern China without understanding the Chinese Revolution is like trying to understand modern Europe without understanding the world wars.

[Randol Hooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential text in the study of modern China. Edgar Snow was a precursor to today's embedded journalist and traveled with the Red Army during the Chinese Civil war in the 1930s. He assembles an invaluable narrative from the men and women he encountered such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. It's the closest thing to a first-hand biography of Mao that we have, providing valuable insight into the people and the early history of today's Communist Party of China.

It's an excellent resource as recounts much of the national mythology of the Communist Party in a clear, concise manner. Snow tells the story of the Long March and the crossing of the Luding Bridge, pieces of which are enshrined in the Military Museum of the China People's Revolution in Beijing.

Anyone who seriously wants to make a study of today's China owes it to themselves to read this book.

[Karen Mosley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt compelled to read this book since I moved to China, but struggled through it for the past 6 months. I wanted to be "informed" about Mao Zedong and communism, and now I am. But it wasn't life-changing to read. As has been proven, communism looks good in theory, but doesn't work like it's designed to when practiced.

[Andrew]

There's no question that Snow's account is fantastic, and he has a journalist's knack for setting the scene, telling the story, and sketching the characters.

The only question is what is and is not valid.

Snow's most exciting bit of journalism, the telling of the tale of the Battle of Luding Bridge, was reported secondhand to him, and almost certainly an exaggeration of actual events. And it becomes suspicious when the Kuomintang are so uniformly evil, and the communist partisans so uniformly virtuous. I've never heard of an army on earth-- let alone a desperate, starving, put-upon band of largely untrained soldiers-- that behaves as well as Snow claims the Red Army did on the Long March.

I have little sympathy for the warlords of prerevolutionary China, and, despite the horrors that would be visited upon Red China in the '60s and '70s, everything I've read suggests to me that during the revolution, Mao was quite legitimately a brave, honest, idealistic freedom fighter. But I'd like to read something a bit less hagiographic.

[Michael Perkins]

I read this book while in college. Author and journalist Edgar Snow spent months shadowing Mao in 1937, including as part of The Long March. Looking back, I see it was a pollyanna book that greatly influenced the views of China in the West, like Walter Duranty did for Stalin's Russia.

[Aiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it slows to a halt in the final section (section 12), Red Star Over China was firing on all cylinders for 380/410 of its pages. Edgar Snow is one of the best history writers i’ve ever read, not because he writes 100% objectively and refuses to give a bias but because it’s the opposite; He makes his bias known and then tells you what he saw and learned. This was one of the best books i’ve ever read, completely reformed my idea of Mao, red China and the Red army. Undeniably worth reading if you want to learn about 1930s china. Loved it

[Breakingviews]

By Katrina Hamlin

The portrait of Mao Zedong watches over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, but it’s still impossible to know the man behind the myth. Nearly four decades after his death, China’s modern leaders invoke his name at their own risk. Consider two of the most popular English-language biographers of the Great Helmsman.

Journalist Edgar Snow wrote “Red Star Over China” in 1937, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was hardly known in the West. His Mao is a hero: both a shrewd thought leader and the “No.1 ‘Red bandit’”, a daring outlaw with epic adventures under his belt. It’s a winsome combination of brawn and brains.

By 2005, when Jung Chang and Jon Halliday published “Mao: The Unknown Story”, the CCP had moved away from Maoist policies, but stuck to the line that he was 70 percent good and 30 percent bad. Their book presents a Mao who is much closer to 100 percent evil. He lacks ideals and his political theory is muddled. His success as a leader depends on a flair for intra-party politics. The authors also take care to diminish his achievements: their account of the Long March sees the young Mao carried in state on a sedan chair, rather than roughing it with the troops.

It’s not hard to explain the difference in perspective. Snow wrote under Mao’s supervision: sections dealing with his early life were submitted to Mao for revisions. He was a leftist dedicated to the war against fascism, and Mao was a worthy leader of the Chinese battle. Jung knew the CCP as the party which had oppressed her family for three generations. Her co-author was an historian, but more significantly also her presumably sympathetic husband.

The works share a basic premise: ignorant readers want to hear the truth. The opening chapter of “Red Star” sets out Snow’s starting point: “there was no greater mystery” than changing China. He offers more than 70 unanswered questions on Mao and China to show how much was still unknown. The title of “The Unknown Story” is a giveaway; the authors’ driving motivation was the conviction that Mao was still not widely understood.

The authors judged correctly: a lack of information and the extremes of his life left ample room for different versions of Mao’s story. Both were considered insightful at publication. After all, even the most determinedly neutral telling would encompass everything from the foundation of a modern superpower to the orchestration of the Great Leap Forward, a development programme which ended with mass starvation.

Today, there are still many Maos - some heroes, some villains and some a mixture of the two. Despite the ambiguity, Mao remains a potent symbol. He is built into the infrastructure of modern China: his portrait hangs over Beijing; his corpse still lies in state; many towns and cities have Mao monuments; and in every part of the country his face adorns yuan notes. This is not going to change any time soon. The CCP probably cannot, and perhaps does not want to, divorce itself from its great leader.

Perhaps the plasticity of the image contributes to its durability. The Chinese Communist government need not abandon Mao, because there is always a plausible version of him who embodies any possible line. When Bo Xilai was a rising star in the CCP, he made use of Mao-era songs and revolutionary slogans.

Bo was disgraced and had disappeared from sight by the time Xi Jinping became president early in 2013. But Xi has called on the memory of Mao with a ‘mass line’ campaign to encourage party members to listen to the masses, and to pay attention to the Chairman’s condemnation of extravagance and corruption.

It’s an attempt to anchor the new generation of leaders in party history. But it’s a risky to take that strategy too far: any positive associations are not easily divorced from the less pleasant memories. Mao’s legacy was - and is - volatile.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting snapshot of the Chinese Revolution by the first European to visit the Red Army in it's base areas during the post Long March, pre United Front period. Captures the fractured nature of China during this period from a different perspective than I've read in other works. Snow seems to become sympathetic to the Red Army less from it's work freeing the poor and more from disdain for the open autocratic tyranny of Chiang Kai Shek. This is reflected in Snow's seeming total lack of such sympathy for the same project in the USSR. But regardless, he does a great job telling the stories he heard from all the Red Army leaders and soldiers he interviewed, really puts you in a very specific sense of time and place.

As a direct journalistic report, the book is necessarily a bit limited in it's historical perspective, even with the updates in the 1968 edition. So while I definitely recommend the book, if you're looking for more of a total history of the Chinese Revolution, I'd also recommend checking out Han Suyin's excellent two part work The Morning Deluge/Wind in the Tower.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks, Snow, for legitimizing the tyrant, soon-to-be emperor Mao, who was, without a doubt, one of history's most evil people. He fed you lies and you swallowed them all, then disseminated them to the world, with little to no critical thinking on your part. This garbage book should have been taken off the market long ago.

[Albert Zhou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant exposition of the author's experience documenting the early stage of the Chinese Communist Revolution as a journalist. Contains many insights into the foundations of Chinese politics and the modern Chinese nation state.

[Chet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This needs to be required reading in American high schools and colleges. The first American to meet Mao Zedong, Edgar Snow introduced the great helmsman to the Western world. Especially relevant today as Snow met Mao after the Long March, when the latter had settled in Shaanxi, home province of Mao's colleague Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping, current president of China and arguably the most powerful man in the entire world. In RSOC you can get a good earthy feel for Shaanxi province and all the wartime/political maneuvering going on as different factions fought for control over all of China. If you want a story more specifically tailored around Xi Jinping's father, then check out the biopic INTO THE GREAT NORTHWEST, which I personally translated and put up free on YouTube. It makes for a great companion piece to Red Star Over China. In fact one of the episodes explicitly references Edgar Snow's work.

[celestine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the genesis of the Chinese Communist Party. Sympathetic but not overly biased. I would recommend anyone with a general anticommunist bias to check this book out, considering the CPC is still large and in charge in China. The incredibly human scale and perspective of the narrative is hard to deny. The version I read had Edgar Snow’s notes from the 30 years following. This edition had 100 pages of biographical notes that bring you up-to-date on where the notable (and some less notable) are in the face of the dawning Cultural Revolution.

[zane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably a 4 star book but I’ve given it 5 because I’m so glad this book exists, and I think Snow was the perfect person to write it.

[Sickoklaas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das Buch war super anstrengend zu lesen ist aber jetzt schon eines meiner Lieblingsbücher über Kommunismus und politische Theorie. Die Einblicke in die frühen politischen Jahre des Mao Tse-Tung‘s und der Chinesischen Kommunistischen Partei sind extrem interessant und damals sehr revolutionär. Ehrlicherweise wären sie es heute auch noch aber die Art wie über die Guerilla Taktik geschrieben wurde hat mich fasziniert. Mao Tse-Tung scheint mir wahnsinnig charismatisch gewesen zu sein. Was man dem Buch leider anmerkt das es um die 90 Jahre alt ist. No joke wie kann man die ersten 15 Prozent des Buchs beschreiben wie Edgar Snow zu Mao hin kommt? Das würde man heute in einem Kapitel machen und nicht in 10 aber na gut. Alles in allem finde ich es ist Pflichtlektüre im Punkto Kommunismus und chinesische Geschichte. 4.5/5 wegen dieser dummen introduction bis snow bei Mao ist.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had hoped to get more insight about Mao, but it doesn't deliver. Snow does do a good job of setting the scene, illustrating well the fog that makes interpreting the present a challenge, let alone predicting the future.

[Nathan Levin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent journalistic account of "Red China" in 1936-37. Mao makes many interesting claims in his dedicated section of the text, as well as the interviews near the end of this particular issue. I'm not a big fan of Snow's writing however, nor the things he focused on. He is clearly sympathetic to the Reds, though he makes it clear this is merely his interpretation of what he saw.

[Jackson Burrowes · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first available looks into the Chinese Red Army and their long battle against forces within and outside China, pretty incredible interviews and descriptions from Snow.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don’t have to be a Maoist to recognize that, from the misery they endured to the material disadvantages they overcame to the social & political forces they unleashed to the sheer number of people whose lives they improved, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War is one of the greatest achievements in human history. But you can be one for other reasons.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book documents an incredible scoop at a pivotal and historic moment - for China and for the world. When Snow visits the North-West Soviets in 1936 he is given a remarkable and exclusive intimacy with the Chinese Communist Party and many of its most famous members and leaders, with whom he discusses personal backgrounds, Communist politics, military strategy and great achievements - in particular the already near-mythical Long March.

Snow has a bias but he acknowledges it. He writes clearly and cogently about everything he sees and through fantastic good luck he meets some of the most important figures in modern Chinese history at one of the most pivotal moments of the 20th century.

To improve this book it could be revised to change Latin script/phonetic Chinese, although there is already a guide - and there could be a better map included, the one in this version really isn't that helpful!

[Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endlich Edgar Snows Buch über die chinesischen Sowjetgebiete bis 1936 und deren führenden Persönlichkeiten der KPCh wie Mao, Zhou etc. fertig gelesen. Unbedingte Leseempfehlung. Es ist völlig zu recht DER Klassiker für diesen Zeitabschnitt. Es bietet hautnahe Einblicke in das Leben der einfachen Bauern in den Sowjets. Es zeigt die politische, ökonomische und militärische Organisation in den Gebieten en Detail. Dazu lebensechte Interviews mit Mao etc. Es berichtet auch über die lebensverhältnisse der „Roten“ vor den Sowjets und damit über ihre Unterdrückung und ihr Elend. Dazu gehören immer wieder die Massenmorde an den Kommunisten und der Zivilbevölkerung durch die KMT-Barbaren.

[Zhenlan Hu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at a rather young age. I was not disappointed at all. As a Chinese myself, I know it was a difficult time completing such a book, considering the author, Mr. Snow, is an American citizen.

I truly appreciate the friendship exerted on Mr. Snow's part and admired him for taking the chance describing the wartime circumstances in China, Chairman Zedong Mao, and the Chinese Communist Party at the time. We thank you.

[Steeldragon420 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holds up pretty well for a book from 1936. First English language reporting of the communist movement in China. First interviews ever reported with Mao and Zhou Enlai and an epic travelogue packed in.

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

moving, tragic, beautiful, academic, personal.

an incredible work of journalism that became an incredible work of history.

LOVE

[anumariia · Rating 4 out of 5]

TLDR: mielenkiintonen kuvaus Kiinan kommunistisen puolueen alkutaipaleesta ja siitä miks kommunismi on ollut tosi vetoava poliittinen liike puolifeodaalisissa maatalousyhteiskunnissa. 4/5

Tää kirja tuli luettua koska poikaystävän kaverit perusti oman kirjakerhonsa ja jostai syystä tää oli kirja minkä nää jätkät halus lukee:D Olin alkuun vähän skeptinen, mut tää osottautuki tosi mielenkiintoseks yhteiskunnan kuvaukseksi. Tän kirjan kirjottaja oli yhdysvaltalainen journalisti joka salakuljetti ittensä "punaiseen Kiinaan" 1936, aikana jolloin kukaan ulkomaalainen ei ollut uskaltanut mennä sinne. Hän sit kirjotti ylös mitä oli nähnyt siellä alkeellisen kommunistisen yhteiskunnan toiminnasta, johtajista ja asukkaista. Miusta erityisen mielenkiintosta tässä kirjassa onki kymmenien eri ihmisten haastattelut ja heiän elämän tarinoidensa kuvaukset. Miusta näitten ihmisten elämänkokemusten kautta pääseekin kiinni just siihen, miksi kommunismi pääsi niin suureen suosioon Kiinassa ja Neuvostoliitossa: jos oot köyhä maanviljelijä jota tilanherrat on sortanu viimeset 700 vuotta, niin sie uskot ketä vaan, joka tulee puolustaa siun oikeuksia. Näillä ihmisillä ei ollu mitään menetettävää mut kaikki voitettavaa, jos he lähti puna-armeijan mukaan. Siinä missä länsimaalaisille työläisille sotaan lähteminen saatto merkitä kaikesta tutusta ja mukavasta luopumista, niin tämmösessä puolifeodaalisessa maatalousyhteiskunnassa elävälle talonpojalle, lapsiorjalle tai tehdastyöläiselle armeija tarjos paljon sellasta mitä et aiemmin saanu: säännöllisen ruuan, vaatetuksen ja katon pään päälle, mutta ehkä vielä tärkeempänä elämälle merkitystä, sosiaalisia suhteita ja kuulumisen tunnetta johonkin suurempaan.
Lisäks miusta oli mielenkiintosta lukea Mao Ze-tungin elämänhistoriaa ja maailmankatsomusta hänen itsensä kertomana. Tätä kirjaa ennen kukaan ulkomaalainen ei ollu koskaan haastatellu häntä, kuten ei montaa muutakaan "punapoliitikkoa". Vaikka me nykyään mielletään Mao ja kumppanit huonoiks hallitsijoiks, niin heillä on ihan syystäkin ollut alunperin iso kannatus. Ei mikään kansa valihtis huonoa johtajaa itelleen, valta vaan korruptoi ja absoluuttinen valta korruptoi absoluuttisesti. Jotenki jännää miettiä millanen Kiinan yhteiskunnasta ois tullut, jos 26-vuotiaan Maon haavekuvat ois toteutunu sellasenaan. Ne ei nimittäin kuulostanu yhtään huonoille: sukupuolten välinen tasa-arvo, luokkaerojen tasaaminen, ilmanen koulutus kaikille, säädellyt työtunnit ja tasavertaset palkat, järjestäytymisvapaus ja yhtäläinen äänioikeus kaikille. Kuulostaa aika tutulle, eikö?
Kokonaisuudessaan tää oli 80% mielenkiintosta henkilö- ja yhteiskuntakuvausta ja 20% lyijystä taisteluiden kerrontaa. Ootanki kyl mielenkiinnolla mitä nää jätkät saa seuraavaks päähänsä lukeaXD

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:
Edgar Snow snuck across battle lines in late 1936, and became the first foreign reporter who lived with, and interviewed the Chinese communist rand and file, leaders, and Mao himself over a four-month period. Red Star over China is his account of interviews, observations, and a few personal hair-raising experiences. A unique snapshot in time showing his impressions of the communists and what they wanted him to take away from his experience. Despite some prose weaknesses, many of which are difficult to avoid in a work that attempts to cleave closely to original interview responses, the book retains its value and is essential for anyone interested in better understanding modern Chinese history or the early years of Chinese Communism.

Strengths and weaknesses
As the first foreign report’s account of the communists after the Long March, Snow’s interviews and observations provided not only valuable information on the development, status, thinking, and propaganda of the communists to contemporary audiences, it also provides those of us with the benefit of historical context and other sources the opportunity to see where his reports on the communists ended up not being fully correct. While the passage of time does give valuable clarity in some regards, the present can also cloud the past, and his reports on the communist movement long before it dominated the country provide refreshing and unexpected insights to most of us who have a more jaded view based on evils it perpetrated in later ears. Communism, like many other movements that ended up falling into excess and evil, started from idealistic and largely positive motivations. Snow’s account provides the modern reader a useful reminder of this.
Some reviewers have criticized Snow’s account for being overly positive, even to the point of hagiographic and naive. His presentation of the communists, especially in contrast to the nationalists, is certainly in their favor. And it may be that he did not see their evils during his four months among them because his interviews were scripted and his trips were curated. It would be unwise to take everything in the book as gospel truth, and he himself freely admits in several places where his information is sketchy or he is reporting second-hand accounts. The 1968 edition of the book provides numerous notes and indications where subsequent events or material proved the original inaccurate, and this should not be the sole source of information for someone interested in Chinese communism pre-WWII.
One further weakness of Snow’s work for the general reader is that he relies too heavily on names and numbers. The endless names of people and places (especially in a romanization no longer used) is tedious, difficult to remember, and not helpful in getting a broader understanding of the period for someone not already familiar with the key players. Snow’s long transcriptions almost verbatim of several of his interviews with Mao that form the central few chapters also suffer as they devolve into a long recounting in semi-heroic style (which he acknowledges) of the Red Army. Snow’s readability and usefulness to the modern reader would benefit from a more liberally edited approach. However, the approach taken in the book does more accurately present the original wording, and so is valuable as roughly equivalent to a primary source.

Personal Takeaways:
- The communists were mostly young, under thirty, and most of their military was even younger, with a large number of them under 20 and as young as 14-16.
- The communists lost about 75% of their forces during the long march, which lasted over a year and covered 10,00 km (equivalent to walking across the United States and back)
- The communists, at least as portrayed by Snow based on his interviews and observations, were notable for a variety of reasons: the ground troops were enthusiastic, even passionate, about their cause; their armies paid for food, didn’t steal, and didn’t rape; they managed to operate on a shoestring budget; their leaders eschewed personal wealth and ostentatious displays of privilege.
- In conflict with the Moscow-trained communist leaders, Mao felt that the communist revolution in China had to start with the rural peasants, rather than the urban workers. Because the urban workers were primarily in cities where foreign countries held concessions and military power, the urban revolution would be much harder to achieve; and by contrast, as the poor were heavily taxed, often fell into debt, and were frequently abused by passing armies, they had a greater reason to revolt. And as a rural country, any national movement would have to include the large mass of rural peasants anyway.
- The communist cause was further one that would be attractive to any rural peasant. According to Snow, the communists took any land that was not farmed by the owner and redistributed it to common use; reduced taxes on farmers from 50-60% to 10%; and trained rural peasants to read (as well as in Communist propaganda).
- In addition, Communists banned prostitution, opium, and foot-binding, while establishing local-level democratic elections, universal suffrage, free universal education, and the right for women to freely decide whom to marry.
- (personal reflection, not explicitly stated in the book.) The nationalists were somewhat limited in their abilities to implement social reform because of their political choices and reality. Much of China, including several entire provinces, were ruled by independent warlords who had no real or lasting allegiance to the Nationalist government. The Nationalist leadership depended on the continued support of these warlords and of the wealthy land-owning classes to maintain their government, so any social reforms would have met with the opposition of the main support structures of the government and almost certainly in break-aways and power grabs. Later, as the communists staked out a radical land reform position, any Nationalist social reforms would be even more difficult as they would legitimize the Communist positions and cause even greater alarm among the wealthy political classes. Thus Is would be only after eliminating the Communists and consolidating their political position that the Nationalist government could enact social reforms (even if it had wanted to, which was unclear but dubious).
- The Communists, at least at the time of Snow’s interviews, were consistently supporting a united front against Japan, rather than continued civil war. They offered multiple times to work under the direction of the national government to achieve that goal, and even made credible actions to that end. This was in contrast to the Nationalists, who felt that eliminating the communist threat was more existential than the Japanese threat, which would be pushed back eventually. Also, the communist claim was perhaps a bit disingenuous, as they clearly intended to continue their proletariat revolution as soon as the Japanese threat was eliminated and continued to conduct effective propaganda campaigns throughout. So it is not surprising that the Nationalists continued to oppose the communists, even if it meant that the communists would thereby win the political campaign (suggesting unity against a foreign invader is inevitably going to be more appealing than conducting a civil war while a foreign invader takes more land).

[Matt Lucente · Rating 5 out of 5]

(No quotations in this review bc I don't have the book on me at time of writing; JUST GO AND READ THE BOOK IT'S SO GOOD)

I’d been meaning to read this book for a while, and it did not disappoint. An absolutely critical resource for understanding the Chinese Revolution, which, in my eyes, is one of the most inspiring and important struggles in all of human history. This added a lot to my understanding of Mao as an individual, and the actual day-to-day workings of—and attitudes within—"Red China" during the Yan’an period and the Chinese Civil War. Anyone interested in learning about the Chinese Revolution should read this, along with Han Suyin’s The Morning Deluge, which was written after the fact rather than during (and uses this text as a reference numerous times).

The author, Edgar Snow, was an American journalist who traveled to the Yan’an Soviet in 1937 to observe and report on life within the Chinese Communist movement. He was the first Westerner to do so, was the first Westerner to interview Mao Tse-tung, and approaches the subject matter with an open mind, integrity and willingness to see and learn, and sympathy with the struggle of the Chinese masses. Despite not being a Communist himself, Snow provides constant descriptions of the peoples’ dedication to their anti-imperialist struggle, their organization and maintenance of a people-centered, democratic society within the Yan’an Soviet, and the real face of the political dynamics at play during the revolution. The text includes really interesting interviews with Mao on topics ranging from his own personal life and upbringing to the aims of the Revolution, policies of the Soviet, and tactics of the Red Army. I can’t stress enough how fascinating and eye-opening this information is, particularly for a Western reader who might not be familiar with really any details at all about the Chinese Revolution, propagandized and misinformed as we are about Mao and Chinese history as a whole.

The text includes interview data with and covers the personal histories of not just Mao, but other critical revolutionaries such as Chu Teh and Zhou En-Lai. Snow describes his experience with a variety of aspects of life within the Yan’an Soviet, including attending the Red Army Academy (Hung-Chun Ta-Hsueh), witnessing a performance put on by a Communist theatre troupe (“People’s Anti-Japanese Dramatic Society”), interacting with the peasantry, Red Army soldiers, and revolutionary leaders alike, etc. etc. Throughout all these various interactions and experiences, we can see a truly democratic, people-centered society, one which—unlike the Kuomintang—was utterly committed to freeing China from its imperialist oppressors (first and foremost Japan), emancipating its people and peasantry, and bringing China out of its long century of humiliation.

Looking past the day-to-day experiences of life in the Yan’an Soviet and personal interviews, Snow also provides a very detailed account of the revolution up to 1937, including its locus of creation in Hunan, the foundations of the Red Army, the Long March, the establishment of the Yan’an Soviet in the northwest after the Long March, etc., all from primary sources and firsthand interviews of peoples’ real, material, lived experiences and opinions. Snow was still in China when the United Front against Japanese imperialism was established (though he had left the Soviet areas), and also provides detailed, firsthand reportage of Chiang Kai-Shek's arrest, the establishment of the United Front, and the political repercussions it had both for the Communists and the Kuomintang. My absolute favorite section of the book was the chapters on the Long March—one of the most inspirational and awe-inspiring episodes in the history of revolutionary struggle, and an absolute testament to the willpower and dedication of the Red Army and its mission to emancipate China's masses from their century of humiliation, imperialist exploitation, and suffering at the hands of landlords, warlords, and the Kuomintang.

When we look at China today and see it at the absolute forefront of human development, literacy, technological innovation, green development and environmental sustainability, and worldwide solidarity with the global south, Snow's writing on the real-life, lived and observed revolutionary struggle which led it there is instrumental in understanding its locus of creation, and why it endures and thrives today despite further decades of struggle and hardship. China is, in my eyes, an unparalleled success story of actually-existing socialism, planned economic development, and rational, people-centered, nation-building which strives to provide good lives for its people and stand in contrast to Western imperialist exploitation, aggression, and development for the tiny minority of wealthy elites at the expense of the vast majority of the human race. Obviously it's not without its problems (as Snow is quick to point out in this text), but the strength of socialism with Chinese characteristics is its ability to address and resolve its contradictions through economic planning, consultation and democratic engagement with the masses, and real willingness to make needed changes to better peoples' lives and the environment in which they live, making short-term sacrifice for long-term gains and outcomes (which have been consistently met throughout the PRC's history). We can even see the beginnings of this long tradition of making short-term strategic sacrifices and accepting compromise in order to achieve planned goals in this text: the Red Army's United Front and treaty with the Kuomintang in order to drive out the Japanese occupation, its undertaking of the Long March in order to ensure its survival, etc. etc.; all preludes to such periods as the Deng Reforms ("reform & opening up"), etc. Chinese Socialism stands in stark contrast to our own crumbling imperialist system here in the U.S., which lets its contradictions fester and deepen like an open wound. No regard for the will or well-being of the people; no regard for the environment; no regard for the millions slaughtered in American invasions and bombings; and no regard for the long-term survival of the human race itself. What we have in the West is a system which will stop at nothing to drive up profit margins and keep power and wealth concentrated in the hands of those who already have it. Snow's descriptions of the dedication and belief the Chinese revolutionaries had in their cause, when put in perspective with what we see today, is breathtaking. Cannot recommend this text highly enough.

Again, Han Suyin’s The Morning Deluge (plus its second volume, Wind in the Tower) was my starting point for learning about this complex and inspiring history, and this text serves as an excellent wine-and-cheese pairing with it, showing a much more granular and personal view of the revolution’s events. I can’t recommend this text enough; it was absolutely gripping, contained so much important historical information, and remains just as crucial a resource on the Chinese Revolution today as it was in 1937.

[HeyDon · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have so much to learn from the “Red Bandits” of China. How they transformed a small group of radicals into a mass movement of millions of peasants, students, workers, and soldiers that would alter the course of not only China’s history, but the history of the world. They ousted the landlords and tax collectors, fed and clothed (and eventually armed) the poor, educated the illiterate, and established rights for women and national minorities. Edgar Snow’s account of the Chinese Civil War, and eventual United Front against fascist Japan, is not only an interesting historical read, it’s a critical moment in history that we need to study today.

[Changho Sohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book delivers that feel of Mao's Soviet with all the experience that Snow went through. It delivers a very personal narrative of traveling to Yan'an Soviet, undergoing all the excitements and near-calls of actions, where tensions were high and lives left to pure luck. Think Wild West with population of millions, you sort of have gotten the feel of it. Snow's interactions with Mao corroborates with other Chinese documents as well. Riding through the donkeys while under the danger of an ambush by the Nationalists bring that movie-like tension. His description of attending the staged drama advocating the ideology also verify their immense attention paid to reaching out the peasants. Kind of reading NYT series of the 30s. Timeless.

[Kenny Rivera Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fabulous book, I adored every part and will likely check out more of Snow’s past journalism and literature in years to come when I have the free time. The dozens upon dozens of biographies were very enjoyable & surprisingly touching; the pacing & flow of each chapter was very digestible; it was just heartwarming, addicting, and saddening when it needed to be. I don’t feel adept enough to do this book justice in a random review written at midnight. The rumblings were true, if you are interested in learning about the rise of communism in China, or just trying to have an understanding of how the important society of modern China came to be, then this book should be a necessity in your reading list. My personal favorite chapters in this book were:

- Part Three Chapter 5: Red Theater
It was very lovely and even entertaining for me to read about how these passionate people and students were able to scrap together their uniforms, improvise an open-air stage with an old temple, and how the audiences themselves who didn’t have to pay to watch these performances were much more in-tuned than bored opera audiences, as Snow put it. It was a cute chapter detailing an interesting and touching form of propaganda.

- Part Six Chapter 5: Life Begins at Fifty!
This was the biography of “Old Hsu,” a very well seasoned 50 year old professor across education systems under monarchist, capitalist, and communist societies. This chapter stuck with me the most because throughout the last years of my childhood or teenage years, I’ve always felt very melancholic & disappointed with the fast passage of time, with the mistakes made or important people lost; I went through a short-lived rollercoaster of emotions reading this old bugger’s experience having to hide away from the nationalist purges, hiding away on his own with no connection to the communist party, reading about how he wanted to be a communist, but that nobody asked him to join, and him assuming it was because of his old tender age of 50, to then read about how he wept when a communist sought him out in his hiding place because of thinking ”that he was still of some use in building a new world.” I really enjoyed the story of Old Hsu, and I was very fond of all the other chapters dealing with combatting illiteracy & intimate accounts of peasants being able to read and write for the first time in their lives.

- Part Seven Chapter 3: “They Sing Too Much”

It was truly heartening envisioning the different working conditions peasants had before and after being swallowed by the red army provinces. From little slaves working 12 to 13 hours a day and dropping to sleep on dirty quilts right below their machines, to living lives no longer being exploited by leeches, truly working for their people, living decent lives of “good health, exercise, clean mountain air, freedom, dignity, and hope, in which there was room for growth.” It was just an incredible chapter(fuck I sound like a robot), the entirety of Part 7 was lovely with it’s peasant dialogue. The chapter ends talking about a previously financially comfortable electrical engineer named Chu Tso-chih, who had given up his family and engineering practice to offer his services to the Reds in the dark rural hills of Shensi for nothing! Such a noble and selfless act, but in a way much more selfishly fulfilling to a good soul than the superficial comforts of money and individualism. His dying grandfather told Chu to “devote his life to raising the cultural standard of the masses,” and so Chu decided the path of communism would be the quickest path towards such a goal. He believed this change if scenery may mean an early death, and thought that others would feel the same way. Snow thought him to be a tad bit shocked at finding the peasants previously discussed to be horsing around & happy- when asked how he liked all of this, his one serious criticism was that “these people spend entirely too much time singing! there is no time to be singing!”

- Part Ten Chapter 2: “Little Red Devils”
A very cute and heartening little chapter describing the strong and optimistic Young Vanguards. Funny accounts of the little buggers performing their duty of examining travelers well, even pressing the very man who writes peoples permission passes. As well as the 13 year old snazzy and serious lad named Shang Chi-pang, who’s name is tragically close to chi-pa, the name for penis. I’ll now just leave you here with the final paragraph: “altogether, the ‘little devils’ were one thing in Red China with which it was hard to find anything seriously wrong. Their spirit was superb. I suspected that more than once an older man, looking at them, forgot his pessimism and was heartened to think that he was fighting for the future of lads like those. They were invariably cheerful and optimistic, and they had a ready “hao!” for every how-are-you, regardless of the weariness of the day’s march. They were patient, hard-working, bring, and eager to learn, and seeing them made you feel that China was not hopeless, that no nation was more hopeless than its youth. Here in the Vanguards was the future of China, if only this youth could be freed, shaped, made aware, and given a role to perform in the building of a new world. It sounds somewhat evangelical, I suppose, but nobody could see these heroic young lives without feeling that man in China is not born rotten, but with infinite possibilities of personality.”

[rüya :D]

skolebibliotek came in clutch