The long revolution

by Edgar Snow

Snow was the premier outsider to be part of the Chinese revolution. He told his story when nobody else would

Genres: History, China, Asia, Nonfiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 1972

About the author

Edgar P. Snow was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution. He is believed to be the first Western journalist to interview Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, and is best known for Red Star Over China (1937) an account of the Chinese Communist movement from its foundation until the late 1930s.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was written after Snow returned to the States from china in February 1971. Snow died in 1972 and credits himself with bringing Nixon to Mao. His wife Lois Wheeler Snow published the book after his death 15 February 1972.


Here are some highlights.


All unwed mothers are counseled to get abortions because the child will be ostracised and the mother would not be able to marry a suitable husband. It is assumed that the father was either married or politically incorrect, in either case the child would have a social stigma attached to it which would lead to it becoming an outcast in society; the mother and the child would not be marriage eligible either.

While the Communist government is not in favor of abortions, Snow it seems is, but then he is not a very religious man at all. He is a real die hard Communist, though he can make fun of it as well; it's really in his bones.

Following up on acupuncture and the social life of the communists, Snow reports that the party does not welcome marriage before the age of 26; for men it should be 28 and men are never allowed to be younger than the mate. In rural China, those numbers are lower: 23 for females and 25 for men. The idea is that young people should not live for pleasure alone but should first get educated (indoctrinated) into the political life of the Party.

Premarital sex is also rare and promiscuity is considered deviant behavior. Extramarital sex occurs with more frequency than premarital. There was no discussion of divorce.

Snow states that previous to communism, despite the thin layer of Buddhism in China, that China was basically a theocracy: with a divine worship of the Emperor; he is against this. He states, again regarding Tibet, the Chinese freed the Tibetan peasant from the cruel overlord (the Buddhist theocracy of the Dala'i Lama) and gave them their own land. He strongly feels that communism is a free society and that the rules in place are necessary for the good of the all.


The Cult of Mao

The cult was allowed because of Lewis Henry Morgan's studies on ethnology of the Iroquois Indians. Morgan's studies (see separate article on him) found that the need to worship was innate. Both Marx and Engels referred to Morgan's work and found them to be seminal to their political theory (hence Levi Strauss and later Jungian archetypes), so despite their atheism (first i heard about Marx being an atheist as he was buried in the Lutheran quarter of Berlin. I researched this further and he is right.) they desired important political lessons from his works i.e.. the need for a cult of personality to replace the deity.

Mao thought of himself as the Greet Schoolteacher and he was uncomfortable with the other titles that the Party had bestowed on him: Great Leader, Supreme Commander and Great Helmsman. He felt that his real role in Chinese society was that of schoolmaster. He was born December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan of Hunan Province to a peasant family that had tilled their 3 acres of land for several generations. He died in Virgo, September 9, 1976.

When he was 14 Mao's father arrange a marriage for him but he denied it and left home. He never did marry. Mao Tse-tung died from complications of Parkinson's disease on September 18, 1976, at the age of 82, in Beijing, China.

He left a controversial legacy in both China and the West as both a genocidal monster and political genius -- he killed more people than Stalin by several million. Officially, in China, he is held in high regard as a great political strategist and military mastermind, the savior of the nation. Mao's efforts to close China to trade and market commerce and eradicate traditional Chinese culture have largely been rejected by his successors as they have found that the Chinese people miss it just like they would God.


The School of Mao

All china is a great school of Mao thought and the army is its headmaster. "we are all connected with the army" says the premier Chou En lai and he might have added, "the army connects all of us".


Snow first met Chou in 1936 as the general in command of the Eastern Front Amy in Shensi. It was originally the Chinese Red Army and then later became the People's Liberation Army. His rank, like all military ranks were abolished during the Cultural revolution of 1965.

"In the beginning was the word, and the Word the Party", says Snow. Mao adds that without the army the "people have nothing and they are interdependent like the "lips and teeth". The first duty of the army is "to serve the people" and to do that it must propagate and apply the thought and wisdom of Mao Tse Tung, which is not like Mein Kampf full of racist diatribe, but an evocation of social revolution and liberation through the realization of proletarian power including the "right to rebel" against wrong headed Capitalist leadership.

[Talmadge Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account of the journalist Edgar Snow's visit to China near the close of the Cultural Revolution. Occasional low-key expressions of concern over the Cult of Personality, etc., but Snow seems to take Mao at his word for explanations of what was happening. The book was written just prior to the Lin Biao incident, and I wonder how different the interviews and the book would be if they had taken place afterward. Very interesting read because of the time period, though a healthy dose of skepticism is required.

[Bill Weinberg]

Not as intense, engaging or epic as "Red Star Over China" by any means, but an interesting (if uncritical) look at China at the pinnacle of Maoist orthodoxy. Insightful from today's perspective is his visit to the military-settler collectives of Xinjiang—which he refers to as "Turkistan." So much for the contemporary revisionism that nobody called the region Turkistan before the Uighurs started getting uppity....

[Nacho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edgar Snow visitó China durante cuarenta años, y fue testigo de la vida allí durante la lucha por la liberación nacional de la bota de Japón y de la revolución china. Llegó a entrevistarse varias veces con Mao, la primera de ellas cuando estaba escondido en las montañas en los años 30.

Como ciudadano estadounidense y no-comunista, su testimonio del desarrollo de la revolución china es interesante por su visión mayoritariamente positiva. Desde una perspectiva materialista trata temas controvertidos, como las relaciones sinosoviéticas, la Revolución Cultural, el culto a la personalidad, la lucha de líneas dentro del Partido, los intentos de evitar el divorcio urbano de lo rural (con la pequeña burguesía "bajando al pueblo" principalmente, expuesto en el libro mediante entrevistas a profesores de universidad y médicos) y las relaciones con países imperialistas como EEUU y Francia. No ofrece una visión simplista, ni intenta justificar el desarrollo durante décadas de un país como la voluntad de un "loco", sino que presenta el contexto histórico en el que ocurrió todo.

La única pega, y no es culpa del autor, es que fue publicado poco antes de la traición de Lin Piao, la muerte de Mao y el consiguiente golpe de Estado, luego se queda un poco cojo en ese sentido.

[Cherish]

all is true,
mao is true too.