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Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical
Country school teacher, birth control pioneer, socialist journalist, freedom fighter, writer--Agnes Smedley (1892-1950) was on the battlefront of American politics, the Indian struggle for independence, and the Chinese Communist revolution. In this coherent, intelligible, and engaging book, the MacKinnons offer us a superb portrayal of one of the most significant female political figures in recent American history.
Hardcover
First published November 11, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 13, 2024
A very good and accessible biography, and I came away with a lot of respect for Smedley. I’m always interested in “political pilgrims” but had never heard of Agnes Smedley, so when I picked this up at a bookstore and saw her described as the John Reed of China, I was all in. Chose this from my TBR because the idea of “useful idiots” seemed apropos right now with Westerners supporting Hamas. But Smedley was not a useful idiot, she never joined the communist party and was always critical of the Soviet Union. Her alignment with the Chinese communists was practical, mostly Smedley was anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist, more so than pro-communist. Prone to hero worship however, most strikingly with General Zhu De. She didn't live long enough to see it all go south.
What was most interesting was her personal struggle as a feminist in liberal causes with crappy men, who were happy to have her do all the work and leech off her so they could sit around and think really deep thoughts. I was dreading the chapter titled “Psychoanalysis” but it was actually one of the best in the book as Smedley deals with all this hypocrisy and abandons her “revolutionary marriage.” The book loses steam at the end with the Red Scare, all that squabbling exhausts me.
What was most interesting was her personal struggle as a feminist in liberal causes with crappy men, who were happy to have her do all the work and leech off her so they could sit around and think really deep thoughts. I was dreading the chapter titled “Psychoanalysis” but it was actually one of the best in the book as Smedley deals with all this hypocrisy and abandons her “revolutionary marriage.” The book loses steam at the end with the Red Scare, all that squabbling exhausts me.
December 30, 2015
I am endlessly fascinated by the many odd characters of early 20th Century Chinese history, the period from the Boxer Rebellion to the Mao’s final victory. Agnes Smedley is a name I came across many times in Sterling Seagrave’s “The Soong Dynasty” and also Barbara Tuchman’s “Stilwell and the American Experience in China”. Because Seagrave lists her frequently alongside whatever Mme. Sun AKA Soong Ching-ling was doing in the 1930s, I had to know more about this woman, if for no other reason than to get closer to Mme. Sun, one of my icons. Unfortunately, from the perspective of Agnes Smedley, Mme. Sun comes off as rather standoffish and more than just partisan when Smedley strikes up a working relationship with Mme. Chaing, AKA her sister Soong May-ling. Smedley had no illusions about the KMT and was not besotted with Chaing Kai-shek the way Henry Luce was, but she respected how May-ling could lay on the charm and get things done. (Perhaps such abilities equally frustrated Ching-ling, who kept hitting one wall after another in 1930s.) Mme. Sun’s working partnership with Smedley was short-lived and she was always adamant that Smedley had never been her secretary. By the late 30s they were rivals in raising relief aid from the U.S., Hong Kong and Shanghai, and Smedley was able to shame Ching-ling’s brother T.V. Soong and brother-in-law H.H. Kung into handing over large donations. Although the friendship never could have lasted (Ching-ling was too genteel and Smedley too outspoken), Smedley mourned it well into the 1940s.
Smedley arrived in China when the communists were at an impasse with the Kuomintang, having been driven underground in the major cities and open activity out to the country following Chaing’s White Terror of 1927. Smedley soon gained a better sense than most Westerners of the seriousness of Japanese imperialist incursions into Manchuria. What set her apart from most western journalists was her ability to empathize with how the political and societal upheavals affected the average Chinese citizens. She also found it refreshing that the left in China had a better record of enacting change, as opposed to the “salon socialists” that she encountered in America, Europe and India. Smedley became prominent enough in the international community that she became, like Mme. Sun and Lu Xun, impossible for the KMT to arrest or assassinate. However, she also eventually fell out of favor with the mainline Communists who wanted to protect the Soviet Union and engage in class struggles with Chaing, rather than concentrate on fighting back the Japanese. This is a charge that is frequently made against Chaing and the KMT, but not so often with the Communists. Still, she was one of the few western journalists who appreciated the long-term significance of the Communists’ ability to organize the people of the countryside. Smedley, however, could never keep herself out of trouble. While in Yan’an with the Red Army, Smedley decided that dancing was needed to liven things up in the caves where they were stationed, and this untoward mingling of men and women was frowned upon by the leaders’ wives, leading to a scandal in which Mao ultimately cut ties with his third wife He Zizhen. She traveled with the New Fourth Army, which she drew heavily upon for her book “Battle Hymn of China” (1943), designed to arouse American support for the Chinese and considered one of the best and most immediate reports of World War II.
Unfortunately, she also blew through close associates like Emma Goldman, Soong Ching-ling, Anna Louise Strong (who praised her, even after turning anti-Communist in her later years, for using any resources to help individuals rather than being doctrinaire), her husbands, relatives, and many associates who ultimately felt the need to distance themselves from her during the HUAC era. Chinese nationals found themselves under suspicion by the FBI through their association with Smedley, who was never proven to be a Soviet sympathizer, although she was accused of being one on the front pages of newspapers in 1950 (quietly retracted and revised to categorize her as a puppet of the Soviets instead). She often found herself a pariah with the people she tried to help because she could never speak uncritically of movement leaders she felt were wrong-headed. Male associates were often better able to tolerate her for long periods, and she enjoyed long friendships with journalist Edgar Snow, Dr. Lin Kesheng (director of the Chinese Red Cross), writer Malcolm Cowley, and to a lesser degree VPOTUS (’41-’45) Harold Ickes, Zhou Enlai and Nehru. She was quite close to leftist writer Lu Xun and tried very hard to get him effective and timely treatment for TB, though he did not consent soon enough to survive.
Aside from her decade in China alongside such fascinating historical figures, Smedley also was heavily involved in the anti-British struggle in India, for which Emma Goldman called her “an earnest and true rebel.” However, Smedley was also a feminist in addition to being a socialist, and she found gender roles in India particularly stifling. She worked on and off with Margaret Sanger on promoting birth control methods in Europe (and it was this cause which ultimately took her to China), was extremely suspicious of the institution of marriage, and was also frequently promiscuous with men. To support her endeavors in Berlin, Salzburg, Moscow and Shanghai, Smedley earned a living as a correspondent for newspapers and magazines, and also wrote pamphlets and eventually her memoir and other books. When she returned to the U.S. in 1941, she was able to make a living on the lecture circuit, but by the end of the war she became less popular for her outspoken views of the U.S.’s support of Chaing for its own means, and her assertion that the Chinese wanted freedom from all imperialists, not just Japan or the Soviets, but the U.S. as well. Before the end of her life she predicted that Korea and Vietnam would be the sites of proxy wars between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone already familiar with Chinese and American history of the 1920s through '40s, but this is not for newbies. It was a little exhausting, as was Smedley, and my pleasure derived mostly from seeing beloved or reviled historical characters appear in a different angle on an already familiar story. Also, I can't help but marvel how a woman goes from being the daughter of poor farmer/miners in the midwest/southwest, and through hard work and conviction becomes a contemporary of so many great leaders and intellectuals. Well done, Agnes!
Smedley arrived in China when the communists were at an impasse with the Kuomintang, having been driven underground in the major cities and open activity out to the country following Chaing’s White Terror of 1927. Smedley soon gained a better sense than most Westerners of the seriousness of Japanese imperialist incursions into Manchuria. What set her apart from most western journalists was her ability to empathize with how the political and societal upheavals affected the average Chinese citizens. She also found it refreshing that the left in China had a better record of enacting change, as opposed to the “salon socialists” that she encountered in America, Europe and India. Smedley became prominent enough in the international community that she became, like Mme. Sun and Lu Xun, impossible for the KMT to arrest or assassinate. However, she also eventually fell out of favor with the mainline Communists who wanted to protect the Soviet Union and engage in class struggles with Chaing, rather than concentrate on fighting back the Japanese. This is a charge that is frequently made against Chaing and the KMT, but not so often with the Communists. Still, she was one of the few western journalists who appreciated the long-term significance of the Communists’ ability to organize the people of the countryside. Smedley, however, could never keep herself out of trouble. While in Yan’an with the Red Army, Smedley decided that dancing was needed to liven things up in the caves where they were stationed, and this untoward mingling of men and women was frowned upon by the leaders’ wives, leading to a scandal in which Mao ultimately cut ties with his third wife He Zizhen. She traveled with the New Fourth Army, which she drew heavily upon for her book “Battle Hymn of China” (1943), designed to arouse American support for the Chinese and considered one of the best and most immediate reports of World War II.
Unfortunately, she also blew through close associates like Emma Goldman, Soong Ching-ling, Anna Louise Strong (who praised her, even after turning anti-Communist in her later years, for using any resources to help individuals rather than being doctrinaire), her husbands, relatives, and many associates who ultimately felt the need to distance themselves from her during the HUAC era. Chinese nationals found themselves under suspicion by the FBI through their association with Smedley, who was never proven to be a Soviet sympathizer, although she was accused of being one on the front pages of newspapers in 1950 (quietly retracted and revised to categorize her as a puppet of the Soviets instead). She often found herself a pariah with the people she tried to help because she could never speak uncritically of movement leaders she felt were wrong-headed. Male associates were often better able to tolerate her for long periods, and she enjoyed long friendships with journalist Edgar Snow, Dr. Lin Kesheng (director of the Chinese Red Cross), writer Malcolm Cowley, and to a lesser degree VPOTUS (’41-’45) Harold Ickes, Zhou Enlai and Nehru. She was quite close to leftist writer Lu Xun and tried very hard to get him effective and timely treatment for TB, though he did not consent soon enough to survive.
Aside from her decade in China alongside such fascinating historical figures, Smedley also was heavily involved in the anti-British struggle in India, for which Emma Goldman called her “an earnest and true rebel.” However, Smedley was also a feminist in addition to being a socialist, and she found gender roles in India particularly stifling. She worked on and off with Margaret Sanger on promoting birth control methods in Europe (and it was this cause which ultimately took her to China), was extremely suspicious of the institution of marriage, and was also frequently promiscuous with men. To support her endeavors in Berlin, Salzburg, Moscow and Shanghai, Smedley earned a living as a correspondent for newspapers and magazines, and also wrote pamphlets and eventually her memoir and other books. When she returned to the U.S. in 1941, she was able to make a living on the lecture circuit, but by the end of the war she became less popular for her outspoken views of the U.S.’s support of Chaing for its own means, and her assertion that the Chinese wanted freedom from all imperialists, not just Japan or the Soviets, but the U.S. as well. Before the end of her life she predicted that Korea and Vietnam would be the sites of proxy wars between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone already familiar with Chinese and American history of the 1920s through '40s, but this is not for newbies. It was a little exhausting, as was Smedley, and my pleasure derived mostly from seeing beloved or reviled historical characters appear in a different angle on an already familiar story. Also, I can't help but marvel how a woman goes from being the daughter of poor farmer/miners in the midwest/southwest, and through hard work and conviction becomes a contemporary of so many great leaders and intellectuals. Well done, Agnes!
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December 30, 2016I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews