The battles and struggles of the Red Army guerrillas in 1934–5 were still only the subject of rumour in the outside world, and the following year the US journalist Edgar Snow journeyed through their military lines and spent four months in autumn 1936 at the communist HQ, interviewing Mao and other leaders. It was the first insight the world had of the storm that was brewing. Published in 1937, Snow’s account was the most important book on China written in the twentieth century.
