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Chinese Connection" to American Radicalism Karen Garner University of Texas at Austin

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Chinese Connection The "Chinese Connection" to American Radicalism Karen Garner University of Texas at Austin In identifying sources of American radicalism, scholars have at- tached great importance to the influence of European socialist thought as well as to an indigenous American socialist tradition grounded in a zealous Protestant Christianity that preached the necessity of creating the Kingdom of God on earth. The rise of the Chinese Communist movement in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, however, constitutes a third source of inspiration to American radicals, influencing the political thinking and behavior of Earl Browder, Harold Isaacs, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Grace and Max Granich, Agnes Smedley, and Anna Louise Strong, to name just a few better-known individuals.1 Included in this company, Maud Muriel Russell (1893-1989) led an extraordi- nary life of social and political activism which is documented in an extensive collection of Russell's correspondence, photographs, and published works at the New York Public Library.2 1. The influence that the Chinese Communist movement had on the political think- ing and behavior of these American radicals is documented in: Earl Browder, "Civil War in Nationalist China" (Chicago, 1927) and "China and the U.S.A." (New York, 1937); Harold R. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (London, 1938) and Re-Encounters in China: Notes of a Journey in a Time Capsule (Armonk, N.Y, 1985), 12-13; Frederick Vanderbilt Field, From Right to Left: An Autobiography (Westport, Conn., 1983); Grace Granich, "Autobiographical Transcript, ca. 1970-71," and Max Granich, Oral History Interviews, on deposit at the Tamiment Library, New York University; Janice R. MacKinnon and Stephen R. MacKinnon, Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of An American Radical (Berkeley, Calif., 1988); and Tracy B. Strong and Helene Keyssar, Right In Her Soul: The Life Of Anna Louise Strong (New York, 1983). American radicals have also pub- lished Journals reporting on the positive achievements of the Chinese Communist move- ment including: China Forum (1932-34), China Today (1934-42), Voice of China (1936-37), Amerasia (1937-47), Spotlight on the Far East (1945-51), and Far East Reporter (1952-89). Harold Isaacs edited China Forum; Frederick Field was on the editorial boards of China Today, Amerasia, and Spotlight on the Far East; Max and Grace Granich edited I�oice of China and worked on the staff of China Today, Anna Louise Strong contributed articles to Amerasia and Spotlight on the Far East; Agnes Smedley contributed articles to China Today, Voice of China, and Spotlight on the Far East; Maud Russell was on the editorial board of Spotlight on the Far East and published, edited, and wrote articles for Far East Reporter. 2. Maud Russell Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox, and Tilden Foundations (hereafter cited as Russell Papers, NYPL). This essay is based on research conducted for a Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Challeng- ing the Consensus: Maud Muriel Russell's Life and Political Activism." Russell's experiences in China as a foreign secretary working with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) from 1917 to 1943, and in the United States after 1943 as an active participant in the U.S. China policy debate, provide a remarkable opportunity to trace the "Chinese connection" to the American radical tradition. Through the 1920s, Russell condemned the selfish provincial warlords and their struggles for power in China and hoped that moderate reforms en- acted by the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek would produce order and progress out of China's political chaos. This hope reflected the liberal political orientation and Christian socialist convictions Russell held when she first went to China.3 Circumstances in revolutionary China, however, challenged Russell's liberalism and Christian socialist commitment to pacifism and forced Russell to redefine the elements needed to bring about social, economic, and political justice for the working people of the world-and most particularly for the working women with whom Russell was directly involved with through her career with the YWCA.'4 Confronted by the imperialism of the foreign powers in China and by the poverty, militarism, and social and political unrest that character- ized China from the 1920s to the 1940s, Russell's faith in the trans- forming power of Christian love and gradual political reform weakened and was replaced over time by a belief in the necessity of Marxist-Leninist revolution.5 Russell's beliefs led her to criticize Chiang Kai-shek's malignant national leadership and to support wholeheart- edly the revolutionary leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by the mid-1930s.5 3. Like many other American Christians Russell went to China as an "individualist democrat." See James C. Thomson Jr., While China Faced West: American Reformers in Na- tionalist China, 1928-1937 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 198. Russell was bom into a middle- class, Protestant, California pioneer family which could trace its history to an ancestral patriarch who emigrated from England to colonial Massachusetts in 1630. Russell's grand- parents, maternal and paternal, settled in California in the 1850s. "Geneology of the Russell Connection," box 56, Russell Papers, NYPL. At the time she went to China, Russell drew many of her ideas about the connection between Christian morality and interna- tional relations, as well as her standards of social and economic justice, from the pages of the Christian socialist journal The World Tomorrow. Letter confiscated by the U.S. Postal Censorship Office in San Francisco for the U.S. Military Intelligence Bureau, from Maud Russell YWCA in China to Norman Thomas, editor of The World Tomorrow. "Records of the WFGS, Correspondence 1917-1941," Military Intelligence Division #1766-708, Records of the War Department, RG 165, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereaf- ter cited as NA). 4. Maud M. Russell. "Midwest China Oral History and Archives Project." A typed transcript of tape-recorded interviews. Midwest China Oral History and Archives Col- lection (St. Paul, Minn., 1976), 9-10 (hereafter cited as Russell, Oral History). 5. Russell to Asilomar Division, 5 February 1933, box 3, Russell Papers, NYPL. 6. Russell to Asilomar Division, 20 October 1934, box 3, ibid. .
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