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Israel Epstein, Prominent Chinese Communist, Dies at 90 - New York Times Page 1 Of2 Israel Epstein, Prominent Chinese Communist, Dies at 90 - New York Times Page 1 of2 ijoric PRlhTER-PRIENCLY FORMAT KINSEY com SPONSOREDBTiKWJWMuyuaiovD June 2,2005 Israel Epstein, Prominent Chinese Communist, Dies at 90 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Israel Epstein, a journalist, author and propagandist for China whose passion for Communism was fueled in long interviews with Mao in the 1940's and was not dimmed by imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, died last Thursday at a hospital in Beijing. He was 90. His death was announced by the official New China News Agency. Mr. Epstein edited China Today, an English-language Chinese newsmagazine, translated the sayings and writings ofMao and Deng Xiaoping and advised the Chinese government on how to polish its overseas image. He became a Chinese citizen, joined the Communist Party and served on official government and party committees. He and perhaps a dozen other aging foreign-bom residents ofBeijing were sometimes seen as the last true believers in a revolution that has sometimes seemed blurred by time's passage and China's embrace offree markets and consumerism. In 1996, The Observer, the London newspaper, said, "Periiaps the most loyal Communists in the country today are foreigners, veteran fellow travelers from a vanished era ofidealism." Mr. Epstein hung Mao's portrait on his bedroom wall; knew the Americanjournalist Edgar Snow well enough to help edit his books; was a protege ofthe widow ofSun Yat-sen, the founder ofChina's first republic; and was able to say the five years he spent in prison on false charges during the Cultural Revolution had helped improve him by shrinking his ego. For decades China's top leaders visited him on his birthdays. "My basic ideas have not changed," he told The Observer. "I see no reason to change them." Israel Epstein was born on April 20,1915, in Warsaw, then under Russian control. His father was imprisonedby the czarist authoritiesfor leading a labor uprising, and his mother was once exiled to Siberia. "The eariiest influence on me came from my socialist parents," Mr. Epstein said in an interview with China Daily in 2003. Afterthe outbreak of World War I, his father was sent by his company to Japan to develop business in the Pacific region. As the German Army approached Warsaw, his mother, with him in her arms, fled the city and traveled east to be reunited with her husband. After experiencing anti-Jewish sentiment in several places, they settled in Tianjin in north China. He was then 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/intemational/asia/02epstein.html?ei=5070&en=2673a... 6/2/2005 Israel Epstein, Prominent Chinese Communist, Dies at 90 - New York Times Page 2 of2 Mr. Epstein began his career as a journalist at 15, working for the Tianjin-based Peking and Tientsin Times, an English-language newspaper. He covered China's struggle against Japanese invaders for United Press and other Western news organizations. In 1941, a short item in The New York Times reported that he had been killed, but it later turned out that he had faked his death to divert the Japanese who were hunting him. He anonymously submerged into a Japanese internment camp for a while. Mr. Epstein became acquainted with Mr. Snow after his editor assigned him to review one ofMr. Snow's books, and Mr. Snow showed him his classic "Red Star Over China" before it was published. Mr. Snow reciprocated by reading Mr. Epstein's unpublished works. In Hong Kong, Mr. Epstein worked with Soong Ching Ling, Sun Yat-sen's widow, whom he had met in left-wing political activities in the 1930's. She arranged for him to visit Mao, Zhou Enlai and their revolutionary comrades at their base in China's northwest in 1944, and Mr. Epstein said his conversations in a cave with Mao had changed his life. In 1944, Mr. Epstein visited Britain, then spent the next five years in the United States, where he published "The Unfinished Revolution in China" to good reviews. Other books he wrote were first pubHshed in Chinese and included "From Opium War to Liberation" in 1954, "Tibet Transformed" in 1983 and "Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling" in 1993. In 1951, Ms. Soong invited him to return to China to edit China Reconstructs, later renamed China Today. He was editor in chiefuntil his retirement at 70, and then editor emeritus. His five years in prison during the Cultural Revolution, on charges of plotting against Zhou, ended in 1973 with a personal apology from Zhou and a restoration ofhis exalted position. His prominence in China was suggestedby the annual talks Mao had with him. Deng attended Mr. Epstein's retirement reception in 1985. On April 17, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, visited him and praised his "special contributions" to China. Mr. Epstein first wife, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley, died in 1984. He is survived by his wife. Wan Bi, two children and two stepchildren. He vwll be buried at the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home I Privacy Policy I Search | Corrections I RSS t http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/intemational/asia/02epstein.html?ei=5070&en=2673a... 6/2/2005.
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