◀ Sixteen Kingdoms Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667. SNOW, Edgar Parks Aìdéjiā Pàkèsī Sīnuò ​埃德加帕克斯斯诺 1905–1972 American author and journalist The work of Edgar Parks Snow helped pro- career in advertising. He also studied journalism briefly mote normalization of the U.S.-​­China rela- at Columbia University. After making eight hundred dol- tionship. As a journalist, Snow is known as the lars from a modest stock investment, Snow decided to see first and last foreign journalist to interview the world. In 1928 he arrived in Shanghai and met his des- tiny: China, which became his home for the next twelve Chinese leader Mao Zedong. As an author, years. His travels took him throughout Asia, including Snow is recognized for his book Red Star over the Philippines (where he lived for two years), Indochina, China, which gave insight into the Chinese Burma, and India. He also lived just less than two years Communist Party and Red Army leaders. in Russia. In Shanghai, Snow took a job at the China Weekly Review. Given an assignment to write about tourist at- dgar Snow was an American journalist who tractions of town and cities along the Chinese railways, authored eleven books and worked as a highly Snow was able to travel outside the foreign concessions successful foreign correspondent during World of Shanghai and to see things other Westerns could not War II. His most famous publication, Red Star over China see. He was appalled by China’s poverty: Westerners re- (1937), provided the West with its first glimpse of the revo- ceived special privileges, as did Chinese city dwellers, but lutionary Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its Red the vast majority of rural Chinese were trapped in dire Army leaders. Many Chinese were inspired to join the poverty with little hope of escape. Communists after reading the Chinese-​­language edi- In 1929, at the beginning of China’s great famine of tion. Snow was the first (and the last) foreign journalist 1929– 1931, Snow visited the ravaged northwestern coun- to privately interview Mao Zedong. He helped promote tryside. On the way he met Rewi Alley, an expatriate from understanding between America and China and the nor- New Zealand who spent his life working for the Chinese malization of U.S.-​­China relations. government and was to become Snow’s lifelong friend. In Saratsi, located in Inner Mongolia south of the Gobi Des- ert, Snow witnessed mass starvation and other horrors he The Early Days would never forget. These experiences helped formulate his sociopolitical perspective. He remained sympathetic Edgar Snow was born 19 July 1905. He grew up in Kansas to the Communist Party’s emphasis on agrarian poverty City, Missouri, graduating from West Port High School in promoting a successful revolution. Unlike Russia’s and attending Junior College of Kansas City. He trans- Communist revolution, which emphasized class struggle ferred to the University of Missouri in Columbia but left based in the cities, with the proletariat (working class) after one year; he moved to New York City and began a overthrowing the bourgeoisie (wealthy upper class), over 1998 E © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC SNOW, Edgar Parks n Aìdéjiā Pàkèsī Sīnuò n 埃德加帕克斯斯诺 1999 eighty per cent of China’s people lived in the countryside. that would unite the people and be capable of expelling Agrarian reform in China was the method employed by foreign imperialists—​­both Japanese and Western. Snow the CCP to gain control and unite the country. also brought back Mao’s proposal to the GMD: an end to civil war and a joint united front to resist the Japanese. Snow found Mao to be an accomplished scholar of First Marriage and classical Chinese, educated in both history and philoso- Life in Beijing phy, and a genius in both military and political strategy. The two men developed a mutual trust and respect, and a Snow married Helen “Peg” Foster (who wrote under the lasting friendship. It was the story of a lifetime, and Snow name Nym Wales), a private secretary to the American captured it in both words and photographs; this included consul general in Shanghai, on Christmas Day, 1932. They his iconic photo of Mao wearing Snow’s red-​­star cap. moved to Beijing the following year and spent five years there. Snow took the helm of Consolidated Press for all of China and he also taught part-​­time at Yenching Uni- Chinese Industrial versity, which connected him with liberals and the re- surgent student nationalism. He learned basic Chinese Cooperative Organization and compiled Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories (Gung Ho) (1936), a translated collection of short stories written by Chinese authors. In 1938, Snow, his wife Helen, and Rewi Alley founded the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Organization (known as Indusco, or in Chinese as gung ho). The Work- Red Star over China Together movement was sponsored by Soong Qing-ling​­ (political leader and wife of Sun Yat-​­sen) and Sir Archi- In 1936, after the conclusion of the Communists’ Long bald Clark-​­Kerr (British ambassador in China). Snow March, Snow visited the territory held by the Commu- had been moved by the devastation of Shanghai homes nists, including the caves of Yan’an and the town of Bao’an and businesses by the occupying Japanese military and in northwestern China. He was the first Western journal- wanted to help rebuild cooperatives to offer education ist to interview various Red Army leaders, including Zhou and work opportunities to the destitute Chinese. They Enlai (1898–1976) and Mao Zedong (1893–1976), who was also enlisted Soong Qing-​­ling’s brother-​­in-law, Finance rumored to have died while escaping Nationalist Guomin- Minister H. H. Kung. Lack of support from the Nation- dang (GMD) forces during the 9,600 kilometer (6,000 alist GMD government limited the venture’s success, mile) Long March. At the time, the Chinese Communists however. were believed to be merely bandits, a ragtag, unorganized group. Snow, however, found dedicated revolutionaries, organized and confident they would prevail. World War II and the 1940s Snow spent many weeks with the Red Army and countless hours recording the first and only authorized Snow returned to the United States in 1941. The same biography of Mao Zedong, published in Red Star over year, he published The Battle for Asia. For ten years he China. The book is considered of prime historical signifi- had claimed that World War II actually began with Japan’s cance because it was translated into Chinese and helped 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and in his book he claimed educate the entire nation about the CCP movement. It that the destruction of Japan’s Pacific fleet was imperative. is still regarded a classic by scholars for many reasons, (This was written before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor including the extensive and exclusive biographical inter- in December of 1941.) In 1942, Snow became associate views with Mao Zedong. According to Snow’s account, editor at The Saturday Evening Post. As a distinguished after thousands of years of imperial rule and serfdom in war correspondent, he worked in India, Russia, Africa, China, Mao saw peasant-​­led revolution as the only path and Europe. Three extended tours in the Soviet Union © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 2000 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝 库 山 中 华 全 书 yielded two books on the USSR. His Far East reportage Rewi Alley, George Hatem, and Huang Hua (one of his included Indochina, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. translators in 1936 and the future first Chinese ambassa- He wrote for many other publications, as well, including dor to Canada). He visited fourteen of China’s twenty- the Chicago Tribune, New York Herald Tribune, London two provinces, nineteen major cities, and numerous Daily Herald, and Foreign Affairs. communes. During the 1940s Snow made two brief return vis- Snow spent several days with Zhou Enlai and had an its to China, but in 1945 he was denied a visa by Chiang extended dinner visit with Chairman Mao Zedong at his Kai-​­shek due to his ongoing criticism of the Nationalist home adjacent to the Forbidden City. Mao claimed suc- government’s unwillingness to engage the Japanese and cess for the Great Leap Forward (1958–1959) program, but Chiang’s seeming inability to unite the country. When his claim has been sharply disputed in other accounts. the GMD fell to the Communists in 1949, Generalissimo Mao did concede that China was still extremely poor and Chiang moved its government to Taiwan. The U.S. gov- would remain so in the foreseeable future. The struggle to ernment banned all travel to the new People’s Republic survive brought hardship, yet this “challenge” was capable of China (PRC). Snow would not return to China until of strengthening the people. Mao refused to talk about 1960. Sino-​­Soviet relations. He would, however, discuss Tai- wan: Taiwan remained a domestic issue, and the United States needed to withdraw its troops from the region be- The Cold War Years fore talks with China could begin. and McCarthyism Although his travel in China was carefully choreo- graphed, Snow felt he came away with a better understand- Edgar Snow’s career as a journalist tailed off during the ing of modern China’s people. He saw vast improvements 1950s. He had supported China’s peasant-led​­ Communist compared to his arrival in 1928. Snow was impressed, al- movement and often criticized the U.S.-backed​­ National- though skeptical of some government claims. He felt in- ist Party, now located in Taiwan. In 1949, Snow and his spired to write a book that stood in sharp contrast to the first wife divorced.