Agnes Smedley (1892–1950)

3 stars for craft, 5 for guts and heart and the raw power of Agnes Smedley's life story. And this only describes the beginning! Really a memoir, but the minimal fictionalization allows her to touch deep emotions that straight memoir would have been compelled to avoid and more craft would have tried to mask or ironize. It's essential reading for any woman who's ever taken part in a revolutionary movement, and joins Elaine Brown's A Taste of Power, Mary Crow Dog's Lakota Woman, and Roxanne show more Dunbar's Red Dirt and Outlaw Woman on my shelf of best true stories of dangerous American women. Smedley precedes them all, an outrider in her time - and still an outrider in ours, unfortunately. show less

Agnes Smedley is one of a handful of Westerners that have (or had) iconic status within China due to their involvement in supporting or publicising either China and/or the Chinese Communist Movement in the 1930's and 1940's. This group includes Edgar Snow, Rewi Alley, George Hogg, Norman Bethune, Nym Wales, Joseph Needham, Anna Louise Strong and George Hatem. In the late 1940's and through the 1950's China's and the West's attitudes hardened against each other, effectively closing the door show more to any new member of the group.

Although Smedley died in 1950, from the chronic disease that was already evident as she was writing this book in 1943, her lifelong support (and some might say a life given in support) of the poor and oppressed provided a (albeit faint) narrative counterpoint within Chinese society to their demonisation of the West and Westerners between 1949 and 1973.

In her lifetime, her books (along with Edgar Snow's and Nym Wale's) gave the West its first glimpse of Mao Tse-tung and the Communist armies operating in China against the Japanese. And although Snow has been criticised for allowing Mao some editorial control over his book, it is evident that Smedley simply told the story as she saw it, without regard to how flattering or scathing it seemed at times. Ironically Mao gave her considerable access, but what Smedley didn't realize at the time was that Mao had become smitten with Smedley's Chinese translater. Referred to in this book as a 'former Shanghai actress', Jiang Qing later married Mao and became the foremost instigator of terror in the Cultural Revolution and later led the 'Gang of Four' in an attempt to wrest control of China from Mao's appointed successor.

Smedley's real contribution though, was to travel with and tell the story of the Communist and Koumintang armies who were at war with Japan from as early as 1937, and with each other from the 1920's through to 1949. Smedley at that time had taken a significant role in setting up medical services within the armies, and particularly in supporting front line medical units. She travelled extensively, often on foot or horseback, including long periods with guerilla units. At the same time she had considerable access to the military and political leaders of the day. A large part of this book is drawn from her diaries at this time, and if she perhaps over-faithfully repeats stories she has been told about 'heroic incidents', she also gives very raw and sometimes very unflattering reports of individuals and military units on all sides of the political spectrum. What is most evident, however, is that she is working herself to death during this period.

Modern readers will find that her style of writing, and the subject matter, has not aged well. Although Smedley gives the reader a brilliant window into Chinese history in the 30's and 40's, the casual reader (and historian) will have difficulty summoning an interest in a subject that is effectively obscured by the tens of millions of Chinese who died in the 1950's and 1960's as a result of Mao's persecutions and mismanagement. This is one for the historians, or those interested in Smedley's life, or (as in my case) those who chase the threads that connect the lives of foreigners who 'strode the stage' within Chinese history but whose lives are virtually unknown in the West. show less

This is a book full of the stories of individual women (and sometimes men) during the cultural revolution. I found it educational in understanding the mind set of different classes during this time. It's not a book I would go out and buy - get it from the library. One of the interesting things about this book is that it was written by an American woman that went and lived in China and marched with the army at that time.

This is an interesting book because it is about a subject and time not otherwise written about (or at least known to me) much in American literature, from a woman's point of view. Lovers of Steinbeck would find much to admire and enjoy here. It is a very ideological work. Smedley, after all, was a champion of the Chinese revolution and friend of Mao Tse-tung.
It is beautifully and evocatively written, so it does not read like a treatise, but it is a fundamentally political work - feminist show more and socialist. It is about STRENGTH and politics.

If you are interested in rural poverty, and fighting against the odds and limitations in early 20th century America, you will find much in this book. Fans of Maya Angelou may like this too. show less