Robot-mel London, United Kingdom

I totally adore Agnes Smedley I think she was a truly astonishing woman and I just love the way she writes. This book was published posthumously and was unfinished at the time of her death. As such it does suffer towards the end as much of what is written is just a dry description of events of the Chinese civil war without much of a personal story to accompany them.

This book is a biographical sketch of Zhu De (Chu Teh) the military leader of the Red Army for the 30s 40s and Commander in Chief, and Vice-President of the PRC. The book follows his life up to his 60th birthday (1947). He lived to be 90, and was denounced during the cultural revolution, but then reinstated.

It is an interesting biography, not just of one man but looking from a Chinese perspective of the late 19th and early 20th century events. To me the earliest writing was the most interesting, it was the most in-depth. One thing that struck me was the description of the traveling repair man who visited the villages in Sichuan and talked about the Taiping rebellion, and how this was interpreted by the people. There was also talk of the oral history of the people who'd been on the long march, whose experiences were recorded, some of whom were quoted in the book.

Despite being written by an "American" I felt this book really tried to give the Chinese and the communist perspective. Much of the book is based on hours and hours of interviews with Zhu that were carried out in 1937, and oftern include transcriptions of what he said. While Smedley wasn't totally without judgement buying into all the propaganda it still felt honest. It dealt openly with the problems of the time, and how futile so much of the fighting for decades felt. It was also interesting to see how the communists took such pains to talk about how they were willing to work with the Kuomintang and how they were keen to make a distinction between Japanese imperialism and the common Japanese solider, who they [claimed] they were wanting to help.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in early 20th century Chinese history, post-colonial struggles or the early communists. It makes for an interesting perspective.

Before I became fascinated with the Tang dynasty and early Imperial Chinese history I read a lot of books on the civil war period of 20th century Chinese history. (Mostly because these books were very cheap and very easy to come across in Seattle). In these books the writers would occasionally mention Agnes Smedley as reporter who was travelling with the communist army. I also came across her name in connection with Ding Ling. Ding Ling was a Chinese author of the May Fourth era she wrote one of the most beautiful short stories I've ever read. Miss Sophie's Diary was the story of a young girl who was suffering from Tuberculosis, largely confined to her bed, who was being pursued romantically by a man she wasn't really interested in and missing her old girlfriend. It was just so insightful and tragic. I know that Ding Ling and Agnes Smedley spent a lot of time together and I did have to start wondering if Smedley was a bit of a lesbian. (At one point Smedley smuggled her out of Shanghai). This book didn't answer my question, though it did have a wonderful scene where Smedley was tracking down the women's weavers associations in the South of China having heard they were communist lesbians!

Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution was actually not a book that Smedley wrote, rather it is a collection of her work edited and published by the Feminist Press, as many of her works were out of print at the time. There was a great diversity in these stories but they all came across as very frank and honest. They were a collection of character sketches, incidents, and social and political struggle. Some stories read more like fiction than fact. "The White Army" which was by far the most brutal of the stories featuring a gang rape and murder, was told in such a way that the details could not have been known exactly as it happened. However, other stories seem to be actual biographies of people that Smedley met during her years in China. There was the rich girl who left home to become a revolutionary who was then captured and sentenced to death, then rescued by her father and now lives in his home with his 8 concubines smoking opium having lost all hope. There was a traditional Chinese woman who married to a "modern" man who was carrying on an affair with a Russian dancer. There was an old woman who was leading a group of women in attempting to get the opium den closed in their town.

In every story you felt you had a glimpse into the lives of these people, and their dreams and their suffering. It was simply amazing and the most moving thing I've read in years. I have one other book by Smedley, Battle Hymn for China, of which several excerpts were taken for this book and I shall have to start reading it very soon. I still don't know if Smedley was a lesbian but she was an excellent writer and a fascinating person. I'm looking forward to finding more out about her, and reading more of her books. -

Battle Hymn of China by Agnes Smedley is a truly astonishing book. It starts with her early life in the US and then living in Germany. As a young woman Agnes leaves the US on a steamer to Europe to try and help India's struggle for independence. She lives in Germany as the partner of an Indian radical and revolutionary and eventually leaves him and heads to China as a starting point of a trip to India, she never arrives in India but spends the next thirteen years living in China, from 1929 to 1941. She starts in Shanghai, moves to Sian (xian) where she lives with the communists for a time, and then spends a great deal of time on the battlefronts, following guerrilla armies and reporting and working as a nurse in the army camps. Even at over 500 pages it still feels like there's a lot she's not saying which reinforces my desire to read everything she's written.

What is amazing about this book is that it tells a very human tale of the civil war and the war in China. It's just astonishing how long the war lasts and how many cities and lives are ruined. In many ways Smedley's trip is a descent, she lives dangerously visiting the front, living with the army which seriously impacts her health. The other book I read which looked at her writings about women almost changed her perspective. She definitely challenged the sexist beliefs of those around her, and as a woman being able to travel with different armies alone in a foreign country was rather amazing. But she came across as more of an androgynous figure, one who had no time for love or romance when there was so much death and destruction around her.

In the end she had to leave China because she was dying and had to go to Hong Kong to recover, there she was forbidden to speak about her experiences, and was unable to return to China so went back to the US. There she found herself engulfed in a world of consumerism and unable to reconcile the life with the one she had lived with the communists and travelling with the armies.

The book was written as snippets and travels throughout her time in China. It included many detailed descriptions about the people she came across so that even though most of them died, you had an idea about their lives. I've read many books about this time period of China, but this was the one that took you closest to seeing the day to day of life during this time. I feel like any review of this book can't really do it justice. It was dark, gritty and harsh, it brought home the horrors of war but also the horrors of poverty and disease. It was also filled with humanity, the good and the bad. It told a side of the story not usually told, it reminded me a little of Channel 4s dispatches, though those reporters seem to only visit for a few weeks and Agnes Smedley stayed for years and years.

Agnes Smedley wrote only one novel, she wrote this in the late 1920s before going to China while living in Germany. The book is described as “autobiographical” and most people seem to agree that the events in the book mirror her own life. The book tells the story of a young girl growing up very poor in America at the turn of the century. Normally I’m not a big fan of books about poor Americans, I can’t stand Steinbeck, but I found I really enjoyed this one. I think part of the reason was that the characters came across as real people, they were flawed and complicated and not just there to be archetypes.

The main character, Marie, was horrified by the way women were treated in her life and community. One of the most surprising things in this book was her open discussion of having two abortions and her tremendous fear of childbirth and control by men. It was heartbreaking to read of her trying to commit suicide when she discovered that she was pregnant. It made me really appreciate how much birth control has changed the lives of women, before we really didn’t have much of a choice about how to live.

It was a book about struggle, a struggle to survive and a struggle to grow. I felt that Smedley’s writing reflected the life journey of her main character and that the style improved as the character grew up and matured. What was interesting was her move towards helping the Indians in their struggle for independence from the British. It was interesting to see an underground movement in America for a change. The rape and subsequent imprisonment of Marie was just terribly sad and hard to believe that this was 20th century America.

When reading Agnes Smedley’s report of life in China during the Second World War and the civil war, I was always amazed at what she was able to endure and how strongly she was able to sympathise with the suffering around her. Having read this book I think I start to realise that there really wasn’t that much of a difference between her lives. I also think I may have to give up my idea of her being a lesbian. She definitely seemed to have a few close women friends, but I find it hard to believe that she could have been as open as honest about her relationship with men, and her attitudes towards everything else, and not be able to admit any of that. But an incredible read. One I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in gender issues or women’s history.