Text extracted from opening pages of book: FKSHTt BACK AN AMERICAN
WOMAN WITH THE EIGHTH ROUTE ARMY BY AGNES SMEDLEY AUTHOR OF CHINESE
DESTINIES, ETC. THE VAH6UARD PRESS HEW YORK VANGUARD PRESS, INC. No
part of thh'bo may be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from th& publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to
quote brief passages in connection with a review written for
inclusion in a magazine or newspaper. MANUFACTURED IN THE U. S. A.
BY H-WOLFF, NEW YORK To My beloved brothers and comrades, the
heroic dead and the unconquerable living of the Eighth Route Army
of China ( the Chinese Red Army) Introduction by Anna Louise Strong
THE war of the Chinese people against the Japanese in vaders is the
fight o one-fifth of the human race for national independence for
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-It is also a war in
which hungry, half-armed Chinese farmers hold the front lines of
mankind's forward progress, for you and for me, against an
imperialism which threatens Asia, America, the peace of the world.
The Chinese Eighth Route Army., with which Agnes Smed ley traveled,
is important in this war not alone because it is the reorganized
Red Army led by Communists, though that fact shows the new unity of
China, bringing under one banner armies that have fought each other
for the past ten years. It is important because it brings to
China's war of resistance certain methods which are being
increasingly adopted by the rest of the Chinese armies and the
Chinese Government in order to win success. Close cooperation with
the Chinese rural population, quick response to their needs and an
effective technique for arousing and organizing them against the in
vader are thechief guarantee of China's ultimate victory against
the superior armaments of Japan. More than that, they Fviil
INTRODUCTION . are the guarantee that after the long war is over,
the Chinese people will have won not only independence from foreign
in vaders but also internal democracy the right of the people to
rule in their own land. It is an unbelievably complex struggle.
Here is a vast peas ant people, the most populous, industrious and
patiently en during of all the peoples of the earth. For
generations it has fought with nature at the very frontiers of
existence. Creep ing deserts of Asia, ravaging floods of gigantic
rivers, doomed year by year millions to death by famine, a doom
inescapable as long as the primitive tools and the ancient social
system survive. Ignorance, superstition and the vastness of a
roadless land enslaved them. Landlords, tax-grafters and a host o
corrupt bureaucrats and aloof intellectuals ground the toiling folk
further into the dust. The impact of the industrial West broke for
a century on this ancient people, bringing new problems, new forms
of exploitation, new desires. Foreign imperialisms corrupted na
tive officialdom still further with bribes and armed pressures.
Against them successive waves for national independence and
internal social change swept the country, penetrating ever deeper
into the consciousness of the people, from the Taiping rebellion
down to the present day. The Empire fell in 1911, releasing the
aspirations of millions of patriotic intellectuals, but adding
banditry and civil strife to the people's burdens. The patriotic
movement of all classes under the joint leader ship of the
Kuomintang and the Communist parties swept rapidly acrossChina in
1927, creating new hopes and a new government, but these hopes were
betrayed during ten years of dissension and civil wars, in which
the Chinese bourgeoisie, led by Shanghai bankers, sought to
dominate the country, [ viii] INTRODUCTION while organizations of
workers and farmers wefe suppressed. Taking advantage of the
internal strife of China, Japanese imperialism attacked the
country, seizing Manchuria in 1931, penetrating Jehol and Chahar in
the years that followed, hold ing the Chinese Government in Nanking
passive by a com bination of bribes and threat
General
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