BOOK REVIEW

RED STAR OVER CHINA

AUTHOR – EDGAR SNOW

Submitted by:

Sarthak Nayak

Mphil 1st year

CEAS, SIS
 Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, published in 1937, is one of the first detailed
scholarship on communism in China. The significance of the book lies in the fact that it was
able to shatter many deliberate misinformations propagated in the Chinese as well as foreign
press by Kuomintang and the western imperialist forces. Blockaded by KMT troops in the
North-West province of Shensi, the Reds – as they were called- were almost completely cut-
off from the rest of China and rest of the world. Edgar Snow was the first journalist who ran
the blockade, entered the Red area, stayed with the Reds for many months, and came out with
a vivid description of not only the socio-political scenario of the Red area but also a life
sketch of the Chinese Communist Party.

The first theme that I am want to engage with through this book is the often repeated
academic theory that Maoism was something intrinsically different from Marxism-Leninism.
The main argument put forward by many academicians is that for Mao, the peasantry was the
most revolutionary agent of change and in this regard Maoism is different from Marxism and
Leninism as for both Marx and Lenin the working class or the proletariat was the most
revolutionary agent and the driving force of social change. The root of this idea is a flawed
understanding of Marxism which is regarded as some kind of a dogma or a fixed formula
written by one person according to which things are bound to happen, irrespective of time
and space. The same thing is often said in the context of Lenin as well i.e. Leninism is
something intrinsically different from Marxism. We should understand that when Marx was
writing most of his theories, he was writing from the perspective of advanced capitalist
countries like UK, France or Germany and at a time when imperialism or the influence of
monopoly capital was not that very significant. But during Lenin’s time monopoly capital
was extending its tentacles on the world and thus as Lenin said “The revolution moved from
west to east”. Lenin applied Marxism in Russian context and showed a correct path for
revolution. He introduced the concept of “Two stages of revolution” according to which in
backward capitalist countries or feudal countries there has to be bourgeois-democratic
revolution before there is socialist revolution. Marx was writing in the context of advanced
capitalist countries in which there was no need for a democratic revolution. Thus Leninism is
nothing but Marxism applied to Russian context by doing concrete analysis of concrete
conditions. Similarly Maoism is nothing but application of Marxism-Leninism in the concrete
conditions of Chinese society.

Its true that CCP had its major mass base among the peasants and peasants made up the
majority of the Party and Red Army. But this doesn’t make Maoism intrinsically different
from Marxism-Leninism. During that time in China capitalism was at a very infant stage and
hence industrial working class was very less in number and limited to few big cities. But still
the fundamental contradiction of the Chinese society was between the landlords and rich
peasants on one side and small peasants and rural working class on the other side. Thus Mao
resorted to the two stage theory of revolution given by Lenin and hoped to undertake the
bourgeois-democratic revolution under the leadership of KMT which was headed by Sun-
Yat-Sen. But after the death of Sen and coup by Chiang-Kai-Shek, KMT lost its progressive
character and thus there was split between the KMT and CCP. Limited strength of working
class and heavy repression by White Army in the big cities like Sanghai, forced the CCP to
move more and more into the agrarian areas where big landlords and warlords ruled. Thus
CCP started actively organising the peasantry against the rural gentry. In this regard one can
see similarities between Reds and Narodniks as both saw intensification of agrarian struggle
as the main task. But conditions in China made the communists imperative to take this root
whereas in Russia, as Lenin showed, this was a wrong line and political work among the
urban proletariat was to be the main task. Thus concrete analysis of concrete conditions
becomes most important. The author further writes that the ultimate aim of the Chinese
communists was a socialist state of Marxist-Leninist conception. Edgar Snow goes on to give
evidence of how an attempt was made by the CCP to create some kind of dictatorship of the
rural proletariat in the Soviet districts. Though suffrage was universal over the age of 16,
representation was not equal. Tenant peasants, rural workers and handicraft workers were
given more representation than others.

The second most important theme that I want to deal with is the relationship between
nationalism and communism. It is generally believed that nationalism and socialism are
antithetical to each other. But this book shows how the CCP established a dialectical
relationship between nationalism and socialism. Red Army was the most patriotic force
fighting against Japan. Even KMT- the so called Nationalist Party repeatedly compromised
with Japan and instead trained all its guns towards CCP. Here CCP and Red Army are willing
to exhaust all their energy in the fight against Japan because they regarded Japan to be an
imperialist country which wanted to completely colonise China. Similarly USSR under the
leadership of Stalin were the most formidable force against fascist Germany and Red Army
of USSR fought valiantly to protect their own country and their own people. But this can be
contrasted with Lenin’s position during WW1 that the socialist should not take part in the war
because it was just a war between imperial forces to share the world among themselves.
 The third theme that fascinated me the most is the life as such in the Soviet districts.
The general image that is projected of a socialist society, for example through Orwellian
novels, is that life in a socialist society is regimented, boring, monotonous and mechanical
with hardly any room for fun and enjoyment. But Edgar Snow busts this myth when he writes
numerous pages dedicated to the cultural lives of Reds. The Reds are passionate, spirited and
yet fun loving. They enjoy their music, their theatre and their sports- basketball and table
tennis being the most famous games of all. The Red theatre plays the dual role of
entertainment provider and an agent of carrying out political propaganda. The Reds made
considerable cultural progress in the Soviet districts. Opium completely eliminated, foot
binding, polyandry, polygamy and infanticide made criminal offence, child slavery and
prostitution also disappeared. Fundamental changes also made in marriage, divorce and
inheritance norms.

Lastly, this book gives us a clear idea about how a socialist army can be different
from a bourgeois army. The White Army of KMT and militias of the provincial warlords
outnumbered the Red Army by many times and also the former had superior material
conditions and superior arms and ammunitions bought from western countries. Inspite of all
the odds against itself, the Red Army managed to defend itself against the White Army, but
also win decisive battles, establish soviets in a large area and undertake the Long March
which is one of the greatest collective achievements in the history of armed forces not only of
China but of the whole world. The author is curious as to how the Red Army is so successful
while having so limited resources at its disposal. The main reason behind its success is its
popularity among the peasants and workers, which together constitute more than 90% of rural
population. Pheng Teh-huai says “But nothing, absolutely nothing is more important to this-
that the Red Army is a people’s army and has grown because the people helped us. We are
nothing but the fist of the people beating their oppressors”. This can be contrasted with the
unpopularity of the White Army when the White Army killed 6 lakh civilians in the Oyawan
republic alone in a span of merely few months. Villages after villages were burnt in these
soviet areas when the Red Army marched forward. The peasants hardly used to help the
White Army. But they always welcomed and helped the Red Army with everything they
could. Many would also join the Red Army when it came to their village. Hence it is the class
character of the army which plays the most important role in its success among the people.

These are just a few of the many interesting insights that Red Star Over China
provides us with. Its single most important contribution remains in the fact that it was about
to tell the whole world how life under communist rule was in China during the 1930s and
how the Reds lived their lives and fought the class struggle in the rural areas of China.