In late April 1950, a skinny, pale lady came to the Oxford Hospital in London, England, and after examining her in the hospital, the attending doctor told her:
Her condition was less than optimistic, and if treated, two-thirds of her stomach would need to be removed. Fortunately, though, although it was a major operation, under normal circumstances, the operation was not too much of a threat to his life.
On April 28, the woman gave her good friend Margaret. Slos wrote a letter.
In her letter, she confessed her posthumous affairs, with particular emphasis on issues relating to inheritance and ashes.
In addition to giving herself niece Mary. In addition to the $1,000 in government bonds, Smedley left all her possessions to a Chinese general thousands of miles away, Zhu De:
Jude
All the income derived from my writings, wherever they come from, belongs to General Zhu De, commander-in-chief of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and is disposed of by him in accordance with his wishes...
I was cremated and my ashes were handed over to General Zhu De for burial in China.
So why did this foreign lady have to bury her ashes in China, and at the same time give most of her inheritance to Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, who is thousands of miles away?
According to her, it is:
Smedley
The woman, Agnes Smedley, was a legendary international friend whose heart fluttered in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, until she later set foot on the hot land that haunted her soul, China.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="209" > daughter of the earth</h1>
Agnes Smedley was born on February 23, 1892, to a poor farming family in northern Missouri.
In order to make a living, Smedley's father led the family to the mining area in southeast Colorado.
Here, Smedley's father worked in the mines, doing some rough work to support the family, and the heavy physical labor made his father's temper become increasingly grumpy, and he often drank heavily to relieve his sorrows.
Smedley family photo, centered in the back row is Smedley (7 years old)
Her frail and sickly mother is in the mine, earning a meager income by doing odd jobs, working as a washer and janitor, subsidizing the family, and the family's life is very difficult.
Due to her family's difficulties, Smedley experienced the hardships of life from an early age, working as a newspaper boy, a maid, a waiter, a salesman, and a cigarette worker. Later, with the help of his aunt Tilly, Smedley finally completed his college studies with half-work and half-study.
The hardships of her youth sharpened Smedley's tenacious character; the study experience in college gave Smedley the courage to face the future, and she came out of the bottom of society, and when she faced the injustices of the world and society, she was often full of a strong sense of resistance.
Smedley of this period was young and brash, radical in thought, and at the same time full of high revolutionary fighting spirit. After graduating, Smedley actively engaged in political movements and was full of sympathy for the people of the British colonies.
In 1911, Smedley (front row, third from left) at Tempe Normal School
Soon, during an effort to support indian exiles for national independence, Smedley was arrested by "pro-British" American authorities for inciting opposition to British rule and subsequently sentenced to prison.
After his release from prison, Smedley was forced to leave the United States and embark on a journey to Western Europe in order to avoid continued persecution. She then moved to Berlin, Germany, where she became a reporter for the Frankfurter Daily Newspaper.
In the days that followed, Smedley, who had been following India's resistance to British colonial rule, naturally paid attention to the far East, the more ancient country, China, when studying asian history.
In the winter of 1927, Smedley gave a speech at the University of Berlin entitled "The Revolt in Asia", arguing that a showdown between Asian nationalists and European imperialism, especially British imperialism, would soon take place.
China, on the other hand, will surely take center stage in this struggle.
Going to China, feeling and witnessing the exhilarating revolutionary tide, became an irrepressible impulse in Smedley's heart at that time.
She then consulted with the head of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper in hopes of sending herself to China, and with the newspaper's approval, Smedley became a reporter for the newspaper in China.
Smedley before departure
In November 1928, Smedley embarked on a journey to China, thinking she would witness a revolution.
However, Smedley did not expect that he would become an important part of the next revolution.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="403" > first arrived in China</h1>
Departing from Europe, the train crossed the Soviet Union and reached China via the Soviet Union and the Manchurian border. Smedley then traveled south, passing through Beiping, Tianjin, Nanjing, and finally Shanghai from the northeast.
Along the way, Smedley saw with his own eyes the hardships of the Chinese people's lives, the indifference and arrogance of the local squires, the shameless behavior of the scattered soldiers, and the Japanese invasion of northeast China, which had long been unheard of by foreigners who had lived abroad.
In Peiping, Smedley visited the labor situation in the local factory, where workers worked intensely every day but could not get rid of hunger, which deeply touched Smedley who saw this scene.
Child labor during the Republic of China period
They were children bought from farmers, some of them stinking dolls, standing in front of trays with matchboxes, working twelve hours a day. Two skinny little hands were like matchsticks, and the foreman walked back and forth in the aisle with a whip, supervising the labor.
Inside the smoky workshop, Smedley seemed to see his relatives who had worked hard in the Colorado mining area, who were oppressed to the point of helplessness, but had to struggle to support.
China's poverty and weakness, and along the way, Smedley saw the withering livelihood of the people, the factories oppressing the workers as much as they could, and the landlords and gentry squeezing the peasants like a bone.
All these things have made Smedley, who also came from a poor background, have a new understanding of the necessity and urgency of the Chinese revolution.
However, when the agitated Smedley arrived in Shanghai, she fell into great sorrow. Because, in Shanghai at that time, there was no hope at all.
Just a year before Smedley came to Shanghai, the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup broke out in Shanghai. The Kuomintang reactionaries wantonly slaughtered the revolutionaries in Shanghai, tens of thousands of revolutionaries fell under the butcher's knife of the reactionaries, and the blood of the revolutionaries suddenly plunged into a dead silence in this large city, which was once a great revolutionary situation.
April 12 counter-revolutionary coup
In this suffocating atmosphere of terror, Smedley did not have the slightest timidity, she risked assassination by secret agents, insisted on reporting on the white terror of the Kuomintang reactionaries, and showed the world the ups and downs, difficulties and cruelties of the Chinese revolution.
During this period, Smedley became acquainted with a number of revolutionary leftists, including Sun Yat-sen's widow, Soong Ching-ling.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="407" > cover revolution</h1>
Before coming to China, Smedley had a relationship with Soong Ching Ling in the Soviet Union, and she was full of admiration for the widow of this revolutionary pioneer.
Song Qingling
Song Qingling's affirmation and expectations of China's workers' and peasants' revolution also left a deep impression and unlimited expectations on Smedley.
Soon, Soong Ching Ling returned to Shanghai and formed the "Chinese Civil Rights Protection League" with leftists Cai Yuanpei, Yang Quan (Yang Xingfo) and others, and Soong Ching Ling was elected as the chairman, while Smedley, who had been speaking out for the revolution, became Song Qingling's English secretary and was responsible for assisting her in her daily work.
The protest voices of the "China Civil Rights Protection League" against the reactionary Kuomintang government were sent abroad through Smedley's English telegram, which made some progressive people abroad sympathize after learning the truth about China.
Subsequently, Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Roman. Roland and other well-known personalities signed their signatures in solidarity, and for a time, the Kuomintang reactionary government was under great pressure from public opinion above the international community.
Roman. Rowland
During this period, Smedley actively participated in the rescue of revolutionary comrades such as Liao Chengzhi, Chen Geng, and Luo Dengxian. At the same time, Smedley also became acquainted with a revolutionary from the Soviet union, Zhou Jianping.
Zhou Jianping, who was then the vice chairman of the Military and Political Committee of the Guangdong-Gansu Border Region, was seriously injured in the "anti-encirclement and suppression" battle, and in view of the backward medical conditions in the Soviet area and the inability to treat him, Zhou Jianping was later organized to be sent to Shanghai for treatment.
For safety reasons, Song Qingling sent Zhou Jianping to Smedley's apartment in the French Concession, after which Zhou Jianping stayed here for more than a month.
During this period, Smedley learned the real situation of the Red Army in the Soviet Zone through his conversation with Zhou Jianping. This group of pioneers who pioneered the revolution, their persistence, firmness and belief in the victory of the revolution, left a very deep impression on Smedley.
General Zhou Jianping
This was Smedley's first close encounter with and listening to the Chinese revolution, and she admired the strength of the Red Army general in front of her, but also had an infinite vision for the distant red base area.
"I hope I can go there one day."
With the growing strength of the "China Civil Rights Protection League," the kuomintang reactionaries' methods also began to become more and more despicable, and after many threats and intimidation failed, the Kuomintang reactionaries assassinated Yang Quan, the backbone of the "Democratic League," in the street.
Yang Quan and Lu Xun
On the day of bidding farewell to Yang Quan, it was raining heavily, and Smedley followed Song Qingling and braved the rain to attend Yang Quan's funeral, and Song Qingling looked sadly at her at that time:
"It's dark here, and there's no hope in sight."
Smedley's mind suddenly remembered Zhou Jianping and the red capital he mentioned, Ruijin.
At least there should still be light there.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="413" > Xi'an Incident</h1>
After Yang Quan's assassination, the "Chinese Civil Rights Protection League" fell into a low ebb, Cai Yuanpei was forced to resign, other personnel either left Shanghai or went into exile abroad, smedley's newspaper, and later because of repeated pressure from the Kuomintang government, eventually fired her.
After repeated blows, Smedley's body eventually collapsed, and she was plagued by illness, so that she had to leave China temporarily.
During this time, Smedley went to the Soviet Union for a period of recuperation, and then returned to the United States. However, what made it difficult for her to adapt was that in the American society at that time, many newspapers and people's minds were generally trapped in ostrich thinking, and people were full of curiosity about this unstable world situation, but they could not get out of false peace fantasies.
"America is like a strange planet, my childhood friends, now middle-aged, but their thinking and life now seem to be the same as fifteen years ago." 」
Boring, tedious, without any passion, and without the slightest hope in sight, Smedley was uneasy, and she eventually decided to return to China again.
In 1934, in Shanghai, under the eyes of Japanese imperialism, it began to be uneasy, and students frequently marched on the streets to call on the government to actively resist Japan and save the country, but the Kuomintang government always ignored it and instead used its strength to increase the encirclement and suppression of the revolutionary Red regime.
At this time, Smedley returned to Shanghai, but there was no longer the bustle of the former high-end friends, and only a few friends such as Lu Xun, who was sick and weak, and Song Qingling, who was depressed, were left.
During this period, Smedley was very lonely, with few friends around him, and at the same time, he had to deal with the harassment and search of Kuomintang reactionary agents. At this time, Smedley is a little confused about the future, where should he go?
It was at this time that Smedley received a letter from Xi'an from Liu Ding, a revolutionary whom Smedley had previously covered up in Shanghai.
Liu Ding in his youth
At that time, Liu Ding, as Zhang Xueliang's aide-de-camp, invited Smedley to come to Xi'an, and he introduced smedley in a letter that the environment here was relatively progressive, and he could observe the Chinese revolution at close range while recuperating.
When Smedley received the letter, he immediately set off for Xi'an. The train traveled all the way west, and Smedley, who was sitting on the train, had already flown to the thousand-year-old capital. Outside the ancient capital, which had accumulated countless bustling capitals, it was only 35 miles from the revolutionary base area opened up by the Red Army.
The political atmosphere in Xi'an is much better than in Shanghai, where students and intellectuals are very active, and the anti-Japanese patriotic demonstrations are greatly tolerated by the authorities.
Smedley originally thought that this time she would be in contact with the forefront of the Chinese revolution as an observer, but she never imagined that soon she would be personally involved in an event that profoundly changed the course of Chinese history, the Xi'an Incident.
In the early morning of December 12, 1936, patriotic generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng launched a military campaign to detain Chiang Kai-shek and force him to resist Japan.
Xi'an Incident
After the outbreak of the Xi'an Incident, the whole world was shocked, and this ancient city in the northwest suddenly became the focus of the world's attention.
At that time, Xi'an was deeply surrounded by the Kuomintang "rebel" army, with lost transportation, no land mail, and almost no contact with the outside world. In order to let the world know about his own anti-Japanese claims, Zhang Xueliang then summoned Smedley, explained to him the original intention of the incident, and entrusted her to host a broadcast in English to broadcast the truth of the Xi'an Incident to the world.
At this time, Smedley's old illness was not cured, and she still suffered from a cold, but she gladly accepted Zhang Xueliang's request, and then sat in front of Xi'an's external broadcast, and began to broadcast the latest progress of the Xi'an incident to the world in a slightly hoarse voice.
With the continuous development of the Xi'an Incident, Smedley's name has also spread rapidly to all corners of the world.
Her sharp words were like a sharp sword, piercing the hypocrisy of the reactionary forces, and she described Wang Jingwei, who was eager to return to China, as a speculator, and compared the pro-Japanese He Yingqin to Wu Sangui, who led the Qing army into the customs in the seventeenth century. During this period, she also reported with great passion on the process of actively promoting the anti-Japanese resistance by political figures in the northwest at that time, representatives of the Red Army and other forces.
The Xi'an Incident made Smedley a well-known international figure, and since then has left a lifelong imprint of a defender of the Communists.
In early January 1937, Smedley received an invitation from Yan'an, in which the Communists enthusiastically extended an invitation to visit yan'an.
The holy land of revolution - Yan'an
This letter instantly ignited Smedley's passion, and he had been looking forward to running to that red for four years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="416" > came to Yan'an</h1>
The next morning, Smedley, as usual, put on his Red Cross armband, walked to his workplace in Xi'an.
When she reached a corner of a wall, the Red Army escorts, who had been waiting nearby, immediately opened the trunk of the vehicle parked on the side, and Smedley quickly slipped in.
At that time, the Kuomintang side explicitly forbade foreign journalists from entering the Red Army base area, so Smedley was able to take advantage of the chaotic situation of the Xi'an Incident to successfully evade the Kuomintang blockade line, and after several bumps, finally came to Yan'an.
Here, Smedley meets the man who influenced him all his life, Judd.
Smedley and Judd
On the day she arrived in Yan'an, Smedley met the rumored father of the Red Army, Zhu De, and unlike the imposing and majestic general she had imagined earlier, Zhu De's impression on Smedley was still very profound even after many years:
A sturdy, not very tall man in a gray patch uniform, stood up from the table. He was in his fifties, amiable in appearance, and his forehead was wrinkled. If it weren't for his uniform, it would be easy to think of him as a peasant boss in a village in China and be ignored. ”
The name Zhu De was already familiar to Smedley, and when he was in Shanghai, the Kuomintang newspapers had published a sky-high reward for his head, twenty-five thousand oceans, and the Kuomintang reactionary authorities had repeatedly published rumors of Zhu De's "death."
The general in front of him, although his appearance is like an old farmer, he has a very legendary experience:
When he was young, he threw himself into the national revolution that overthrew the Qing court; later became an old-fashioned soldier in Sichuan and Yunnan; at the age of nearly forty, he gave up a good life and went to Europe to study in search of revolutionary light; at the time of revolutionary crisis, he resolutely participated in the rebellion against the dark Nanchang Uprising; and later led the rebel army to Jinggangshan, and since then the "Zhumao" Red Army has opened up a new road for the Chinese revolution.
The disparity and gap between ordinary appearance and legendary experience made Smedley have a great interest in the legendary figure in the Red Army in front of him, in addition to deep admiration.
In her opinion, in the face of a legendary Red Army general like Zhu De, if she can have the honor of writing a biography for him, it is definitely a very meaningful thing.
When Smedley offered to write a biography of Judd, Judd was surprised at first, and he asked Smedley why he had this idea.
Smedley replied:
"Because you came from a sharecropper family in Sichuan Province. Eight out of 10 Chinese farmers. And so far, no one has ever told people all over the world about your entire experience. Your experience is ordinary and great. If you tell me all about your life, that is, the first time a Chinese farmer has opened his mouth, it is like an iron tree blossoming. ”
Although Judd humbly told Smedley that I was just one of the Chinese peasants and soldiers, and there was nothing special about it, Smedley insisted on writing a biography of him.
In the days that followed, Smedley, along with his translators, began a systematic interview with Jude. As Judd recalls his childhood of poverty, Smedley, who had the same experience, gradually became red-eyed.
Judd and Smedley
When General Zhu recounted the scene in this tone, my pen couldn't help but be unable to write it. He looked at me with a suspicious look.
"Sometimes," I explained, "I feel as if you're talking about my mother." We didn't work for feudal landlords, but my mother also did laundry or helped cooks for the rich. Mothers also often sneaked out some delicious things for the children to taste each of us. ”
"The poor in the world are one family," Judd sighed in a rough voice after listening to Smedley's words, and then the two sat in silence for a long time. ”
Because Smedley participated in the rescue of released political prisoners after the Xi'an Incident, whenever she walked in Yan'an, she often encountered some "sudden" scenes.
While in Xi'an, the foreign woman carried a medical kit, washed the feet of the political prisoners who were covered in sores and pus and blood, applied medicine to their wounds, and bandaged them, so that those who were originally wary of her were immediately moved to tears.
Most of these people later came to Yan'an, so when Smedley walked on the road to Yan'an, he often encountered scenes that warmly welcomed her:
"Sometimes in the theater, there would be little boys I can't remember coming up to me, coming close to me, holding my hand, and I knew that he was one of those "prisoners of war."
One day, as I walked down the street, suddenly a group of women surrounded me, touched my hands, face and shoulders, hugged me and cried, they were the poor peasant women I had cared for in Xi'an. ”
During her time in Yan'an, Smedley's heart was calmer than ever, and she felt first-hand the vigorous development of the revolutionary center, where the people were full of sincerity, everyone was confident in victory, and people maintained great enthusiasm for social transformation.
Smedley in Yan'an
In April 1937, Smedley solemnly applied to the party organization to join the Chinese Communist Party, but to her surprise, her application was eventually rejected.
When Smedley learned of the negative reply, she couldn't help but cry, crying hysterically.
Although Lu Dingyi, the party's propaganda minister, later explained to her personally that organizationally considering her as a foreign journalist, staying outside the party would play a greater role, however, the rejection of joining the party this time did make Smedley deeply hit and became a major regret in her life.
On July 7, 1937, the July 7 Incident broke out, the Chinese nation reached a moment of peril, Zhu De immediately led the troops to the front line of the War of Resistance, when he asked Smedley, I am going to the front line, what are you going to do?
Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Smedley
Smedley specifically asked Mao Zedong on this matter, asking him whether he should stay in Yan'an to sort out history and biographical materials, or go to the front line with the troops to report on the anti-Japanese situation.
Mao Zedong's advice was:
"This war is much more important than past history."
Subsequently, Smedley followed the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, moved to the Lüliang Mountains and Wutai Mountain, and followed the army into the front line of the War of Resistance. During this period, she often accompanied the soldiers of the army to avoid the bombardment of enemy bombers, and with the crowd, braving the strafing of Japanese machine guns, the march was shifted.
She had proposed to Judd several times that she would be able to take up arms and go to the battlefield with other comrades to fight the enemy, but this suggestion was eventually rejected by Jude on the grounds of "being a woman", for which Smedley was still sullen for a long time.
During those fiery years, Smedley overcame many hardships and finally compiled into the book "China Is Fighting Back", which showed the world the determination and difficulty of the Eighth Route Army's resistance to Japan. At the beginning of the book, Smedley enthusiastically writes:
"To my dear brothers and comrades, the heroic martyrs and indomitable soldiers of the Eighth Route Army!"
Subsequently, for special reasons, Smedley left the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, stayed in Hankou for a short time, and finally arrived at the headquarters of the New Fourth Army, Yunling in southern Anhui Province.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="433" > mother and child farewell</h1>
The New Fourth Army was established in 1938 by Red Army units operating in the mountains of the lower Yangtze River Basin and fighting guerrillas. In this army, there was a regular medical team, and after Smedley arrived in Yunling, he quickly threw himself into the work of helping the medical team of the New Fourth Army.
Inside the headquarters of the New Fourth Army, from left: Roshengt, Chen Yi, You'en, Su Yu, Smedley
During that time, Smedley published a series of articles conveying to the world the harsh conditions of the New Fourth Army's War of Resistance and its urgent medical needs, and she also used her personal connections to send a message to her British friend and ambassador to China, Archibald. Sir Sylwin-Cole, Clarke, wife of the Hong Kong Medical Director, and the American Chapter of the International Red Cross appealed for medical help for the New Fourth Army.
Under Smedley's loudly shouted, in the spring of the following year, a large amount of aid from Britain, Hong Kong, and the International Red Cross arrived in the garrison of the New Fourth Army, and these helps played an immeasurable role in the construction and development of the New Fourth Army.
While Smedley was running for the medical construction of the New Fourth Army, she also formed a family relationship here that she will never forget.
When Smedley first arrived at the New Fourth Army garrison, the troops assigned Smedley an eleven-year-old attendant and a female interpreter.
This little soldier named Shen Guohua was very clever, and in the later conversation, Smedley learned about the miserable life of the child in front of him.
Smedley and Shen Guohua
When Shen Guohua was very young, bandits attacked his hometown in Henan, burning his house and killing his father, eventually reducing him to beggars and dragging his mother along the street to beg for a living.
Shen Guohua once told Smedley the story of his own begging.
It was a cold winter, six-year-old Shen Guohua stood in front of a tall concierge, he had just begun to beg, he did not know how to how to how to cry, prostrate, all the time kneeling in front of the door, kneeling for a day, only after dark someone found him, gave him two copper plates to send him away. On that day, he bought two steamed buns with the two copper plates, one and a half for his mother, and ate half of them himself, and then when her mother was gone, he joined the army.
Smedley listened to Shen Guohua's story with tears, she wiped out all the lice on Shen Guohua's body, then changed his clothes, washed his face, looked at his small, so mature face, Smedley held him in pain and cried.
Shen Guohua whispered to Smedley, "You are both my father and my mother. ”
This sentence made Smedley's heart move, so many years of wandering, as a woman, how can she not have a family, maternal attachment. She pulled Shen Guohua to the front, let him snuggle up in front of his knees, combed his hair, buttoned his buttons, and took care of the sensible child in front of him like a mother.
Later, once, Smedley met a Japanese soldier on the road, the coachman because of fear, the carriage drove away wildly, Shen Guohua was worried that Smedley was captured by the enemy, despite the persuasion of others, insisted on going back to look for Smedley, he said to others:
"I'm going to get her back!" She came to our unit, and the chief asked me to take good care of her, and it was my duty! ”
Later, Smedley, who had turned the danger into a disaster, and Shen Guohua, who looked haggard, finally met, and the two hugged each other, crying and crying, and Shen Guohua cried and shouted: "Mom, I am really afraid that you are no longer ..."
Smedley carefully cared for this affection until 1940, when the Japanese army's clampdown on the Base area of the New Fourth Army was shrinking, and the brutal battles were fiercely fought every day, at which time Smedley's body once again fell into a deteriorating state.
Li Xiannian, commander of the Fifth Division of the New Fourth Army and political commissar
At that time, Li Xiannian advised Smedley to leave the war zone and go to the rear of Chongqing for recuperation, where she could recover her health and at the same time fulfill everyone's expectations of her:
Tell the world about the struggle in central China.
Smedley knew that the time had come to separate, but she wanted to take Shen Guohua away, adopt him, take him out of the front line, and send him to school. After listening to Smedley's request, Lee said:
"Well, you can adopt the child if you want and the child himself agrees."
However, when Smedley told Shen Guohua his thoughts, the child was silent, he was reluctant to leave here, reluctant to be around his comrades-in-arms, and those small service comrades.
Shen Guohua finally said to Smedley with tears in his eyes:
"I'm a guy in the army, and we think all the guys should stay ahead."
He wiped his tears, hugged Smedley, and whispered to her:
"Mom, you can adopt me after the final victory."
Smedley eventually left sadly, and she never saw her "child" again.
Many years later, Smedley can still clearly remember the scene when Shen Guohua bid him farewell on that day:
A flat boat carried me out of the swamp area, the last time I saw Guohua, he and two other children washing clothes by the lake, he greeted me and waved his hands, standing there fixedly, watching the flat boat disappear into the gentle smoke...
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="441" > back to the United States, a speech under the Iron Curtain</h1>
After leaving the New Fourth Army, Smedley went to Chongqing and Hong Kong for recuperation, and then, the situation of the War of Resistance became increasingly severe, and the iron hooves of the Japanese Kou continued to move south, approaching Hong Kong. With Carlson's help, he finally embarked on the road back to the United States.
Boarding the ferry, Smedley looked back at the mainland, farther and farther away, she thought that she would be able to come back in the future, but she did not expect that this would be the last glimpse she had left for the land.
In May 1941, Smedley arrived in Los Angeles, usa, and in the years that followed, she actively publicized China's anti-Japanese situation in American associations and rallies, and called on the United States to increase aid to the heroic Chinese.
Smedley speaks
During this period, Smedley traveled to major cities, and she was tireless in her struggle to fight against Japan in China, when American newspapers called her:
One of the six foreigners on Japan's blacklist who most want to get rid of them.
Smedley struggled tirelessly for China, but this situation finally came to an abrupt end near the end of World War II.
Because Smedley supported and publicized the true situation of the Chinese Communist Party, the US government and politicians who were caught up in the Cold War mentality began to slander her to the extreme, and even some former friends began to turn against her.
During that time, she was stigmatized as a Soviet spy, her operations were monitored, she was financially suppressed, and her life was once in a difficult situation.
On October 1, 1949, smedley, who was extremely lonely, heard the good news of the founding of the People's Republic of China on the radio.
That night, Smedley used the money left in her pocket to buy some wine, and drank a drunken tincture, and in the midst of drunkenness she sang and danced, and her mood was too excited to control herself.
Cheers for new China, Smedley in New York
The next day, she wrote a long letter to Zhu De, pouring out her excitement about the establishment of a new China, in which Smedley expressed his desire to return to China.
"I should be in China, but I'm stuck in a country that God has abandoned."
...... In any case, I already know that my new Chinese government is finally becoming a reality and that the world will never be the same again. I lived to see with my own eyes that my greatest wish had come true, and not many people could say so. This thing in itself is enough for me to endure for the rest of my life...
...... If one day I can return to China, I must kiss its land. ”
At the end of October 1949, after much repeated struggle, the U.S. government reluctantly agreed to issue Smedley a passport to go abroad, but only in Britain, Italy, and France, and only until October of the following year.
On November 15, 1949, Smedley embarked on a passenger ship bound for Britain, intending to return to China with the help of the Chinese Embassy after britain established diplomatic relations with China.
However, Smedley did not wait for that day.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="446" > soul returned to China</h1>
A chronic stomach illness made Smedley's health worse and worse, and shortly after arriving in England, she was eventually forced to be admitted to the hospital.
Subsequently, before the operation, Smedley gave a friend Margaret. Slos wrote the "suicide note" at the beginning of the article, and at the end of the letter, she expressed her expectations for the arrival of the Chinese embassy in the future:
"If the Chinese Embassy comes, if you can sing a song for my body, the national anthem of China." I would appreciate it. Since my soul has not found peace in this world, except anywhere in China, I hope that my ashes will be with the dead Chinese revolutionaries. ”
On May 6, 1950, the day after Smedley's surgery, the great revolutionary woman stopped breathing at the age of fifty-eight due to acute circulatory failure.
In October 1950, Smedley's ashes and suitcases arrived in China by cargo ship, and on May 6, 1951, on the first anniversary of Smedley's death, her ashes were solemnly buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing.
Commander-in-Chief Zhu De wrote an inscription on his tombstone:
"Chinese The Grave of Ms. Smedley, Friend of the People and Writer of the American Revolution."
Tomb of Lady Smedley
On May 16 of the same year, the Chinese mission in Germany received a consultation on copyright and royalties from the German Dedetz Publishing House, and Smedley's copyright and edition fees in the publishing house will be transferred to Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, and there are more than 60,000 East German marks, and there will be more than 100,000 marks per year in the future.
Zhu De's reply to this was to submit it to the Cultural Affairs Committee for consultation, and finally the money was used for Sino-German friendship activities.
Although Smedley regretted not being able to join the Chinese Communist Party all his life, in 1981, at the conference celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Hu Yaobang affectionately referred to Smedley as "comrade."
This kind "comrade" is also enough to comfort Smedley's lifelong expectations and pursuits.
I would like to use this document to my international friend who loves China, Agnes. Ms. Smedley, in the midst of many disasters in China, she came to this hot land and used her voice to stir up the most shocking echo for the country.
Ms. Smedley
Tribute to Ms. Smedley, to the martyrs who fought and sacrificed with her for new China!
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