Mao Zedong in 1931.

Red Star Over China, a book by Edgar Snow, is an account of the Communist Party of China written when they were guerrilla army still obscure to Westerners. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... “Mao” redirects here. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Edgar Snow (b. ... The Communist Party of China (CPC) (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China, a position guaranteed by the countrys constitution. ... Look up guerrilla in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Overview

In Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow recounts the months that he spent with China’s Chinese Red Army during the Civil War. The book contains a vivid description of the Long March, as well as biographical accounts of a number of persons on both sides of the conflicts, including Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai, brief coverage of Lin Biao, and Mao Zedong's own account of his life. Alternate meaning: Shining Path The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA); Traditional Chinese: 人民解放軍, Simplified Chinese: 人民解放军, pinyin: Rénmín Jiěfàng Jūn), including strategic nuclear forces, an army, navy and air force, serves as the military of... Combatants Nationalist Party of China and allied warlords Communist Party of China Commanders Chiang Kai-shek various, eventually Mao Zedong Strength over 300,000 First Front Red Army: 86,000 (October 1934) 7,000 (October 1935) The Long March (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; pinyin: ) was a massive military retreat undertaken... Zhou Enlai (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai) (March 5, 1898 – January 8, 1976), a prominent Communist Party of China leader, was Premier of the Peoples Republic of China from 1949 until his death in January 1976, and Chinas foreign minister from 1949 to... Peng Dehuai . Péng Déhuái (T. Chinese: 彭德懷, S. Chinese: 彭德怀, Wade-Giles: Peng Te-huai) (October 24, 1898 - November 29, 1974) was a prominent Chinese Communist military leader. ... An artistic rendition of Mao Zedong and Lin Biao as his heir apparent in the style of socialist realism in the prime of the Cultural Revolution. ... “Mao” redirects here. ...

When Snow wrote, no outsider had much idea of what was going on in the Communist-controlled areas of China or who the main personalities were. The Xi'an Incident occurred while he was there. Snow's view was that the imprisonment of Chiang Kai-Shek by his own generals ensured that Nationalist China fought Japan rather than capitulating. Chiang Kai-shek and Chang Hsueh-liang around the time of the Xian Incident. ... Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was the Chinese military and political leader who assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the 1925 death of Sun Yat-sen. ...

He produced a revised edition which appeared in 1972, shortly after his death. He described the book's original context:

The Western powers, in self-interest, were hoping for a miracle in China. They dreamed of a new birth of nationalism that would keep Japan so bogged down that she would never be able to turn upon the Western colonies—her true objective. Red Star Over China tended to show that the Chinese Communists could indeed provide that nationalist leadership needed for effective anti-Japanese resistance. How dramatically the United States' policy-making attitudes have altered since then […]
It provided not only for non-Chinese readers, but also for the entire Chinese people—including all but the Communist leaders themselves—the first authentic account of the Chinese Communist Party and the first connected story of their long struggle to carry through the most thoroughgoing social revolution in China's three millenniums of history. Many editions were published in China […] (Red Star Over China, Preface to the Revised Edition.)

The revised version was one product of Snow's 1970 visit, in which he also helped with the normalisation of relations between China and the United States.

A new edition was published in May 2006, entitled Red Star Over China - The Rise Of The Red Army. (ISBN 1-4067-9821-5).

External links

• Snow's 4-chapter biography of Mao can be found here [1], here [2] and here [3].
• Behind Red Star over China (2006 account from China Daily)
• There has also been a Chinese screen adaptation [4], which was however rejected by Edgar Snow's widow [5].