Agnes Smedley
Encyclopedia
Agnes Smedley was an American journalist and writer
best known for her semi-autobiographical novel
Daughter of Earth
. She was also known for her sympathetic chronicling of the Chinese revolution. During World War I, she worked in the United States for the independence of India from Great Britain, receiving financial support from the government of Germany, and for many years worked for or with the Comintern
, promoting world revolution. She worked on behalf of various causes including women's rights
, birth control
, and children's welfare. Smedley wrote six books, including a novel, reportage, and a biography of the Chinese general Zhu De, reported for newspapers such as New York Call
, Frankfurter Zeitung and Manchester Guardian, and wrote for periodicals such as the Modern Review
, New Masses, Asia, New Republic
, and Nation
.
Later that year, with the help of an aunt, Smedley enrolled in a business school in Greeley, Colorado, after which she worked as a traveling salesperson. Suffering from physical and emotional stress in 1911, Smedley checked into a sanatorium. A family friend in Arizona offered her a place to stay after she was discharged, and from 1911 to 1912 Smedley enrolled in Tempe Normal School. She published her first writings as editor and contributor to the school paper, Tempe Normal Student. At Tempe, she became friends with a woman named Thorberg Brundin and her brother Ernest Brundin. Both Brundins were members of the Socialist Party and gave Smedley her first exposure to socialist ideas. When the Brundins left Tempe for San Francisco, they invited Smedley to come stay with them, and in August 1912 Smedley married Ernest. After six years of marriage Smedley divorced and moved to New York City, where, among other new activities, she worked with Margaret Sanger
at the Birth Control Review.
and a number of Bengali Indian revolutionaries then in United States. She was at this time close to M. N. Roy and Sailendranath Ghose and agreed to serve as a communication centre for Indian revolutionaries then in United States. She oversaw publication of anti-allied propaganda at the request of Ghose, and later met Bhai Bhagwan Singh
and Taraknath Das. Her involvement in the Hindu-German Conspiracy would lead to British detectives put on her trail. Correctly judging her mail being intercepted and opened, and fearing for her personal safety as well as those she knew, Smedley would move house more than seven times in a year..
Later, she became involved in a relationship with an Indian communist, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
, and moved to Germany with him. She spent several years in Germany, involved with various left-wing causes.
In 1929, she finished her autobiographical novel Daughter of Earth
. She left Chattopadhyaya and moved to Shanghai, initially as a correspondent for a liberal German newspaper.
, a Soviet spymaster, while in Shanghai, and probably with Ozaki Hotsumi, a correspondent for the Asahi Shinbun. Later he translated Smedley's Daughter of Earth into Japanese. She introduced Sorge to Ozaki, who became Sorge's most important informant in Japan. Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, who served with Gen. Douglas MacArthur
's chief of intelligence, claimed Smedley was a member of the anti-Japanese Sorge spy ring. After the war, Smedley threatened to sue Willoughby for the accusation. Ruth Price, author of the most recent and extensive biography of Smedley, writes that there is very strong evidence in former Soviet archives that Smedley was indeed a spy who engaged in espionage for the Comintern
and on behalf of the Soviet Union.
In China, Smedley served as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung
and the Manchester Guardian. She covered many topics, including the Chinese Civil War
. She was also in Xian during the Xian Incident, which took her by surprise but led to her making broadcasts in English for the rebels. She then reported the Anti-Japanese war during the Second United Front. She travelled with first the 8th Route Army and then the New Fourth Army
, as well as visiting some of the non-Communist Chinese army. During the 1930s she applied for membership in the Chinese Communist Party but was rejected due to Party reservations about her discipline and what it viewed as her excessive independence of mind. Smedley was devastated by this rejection but remained passionately devoted to the Chinese communist cause.
Smedley left the field in 1937; she organized medical supplies and continued writing. Between 1938 to 1941, she visited both Communist and Guomindang forces in the war zone; it is recorded that this is the longest tour of the Chinese war front conducted by any foreign correspondent, male or female.
, was complete but unpublished at the time of her death. It was published in 1956.
Her ashes were buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery
in Beijing in 1951.
A selection of her writings on China was published in 1976 as Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
best known for her semi-autobiographical novel
Daughter of Earth
Daughter of Earth
Daughter of Earth is an autobiographical novel by the American author and journalist Agnes Smedley. The novel chronicles the years of Marie Rogers’s tumultuous childhood, struggles in relationships with men , time working with the Socialist party, and involvement in the Indian independence...
. She was also known for her sympathetic chronicling of the Chinese revolution. During World War I, she worked in the United States for the independence of India from Great Britain, receiving financial support from the government of Germany, and for many years worked for or with the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, promoting world revolution. She worked on behalf of various causes including women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
, birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
, and children's welfare. Smedley wrote six books, including a novel, reportage, and a biography of the Chinese general Zhu De, reported for newspapers such as New York Call
New York Call
The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America to be established, following the Chicago Daily Socialist while preceding the long running...
, Frankfurter Zeitung and Manchester Guardian, and wrote for periodicals such as the Modern Review
Modern Review (Calcutta)
Modern Review was the name of a monthly magazine published in Calcutta since 1907.Founded by Ramananda Chatterjee, the Modern Review soon emerged as an important forum for the Indian Nationalist intelligentsia. It carried essays on politics, economics, sociology, as well as poems, stories,...
, New Masses, Asia, New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, and Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
.
Early Years
Agnes Smedley was born in Osgood, Missouri on 23 Feb 1892, the second of five children. In 1901, at the age of nine, she and her family moved to Trinidad, Colorado, where she witnessed many of the events in the 1903-04 coal miners' strike. Her father worked for several of the coal companies in Colorado and the family moved back and forth across southwestern Colorado. At the age of 17, Smedley took the county teacher's examination and taught in rural schools near her home for a semester. She returned home when her mother Sarah became ill. Sarah died in early 1910.Later that year, with the help of an aunt, Smedley enrolled in a business school in Greeley, Colorado, after which she worked as a traveling salesperson. Suffering from physical and emotional stress in 1911, Smedley checked into a sanatorium. A family friend in Arizona offered her a place to stay after she was discharged, and from 1911 to 1912 Smedley enrolled in Tempe Normal School. She published her first writings as editor and contributor to the school paper, Tempe Normal Student. At Tempe, she became friends with a woman named Thorberg Brundin and her brother Ernest Brundin. Both Brundins were members of the Socialist Party and gave Smedley her first exposure to socialist ideas. When the Brundins left Tempe for San Francisco, they invited Smedley to come stay with them, and in August 1912 Smedley married Ernest. After six years of marriage Smedley divorced and moved to New York City, where, among other new activities, she worked with Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
at the Birth Control Review.
Involvement with Indian Independence
During World War I, Smedley grew close with Lala Lajpat RaiLala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai was an Indian author, freedom fighter and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for freedom from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab meaning the samem and was part of the Lal Bal Pal trio...
and a number of Bengali Indian revolutionaries then in United States. She was at this time close to M. N. Roy and Sailendranath Ghose and agreed to serve as a communication centre for Indian revolutionaries then in United States. She oversaw publication of anti-allied propaganda at the request of Ghose, and later met Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh Gyanee was an Indian Nationalist and a leading luminary of the Ghadar Party. Elected the party president in 1914, he was extensively involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915 during World War I and in the aftermath of its failure fled to Japan...
and Taraknath Das. Her involvement in the Hindu-German Conspiracy would lead to British detectives put on her trail. Correctly judging her mail being intercepted and opened, and fearing for her personal safety as well as those she knew, Smedley would move house more than seven times in a year..
Later, she became involved in a relationship with an Indian communist, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto was a prominent Hindu Indian revolutionary who aimed to overthrow the British Raj in India by using violence as a tool...
, and moved to Germany with him. She spent several years in Germany, involved with various left-wing causes.
In 1929, she finished her autobiographical novel Daughter of Earth
Daughter of Earth
Daughter of Earth is an autobiographical novel by the American author and journalist Agnes Smedley. The novel chronicles the years of Marie Rogers’s tumultuous childhood, struggles in relationships with men , time working with the Socialist party, and involvement in the Indian independence...
. She left Chattopadhyaya and moved to Shanghai, initially as a correspondent for a liberal German newspaper.
Years in China
Smedley conducted a sexual relationship with Richard SorgeRichard Sorge
Richard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
, a Soviet spymaster, while in Shanghai, and probably with Ozaki Hotsumi, a correspondent for the Asahi Shinbun. Later he translated Smedley's Daughter of Earth into Japanese. She introduced Sorge to Ozaki, who became Sorge's most important informant in Japan. Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, who served with Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
's chief of intelligence, claimed Smedley was a member of the anti-Japanese Sorge spy ring. After the war, Smedley threatened to sue Willoughby for the accusation. Ruth Price, author of the most recent and extensive biography of Smedley, writes that there is very strong evidence in former Soviet archives that Smedley was indeed a spy who engaged in espionage for the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
and on behalf of the Soviet Union.
In China, Smedley served as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung
Frankfurter Zeitung
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
and the Manchester Guardian. She covered many topics, including the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. She was also in Xian during the Xian Incident, which took her by surprise but led to her making broadcasts in English for the rebels. She then reported the Anti-Japanese war during the Second United Front. She travelled with first the 8th Route Army and then the New Fourth Army
New Fourth Army
The New Fourth Army was a unit of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China established in 1937. In contrast to most of the National Revolutionary Army, it was controlled by the Communist Party of China and not by the ruling Kuomintang. The New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army...
, as well as visiting some of the non-Communist Chinese army. During the 1930s she applied for membership in the Chinese Communist Party but was rejected due to Party reservations about her discipline and what it viewed as her excessive independence of mind. Smedley was devastated by this rejection but remained passionately devoted to the Chinese communist cause.
Smedley left the field in 1937; she organized medical supplies and continued writing. Between 1938 to 1941, she visited both Communist and Guomindang forces in the war zone; it is recorded that this is the longest tour of the Chinese war front conducted by any foreign correspondent, male or female.
Final Years
She relocated to Washington, DC to advocate for China and authored several works on China's revolution. During the 1940s she lived at Yaddo, a writer's colony in upstate New York. In 1947 she was accused of espionage. Feeling pressure, she left the U.S. in the fall of 1949. She died in the UK after surgery for an ulcer. Her final book, a biography of Zhu DeZhu De
Zhu De was a Chinese militarist, politician, revolutionary, and one of the pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1955 Zhu became one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army, of which he is regarded as the founder.-Early...
, was complete but unpublished at the time of her death. It was published in 1956.
Her ashes were buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery
Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery
The Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery is Beijing's main resting place for revolutionary heroes, high government officials and in recent years, any individual deemed important due to their contributions to society. In Chinese, Babaoshan literally means "The Eight-Treasure Mountains"...
in Beijing in 1951.
Works
- Daughter of EarthDaughter of EarthDaughter of Earth is an autobiographical novel by the American author and journalist Agnes Smedley. The novel chronicles the years of Marie Rogers’s tumultuous childhood, struggles in relationships with men , time working with the Socialist party, and involvement in the Indian independence...
(1929), a semi-autobiographical novel - Chinese DestiniesChinese DestiniesChinese Destinies is a collection of essays about China and Chinese lives by Agnes Smedley, a left-wing journalist. Along with another book called China's Red Army Marches, it was covertly circulated in Guomintang-ruled China, both in English and in Chinese translations. ....
(1933) - China's Red Army MarchesChina's Red Army MarchesChina's Red Army Marches , by Agnes Smedley. Also published in the USSR as Red Flood Over China.This book gives a detailed account of the Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi from 1928 to 1931, ending with the proclamation of the Soviet Republic of China in 1931...
(1934), also published as Red Flood Over China - China Fights Back: An American Woman With the Eighth Route Army (1938)
- Battle Hymn of ChinaBattle Hymn of ChinaBattle Hymn of China, by Agnes Smedley. Also published as China Correspondent. This book is a first-hand account of the Sino-Japanese War, from the viewpoint of a left-wing US woman who tried sharing the lives of ordinary Chinese.-Synopsis:...
(1943) (republished as China Correspondent) - The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh (1956, published posthumously)
A selection of her writings on China was published in 1976 as Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution.
See also
- Jack BeldenJack BeldenJack Belden was an American war correspondent who covered the Japanese invasion of China, the Second World War and the Chinese Revolution.-Life:...
- Päivi Tapola: "Agnes Smedlyn Maan tytär" teoksessa Päivi Tapola: Äitini puutarhassa - Polkuja naiskirjallisuuteen, Kääntöpiiri/Like, 2002, ISBN 951-8989-61-3
External links
- Agnes Smedley at the Arizona State University Hayden Library archives
- Agnes Smedley from NOVA Online, "Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies"
- short biography
- Scholarly review from 1944 of one of her books
- A scholarly review of the 1988 biography
- A Chinese view of Smedley
- From the Midwest to the Far East
- Photo