Anna Louise Strong
Encyclopedia
Anna Louise Strong was a twentieth-century American
journalist
and activist
, best known for her reporting on and support for communist
movements in the Soviet Union
and the People's Republic of China
.
. Her father, Sydney Dix Strong, was a Social Gospel
minister in the Congregational Church and active in missionary work. An unusually gifted child, she raced through grammar and high school, then studied languages in Europe
.
She first attended Pennsylvania
's Bryn Mawr College
from 1903 to 1904, then graduated Oberlin College
in Ohio
where she later returned to speak many times. In 1908, at the age of 23, she finished her education and received a Ph.D. in philosophy
from the University of Chicago
with a thesis later published as The Social Psychology of Prayer. As an advocate for child welfare for the United States Education Office, she organized an exhibit and toured it extensively throughout the United States and abroad. When she brought it to Seattle in May 1914, it attracted more than 6,000 people per day, culminating with an audience of 40,000 on May 31.
At this point, Strong was still convinced that problems in the structure of social arrangements were responsible for poverty and the like. In this Progressive mode, she was 30 years old when she returned to Seattle to live with her father, then pastor of Queen Anne Congregational Church. She favored the political climate there, which was pro-labor and progressive
.
Strong also enjoyed mountain climbing. She organized cooperative summer camps in the Cascades and led climbing parties up Mt. Rainier.
When Strong ran for the Seattle School Board in 1916, she won easily, thanks to support from women's groups and organized labor
and to her reputation as an expert on child welfare. She was the only female board member. She argued that the public schools should offer social service programs for underprivileged children and that they should serve as community centers. But there was little she could do: Other members chose to devote meetings to mundane matters like plumbing fixtures. Her attentions began to go elsewhere.
In the year of her election, 1916, the Everett Massacre
occurred. Strong was hired as a stringer by the New York Evening Post to report on the bloody conflict between the IWW
(or "Wobblies") and the army of armed guards hired by Everett
mill owners to keep them out of town. At first an impartial observer, she soon became an impassioned and articulate spokesperson for workers' rights.
Strong's endorsement of left-wing causes set her apart from her colleagues on the school board. She opposed war as a pacifist, and when the United States
entered World War I
in 1917, she spoke out against the draft. On one hand, the Parent-Teacher Association
and women's clubs joined her in opposing military training in the schools. On the other hand, the Seattle Minute Men, many of whom were veterans of the Spanish-American War
, branded her as unpatriotic.
The pacifist stance of the Wobblies led to mass arrests at the Seattle office where Louise Olivereau, a typist, was mailing mimeographed circulars to draftees, urging them to consider becoming conscientious objectors. In 1918, Strong stood by Olivereau's side in the courtroom, as the typist-activist was tried for sedition, found guilty, and sent to prison.
Strong's fellow school board members were quick to launch a recall campaign
against her, and won by a narrow margin. She appeared at their next meeting to argue that they must appoint a woman as her successor. Her former colleagues acceded to her request, but they made it clear that they wanted a |mainstream, patriotic representative, a mother with children in the schools. They replaced Anna Louise Strong with Evangeline C. Harper, a prominent country club
woman.
, she proclaimed in her famous editorial: "We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" The strike shut down the city for four days and then ended as it had begun — peacefully and with its goals still undefined, unattained.
At a loss as to what to do she took her friend Lincoln Steffens
' advice and in 1921 travelled to Poland
and Russia
serving as a correspondent for the American Friends Service Committee
. The purpose of going was to provide the first foreign relief to the Volga famine
victims. After a year of that, she was named Moscow
correspondent for the International News Service
. Strong drew many observations while in Europe which inspired her to write. Some of her works include The First Time in History (preface by Leon Trotsky
) (1924), and Children of Revolution (1925). After remaining in the area for several years, Strong grew to become an enthusiastic supporter of socialism in the newly-formed Soviet Union. In 1925, during the era of the New Economic Policy
in the USSR, she returned to the United States to arouse interest among businessmen in industrial investment and development in the Soviet Union. During this time Strong also lectured widely and became well known as an authority on "soft news" (e.g. How to get an apartment) about the USSR.
In the late 1920s, Strong travelled in China and other parts of Asia. She became friends with Soong Ching-ling
and Zhou Enlai
. As always her travels led to books: China's Millions (1928), Red Star in Samarkand (1929).
In 1930 she returned to Moscow
and helped found Moscow News
, the first English
-language newspaper in the city. She was managing editor for a year and then became a featured writer. She married Soviet official and fellow socialist Joel Shubin
in 1932. Much like Strong, Shubin was a man passionately dedicated to his work and the two were often separated due to work commitments, and would ultimately spend relatively little time together before Shubin's death in 1942.
While living in the Soviet Union she became more enthused with the Soviet government and wrote many books praising it. They include: The Soviets Conquer Wheat (1931), an updated version of China's Millions: The Revolutionary Struggles from 1927 to 1935 (1935), the best-selling autobiographical I Change Worlds: the Remaking of an American (1935), This Soviet World (1936), and The Soviet Constitution (1937).
In 1936 she returned once again to the United States. Quietly and privately distressed with developments in the USSR (The "Great Purges"), she continued to write for leading periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly
, Harper's, The Nation and Asia. A visit to Spain
resulted in Spain in Arms (1937); visits to China led to One Fifth of Mankind (1938). In 1940 she published My Native Land. Other books include The Soviets Expected It (1941); the novel Wild River (1943), set in Russia
; Peoples of the U.S.S.R. (1944), I Saw the New Poland (1946) (based on her reporting from Poland as she accompanied the occupying Red Army
); and three books on the success of the early Communist Party of China
in the Chinese Civil War
.
While in the USSR she travelled throughout the huge nation, including the Ukraine
, Kuznetsk
, Stalingrad, Kiev
, Siberia
, Central Asia
, Uzbekistan
, and many more. She also travelled into Poland, Germany
, and Britain
. While in the Soviet Union, Strong met with Joseph Stalin
, Vyacheslav Molotov
, and many other Soviet officials. She interviewed factory workers, farmers, and pedestrians.
In World War II
, when the Red Army began its advance against Nazi Germany
, Strong stayed in the rear following the soldiers through Warsaw
, Łódź and Gdańsk
. In great part because of her overtly pro-Chinese Communist sympathies she was arrested in Moscow in 1949 and charged by the Soviets with espionage
. She later returned to the USSR in 1959, but settled in China until her death.
Strong met W. E. B. Du Bois, who visited Communist China during the Great Leap Forward
in the late 1950s. Neither ever supported famine-related criticisms of the Great Leap. Strong wrote a book titled When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet based on her experience during this period, which include the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
Partly from fear of losing her passport should she return to the USA, she settled permanently in China until her death in 1970, publishing a "Letter from China." During that time she fostered a close relationship with Zhou Enlai
and was on familiar terms with Mao Zedong
. She lived in the old Italian Legation which had been converted into flats for the leading "foreign friends". They were allocated on the "bleak basis" of seniority; New Zealand civil servant Gerald Hensley recalled that when he visited Rewi Alley
in 1973 Alley was living in the best downstairs front apartment which had been allocated to Strong until she died, at which time Alley moved into it and everyone else moved on one place.
at the University of Washington
in Seattle
.
)
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, best known for her reporting on and support for communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
movements in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
.
Early years
Strong was born on November 24, 1885 in Friend, NebraskaFriend, Nebraska
Friend is a city in Saline County, Nebraska, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,027.-History:The city is named for Charles E. Friend who homesteaded the land and initially named the community Friendville. He operated a dry goods store and post office...
. Her father, Sydney Dix Strong, was a Social Gospel
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada...
minister in the Congregational Church and active in missionary work. An unusually gifted child, she raced through grammar and high school, then studied languages in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
She first attended Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
's Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
from 1903 to 1904, then graduated Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
where she later returned to speak many times. In 1908, at the age of 23, she finished her education and received a Ph.D. in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
with a thesis later published as The Social Psychology of Prayer. As an advocate for child welfare for the United States Education Office, she organized an exhibit and toured it extensively throughout the United States and abroad. When she brought it to Seattle in May 1914, it attracted more than 6,000 people per day, culminating with an audience of 40,000 on May 31.
At this point, Strong was still convinced that problems in the structure of social arrangements were responsible for poverty and the like. In this Progressive mode, she was 30 years old when she returned to Seattle to live with her father, then pastor of Queen Anne Congregational Church. She favored the political climate there, which was pro-labor and progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
.
Strong also enjoyed mountain climbing. She organized cooperative summer camps in the Cascades and led climbing parties up Mt. Rainier.
Political career
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
and to her reputation as an expert on child welfare. She was the only female board member. She argued that the public schools should offer social service programs for underprivileged children and that they should serve as community centers. But there was little she could do: Other members chose to devote meetings to mundane matters like plumbing fixtures. Her attentions began to go elsewhere.
In the year of her election, 1916, the Everett Massacre
Everett massacre
The Everett Massacre was an armed confrontation between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World union, commonly called "Wobblies". It took place in Everett, Washington on Sunday, November 5, 1916...
occurred. Strong was hired as a stringer by the New York Evening Post to report on the bloody conflict between the IWW
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(or "Wobblies") and the army of armed guards hired by Everett
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...
mill owners to keep them out of town. At first an impartial observer, she soon became an impassioned and articulate spokesperson for workers' rights.
Strong's endorsement of left-wing causes set her apart from her colleagues on the school board. She opposed war as a pacifist, and when the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entered World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1917, she spoke out against the draft. On one hand, the Parent-Teacher Association
Parent-Teacher Association
In the U.S. a parent-teacher association or Parent-Teacher-Student Association is a formal organization composed of parents, teachers and staff that is intended to facilitate parental participation in a public or private school. Most public and private K-8 schools in the U.S. have a PTA, a...
and women's clubs joined her in opposing military training in the schools. On the other hand, the Seattle Minute Men, many of whom were veterans of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, branded her as unpatriotic.
The pacifist stance of the Wobblies led to mass arrests at the Seattle office where Louise Olivereau, a typist, was mailing mimeographed circulars to draftees, urging them to consider becoming conscientious objectors. In 1918, Strong stood by Olivereau's side in the courtroom, as the typist-activist was tried for sedition, found guilty, and sent to prison.
Strong's fellow school board members were quick to launch a recall campaign
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
against her, and won by a narrow margin. She appeared at their next meeting to argue that they must appoint a woman as her successor. Her former colleagues acceded to her request, but they made it clear that they wanted a |mainstream, patriotic representative, a mother with children in the schools. They replaced Anna Louise Strong with Evangeline C. Harper, a prominent country club
Country club
A country club is a private club, often with a closed membership, that typically offers a variety of recreational sports facilities and is located in city outskirts or rural areas. Activities may include, for example, any of golf, tennis, swimming or polo...
woman.
Journalistic career
Strong became openly associated with the city's labor-owned daily newspaper, The Union Record, writing forceful pro-labor articles and promoting the new Soviet government. On February 6, 1919, two days before the beginning of the Seattle General Strike of 1919Seattle General Strike of 1919
The Seattle General Strike of February 6 to February 11, 1919, was a general work stoppage by over 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages after two years of World War I wage controls...
, she proclaimed in her famous editorial: "We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" The strike shut down the city for four days and then ended as it had begun — peacefully and with its goals still undefined, unattained.
At a loss as to what to do she took her friend Lincoln Steffens
Lincoln Steffens
-Biography:Steffens was born April 6, 1866, in San Francisco. He grew up in a wealthy family and attended a military academy. He studied in France and Germany after graduating from the University of California....
' advice and in 1921 travelled to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
serving as a correspondent for the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
. The purpose of going was to provide the first foreign relief to the Volga famine
Russian famine of 1921
The Russian famine of 1921, also known as Povolzhye famine, which began in the early spring of that year, and lasted through 1922, was a severe famine that occurred in Bolshevik Russia...
victims. After a year of that, she was named Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
correspondent for the International News Service
International News Service
International News Service was a U.S.-based news agency founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.Established two years after the Scripps family founded the United Press Association, INS scrapped among the newswires...
. Strong drew many observations while in Europe which inspired her to write. Some of her works include The First Time in History (preface by Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
) (1924), and Children of Revolution (1925). After remaining in the area for several years, Strong grew to become an enthusiastic supporter of socialism in the newly-formed Soviet Union. In 1925, during the era of the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
in the USSR, she returned to the United States to arouse interest among businessmen in industrial investment and development in the Soviet Union. During this time Strong also lectured widely and became well known as an authority on "soft news" (e.g. How to get an apartment) about the USSR.
In the late 1920s, Strong travelled in China and other parts of Asia. She became friends with Soong Ching-ling
Soong Ching-ling
Soong Ching-ling , also known as Madame Sun Yat-sen, was one of the three Soong sisters—who, along with their husbands, were amongst China's most significant political figures of the early 20th century. She was the Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China...
and Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
. As always her travels led to books: China's Millions (1928), Red Star in Samarkand (1929).
In 1930 she returned to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and helped found Moscow News
Moscow News
The Moscow News, which began publication in 1930, is Russia’s oldest English-language publication newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the now defunct Russian Moskovskiye Novosti.-History:...
, the first English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-language newspaper in the city. She was managing editor for a year and then became a featured writer. She married Soviet official and fellow socialist Joel Shubin
Joel Shubin
Joel Shubin was a Russian agronomist and editor of the Moscow-based Peasant Gazette in the 1930s.In 1932 Shubin married American journalist Anna Louise Strong, who was then editing the English-language version of another Soviet newspaper, Moscow News, in Moscow. Shubin accompanied Strong during...
in 1932. Much like Strong, Shubin was a man passionately dedicated to his work and the two were often separated due to work commitments, and would ultimately spend relatively little time together before Shubin's death in 1942.
While living in the Soviet Union she became more enthused with the Soviet government and wrote many books praising it. They include: The Soviets Conquer Wheat (1931), an updated version of China's Millions: The Revolutionary Struggles from 1927 to 1935 (1935), the best-selling autobiographical I Change Worlds: the Remaking of an American (1935), This Soviet World (1936), and The Soviet Constitution (1937).
In 1936 she returned once again to the United States. Quietly and privately distressed with developments in the USSR (The "Great Purges"), she continued to write for leading periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, Harper's, The Nation and Asia. A visit to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
resulted in Spain in Arms (1937); visits to China led to One Fifth of Mankind (1938). In 1940 she published My Native Land. Other books include The Soviets Expected It (1941); the novel Wild River (1943), set in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
; Peoples of the U.S.S.R. (1944), I Saw the New Poland (1946) (based on her reporting from Poland as she accompanied the occupying Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
); and three books on the success of the early Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
in 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...
.
While in the USSR she travelled throughout the huge nation, including the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Kuznetsk
Kuznetsk
Kuznetsk is a town in Penza Oblast, Russia, located east of Penza and west of Samara and the Volga River. Population: -External links:*...
, Stalingrad, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, and many more. She also travelled into Poland, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. While in the Soviet Union, Strong met with Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, and many other Soviet officials. She interviewed factory workers, farmers, and pedestrians.
In World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when the Red Army began its advance against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, Strong stayed in the rear following the soldiers through Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Łódź and Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
. In great part because of her overtly pro-Chinese Communist sympathies she was arrested in Moscow in 1949 and charged by the Soviets with espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
. She later returned to the USSR in 1959, but settled in China until her death.
Strong met W. E. B. Du Bois, who visited Communist China during the Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...
in the late 1950s. Neither ever supported famine-related criticisms of the Great Leap. Strong wrote a book titled When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet based on her experience during this period, which include the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
Partly from fear of losing her passport should she return to the USA, she settled permanently in China until her death in 1970, publishing a "Letter from China." During that time she fostered a close relationship with Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
and was on familiar terms with Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
. She lived in the old Italian Legation which had been converted into flats for the leading "foreign friends". They were allocated on the "bleak basis" of seniority; New Zealand civil servant Gerald Hensley recalled that when he visited Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley, 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, QSO, , was a New Zealand-born writer, educator, social reformer, potter, and member of the Communist Party of China....
in 1973 Alley was living in the best downstairs front apartment which had been allocated to Strong until she died, at which time Alley moved into it and everyone else moved on one place.
Legacy
Strong's papers reside at Suzzallo LibrarySuzzallo Library
Suzzallo Library is the central library of the University of Washington in Seattle, and perhaps the most recognizable building on campus. It is named for Henry Suzzallo, who was president of the University of Washington until he stepped down in 1926, the same year the first phase of the library's...
at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
in Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
.
Religious tracts and social work
(co-author with Sydney Strong, her father) (co-author with Sydney Strong, her father)Reportage and travelogues
(with preface by Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
)
- Children Pioneers
- Pioneer: The Children's Colony on the Volga
- Is the Soviet Union turning from world brotherhood to imperialism?
- Man's New Crusade
- The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung
External links
- Anna Louise Strong Internet Archive, Marxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet Archive is a volunteer based non-profit organization that maintains a multi-lingual Internet archive of Marxist writers and other similar authors...
. Retrieved March 24, 2010. - Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970), HistoryLink. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
- Finding Aid to the Anna Louis Strong Papers, University of Washington. Retrieved March 24, 2010.