Red Star over China (47 page)

Another time I met a bony youngster of fifteen, who was head of the Young Vanguards and Young Communists working in the hospital near Holienwan, Kansu. His home had been in Hsing Ko, the Reds' model
hsien
in Kiangsi, and he said that one of his brothers was still in a partisan army there, and that his sister had been a nurse. He did not know what had become of his family. Yes, they all liked the Reds. Why? Because they “all understood that the Red Army was our army—fighting for the
wu-ch'an chieh-chi”
—the proletariat. I wondered what impressions the great trek to the Northwest had left upon his young mind, but I was not to find out. The whole thing was a minor event to this serious-minded boy, this little matter of a hike over a distance twice the width of America.

“It was pretty bitter going, eh?” I ventured.

“Not bitter, not bitter. No march is bitter if your comrades are with you. We revolutionary youths can't think about whether a thing is hard or bitter; we can only think of the task before us. If it is to walk 10,000
li
, we walk it, or if it is to walk 20,000
li,
we walk it!”

“How do you like Kansu, then? Is it better or worse than Kiangsi? Was life better in the South?”

“Kiangsi was good. Kansu is also good. Wherever the revolution is,
that place is good. What we eat and where we sleep is not important. What is important is the revolution.”
¹

Copybook replies, I thought. Here was one lad who had learned his answers well from some Red propagandist. Next day I was quite surprised when at a mass meeting of Red soldiers I saw that he was one of the principal speakers, and a “propagandist” in his own right. He was one of the best speakers in the army, I was told, and in that meeting he gave a simple but competent explanation of the present political situation, and the reasons why the Red Army wanted to stop civil war and form a “united front” with all anti-Japanese armies.

I met a youth of fourteen who had been an apprentice in a Shanghai machine shop, and with three companions had found his way, through various adventures, to the Northwest. He was a student in the radio school in Pao An when I saw him. I asked whether he missed Shanghai, but he said no, he had left nothing in Shanghai, and that the only fun he had ever had there was looking into the shop windows at good things to eat—which he could not buy.

One “little devil” in Pao An served as orderly to Li K'e-nung, chief of the communications department of the Foreign Office. He was a Shansi lad of about thirteen or fourteen, and he had joined the Reds I knew not how. The Beau Brummell of the Vanguards, he took his role with utmost gravity. He had inherited a Sam Browne belt from somebody, he had a neat little uniform tailored to a good fit, and a cap whose peak he regularly refilled with new cardboard whenever it broke. Underneath the collar of his well-brushed coat he always managed to have a strip of white linen showing. He was easily the snappiest-looking soldier in town. Beside him Mao Tse-tung looked a tramp.

This
wa-wa's
name happened by some thoughtlessness of his parents to be Shang Chi-pang. There is nothing wrong with that, except that Chipang sounds very much like
chi-pa,
and so, to his unending mortification, he was often called
chi-pa,
which simply means “penis.” One day Chi-pang came into my little room in the Foreign Office with his usual quota of dignity, clicked his heels together, gave me the most Prussian-like salute I had seen in the Red districts, and addressed me as “Comrade Snow.” He then proceeded to unburden his small heart of certain apprehensions. What he wanted to do was to make it perfectly clear to me that his name was not Chi-pa, but Chi-pang, and that between these two there was all the difference in the world. He had his name carefully scrawled down on a scrap of paper, and this he deposited before me.

Astonished, I responded in all seriousness that I had never called him
anything but Chi-pang, and had no thought of doing otherwise. He thanked me, made a grave bow, and once more gave that preposterous salute. “I wanted to be sure,” he said, “that when you write about me for the foreign papers you won't make a mistake in my name. It would give a bad impression to the foreign comrades if they thought a Red soldier was named Chipa!” Until then I had had no intention of introducing Chi-pang into this strange book, but with that remark I had no choice in the matter, and he walked into it right beside the Generalissimo.

One of the duties of the Young Vanguards in the soviets was to examine travelers on roads behind the front, and see that they had their road passes. They executed this duty quite determinedly, and marched anyone without his papers to the local soviet for examination. P'eng Teh-huai told me of being stopped once and being asked for his
lu-t'iao
by some Young Vanguards, who threatened to arrest him.

“But I am P'eng Teh-huai,” he said. “I write those passes myself.”

“We don't care if you are Commander Chu Teh,” said the young skeptics: “you must have a road pass.” They signaled for assistance, and several boys came running from the fields to reinforce them.

P'eng had to write out his
lu-t'iao
and sign it himself before they allowed him to proceed.

Altogether, the “little devils” were one thing in Red China with which it was hard to find anything seriously wrong. Their spirit was superb. I suspected that more than once an older man, looking at them, forgot his pessimism and was heartened to think that he was fighting for the future of lads like those. They were invariably cheerful and optimistic, and they had a ready
“hao!”
for every how-are-you, regardless of the weariness of the day's march. They were patient, hardworking, bright, and eager to learn, and seeing them made you feel that China was not hopeless, that no nation was more hopeless than its youth. Here in the Vanguards was the future of China, if only this youth could be freed, shaped, made aware, and given a role to perform in the building of a new world. It sounds somewhat evangelical, I suppose, but nobody could see these heroic young lives without feeling that man in China is not born rotten, but with infinite possibilities of personality.

In the beginning of September, 1936, while I was at the front in Ninghsia and Kansu, the army under P'eng Teh-huai commenced moving westward toward the Yellow River, and southward toward the Sian-Lanchow highway, to establish connections with Chu Teh's troops coming up from the South—a maneuver which was to be brilliantly concluded at the end of October, when the combined Red Armies occupied nearly all north Kansu above the Sian-Lanchow highway.

But having now decided to seek a compromise with the Kuomintang in an attempt to “coerce” the latter into resistance against Japan, the Reds were becoming every day more of a force of political propagandists and less of an army intent on seizing power by conquest. New instructions from the Party ordered the troops to observe “united-front tactics” in their future movements. And what were “united-front tactics”? Perhaps a day-by-day diary account of the maneuvers of the army at this time could best answer that question:

Pao Tou Shui, September
1. Leaving Yu Wang Pao, the headquarters of the First Front Army, walked for about 40
li,
Commander P'eng Teh-huai joking with the muleteers and generally having a lark. Most of the region traveled was hilly and mountainous. P'eng made his headquarters for the night in a Mohammedan peasant's home in this little village.

Maps immediately were put up on the wall and the radio began functioning. Messages came in. While P'eng was resting, he called in the Mohammedan peasants and explained the Red Army's policies to them. An old lady sat and talked with him for nearly two hours, pointing out
her troubles. Meanwhile a Red Army harvesting brigade passed by, on its way to reap the crop of a runaway landlord. Since he was a “traitor” his land was subject to confiscation. Another squad of men has been appointed to guard and keep clean the premises of the local mosque. Relations with the peasants seem good. A week ago the peasants in this
hsien,
who have now lived under the Reds for several months without paying taxes, came in a delegation to present P'eng with six cartloads of grain and provisions as an expression of gratitude for the relief. Yesterday some peasants presented P'eng with a handsome wooden bed—which amused him very much. He turned it over to the local
ahun.

Li Chou K'ou, September
2. On the road at four
A.M
. P'eng up long before. Met ten peasants, who had come with the army from Yu Wang Pao to help carry the wounded back to the hospital. They voluntarily asked to do this in order to fight Ma Hung-kuei, hated because he'd forced their sons to join the army. A Nanking bomber flew overhead, spotted us, and we scattered for cover. The whole army melted into the landscape. The plane circled twice and dropped one bomb—“laid an iron egg,” or “dropped some bird dung,” as the Reds say—then strafed the horses and flew on to bomb our vanguard. One soldier, slow in taking cover, was wounded in the leg—a slight injury—and after it was dressed he walked without assistance.

From this village, where we are spending the night, very little can be seen. One regiment of the enemy is holding a fort near here, a Fifteenth Army Corps detachment attacking.

From Yu Wang Pao comes a radio message reporting the visit of enemy bombers, which attacked the city and dropped ten bombs this morning. Some peasants were killed and wounded; no soldiers hit.

Tiao Pao Tzu, September 3
. Left Li Chou K'ou, and on the way many peasants came out and brought the soldiers
pai ch'a
(white tea)—i.e., hot water, the favorite beverage in these parts. Mohammedan schoolteachers came over to bid P'eng good-by and thank him for protecting the school. As we neared Tiao Pao Tzu (now over 100
li
west of Yu Wang Pao) some of Ma Hung-kuei's cavalry, withdrawing from an isolated position, ran into our rear. They were only a few hundred yards from us. Nieh Jung-chen,
^*
chief of staff of the First Army Corps, sent a detachment of headquarters cavalry to chase them, and they galloped off in a whirl of dust. A Red pack train was attacked, and another detachment of soldiers was sent to recover the mules and loads. The caravan returned intact.

Tonight some interesting items of news were posted on the bulletin
board. Li Wang Pao is now surrounded, and in a fort near there a trench-mortar shell fell almost directly on Hsu Hai-tung's headquarters. One Young Vanguard was killed and three soldiers were wounded. In another place nearby, a White platoon commander, reconnoitering the Reds' position, was captured by a surprise attack party. The Reds slightly wounded him and sent him back to headquarters. P'eng raised hell over the radio because he was wounded. “Not good united-front tactics,” he commented. “One slogan is worth ten bullets.” He lectured the staff on the united front and how to work it out in practice.

Peasants sold fruit and melons on the road, the Reds paying for everything they bought. One young soldier traded his pet rabbit for three melons in a long transaction with a peasant. After he'd eaten the melons he was very dour, wanting his rabbit back.

Today's news was celebrated by P'eng Teh-huai with a large watermelon feast: the melons here are cheap and excellent.

Tiao Pao Tzu, September
4–5. Liu Hsiao (of the political department) is now working among the Mohammedans near Li Wang Pao. Today he sent a report of some recent developments there. One of Ma's regiments asked to have a Mohammedan sent from the Red Moslem regiment to talk to them. Ma's regimental commander refused to meet the Red delegate, but permitted him to talk to his men.

Wang (this Red Moslem delegate) returned and reported that he had seen Red handbills all over the troops' quarters. He said that after he had talked to the troops for a few hours they became more and more interested, and finally the commander listened in too but, getting worried, decided to have him arrested. The men protested, and he was safely escorted back to the Red lines. The regiment sent a letter in reply to the one which Wang had carried to them from Liu Hsiao. They said they would not retreat because they had been ordered to hold this district, and must do so; that they were ready to make an agreement to fight Japan, but the Reds should negotiate with their division commander; that if the Reds would not fight them, they would not fight the Reds; and that letters and pamphlets sent by the Reds had been distributed among the men.

Two planes bombed a Red cavalry detachment near here today. No men nor horses were hit, but one bomb struck a corner of a village mosque and three old Moslem attendants were killed. This doesn't increase local affection for Nanking.

Tiao Pao Tzu, September
6. A day of rest and recreation. All commanders of the First Army Corps met at P'eng's headquarters for a melon feast, while the soldiers rested and had sports and a melon feast of their own. P'eng called a meeting of all company commanders and
higher, and there was a political session. They permitted me to attend. A summary of P'eng's speech follows:

“Reasons for our movement to these districts are first to enlarge and develop our soviet districts; second, to cooperate with movement and advance of the Second and Fourth Front armies (in south Kansu); third, to liquidate the influence of Ma Hung-kuei and Ma Hung-ping in these regions and form a united front directly with their troops.

“We must enlarge the basis of the united front here. We must decisively influence those White commanders who are now sympathetic and win them over definitely to our side. We have good contacts with many of them now; we must continue our work, by letter, in our press, through delegates, through the secret societies, etc.