Anna Louise Strong
Anna Louise Strong | |
---|---|
Born | Friend, Nebraska, U.S. | November 24, 1885
Died | March 29, 1970 Beijing, China | (aged 84)
Burial place | Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery |
Alma mater | Bryn Mawr College Oberlin College University of Chicago |
Spouse | Joel Shubin (1931–1942) |
Anna Louise Strong (November 24, 1885 – March 29, 1970) was an American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for
Biography
Early years
Strong was born on November 24, 1885, in a "two-room
She first attended
At this point, Strong was still convinced that capitalism was responsible for poverty, and sufferings of the working class.
Strong also enjoyed
Political career
In 1916, Strong ran for the Seattle School Board and won easily due to the support she garnered from women's groups and
The year she was elected to the Seattle School Board, the
Strong's endorsement of left-wing causes set her apart from her colleagues on the school board.
...it is quite commonly felt in this vicinity that persons with personal grudges need only call in the Department of Justice and lodge complaint, in order to make life miserable for the person they complain against...it has become increasingly evident, however, at least in this vicinity, that the activities of the Department of Justice are doing more than any other one thing to create distrust, suspicion, and dissension among the American people...Wild accusations and attempts to injure persons and organizations who cannot be prosecuted because of lack of evidence does not tend to create confidence in the government...it is my hope that somewhere in your department I may reach some person who sincerely desires to create within this country the unity of democratic loyalty, rather than the hidden disunion of fear
The pacifist stance of the Wobblies led to mass arrests at the Seattle office where Louise Olivereau was a typist. Olivereau had been mailing mimeographed circulars to draftees urging them to become
After this, Strong's fellow school board members were quick to launch a recall campaign against her due to her association with the IWW, and won by a narrow margin.[1][6][9] 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 in 1918.[6][4][9] As a result, Strong went "elsewhere in search of socialism in practice" with her search bringing her first to the Soviet Union where she stayed from 1921 to 1940 for part of the year, returning to the U.S. "for a lecture tour, usually between January and April."[1][3]
Journalistic career
Early career
Strong became openly associated with the Seattle's labor-owned daily newspaper, The strike shut down the city for four days and then ended peacefully and with its goals still unattained.
Move to Russia
At a loss as to what to do she took her friend
After remaining in the area for several years, Strong grew to become an enthusiastic supporter of socialism in the newly formed Soviet Union, supporting herself as a foreign correspondent for varying "radical American newspapers" and others such as The Nation.[6][18][19] 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. As she continued to "wave the banner for the needy and downtrodden" wherever there was a revolution there was "Ms. Strong," and she became further convinced by what she experienced that socialism might be the answer to problems in the world.[7] There were even invitations sent out to "hear Anna Louise Strong discuss her travels in Russia."[20]
Travels in Asia
In the late 1920s, Strong traveled in China and other parts of Asia. She became friends with
Return to Moscow, Soviet writer
In 1930, she returned to Moscow and helped found
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).[4][9] She also wrote several articles for The American Mercury praising Soviet life.[23]
Return to America
In 1936, she returned once again to the United States. Quietly and privately distressed with developments in the USSR (The "
Further travels
A visit to Spain resulted in Spain in Arms (1937); visits to China, visiting anti-Japanese "base areas," leading to her book One Fifth of Mankind (1938).
While in the USSR she traveled throughout the huge nation, including the
Break with USSR
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. Her overtly pro-Chinese Communist sympathies, which had been fostered by her visits to China in 1925 and until 1947 in which she interviewed Chinese Communist leaders like Mao Zedong, may have led to her "arrest, imprisonment and expulsion" from the USSR in 1949, reportedly claiming she was an "American spy," a charge which reportedly was repeated years later, in 1953, by the Soviet newspaper Izvestia.[1][4][8][9][29]
Strong became a celebrity in China because of her 1946 interview of Mao, in which Mao stated that American people should unite with the peoples of all countries to oppose U.S. reactionaries and their allies.[30]: 32-33
After this, she was cut off from the USSR, shunned by Communists in the United States, and denied a passport by the U.S. government, settling in California where she wrote, lectured, and "invested in real estate."
"I was 72 then, living in Los Angeles where I had more friends than anywhere else. I owned a town house, a summer lodge in the mountains, a winter cabin in the desert, a car and a driver's license to take myself about. I had income to live on for life. Should I go to China now?"[32]
Cleared of Soviet charges, final move to China
In 1955, she was finally cleared of Soviet charges against her, which the CIA thought was a "gesture to the Chinese Communists." By 1958 her passport was restored, after she won a case at the U.S. Supreme Court, and she immediately went back to China, where she remained until her death.[1][8][9][33][34] She was one of the only Westerners to gain "the admiration of Mao Tse-tung [Mao Zedong]".[6]
Final years in China
Strong met
From 1962 to 1966, Strong published Letters from China in which she and other U.S. expats in China praised Chinese socialism.[37]: 33
Partly from fear of losing her passport should she return to the US, she settled permanently in China until her death.[3][4] During that time she fostered a close relationship with Zhou Enlai and was on familiar terms with Mao Zedong.[38] It was in an interview with her, in August 1946, that Mao propagated his famous catchphrase of "paper tigers".[39][40][41]
Two years after that, she made a keynote speech on China's realities and tried to change the stance of the U.S. government in backing the
In the later part of her life, Strong was "honored and revered by the Chinese," despite reports in the Toronto Star that the Red Guards were calling her an "imperialist agent," and even remained "in the good graces of the Chinese through the
By 1970 she was staying at a hospital in Beijing (then Peking), where she had been pulling out her "intravenous tubes and had refused to eat and take medication".[7] She was reportedly visited by Premier Zhou Enlai, Guo Moruo, and other high government officials. Zhou Enlai had encouraged her to cooperate with the doctors in the hospital because "you have important things to do for us and the rest of the world". Strong died of a heart attack on March 29, 1970.[7][4][8][9]
Legacy
Strong's papers reside at the Libraries Special Collections at the University of Washington in Seattle.[4] Within the papers of Eleanor Roosevelt are "reports from Anna Louise Strong during and after her visits to Russia and China" although this does not mean there was any relationship, professionally, between Strong and Eleanor.[43] Strong's distant cousin Maurice Strong, played an important role in the environmental movement, including in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).[44][relevant?]
Selected works
Fiction
- Storm Songs and Fables. Chicago: Langston Press. 1904.
- King's Palace. Illinois: Oak Leaves. 1908. (one-act play)
- The Song of the City. Oak Park, Illinois: Oak Leaves Company. c. 1908.
- Ragged Verse. Seattle: Piggott-Washington. 1937. (poems, by Anise)
- Wild River. Boston: Little, Brown. 1943. (novel, set in Ukraine)
- God and the Millionaires. Montrose, California: Middlebury College. 1951. (poems, by Anise)
Religious tracts and social work
- Biographical Studies in the Bible. Pilgrim Press. 1906. (co-author with Sydney Strong, her father)
- Bible Hero Classics. Hope Publishing Company. 1906–1908. (co-author with Sydney Strong, her father), including The story of Jacob in words of the Scripture (found in Genesis) and likely the Song of the City.
- The Psychology of Prayer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1909.
- Boys and Girls of the Bible. Chicago: Howard-Severance. 1911.
- On the Eve of Home Rule: snapshots of Ireland in the momentous summer of 1914. Austin: O'Connell Press. 1914.
- Child-welfare Exhibits: Types and Preparation. U.S. Children's bureau. Miscellaneous series; no. 4. Bureau publication, no. 14. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1915.
Reportage and travelogues
- The First Time in History: Two Years of Russia's New Life. New York: Boni & Liveright. 1924. (with preface by Leon Trotsky), also on Internet Archive.
- Children of Revolution; story of the John Reed Children's Colony on the Volga, which is as well a story of the whole great structure of Russia. Seattle: Sydney Strong. 1925.
- Modern Farming – Soviet Style: The Revolution in the Russian Village. Boston: International Publishers. 1930., also available at Hathi Trust.
- The Road to the Grey Pamir. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 1931.
- The Soviets Conquer Wheat. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1931.
- China's millions: the revolutionary struggles from 1927 to 1935. New York: Knight Publishing Company. 1935.
- The Soviet World. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1936.
- Spain in Arms, 1937. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1937.
- The New Soviet Constitution: A Study in Socialist Democracy. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1937.
- One-fifth of mankind. Modern age books; no. 69. New York: Modern Age Books. 1938.
- Lithuania's New Way. Boston: Lawrence and Wishart. 1941.
- The Soviets Expected It. New York: The Dial Press. 1942.
- Soviet Farmers. New York: National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. 1944.[45]
- Peoples of the USSR. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1944., second printing in 1945.
- I Saw The New Poland. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1946.
- Tomorrow's China. New York: Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy. 1948.
- Inside North Korea: an Eye-witness Report. )
- The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream Publishers. 1956., also in a PDF format.
- The rise of the Chinese people's communes. Peking: New World Press. 1959.
- Tibetan interviews. Peking: New World Press. 1959.
- When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet. Peking: New World Press. 1960., also on Internet Archive
- Cash and Violence in Laos and Vietnam. New York: Mainstream Publishers. 1962.
- Letters from China, Numbers 1–10. Peking: New World Press. 1963.
Autobiography
- I Change Worlds: the Remaking of an American. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1935. (republished 1979 by The Seal Press, Seattle—the Introduction by Barbara Wilson contains the statement: "She left behind a second volume of autobiography which, so far, has remained in China.")
See also
Notes
- ISBN 0-520-22965-7p. 166
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Archives West, "Anna Louise Strong papers, 1885-1971," deriving from this page Archived November 16, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, accessed January 26, 2018. Archived here.
- ^ The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Anna Louise Strong: American journalist and scholar, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g John Cory, "TV: 'WITNESS TO REVOLUTION,' ANNA LOUISE STRONG, The New York Times, March 22, 1986.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac "Today in history: Anna Louise Strong is born, changes worlds," People's World, November 24, 2015.
- ^ University of Pennsylvania, "Online Books by Anna Louise Strong," accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Mildred Andrews, "Strong, Anna Louise (1885-1970)," HistoryLink, November 7, 1998.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n B. K. Clinker, "Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970) Archived August 20, 2019, at the Wayback Machine," Knox Historical Society, 2004, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Reuters, "Anna Louise Strong Dies in Peking at 84," reprinted in The New York Times, March 30, 1970, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Darren Selter, "Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong," University of Washington, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ISBN 978-1770098138.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "A Consideration of Prayer from the Standpoint of Social Psychology," 1908, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Dave Galvin, "Sahalie Historical Note #9:Our Neighbors, Washington Alpine Club," January 2011, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Letter to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC from Anna Louise Strong in Seattle, Dec. 14, 1917," Marxist History, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "No One Knows Where," The Seattle Union Record, February 4, 1919, p. 1; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Rebecca G. Jackson, "The Politics of Gender in the Writings of Anna Louise Strong," Seattle General Strike Project, 1999, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Children of Revolution," Piggott Printing, 1925; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "The First Time in History," Boni & Liveright, 1925; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Stalin 'The Voice of the Party' Breaks Trotsky: The Rubber-Stamp Secretary Versus the Fiery Idealist Sidelights on the Russian Revolution," Gateway, mid-December 1925, pp. 18-24; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Moscow Looks at Dumbarton Oaks Archived January 27, 2018, at the Wayback Machine," The Nation, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Invitation to meet Miss Anna Louise Strong, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries Special Collections and University ArchivesW. E. B. Du Bois Papers, 1803-1999 (bulk 1877-1963), accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e China Daily, "Anna Louise Strong," September 29, 2010, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Cattoi, Louise (February 26, 1984). "Strong live, strongly written". Retrieved March 10, 2016.[permanent dead link]
- ^ See, e.g., "We Soviet Wives,"(August 1934), "The Soviets Fight Bureaucracy," (September 1934), and "The Soviet 'Dictatorship'" (October 1934).
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "The Terrorists' Trial," Soviet Russia Today, Vol. 5 No. 8, October 1936, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "The Kuomintang-communist crisis in China: a first-hand account of one of the most critical periods in Far Eastern history," Reprinted from 'Amerasia,' March 1941, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Strong, "Stalin," The Soviets Expected It, The Dial Press, New York, 1941, pp. 46-64; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Women in The Stalin Era," accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Jack Brad, "Peking versus Moscow: the case of Anna Louise Strong, part 1," Worker's Liberty, October 8, 2009, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ "SOVIET AUTHOR BARES RECORD OF U.S. SPIES AGAINST USSR," CIA reprint of article, February 9, 1953, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ISBN 9781501774157.
- ISBN 9781844672424.
- ^ "Letters from China. Anna Louise Strong 1963". www.marxists.org. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
- ^ CIA, "SOVIET REVERSAL OF CHARGES AGAINST ANNA LOUISE STRONG SEEN AS GESTURE TO PEIPING," 1955, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ "Strong, Anna Louise," Nebraska Historical Society, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ University of Massachusetts Amherst, "Mao Zedong, Anna Louise Strong, and W.E.B. Du Bois, ca. 1959," University of Massachusetts Amherst, accessed January 26, 2018.
- CIA, "Anna Louise Strong," 1958, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ISBN 9781501774157.
- ^ a b Final Approaches: A Memoir by Gerald Hensley, page 171 (2006, Auckland University Press)
- ISBN 978-1-107-05467-7.
- ^ Anna Louise Strong, "Talk with Mao," Selected Works of Mao-Tse Tung Vol. IV, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1969; Marxists Internet Archive, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Wilson Center, "Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong," August 1946, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Toronto Star, "Red Guard Accuses Anna Louise Strong," CIA reprint, June 16, 1968, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Frances M. Seeber, ""I Want You to Write to Me": The Papers of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt," Summer 1987 issue of Prologue, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Maurice Strong biography, mauricestrong.net, accessed January 26, 2018.
- ^ Soviet Farmers. Pocket library on the U.S.S.R. New York: National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. 1944.
Further reading
- Cattoi, Louise, "Strong life, strongly written Archived October 27, 2018, at the Wayback Machine," Milwaukee Journal, February 24, 1984, book review about the life of Anna Louise Strong.
- Herken, Gregg (2002). Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
- Jackson, Rebecca, The Politics of Gender in the Writings of Anna Louise Strong, Seattle General Strike Project, 1999.
- Kim Il-sung (August 8, 1947). Talk to American Journalist Anna Louis [sic] Strong (PDF).[permanent dead link]
- Mao Zedong (August 1946). "Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Luise Strong". Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Vol. IV. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. OCLC 898328894.
- — (July 14, 1956). "U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger". Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Vol. V. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. OCLC 898328894.
- — (November 18, 1957). "All reactionaries are paper tigers". Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Vol. V. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. OCLC 898328894.
- Strong, Tracy B.; Keyssar, Helene (1983). Right in Her Soul: the Life of Anna Louise Strong. New York: Random House.
External links
- Anna Louise Strong Archive at marxists.org
- Anna Louise Strong Papers, 1885–1971. Approximately 24 cubic feet (49 boxes, 2 packages, 2 tubes, 4 vertical files, 14 microfilm reels). At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
- Strong Family Papers, 1832–1994. 2.09 cubic feet. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
- Sydney Strong Papers, 1860–1938. 5.75 linear feet plus 4 ephemeral items. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
- Anna Louise Strong from the Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project, University of Washington.
- Newspaper clippings about Anna Louise Strong in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- The Papers of Anna L. Strong at Dartmouth College Library