The lives of Agnes Smedley

513 Pages·2005·28.14 MB·English

by  Ruth Price

THE LIVES OF AGNES SMEDLEY
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The Lives of
AGNES SMEDLEY
RUTH PRICE
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2OO5
OXJORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Copyright © 2005 by Ruth Price
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Price, Ruth, 1951-
The lives of Agnes Smedley / Ruth Price.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-019-514189-4
ISBN-IO: o-i9-5i4i89-x
1. Smedley, Agnes, 1892-1950.
2. Authors, American—2oth century—Biography.
3. Journalists—United States—Biography.
4. Feminists—United States—Biography.
5. Radicals—United States—Biography.
6. Espionage, Soviet—United States. I. Title.
PS3537.Mi6z85 2004
818'.5209—dc22 2004014874
Book design and composition by Mark McCarry, Texas Type & Book Works
Set in Electra
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To David
For letting me speak
I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this sub-
ject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell
a man whose house is on fire to give him a moderate alarm; tell him to
moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher... but tell me
not to use moderation in a cause like the present! I am in earnest. I will not
equivocate—I will not retreat a single inch—AND i WILL BE HEARD.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Spelling x
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction i
1 Beginnings 11
2 Emergence as a Radical 34
3 Indian Activism in Greenwich Village 57
4 Moscow Beckons 75
5 Love and Pain in Berlin 100
6 Becoming a Writer 121
7 Bend in the Road 145
8 Comintern Agent in China 171
9 Richard Sorge and the GRU 195
10 Cloak and Dagger in Shanghai 209
11 A Fissure Opens 236
12 An Unruly Agent 256
13 Mutiny in Sian 280
14 Calamity Jane of the Chinese Revolution 301
15 Selfless for the Cause 321
16 Back in the U.S.A. 347
17 The Cold War 374
18 Exile 396
Epilogue 413
A Note on Sources and Citations 425
Notes 431
Index 485
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank the Library of Congress, my home
away from home throughout the many years of this project. Without its extraor-
dinary holdings, this book might well have been completed sooner, but it would
have lacked the same depth. I am particularly grateful there to Thomas Mann
for his unparalleled reference skills, and to Bruce Martin for ensuring that I
always had a room in which to work. Thanks also to Sarah Prichard, George
Caldwell, Carol Armbruster, Beverly Brannon, Jacqueline Goggin, John Earl
Haynes,Virginia Wood, Chris Wright, Judy Lu, Allen Thrasher, Sam Andrusco,
and the late Louis Jacob, whose reference assistance went well beyond the call
of duty. At the National Archives, John Taylor and David Keppley were an
invaluable resource, as was Henry Guzda at the Department of Labor. The
National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian
Studies, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the D.C. Com-
mission on the Arts and Humanities provided critical support at an early stage.
Tappan Mukherjee, Elliot Porter, Krishna Bose, Jane Singh, Barbara Ramusack,
Nirode Barooah, and Kathleen Suneja made the India sections of this book
more possible. E. Grey Diamond, Robert Farnsworth, Lynn Lubkeman, Ruth
Weiss Yeh, Jack Hamilton, Tom Grunfeld, Hugh Deane, Huang Hua, Luo Ying,
Zhou Peiyun, Liu Liqun, Jiang Feng, An Wei, Li Shoubao, Lu Fu-Jia, and the
Smedley-Strong-Snow Society rendered able assistance on the China chapters.
Todd Weinberg, Kate Waiters, Stephen Koch, and Harvey Klehr greatly facili-