International Dissemination of the Communist Party of China’s Revolutionary Discourse through Foreign Journalists Visiting China in the Early Yan’an Period

Abstract

During the early Yan’an period, information about the fundamental positions and actual conditions of the Communist Party of China (CPC) remained largely inaccessible to the outside world due to the Kuomintang’s military blockade and strict control over news and public opinion. In response to the practical need to break through this news embargo and discursive containment, Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders proactively invited and actively engaged foreign journalists to visit CPC-controlled areas. The visit of the American journalist Edgar Snow in September 1936 marked the opening of the CPC’s systematic construction of an external discourse framework. Building on this initiative, Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders subsequently invited a number of influential foreign journalists and intellectuals to Yan’an, including Agnes Smedley of The Manchester Guardian, the American freelance journalist Helen Snow (Nym Wales), James Bertram of The Times, Philip Jaffe, editor of Amerasia, and Owen Lattimore, editor of the American journal Pacific Affairs. Through forums and discussions, public lectures, extensive correspondence, and the revision of interview transcripts, CPC leaders articulated the Party’s revolutionary propositions to international audiences. In this process, Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders employed diversified narrative strategies in their external communication, disseminating progressive revolutionary themes at multiple levels and contributing to the construction of the CPC’s revolutionary image on the global stage.