2022 Reprint of the 1956 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. A manuscript of this book was left by Miss Smedley at the time of her death in England in 1950. It has the greatest value both for historians and for the general reader. Miss Smedley spent many evenings over a period of years with Teh, probing his life history, recording his reminiscences and answers to her questions. As a biography of the leader of the Chinese Red Army, therefore, this book is and will remain unique, a priceless documentary source for all historians of the Chinese Revolution, present and future.
But it is much more than that. By skillfully weaving the story of Chu Teh into the context of Chinese social and political development, Miss Smedley has succeeded in making modern Chinese history come alive as no other author has done. The drama of the desperately poor peasant boy from a remote region of China who became one of the two principal organizers and guiding spirits of one of the greatest revolutions of all time: this is Miss Smedley's theme, and she handles it superbly. Moreover, thanks to Chu Teh's vivid childhood recollections, we have here an unsurpassed picture of Chinese peasant life and how it gave rise to the movement which finally brought regeneration to nearly a quarter of the human race. Few Americans know China and its people as well as Agnes Smedley did. Her career as correspondent in China started in 1929 when she wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung and later for the Manchester Guardian. When the Japanese invaded China, Miss medley went to the front with the Chinese Eighth Route Army and later became a field member of the Chinese Red Cross Medical Corps in the war zones. She spent two years on the battleground in China, covering thousands of miles of that vast country.
She returned to the United States shortly before Pearl Harbor and here completed the first draft of The Great Road. She was on her way back to her beloved China when she died.