Kenneth E. Shewmaker "Americans and Chinese Communists, 1927-1945. A persuading encounter"

This study of the first contacts between Americans and Chinese Communists is part of an increasingly common type of historical inquiry that as yet has no adequate name. It can be called diplomatic history, but it bears little resemblance to the traditional concern of the diplomatic historian with the foreign policies of various countries. It can be called intellectual history, but it is focused less on ideas than on assumptions, images, and perceptions. Yet it is diplomatic history in that it seeks to describe the direct encounter between Americans and Chinese Communists, and intellectual history.

Despite a general indifference about Chinese communism and a lack of authoritative information on the subject, by 1936 there was a growing skepticism of the bandit-remnant interpretation. As early as 1931, Yang Chien and William Prohme had disputed the bandit thesis. Yang, the Assistant Director of the National Research Institute, based his analysis on documents captured from the Communists in Kiangsi during the annihilation campaigns. Critical of his own government for publishing misleading communiqués about “decimated remnants,” he assessed the Chinese Communists as dedicated Marxists tenaciously scheming to install the “Soviet Republic of China.”

In a thoughtful review article in October 1945, Nathaniel Peffer made an attempt to resolve the problem of unanimity in Western reporting on the Chinese Communists. He began by pointing out that there was something in Red China which captured the imagination of “all sorts and conditions of men.” Regardless of occupation, class, previous attitudes or social convictions, a series of individuals, including objective intellectuals, emotional radicals, military officers and neutral correspondents, had returned from Yenan “ardent defenders if not enthusiasts” of the CCP.

First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover 1971.

New book. Name of previous owner from US Army War College on back of hard cover. A couple of tiny taped tears on DJ. Otherwise, book in excellent technical condition.