The American journalist who chronicled the Russian and Chinese revolutions from the inside, founder of Moscow News
"We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" — editorial on the eve of the Seattle General Strike, 1919
American left-wing journalist and communist. After earning a Chicago PhD, she covered the Seattle General Strike (1919), moved to the USSR in 1921, and co-founded Moscow News (1930). In 1946 she interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an, drawing the famous 'paper tigers' declaration. Expelled from the USSR as a spy in 1949, she was rehabilitated in 1955 and settled in China as an honoured 'foreign friend,' chronicling Mao's China through the Cultural Revolution. With over 30 books, she was an unmatched eyewitness to the century's great communist revolutions.
Career Timeline
- 1885Born in Friend, Nebraska, daughter of a progressive Congregationalist minister
- 1908PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago — dissertation: The Social Psychology of Prayer
- 1916–1918Elected to Seattle School Board; recalled for supporting the IWW and opposing WWI
- 1919Editor, Seattle Union Record; covered the Seattle General Strike from the inside
- 1921Travelled to USSR with AFSC famine relief; settled as Moscow correspondent for International News Service
- 1930Co-founded and edited Moscow News, the USSR's first English-language newspaper
- 1931Married Soviet agronomist Joel Shubin (d. 1942)
- 1937–1938War reporting from the Spanish Civil War and China's anti-Japanese base areas
- 1946Interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an; recorded the famous 'paper tigers' remark
- 1949Arrested by Soviet authorities, expelled as an 'American spy'; rehabilitated in 1955
- 1958–1970Settled permanently in China; honoured as a 'foreign friend' of Mao and Zhou Enlai
- 1970Died of a heart attack in Beijing; memorial attended by Zhou Enlai and Guo Moruo