On Her Own: Journalistic Adventures from San Francisco to the Chinese Revolution, 1917-1927 (review)

Reviews 59 Müh/ Bennett. Edited and annotated by A. Tom Grunfeld. On Her Own: JournalisticAdventuresfrom San Francisco to the Chinese Revolution, 1917-1927 Armonk, NewYork: M. E. Sharpe, 1993. xx, 320 pp. Hardcover $39.95, paperback $18.95. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press The remarkable, yet little-known American reporter Milly Bennett edited pro-Chinese Nationalist newspapers in Peking (Beijing) and Hankow (Hankou) in 1926-1927 before moving on to cover revolutionary activities in Moscow (19311936 ) and Spain (1936-1938). She chronicled her China experiences in vivid detail and realistic dialogue before abandoning her attempt at autobiography in the face of publishers' rejections. After reading Bennett's China memoir, written in 1938 but just published under A. Tom Grunfeld's skillful editorship, the reader is left shaking her head with frustration at the American publishing industry and regretting the loss of Bennett's personal insights into other twentieth-century revolutions. In his introduction, Grunfeld cites the book's contributions to three areas of scholarship: the Chinese Nationalist-Communist split in 1927, the role of foreigners in the Chinese revolution, and American women's autobiography His meticulous annotations amplify all of Bennett's contributions. Grunfeld's research is so thorough that this reviewer often wished for a bibliography ofhis references . Grunfeld's decision to follow the romanization system that was in use during Bennett's year in China was an appropriate one, and this romanization will be followed here. Milly Bennett was born Mildred Jacqueline Bremler in 1897; she was the granddaughter of a Jewish-German socialist who had escaped political persecution in 1848. (She was given a new name in 1917 by a managing editor at the San Francisco Daily News, who was concerned about the German sound ofher real name). Describing herself as an "impetuous," "quick-tempered" young woman destined for trouble by her "trusting heart," Bennett aspired to chase international crises and write great books. She worked for the San Francisco Daily News (1917-1921), the Honolulu Advertiser (1921-1926), and briefly for the Shanghai EveningNews (subsidized by the warlord who then controlled Peking, Chang Tso-lin) before accepting a position as editor of the Chung Mei News Service in Peking. 6o China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 The propaganda organ ofthe Nationalist Party, Chung Mei was raided regularly by Chang Tso-lin's forces. Chang considered making propaganda for Chiang Kai-shek to be treasonable, a crime punishable by death by strangulation. Bennettworked for Chung Mei during the fall of1926 and spring of1927, until Chang Tso-lin detained her in connection with his arrest of Communist leader Li Ta-chao in the Soviet Embassy. The United States Embassy, which had agreed to Bennett's detention, bowed to pressure from the American press and facilitated her release after forty-eight hours, on condition that she leave Peking. Bennett made her way to Hankow, where, with the American radical Rayna Prohme, she edited the Hankow People's Tribune until July, when Chiang Kaishek turned against the Wuhan Nationalists and forced the government to fall. With Rayna Prohme, Bennett edited the speech in which Mme. Soong Ch'ingling resigned from the Wuhan government, and then smuggled Mme. Soong out ofHankowbefore finding her own way to Shanghai and the United States. Bennett's account of the 1927 Nationalist-Communist struggle is given in riveting detail. Many of the Chinese, Soviet, and Western participants take on colorful personalities as Bennett describes the daily events of the doomed revolution . This reviewer's personal favorites include Li Ta-chao (a "saint"), Wang Ching-wei ("I wouldn't have trusted him with my aunt's fleabitten parrot"), Mikhail Borodin (not "the foxy manipulator that the Kremlin would have preferred on the job"), Anna Louise Strong ("That steam engine may be the Joan of Arc of Moscow, but she's not about to take over Hankow!"), Rayna Prohme (the attractive red-headed American radical to whom Bennett attributed the quote above), and Soong Ch'ing-ling. As Bennett portrays the latter, the Soong family and Chiang Kai-shek's pressure on her to join the Shanghai government drove her to the brink of nervous exhaustion. Tom Grunfeld meticulously researched the...