Eva Sandberg - Only White Woman at Yan'an

Only White Woman At Yan'an

The First (or Central) Red Army and CCP headquarters had been in northern Shaanxi for four years, having arrived there from their abandoned Jiangxi base. Xiao, a Hunanese and an old classmate of Mao's, took over the editorial department at the Reds' Lu Xun Academy of Arts. Under the exacting conditions of the Second Sino-Japanese War Sandberg here bore Xiao two sons. She was the base's only resident western female; the reporter and spy Agnes Smedley, who famously initiated the leadership's Saturday dances, was a visitor. After five years Sandberg returned to Moscow, taking Xiao's sons. The eventual Japanese surrender did not bring peace to China, of course, as the civil war then sputtered to resumption. In March 1947 the Communists evacuated Yan'an and the National Army general Hu Zongnan occupied it. Only in March 1949, with the leadership ensconced in a western suburb of Beijing, did Xiao board a train for Moscow with a delegation of writers; he was headed to Stockholm for committee work on the Geneva Conventions but very much looked forward to seeing his wife and children however briefly after four years.