Harrison Forman Diary, China, June-July 1944, Part 2

This is the second in a series of four diaries Harrison Forman, photojournalist, wrote while on a historic visit to Yan'an, China, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and Eight Route Army. Prior to this visit, frictions between the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) led by Chiang Kai-shek and the CPC led by Mao Zedong, prevented journalists from entering the communist areas. As a precursor to the arrival of the United States Army Observation Group to Yanan (also known as the Dixie Mission) in July of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek granted permission for a group of foreign correspondents, including Forman, to enter the region and report on the Chinese Communist Party to U.S. readers. Forman used this diary and the rest in the series as a basis to write his book, Report from Red China, published in 1946. Forman begins this diary interviewing Wu Man-yu, an infamous labor hero; Sanzo Nosaka, director of the Japanese People's Emancipation League; as well as a Japanese spy. Forman describes a series of plays he attended called the "Living Newspaper" in which communist actors present propaganda stories. He visits a nearby medical college and the Bethune International Peace Hospital where Forman learns how patients are treated with limited equipment and supplies. Forman visits the Giefang Rhbao, Siu Hua News Agency, the official newspaper of the CPC. Also, Forman visits an arsenal where weapons are made, a weaving mill, leather factory, and a paper mill. Communist General Ye Jianying gives a report to the group, describing the current military situation, numbers and locations of Japanese, Kuomintang, and CPC troops. Forman interviews George Hatem, in China anonymously as Ma Hai-teh, an American doctor who treated Mao and other communist leaders. He tours Yan'an University with its president, Chow Yang, who tells Forman about the curriculum and the students' required participation in production. Forman interviews Wang Shiwei, a controversial Chinese writer who the Kuomintang had falsely accused the CPC of killing and who is ultimately killed by the CPC several years after this diary was written. Forman ends with an account of a joint session of the communist border region government and the Standing Committee of the People's Political Council. He meets with "labor heros" who tell Forman their stories of how the CPC helped them transform from loafers to top producers.The diaries are part of the Harrison Forman Papers 1931-1974 housed at the Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries. UWM Libraries received the dairies on a loan from the Special Collections & University Archives at the University of Oregon Libraries and digitized them to accompany the digital collection of Forman's photographs. The diaries were digitized to provide research materials for the Forman's negatives scanned as part of the NEH grant project "Saving and Sharing the AGS Library's Historic Nitrate Negative Images.