During the writing of Red Star over China, Helen and Edgar had many arguments over including the whole story.
He asked her to cut down Mao Zedong's story and digest it for his book. He said he was going to rewrite some of it anyway, in his own words. She was horrified and protested: "But this is a classic. It's priceless." She held that Mao Zedong's story would be the heart of the book, the backbone. It gave Mao's whole background in perfect form. She further argued that Edgar shouldn't touch it, but should use every word as Mao had told it to him. "Why, this is like having George Washington at Valley Forge tell the story of the Revolution.⑧"
Edgar Snow thought that he couldn't put a big indigestible lump like that in a book. It would kill any sale the book might have. When Helen was copying his notes, he ordered her to leave out all the lists of names and places and armies. Nevertheless, she sat down and copied every handwritten word exactly as told to him, lists of names and all. She thought that "this was the inner history of the Communist movement, boring though it may be to some potential readers." She knew "it would make the book of permanent value for years and years."⑨
Helen felt very strongly about the writing of Red Star over China during her visit to Yan'an. On the one hand she was afraid that Edgar might cut the manuscript at will in her absence; on the other hand she raised many timely and constructive suggestions about the manuscript in view of the changed situation. In the summer of 1937, the Communist Party and the Kuomintang were having their tough negotiations on the 2nd cooperation, and the United Front might be officially established at any time. Helen passed on the request from Yan'an and helped Edgar revise his manuscript of Red Star. On May 21, she wrote in her letter to him: "Chen Keng wants to be very careful and not to publish anything unfavorable about CKS (Chiang Kai shek)." Four weeks later, again she advised him: "Chen Keng wrote a special letter here yesterday again asking you to make the changes in his autobiography to leave out the incident of saving CKS and also of his interview in Nanking with CKS. He is now going to do special united front work, and this may actually ruin it, he says if the book is not publishing now, you can send these corrections in time or at least don't make any comment on CKS at all in Chen Keng's story."⑩
Red Star over China is praised as "a classic encyclopedia" for the study of the Chinese revolution and construction. Brilliant in exposition and fascinating to readers, it has not only had great literary value, but also has a wealth of historical data. Today when we pick up this book again to read and study, we should also appreciate all the efforts by Helen Foster Snow, Edgar Snow's wife at that time, his faithful co worker and critic.
After their marriage in 1932, Edgar Snow actually had much more freedom than ever before. New options opened up. He had someone 'behind him to take full responsibility for everything but his own work, and at any cost Helen insisted that everything else should be subordinated to that. Their division of labor was that he should earn the income while she was responsible for everything else, including encouraging him in his travels and work. All during their marriage, Helen protected Edgar Snow completely from distractions or interruptions until lunchtime. She was giving up the little things for the big things, by an act of conscious will. She never whined and complained or felt any deprivation. She had a motto saying "'enjoy what you have if I do not have what I like, 1 like what I have."
Two years ago I worked together with Helen Snow for a year, during which we had many long talks. But I never heard that she had ever uttered a word of complaint about Edgar Snow. She always holds that her marriage with Edgar Snow was a Gung Ho marriage, cooperative and productive. After the divorce in 1949, Edgar had a new family and two children this was what she felt he deserved after decades of his hard work. In her memoir however, Helen thus summed up their work and life during the marriage:
"I think of those two young people in their twenties. How brave they were, how little they asked of anyone, even of each other, how much they gave and without even mentioning it, not even to each other. It was an experience worthy of a better ending than the divorce in 1949, yet the end was implicit in it. What is a good play without pathos, without tragedy, without conflict, without the struggle between good and evil?"