The history of the 20th century tells the world that Helen Foster Snow was a great writer, journalist and social activist. Hers is a life of a dedicated quest for truth, goodness and beauty, a life of promoting human progress and world peace. Her life experience was closely connected with the just & arduous struggle of the Chinese people, and her 10-year stay in China was part of the history of our revolution.
While working as a foreign correspondent during W.W.II. Helen Snow did not only report truthfully what had happened, but also told the world what would happen in the near future. It was Helen who foretold, 70 days before Xi'an Incident, the 2nd Cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists in 1936. It was Helen who knew beforehand, as early as in the fall of 1940, that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and advised Americans to evacuate the East. Few of the Americans thought such an attack was possible.
Helen Snow was an outstanding thinker who lived a life ahead of her time. She did not only see the problems in the development of human history, but also produced wonderful ideas to solve them. In the midst of the war-torn economy in China, she initiated the idea of the Gung Ho Industrial Cooperative Movement which turned out to be a great success and ensured the victory of the Chinese War against Japan. Her idea to build up democracy in China from the grass-root level, her idea on the economic pattern of New China, her idea of bridging, her idea on energism, ecology, environmental protection, organic living, electronic pollution, etc., all these ideas have been substantiated by subsequent events. All her ideas were produced on the basis of careful and accurate observation, and objective and independent analysis. "Gnosis and Praxis" was her lifetime motto.
Helen Snow was always the person she had been born to be and lived the life she was destined to live. Her deep love for the people, her whole-hearted dedication to promoting understanding and friendship among the US and Chinese peoples, and her noble moral character, her independent identity have influenced millions of young Chinese and will continue to influence the future generations of our two countries.
Helen Snow worked till the last days of her life for a world of peace, a world of equality and a world without walls. She has left behind her a bridge she started to build, a bridge of understanding and friendship, and a bridge to the future. Ever since I read her books 30 years ago and met her in person in 1978, I began to admire her greatly. My life has been greatly changed through my study of Helen’s life, translating her books and working together with her in the past 19 years. People of my generation as well as future generations will surely carry forward the torch of Sino-American special friendship pioneered by the Snows and the first generation of the Chinese revolutionary leaders.
Now a great woman, who worked for world peace all her life, has passed away peacefully in her sleep. But her works and ideas will remain immortal!
Helen Foster Snow will be well remembered forever in her "Snow Country”, the Northwest of China!