This is the title of a talk by An-Wei at the Shanghai International Symposium held March 4- 6, 1987. It is 15 pages and An-Wei’s address is 272 Jiefang Road, Xi’an, China, phone 710309. The is the address of the Shaanxi People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. An-Wei has been director of this provincial organization during the 1980’s. He took care of my television tour in 1978 and since then has translated several of my books. I was surprised to learn that he and his friends (such as Huang Hua) organized an exhibition of my books and papers in Xi’an from July 10 to the end of October 1987, to celebrate my 80th birthday on September 21, 1987 (I was born in 1907), and also my trip to Yan’an in 1937, 50 years ago. “Now in September we’ll always remember Xi’an”- I was there in September and October in 1937, 1978 and earlier in 1936, when Edgar Snow was still with the Red Armies.
I was really surprised to find An-Wei resurrecting my long-buried chief claim to fame - this year after forty-nine years of near oblivion, except in my own mind where I have believed since 1938 that the Indusco Idea will spread all over the third world as the best bridge between internal uneven levels of development and external relations. Since I had to cook up this idea and reinvent the “workers’ self-help industrial producer cooperative society”, which was the first name I used for it, my mind became obsessed with it all during the past 49 years and I have continued to try to promote the Idea in various situations. As the last vice-chairman of the above letterhead committee when it closed in 1952, I revived it in 1981, but not for China only, for any third world area in need of industry and a bridge over civil war or paralyzed conditions. Since 1938 “my own work” (I intended to become a Great Author) was permanently harmed by this fixed Idea taking over my prime time and energy.
Not only did I start Indusco in China, but also in India where in 1942 Jawaharlal Nehru published my book on Indusco and used it as the textbook to start 50,000 co-ops in India. Also in 1938-1939 Edgar Snow and I introduced this idea in the Philippines, where today President Aquino sponsors similar co-ops. Many “workers’ cooperatives”, as they are historically called, have been started in Africa and Latin-America, as well as other continents, especially for refuges relief.
Following An-Wei’s breaking of the ice in March, the exhibition opening on July 10, 1987, in Xi’an, introduced the subject in the committee’s introduction addressed to me: “You initiated the Idea of Gung Ho, organized refuges,” etc.
Next the United States came to life for almost the first time on the story: The New York Times Magazine on July 26, 1987, in Tim Considine’s “On Language” column substituting for Safire, he told how the term “Gung Ho” got into English dictionaries from our Indusco term in Chinese meaning “work-together”, or “gung ho”. Indusco was our cable address. He says: “A young American writer, Helen F. Snow, became convinced that what was needed was a system of small cooperatives… Mrs. Snow and her husband, Edgar Snow… enlisted the help of Rewi Alley”. He then tells of the movie “Gung Ho” of American Marines using this term as the battle cry of Carlson’s Raiders”. Evans F. Carlson was vice-chairman of our national committee above.
I have always been careful to say “we three” started the Gung Ho Indusco movement, even in my book of 1984 (Morrow), My China Years, but it is a much better history that a young woman almost in her 20’s could activate such an industrial revolution in nations so desperately needing it as China and India. The option for a film on My China Years by CBS would be improved for a young generation lacking the “gung ho” spirit. D. R. Reynolds wrote the first history of “The Chinese Industrial Cooperative Movement”, in 1976 (University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich.) His summation was that Helen Foster Snow was “originator of the idea and co-founder of the movement”. It meant using my prime time from 1938 to 1952, however, and afterward. It is really strange that nothing is indicated of the immense effort put forth by me.