Agnes Smedley was a radical activist from an early age.
Most of her life was spent championing the cause of the oppressed. She held
extreme political views which got her into trouble with the authorities.
Born in Osgood, Missouri on February 23rd
1892, she was the daughter of a labourer Charles Smedley, who deserted the
family when Agnes was 14. As her mother was sickly, Agnes was forced to work as
a domestic, to help support her family. Undeterred by her circumstances, she
passed the New Mexico Teachers Examination, and began to work as a teacher at
the age of 16, in Terico.
In 1911 Agnes joined the Tempe College. It was here that
she became involved in student politics. She married her college mate Ernest
Brunden in 1912, and moved to Teachers College in San Diego. In 1916, she
joined the Socialist Party of America and was dismissed from college for her
socialist beliefs.
Agnes got divorced in 1917 and moved to New York. She
joined a group of Indian students who were supporting their country’s
Nationalist Movement against British rule. She joined the “Friends of Freedom
for India” an organization which was closely monitored by the US government.
Emma Goldman called Agnes a true rebel who seemed to have no other interest in
life except the cause of the oppressed in India. She was also disseminating
information about Birth Control under the influence of Margaret Sanger, a subject
which was taboo at that time. In 1918, she was charged on these two accounts
and sent to prison.
After her release from prison, Agnes began writing
articles for the New York Call and for a British birth control journal run by
Margaret Sanger.
Agnes moved to Berlin in 1920, with the revolutionary
Indian leader Virendranath Chattopadyaya. It was a turbulent relationship with
a man who had ‘a tongue like a razor and a brain like hell on fire.’ She felt
she was living on the brink of a volcanic crater. While in Berlin, she opened
the first Birth Control Clinic.
In 1921, Agnes moved to Russia and got interested in the
communist ideology. She was disillusioned by the lack of freedom of the people
and felt that everybody was under surveillance. In 1928 she moved out of Russia
and went to China. When in China, she spent a great deal of time with communist
forces. She wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian and Chinese Review about
the situation in China. She was aware of the misery and starvation of peasants
and the overworked coolies. Agnes was instrumental in ensuring American support
to the Chinese communists, to prevent the Japanese advancing in the Pacific.
It was here in 1928 that Agnes wrote her autobiographical
novel “Daughter of the Earth.” The book was published in USA and Germany and
received good reviews. It was described as ‘America’s first feminist
proletarian novel.’
In 1941, Agnes went back to the USA. She continued with
her writing and went on lecture tours describing life in China. She also
lectured on world politics. She was dubbed a communist spy, who worked as a
triple agent for the Soviets, China and India. The FBI monitored her speeches,
as she frequently attacked the US government for siding with totalitarian
regimes.
In 1949, Agnes was fed up of the smear campaigns
unleashed against her in the US. So she moved to Oxford, England. By then she
was in poor health and she died at the age of 58, on 6th May 1950.
Agnes Smedley was a complicated person. She acted out of
humane motives, without considering the repercussions of her actions. She lived
a life of extraordinary achievements as a gifted writer, a journalist and a
feminist who had friends like Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman and even Mao Tse
Tung. But her enemies outnumbered her friends because of her political
activism. Freda Utley described her as “one of the great people with burning sympathy
for the misery and wrongs of mankind.”
