A generation of real pioneers

During periods of war and conflict, foreign visitors such as physicians Norman Bethune, Richard Frey, Dwarkanath S. Kotnis and Jacob Rosenfeld treated Chinese soldiers injured in battle, despite being hampered by a dire shortage of medicine, medical equipment and the outbreak of disease.

Other visitors, such as journalists Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, Israel Epstein and Hans Shippe, wrote dispatches about the communist troops during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) and the fight against the forces of the nationalist Kuomintang. Kobayashi Kancho, a Japanese veteran who was captured by the Chinese Red Army in 1941, became a passionate anti-war advocate.

Rewi Alley, from New Zealand, was another foreign friend of the CPC. Born in 1897, Alley fought alongside soldiers from East China's Shandong province during World War I. It was during this period in Europe that he got to know Chinese people for the first time.