Sidney Rittenberg
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Sidney Rittenberg | |||||||||||||
File:Sidney Rittenberg 20121004 3.jpg
Sidney Rittenberg in 2012
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Chinese | 李敦白 | ||||||||||||
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Sidney Rittenberg (Chinese: 李敦白; pinyin: Lǐ Dūnbái; 14 August 1921 – 24 August 2019) was an American journalist, scholar, and Chinese linguist who lived in China from 1944 to 1980.[citation needed] He worked closely with Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese Communist Revolution, and was with these central Communist leaders at Yan'an.[citation needed] Later, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement, twice.[1] He was the first American citizen to join the CCP.[2]
Contents
Early life
Rittenberg was born into a Jewish family in Charleston, South Carolina and he lived there until his college studies.[3][4] He was the son of Muriel (Sluth) and Sidney Rittenberg,[citation needed] who was president of the Charleston City Council. After attending Porter Military Academy, he turned down a full scholarship to Princeton University and instead attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in philosophy.[citation needed] While attending Chapel Hill, he became a member of the Dialectic Society and the US Communist Party.[5] When he arrived in China, he was sent to bring a $26 check to the family of a girl who was killed by a drunken US soldier.[citation needed] Despite the family's devastation, they gave Rittenberg $6 for his help.[citation needed] It was at that point that "something inside Sidney Rittenberg shifted."[6]
Interpreting for Mao
Rittenberg worked for the Xinhua News Agency and Radio Peking.[2]
First imprisonment
In 1949, immediately before the formal surrender of Beijing to the Communists, Rittenberg said he was summoned to the capital and he went, expecting to play a role in promoting the Communist takeover to the rest of the world. In fact Rittenberg was arrested and placed in solitary confinement, because Stalin had denounced him as a US spy. Rittenberg attributes his survival in solitary confinement to a poem by Edwin Markham:[7]
- They drew a circle that shut me out
- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
- But love and I had the wit to win;
- We drew a circle that took them in.
Cultural Revolution
On his release in 1955 Rittenberg remained a strong supporter of Mao and actively and enthusiastically supported the Great Leap Forward. Later he was a supporter of the Cultural Revolution and briefly associated with Mao's inner circle, leading a group of rebels to take over the state broadcasting institution. On April 8, 1967, the People's Daily published a long article written by him.[8]
Rittenberg said, though, that after he objected to the excesses of the period he was arrested and placed back in solitary confinement, from 1967 to 1977. On his release he emigrated to the United States.
See also
References
Citations
- ↑ Michael Bristow, 'Sidney Rittenberg: Chairman Mao's Favourite American', BBC, 30 June 2011.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Chinese: 中国文化大革命打开了通向共产主义的航道
Sources
Further reading
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (2001 edition: ISBN 978-0-8223-2667-0)
External links
- Video interview with Sidney Rittenberg
- Website for feature documentary on Sidney Rittenberg's life in China
- Interview from 2015
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- Articles with short description
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- 1921 births
- 2019 deaths
- Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
- Jewish American writers
- Jewish socialists
- American communists
- American socialists
- American Marxists
- People of the Cultural Revolution
- Jewish Chinese history
- American expatriates in China
- Pacific Lutheran University faculty
- Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China
- People from Fox Island, Washington