PBA Galleries

Four leaves of “onion skin” paper, measuring 12¼x7¾”. 

The first report references Susumu Okano (Sanzo Nosaka, using his WWII nom de guerre) chief of the Japanese Communist Party, and his view of the fate of the Japanese Emperor vis-à-vis the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded Japan’s immediate surrender.  Okano supports the retention of a Japanese Emperor only if his powers are strictly reduced. The reportage dated August 19 references a position by the Yenan newspaper Emancipation Daily warning that Chiang Kai-shek will be aligning the KMT with the Japanese “puppets” in order to launch a civil war, pitting the Kuomintang against the Communists. After the Long March, the Communists rebels set up headquarters in the remote caves of Yenan, allowing themselves to regroup and strategize. As their numbers grew and the prospect of their viability increased, English-speaking reporters visited Yenan, often brought under the sway of Mao and Zhou En-Lai. While the newspaper or wire service that commissioned these articles can’t be ascertained, their mere survival over the years and across lands and waters remains intriguing.