And the woman who could win the respect of man was often the woman who could knock him down with her bare fists and sit on him until he yelled for help.
Agnes Smedley
2
But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be.
Agnes Smedley
3
Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
Agnes Smedley
4
For months it seemed that a revolution was certain. But instead, slavery seems more likely now. The working class no longer has the physical resistance for a revolution, and the Entente is too strong, and Russia is too weak.
Agnes Smedley
5
For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.
Agnes Smedley
6
Germany is in terrible condition this year. This is particularly true of the working masses, who are so undernourished that tuberculosis is having a rich harvest, particularly of adolescent children.
Agnes Smedley
I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
Agnes Smedley
9
I have written for years of the Red Army, yet my first living contact with it was with these peasants. They did not understand me.
Agnes Smedley
10
I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.
Agnes Smedley
11
In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.
Agnes Smedley
12
Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection; to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.
Agnes Smedley
13
More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England's back forever and free Europe itself. It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
Agnes Smedley
14
My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike. She said little, especially when my father or the men who worked for him were about I remember her instinctive and unhesitating sympathy for the miners.
Agnes Smedley
15
No one yet knows what a man's province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial.
Agnes Smedley
16
Now and then some Party member would announce a study circle, and I would join it, along with some ten or twelve working men and women.
Agnes Smedley
17
Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.
Agnes Smedley
18
So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital. There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.
Agnes Smedley
19
There are many men - such as those often to be found among the Indians - who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.
Agnes Smedley
20
We make a merry hell for each other, I assure you. He is rapidly growing grey, under my influence, I fear. And that tortures me.
Agnes Smedley
21
What a couple. I'm consumed into ashes. And he's always raking up the ashes and setting them on fire again.
Agnes Smedley
22
When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
Agnes Smedley
23
Yet it is awful to love a person who is a torture to you. And a fascinating person who loves you and won't hear of anything but your loving him and living right by his side through all eternity!
Agnes Smedley
