Sidney Rittenberg
Sidney Rittenberg | |||||||||||||||||||
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Sidney Rittenberg in 2012 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 14 August 1921 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 24 August 2019 (aged 98) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Education | Porter-Gaud School | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Political party | Communist Party USA, Chinese Communist Party | ||||||||||||||||||
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Sidney Rittenberg (Chinese: 李敦白; pinyin: Lǐ Dūnbái; August 14, 1921 – August 24, 2019) was an American journalist, scholar, and Chinese linguist who lived in China from 1944 to 1980. He worked closely with Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese Communist Revolution, staying with them at Yan'an. Working for the Xinhua News Agency and Radio Peking afterwards, much of his time in China was spent in long periods of solitary confinement. According to his book, The Man Who Stayed Behind, Rittenberg was the second American citizen to join the CCP, the first being Ma Haide.