 Dixie Mission participants such as John Service were criticized for viewing the CPC leadership as socialist agrarian reformers , who claimed that China under their rule would not follow the violent path of Russia under the Bolsheviks . Instead , socialism would come to China only after economic reforms that preserved capitalism , so as to mature the society to a point where it would be prepared for a peaceful transition to a communist society . This belief was disseminated to the American people prior to and during the war by the popular authors Edgar Snow and Agnes Smedley . In his August 3 , 1944 , report , " The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang , " Service underlined his opinion of the Communists as such and stated : 
