Soldiers of the Second Front Army after the march.
The Long March, which would prove to be one of the most significant military campaigns in modern history, began on October 16, 1934. It lasted for nearly two years for some forces and ultimately not only saved the Chinese Red Army from annihilation but also elevated Mao Zedong to prominence and leadership within the Communist Party due to his successful political and military lines during it.
In honour of this we are posting an article from the Chinese magazine China Reconstructs from 1976 detailing the epic campaign through all its twists, setbacks and advances. It is a remarkable story of courage and endurance.
Article by Ko Shih (Please note this article contains translations of some place names and people's names that are no longer in use and are considered out of date):
FORTY years ago the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, predecessor of the People's Liberation Army, undertook a strategic shift without precedent in history.
Led by Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, Red Army units started out from the Central Revolutionary Base at Juichin in Kiangsi province and other bases in the Yangtze River valley, broke through constant encirclements, pursuits, obstructions and interceptions by several hundred thousand Kuomintang troops, overcame the interference of the opportunist lines within the Party, conquered untold hardships and finally reached the base in north Shensi province.
The 12,500-kilometer march through 11 provinces was an epic written in blood and sweat. Its completion opened up broad new horizons for the Chinese people's revolution and greatly strengthened their faith in victory.
Background
Before the Long March the Chinese people's agrarian revolutionary war had made considerable progress. On August 1, 1927 the Communist Party had led an armed uprising at Nanchang, Kiangsi province. It was the first shot fired against the Kuomintang reactionaries. In September Chairman Mao led the Autumn Harvest Uprising on the borders of Kiangsi and Hunan provinces, founded the first Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and established the Chingkang Mountain base, the first of many rural revolutionary bases. This was the beginning of the road the Chinese revolution was to follow through to success — surround the cities with the rural areas and finally seize the cities.
Soon after, Chairman Mao built a central base around Juichin, Kiangsi province, and formed the First Front Army (or Central Red Army). Guided by the Marxist-Leninist line advocated by Chairman Mao, in the autumn and winter of 1927 the Chinese Communist Party began more uprisings and armed struggles in more than a dozen provinces. More revolutionary bases were established, more units of the Red Army formed and the masses mobilized. The agrarian revolution deepened.
The swift advance of the revolution panicked the Kuomintang. They launched campaigns of "encirclement and suppression" against the bases led by the Communist Party, hoping to put out the flames of the revolution. From winter 1930 to spring 1933 they unleashed four such campaigns against the Red Army's central base area. Because the enemy was stronger, Chairman Mao worked out strategic principles for active defense — luring the enemy in deep and crushing him within the base area — and a whole set of combat principles for a people's war. By following these, the Red Army smashed all four campaigns.
By October 1933 the Japanese imperialists had stepped up their aggression. The Kuomintang headed by Chiang Kai-shek ignored the threat to national survival and instead mustered a million troops for their fifth and biggest campaign against the Red Army. Half of this force was thrown at the Central Red Army and Central Revolutionary Base.
The provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party dominated by the Wang Ming "Left" opportunist line, which had moved from the Kuomintang-held area to the central base, removed Chairman Mao from leadership of the Red Army and acted on a series of mistaken political and military principles and policies.
First, it made the Red Army mount adventurist attacks against well defended strongholds in enemy areas, trying to engage the enemy outside the basic area. When this failed, it turned to conservatism, setting up defenses everywhere and fighting defensive actions at every step. It did not dare attack the enemy's rear, which would have dealt him an effective blow, nor did it dare lure him deep into its own territory and concentrate a superior force to wipe him out. Instead it engaged the enemy in positional warfare and contests of attrition. After a year of bitter fighting the Rod Army was unable to break the encirclement and was forced to move from its bases.
The Shift Begins
In October 1934 the Central Red Army left the base in Juichin. The Sixth Corps of the Red Army based in the Hunan-Kiangsi border area had left earlier, in August. The 25th Army left its base on the borders of Plupeh, Honan and Anhwei provinces in November 1934. The Fourth Front Army left its base in the Szechuan-Shensi border area in March 1935. In November 1935 the Second and Sixth Corps left the Hunan-Hupeh Szechuan-Kweichow border area.
Chiang Kai-shek immediately sent huge numbers of troops in pursuit. Frightened, the leaders pushing the Wang Ming line turned to flightism, which caused heavy losses. After the Central Red Army broke through four enemy blockades and crossed the Hsiangchiang River at enormous cost, these leaders insisted on following their original plan to advance toward west Hunan where huge Kuomintang forces were waiting for them. The Red Army could well have been wiped out.
At this point Chairman Mao proposed shifting westward toward Kweichow where enemy forces were relatively weak. This had the support of the majority of the leaders in the Party and the Army. Taking the enemy by surprise, the Central Red Army marched west into Kweichow and on January 7, 1935 took Tsunyi, an important city in the north of the province. The army was saved. But the Wang Ming line had already done its work. Only 30,000 were left of the Central Red Army's 80,000 men. Other units also suffered similar losses.
Turning Point
Their bitter experience had shown the Party members and the men of the Red Army that the revolution had suffered setbacks basically because of the Wang Ming line repudiation of Chairman Mao's leadership and rejection of his revolutionary line. They demanded a change in Party and Army leadership and line and that Chairman Mao be put in the leading post.
In January 1935, at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee, the military mistakes under the Wang Ming line were criticized, its rule in the Party Central Committee ended, and Chairman Mao's leadership was firmly established in the Party and the Army. The Party line was brought into the orbit of Marxism-Leninism. This turning point, the most significant in the history of the Communist Party, saved the Party, the Red Army and the Chinese revolution, and laid the foundation for the eventual victory of the Long March and the advance of the Chinese revolution. From then on the Chinese revolution and revolutionary war went steadily from victory to victory.
After the Tsunyi Meeting Chairman Mao's proletarian line in army building began to be carried out.
Under the "Left" opportunist line the Red Army had been purely a fighting force, with no other role. Now it also shouldered the important tasks of working among the masses, teaching, organizing and arming them. In some places it helped the masses establish revolutionary political power and set up Party and mass organizations. Where conditions permitted, it mobilized the masses for antifeudal struggles — expropriating tyrant landlords and distributing their land to the peasants. Inspired, the people helped the Red Army raise funds and secure provisions and sent their sons and husbands to join the army.
Mobile Warfare
After the Tsunyi Meeting Chairman Mao assumed direct leadership of the work of the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee and personally directed Red Army operations.. The Central Red Army now adopted flexible strategy and tactics and was able to seize the initiative everywhere, never again to be cornered and beaten as it had been under the "Left" opportunist line.
By this time Chiang Kai-shek had massed several hundred thousand troops which were bearing down on the Central Red Army, hoping to wipe it out when it reached areas northwest of the Wuchiang River. Chairman Mao decided that the Red Army should leave the Tsunyi area and head for the Yangtze River, cross over to its north bank and go to west or northwest Szechuan to establish a base. This would create the conditions for an eventual shift to strategic counterattack.
Toward the end of January 1935 the Central Red Army crossed the Chihshui River, which flows near the borders of Szechuan, Kweichow and Yunnan provinces, and came to south Szechuan, planning to cross to the north bank of the Yangtze River. But Chiang Kai-shek had already fortified defenses on the Yangtze, rushed troops both to pursue and block the Red Army and hoped to annihilate it before it could cross the river. To counter the move, Chairman Mao put off the plan to cross the Yangtze, prepared for mobile operations in the border area of the three provinces, and ordered Red Army units to converge on Chasi in northeast Yunnan. The enemy plan fizzled.
In mid-February when the enemy was closing in on Chasi from different routes and had left Kweichow without strong defenses. Chairman Mao suddenly turned the Red Army around, recrossed the Chihshui River and retook Tsunyi and other places, demolishing or routing two enemy divisions and eight regiments. In consternation, Chiang Kai-shek rushed to Chungking in Szechuan province to take personal command of the encirclement operations. In mid-March the Red Army crossed the Chihshui for the third time and again entered south Szechuan. When enemy troops hurried toward south Szechuan, the Red Army again entered Kweichow, crossed the Chihshui for the fourth time, force marched south and at the end of March crossed the Wuchiang River, leaving the main enemy force on the north bank.
Chairman Mao's moves in crossing the Chihshui River four times in two months, shifting the Red Army back and forth in the midst of several hundred thousand enemy troops on the borders of Szechuan, Yunnan and Kweichow, were a good example of mobile warfare. His tactics smashed the enemy scheme to wipe out the Red Army.
Chiang Kai-shek had come to Kweiyang from Chungking. The Red Army, now in the north and northeast of Kweiyang, feinted an attack on the city while also pretending to move east into Hunan province. Fooled, Chiang Kai-shek ordered his troops to close in on Kweiyang and the area to its north east. But while the enemy troops were still on the move, the Red Army bypassed Kweiyang on its east, quickly marched south, turned west and entered Yunnan province, threatening Kunming. As expected, the enemy troops hastily turned around toward Kunming, but the Red Army suddenly veered northwest and came to the south bank of the Chinsha River (the upper Yangtze), where enemy defenses were weak, and in early May took the ferry at Chiaochetu.
The Chinsha is wide and swift, flanked by high mountains. With the Chiang troops in desperate pursuit, delay here meant being trapped and destroyed in the deep valley. But the town of Chiaochetu on the opposite bank was closely guarded. Enlisting the help of the local people the Red Army found a boat and the advance unit crossed over under cover of night. The men captured seven more boats on the north bank and day and night ferried soldiers across. By the time the enemy's main force arrived several days later the boats had been burned and the Red Army was gone, leaving nothing behind but some worn out straw sandals.
This was a decisive victory for the Red Army in its Long March, for it had shaken off enemy encirclements, pursuits, obstructions and interceptions and now held the strategic initiative.
Through a Minority Area
After a brief rest in Huili in southwest Szechuan the Red Army continued northward. Soon it entered the Liangshan Mountains where the people of the Yi nationality lived. Swindling and fleecing by Han merchants and oppression and plunder by Kuomintang warlords had made the Yis extremely hostile toward the Hans.
Naturally the Yis thought the Red Army no different from the Kuomintang armies. With great patience officers and men explained the nature of the Red Army and what it stood and fought for. Strictly following the Communist Party's policy on minority nationalities, the army men respected the Yi people's customs and living habits. Everywhere they went they helped the poor, treated the sick, opened up granaries and distributed the grain taken from them by the Kuomintang. In one town they opened the prison and released Yis jailed by the Kuomintang. The army gave them clothes, bolts of cloth and money.
Slowly the Yis realized that the Red Army was truly fighting for the liberation of the working people of all nationalities. They would greet the men with shouts of "Red Army kashasha" (Thanks to the Red Army) and "Red Army wawakul" (Long live the Red Army). Many young men joined the Red Army. Whenever the Red Army left a village, young and old came out to say farewell.
In dealing with the upper social strata of the Yis, the Red Army worked to dispel doubts and hostility by patient explanation. In a Yi ceremony at one place a Red Army commander became the sworn brother of a tribal chief and the two exchanged gifts. In this way the Red Army was able to win the help of the Yis and cross the area without trouble.
Crossing the Tatu
In late May 1935 the Central Red Army advance unit took Anshunchang on the south side of the Tatu River and got ready to cross.
A big tributary of the upper Yangtze, the river here was only 300 meters wide, but the swirling current flowed at four meters per second, turbulent waves breaking against treacherous rocks. A sheer cliff rose several dozen meters on the other side. A battalion of enemy troops in blockhouses on top commanded the river and the ferry. Taking the crossing was a formidable task, made all the more pressing by the fast approach of the Kuomintang pursuers.
A shock team began crossing in a captured wooden boat under fire cover. After fierce fighting the men routed the enemy battalion, occupied the ferry and rounded up three more boats.
But the boats were too few and small. The current was too swift for a pontoon bridge. Thirty thousand men would not be able to cross in time to avoid being wiped out at the Tatu as Chiang Kai-shek had boasted. Chairman Mao decided that one division would continue to cross at Anshunchang and proceed north along the east bank (the Tatu turns at Anshunchang and flows north-south). The main force would march north along the west bank and capture the chain bridge at Luting.
Situated at the vital communications link between Szechuan and Sikang provinces* (Sikang province was abolished on October 1, 1955 and, except for the Chamdo region, was incorporated into Szechuan province.). Luting Bridge was guarded by two Kuomintang regiments. Two more enemy brigades were rushing to reinforce the defenses. The Red Army had to reach the bridge ahead of them. Without pausing for food, the men began a rapid 160 km. march in the rain. They reached the bridge only to find that the planks on the suspension bridge had been burned by the enemy, leaving only 13 chains swaying over the swirling Tatu.
Without delay men advanced clinging to the bare chains straight into heavy fire from the bridgehead on the opposite side. On their heels more men, each shouldering a plank, laid the bridge as they fought their way forward. In three hours of fighting the Red Army destroyed most of the two enemy regiments and took the bridge and the small town. The division on the east bank also smashed an enemy brigade and entered the town. The main force of the Red Army crossed the Tatu over the Luting Bridge, turning Chiang Kai-shek's boast into a joke.
The Great Snow Mountains
Continuing northward, in early June the Central Red Army led by Chairman Mao came to the foot of Chiachin Mountain 4,000 meters above sea level. The slopes were covered with perpetual snow, the air was thin. The men were already weakened from months of constant marching and fighting. They had little food and no winter clothing. It seemed an unsurmountable obstacle.
But the men started up battling blizzard, cold, rarefied air, waist deep snow and hunger. Sharp ice drew blood from their legs. Some lost their straw sandals in the deep snow and trudged on barefooted. A sudden cold wave turned the men's sweat-soaked clothes to ice.
Breathing was difficult, hearts pounded, ears rang, heads ached and stars danced before the eyes. Some sat down never to rise again, for even a brief stop in the 30 km. climb and descent meant freezing to death. The army kept moving and finally left the mountain behind.
In mid-June the Central Red Army and the Fourth Front Army from the Szechuan-Shensi base joined forces at Maokung in west Szechuan.
Struggle Against the Opportunist Line
Every step forward on the Long March was made in a sharp struggle between the two lines. The Red Army had to fight the opportunist line in the Party and smash conspiracies against the Party and the Army.
When the Central Red Army was fighting a successfully mobile war in the border region of the Szechuan, Yunnan and Kweichow provinces, Lin Piao, who later revealed himself to be a bourgeois careerist and conspirator, tried again and again to interfere with Chairman Mao's leadership and sabotage the operations. After the Central Red Army crossed the Chihshui River the first time, he had refused to move his troops according to the orders of the Military Commission. When the Central Red Army crossed the Chihshui the second time and was retracing its steps to take Tsunyi, Lin Piao had been so afraid of the enemy that he had not dared to fight and pursue the enemy and almost missed the chance to take Tsunyi. For this he was criticized several times by the Military Commission.
Even more serious, while the Red Army was crossing the Chinsha, Lin and Peng Teh-huai, also later exposed as a careerist, conspired to seize power in the Party, proposing to replace Chairman Mao with Peng Teh-huai. In Huili, Szechuan, the Central Committee had called a meeting where Lin Piao's and others' mistakes were severely criticized and their schemes crushed.
After the Central Red Army and the Fourth Front Army under Chang Kuo-tao joined forces. Chairman Mao had to struggle against Chang's splittist and flightist line. The Japanese were penetrating deeper and deeper into north China. The Kuomintang government was continuing its policy of national sellout, civil war and suppression of the people. Angered, the people throughout the country, especially in north China, were rising in a new upsurge of the anti-Japanese democratic movement. Chiang Kai-shek went right on massing troops and building fortifications in hopes of hemming in the Red Army in the barren region west of the Min River in Szechuan and waiting for a chance to wipe it out.
Chairman Mao decided that the First and Fourth Front Armies should move northeast and, together with the Red Army in north Shensi, establish a base in the border region of Shensi and Kansu provinces. From this home base, the Party would push for a hightide in the national democratic movement to resist Japanese aggression. The Party Central Committee sent out an appeal to the whole country to unite and fight Japanese aggression.
Chang Kuo-tao's Right opportunist line of flightism was based on an exaggerated view of the enemy's strength and underestimation of the Red Army's. He opposed the decision of Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee to go north and proposed retreating to the borders of Szechuan and Sikang provinces. He schemed to seize power in the Party and the Army. Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee fought Chang's Right opportunist line and conspiracy against the Party.
In July the Red Army, after scaling several more snow-covered mountains, arrived at Maoerkai on the edge of the marshlands.
Across the Marshlands
In early August 1935 the First and Fourth Front Armies mixed their units and continued north along two routes. Soon they came to a vast uninhabited expanse of treacherous bogs and swamp shrouded in mist. The weather was unpredictable, it was hard to tell the direction and almost impossible to find a track. Stagnant water lurked underfoot everywhere, oozing to the surface with a rotten stench. Clumps of grass would tremble and suddenly give way under walking feet, sometimes completely swallowing a heavy footed man. Often the men had to spend the night standing in a raging storm, drenched to the skin.
Worse still, not a single grain of food could be found on the marsh lands. Even wild roots were scarce. But the soldiers never wavered. Around their fires at night, as they boiled their leather belts and wild roots in wash basins and enamel cups, they talked of their ideals and the future of the revolution. Smoke curled up and the sound of song and laughter rose over the marsh lands. This courage, unity and mutual help brought them through seven days and nights of tremendous hardship to reach the Apa Pasi area in north Szechuan in late August.
Triumphant Arrival
Now Chang Kuo-tao openly tried to split the Red Army and the Party. He deceived and forced the Fourth Front Army and some units of the First Front Army into marching south to the border region between Szechuan and Sikang provinces, where he set up a bogus central committee. Lin Piao at this time spread apologies for Chang's mistakes, again setting himself against Chairman Mao's revolutionary line.
Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee saw through Chang's scheme and ordered the First Front Army to continue north according to plan. In south Kansu province the Red Army took heavily-defended Latzukou Pass in the Minshan Mountains, avoided enemy blockades, scaled Mount Liupan in Ningsia and in October 1935 reached the revolutionary base in north Shensi. There it joined with the 15th Corps (now including the 25th Army which had arrived earlier) which was then incorporated into the First Front Army.
Under the command of Chairman Mao, the First Front Army engaged Kuomintang troops at Chihlochen southwest of Fuhsien county in Shensi, roundly trounced it and lifted the siege of the north Shensi base. This victory enabled the Party Central Committee to set up the national headquarters of the revolution in the northwest.
In February 1936, the First Front Army crossed the Yellow River to fight Kuomintang troops in Shansi, then in May turned around to meet enemy troops in Kansu, scoring a string of victories which helped consolidate and expand the north Shensi base and push the national anti-Japanese democratic movement forward.
At the same time, the Fourth Front Army and some units of the First Front Army under Chang Kuo-tao suffered heavy losses after reaching the Szechuan-Sikang border and failed to secure a foothold. In March 1936 it left south west Szechuan and took refuge in the Kantzu region farther north west, in Sikang province.
The Second Front Army, following Chairman Mao's line to go north, had started out from the Hunan - Hupeh - Szechuan - Kweichow base and reached Kantzu to join forces with the Fourth Front Army.
Toward the officers and men of the Fourth Front Army, Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee carried out a correct line and policy and patient education. This plus the victorious progress of the First Front Army and the help of the Second Front Army enabled the officers and men of the Fourth Front Army to realize that Chairman Mao's line to go north and resist Japanese aggression was correct. Chang Kuo-tao was thus forced to dissolve his bogus central committee and agree to go north with the Second Front Army. In October 1936 the First, Second and Fourth Front Armies joined at Huining in Kansu province.
Significance
"The Long March has ended with victory for us and defeat for the enemy."
The victory of the Long March was of great strategic significance and deep and far-reaching historic importance. It widened the political influence of the Communist Party and the Red Army. Chairman Mao has said, "The Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history ... it is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding machine. ... It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us...It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation...In the eleven provinces It has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom, and bear fruit."
The success of the Long March was a victory for Chairman Mao's Marxist-Leninist line. As soon as it was over, a new situation arose. Yenan became the headquarters of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao, and the center of the Chinese revolution. The Party and the Army, united under the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao and following Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, plunged into the war against the Japanese invaders and pushed for a new upsurge in the Chinese people's revolution.
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