Long March (1934-1935): Mao and the Red Army's Epic Retreat

The Long March was the epic retreat of the Chinese Communist Party’s Red Army from its besieged base in Jiangxi province, in south-east China, to the remote north-west province of Shaanxi between October 1934 and October 1935. Pursued by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces, the marchers crossed rivers, mountains and marshes, and only a small fraction survived. The march saved the Communist movement and brought Mao Zedong to its leadership, and it became the founding legend of Communist China.

Background: the Jiangxi Soviet under siege

After the alliance between the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Communists collapsed in 1927, Chiang Kai-shek’s forces massacred Communists in Shanghai and other cities. The survivors retreated to rural areas. In the mountains on the Jiangxi–Fujian border they built the Chinese Soviet Republic, proclaimed at Ruijin in November 1931, with Mao Zedong as its chairman.

Chiang launched a series of “encirclement campaigns” against the Jiangxi Soviet. The first four failed, partly because the Red Army used mobile guerrilla tactics developed by Mao and Zhu De. Even the Japanese seizure of Manchuria after the Mukden Incident of 1931 did not change Chiang’s priority: he believed the Communists had to be defeated before Japan could be resisted.

By 1933 Mao had been sidelined by the party leadership, headed by the young Moscow-trained Bo Gu and advised by the German Comintern agent Otto Braun. For the Fifth Encirclement Campaign, beginning in late 1933, Chiang used about half a million men, German military advice and a system of blockhouses that slowly tightened the ring. The Communists tried to meet this with positional warfare and suffered heavy losses.

The breakout and the Xiang River

In October 1934 the leadership decided to abandon the base. Around 86,000 soldiers and party workers broke out to the south-west, beginning in mid-October from the area around Yudu. Many wounded soldiers, some leaders and a rear guard were left behind, and most were later killed or captured.

The column was slow, burdened with printing presses, files and equipment carried by porters. At the crossing of the Xiang River in Guangxi, in late November and early December 1934, it was caught by Nationalist and provincial armies and suffered devastating losses. Estimates vary, but the army may have been reduced to around 30,000 to 40,000 men by the end of the battle.

The Zunyi Conference

The army changed direction towards Guizhou and in January 1935 captured the town of Zunyi. There, from 15 to 17 January, the Politburo held an enlarged meeting. Mao, supported by Zhou Enlai and Zhang Wentian, criticised the military tactics of Bo Gu and Otto Braun.

Mao was elected to the Standing Committee of the Politburo and soon became part of a three-man team directing military operations. He did not become supreme leader overnight; that position was consolidated only in the late 1930s and early 1940s. But Zunyi became, in later party history, the turning point when Mao took control.

Rivers, mountains and grasslands

Under its new leadership the army returned to mobile warfare, crossing the Chishui River several times to confuse its pursuers. In May 1935 it crossed the Jinsha (upper Yangtze) River and headed north through Yi territory, where a pact with a local Yi leader secured safe passage.

On 29 May 1935 Red Army troops seized the Luding Bridge, a chain suspension bridge over the Dadu River, allowing the army to cross before Nationalist forces could close the trap. In June the marchers crossed the Jiajin Mountain in the Great Snowy Mountains, where many died from cold and altitude.

In June 1935 the Central Army met the Fourth Front Army of Zhang Guotao near Maogong in western Sichuan. Zhang’s force was larger and better equipped, and the two leaders quarrelled over strategy and authority. The armies separated. Mao’s column crossed the swampy grasslands of the Zoige region in August 1935, where hunger, disease and bogs took a heavy toll, and then forced the Lazikou Pass in Gansu in September.

Life on the march

Most marchers were young peasant soldiers, many in their teens, who walked in straw sandals and carried rifles, rice and bedding. Food was a constant problem, especially in the poor highlands and the grasslands, where soldiers boiled leather belts and ate wild plants. Air attacks by Nationalist planes were frequent during the day, so the army often marched at night.

Only around 30 women were officially part of the Central Army column, among them Mao’s wife He Zizhen, who gave birth during the march and was badly wounded in an air raid. Along the way the Communists held mass meetings, redistributed land and goods taken from landlords, and recruited new soldiers, partly replacing their losses. Mao later described the march as a propaganda force and a “seeding machine” that spread the revolutionary message across eleven provinces.

Arrival in Shaanxi

On 19 October 1935 the remnant of the Central Red Army reached Wuqi in northern Shaanxi, where a small Communist base already existed. Of the roughly 86,000 who had set out a year earlier, only about 7,000 to 8,000 arrived, although others had been left behind, deserted or joined other units rather than died. Other Communist armies, including Zhang Guotao’s Fourth Front Army and He Long’s Second Front Army, made their own long marches and joined the Central Army in October 1936.

From early 1937 the Communists made Yan’an their headquarters. The Xi’an Incident of December 1936, in which Chiang was detained by his own generals, led to a second united front against Japan, giving the Communists a vital breathing space.

Key people

• Mao Zedong (1893–1976), who rose to the party leadership during the march.
• Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), a senior military and political leader who backed Mao at Zunyi.
• Zhu De (1886–1976), commander-in-chief of the Red Army.
• Zhang Guotao (1897–1979), leader of the Fourth Front Army and Mao’s main rival; he later defected to the Nationalists.
• Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), Nationalist leader who directed the pursuit.

Myths and facts

The Long March was celebrated in Communist propaganda from the start, beginning with the American journalist Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China (1937), based on interviews with Mao and others in Shaanxi. Some details have since been questioned. The official distance of 12,500 km is probably an overestimate; two British researchers who retraced the route in 2002–2003 measured about 6,000 km. Some historians, such as Sun Shuyun, have argued that the fighting at Luding Bridge was on a smaller scale than the heroic version suggests. These debates do not change the extraordinary hardship the march involved.

Timeline

• 1931, November: The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed at Ruijin.
• 1933, autumn: Chiang Kai-shek launches the Fifth Encirclement Campaign.
• 1934, October: The Central Red Army breaks out of the Jiangxi base.
• 1934, late November–early December: Heavy losses at the Xiang River.
• 1935, 15–17 January: The Zunyi Conference strengthens Mao’s position.
• 1935, 29 May: The Red Army captures the Luding Bridge.
• 1935, June: The Central Army meets Zhang Guotao’s Fourth Front Army.
• 1935, 19 October: The Central Army reaches Wuqi in northern Shaanxi.
• 1936, October: The Communist armies unite in the north-west.

Why it matters

The Long March turned a near-defeat into a story of survival that shaped the Chinese Communist Party for generations. It placed Mao at the head of the movement that would win the Chinese Civil War and found the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and it remains a central symbol in China today.