The Long March (Chinese: 长征, Chángzhēng) was a strategic retreat carried out by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between October 1934 and October 1935. Pursued by the Nationalist forces of the Kuomintang (KMT) during the Chinese Civil War, the main column left its base in southeastern China and reached a new headquarters in northern Shaanxi. Although often described as a single journey, it was a series of movements by several Red Army formations, and its best-known part is the trek of the First Front Army from Jiangxi.
Background
The CCP had established soviets, or base areas, in the mountains of southern China in the early 1930s, the largest being the Jiangxi Soviet. The Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek launched a series of encirclement campaigns against these bases. The Red Army won the first several campaigns, but the later ones were more successful. Historians attribute part of the change to the arrival in 1933 of Bo Gu and the Comintern adviser Otto Braun, who brought in orthodox positional warfare and displaced the guerrilla-style tactics associated with Mao Zedong, who was then sidelined within the party. Nationalist forces built a system of blockhouses that slowly tightened around the Jiangxi base. By the autumn of 1934 the Red Army could no longer hold its territory, and the leadership decided to break out.
The march
The main column began its withdrawal on 16 October 1934. It moved at night at first to avoid detection, then accelerated as encircling Nationalist forces closed in. The Red Army broke through the blockhouse lines, which took it some forty days, and then crossed into Hunan. In late 1934 it fought the Nationalists in the Battle of the Xiang River, where it suffered its heaviest losses. Commanders later reoriented the route westward, toward Guizhou and Sichuan, and the column crossed the Yangtze tributaries and the Himalayan foothills of the Tibetan plateau margins over the following months.
The route passed through eleven provinces and crossed rivers, snow-covered mountain ranges, high passes, and the Zoigê marshes. Among its most famous episodes was the capture of the Luding Bridge over the Dadu River in May 1935, and the crossing of the Jinsha River, a headwater of the Yangtze. Marchers faced cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, and influenza, as well as hunger, cold, and hostile local ethnic groups and warlord forces. Some sources report that the Red Army made alliances with local Yi communities during this period. After the other Red Army bases in China largely collapsed in the early stages, the march became the main vehicle of the party's survival.
Zunyi Conference and Mao's leadership
In January 1935 the CCP convened a meeting at Zunyi in Guizhou province to review the military defeats and determine the next steps. Bo Gu and Otto Braun were removed from their posts, and Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, and Wang Jiaxiang formed a new military leadership group. Mao emerged as the dominant figure in the party, although historians disagree about the precise nature of his position. Western accounts have often described Mao as formally taking control of key committees at Zunyi, while later Chinese and Western research indicates that he did not hold the formal chairmanship at that time. Most accounts agree that Zunyi marked the start of his de facto leadership, which the party recognized more fully in the following years.
After Zunyi the Red Army shifted to more mobile and less conventional tactics, dividing into smaller units and choosing routes intended to confuse pursuers. The sequence of decisions that followed, including the choice of Yan'an in Shaanxi as the destination, is still discussed in terms of whether they reflected sound strategy or improvisation under pressure.
Scale and casualties
Figures vary widely across sources. The starting strength is usually given as around 86,000 to 100,000 men and women in the First Front Army, while other accounts include civilians and other units and cite about 130,000 people. Estimates of the distance range from roughly 10,000 kilometres to 12,500 kilometres, or about 6,000 miles. The number of survivors who reached Shaanxi in October 1935 is commonly put at about 7,000 to 8,000, meaning that fewer than one in ten of those who set out completed the march. The Battle of the Xiang River alone is said to have cost more than 40,000 soldiers. The First Front Army reached the Shaanxi base in October 1935, and the Second and Fourth Front Armies, which had marched separately, arrived in the north in 1936 after their own journeys.
Significance and legacy
For the CCP the march became a central founding myth. The party presented it as a heroic ordeal that tested the Red Army's courage and ideals and as the moment when Mao's leadership was confirmed. The Shaanxi base, centred on Yan'an, became the headquarters from which the party rebuilt its forces, expanded its political organization, and prepared for the Second Sino-Japanese War and the later struggle with the Nationalists. Much of the subsequent party history and iconography, including commemorations and museums along the route, uses the march to illustrate endurance and revolutionary loyalty. The People's Republic of China continues to commemorate the event, and the spirit of the march is frequently invoked in political discourse.
Historiography and debate
Scholars have long debated the march's meaning and details. Some historians argue that the heavy losses and the meandering route through western China reflected poor planning and errors by the leadership, while others see the march as a rational response to encirclement that the party was able to exploit. Recent research has questioned parts of the official narrative and suggests that some accounts of the march were exaggerated or shaped for propaganda. Debate continues about the scale of the losses, the precise role of Mao at various points, and the extent to which the event transformed the CCP's internal politics. Because the party's archives remain partly closed, many details of the decision-making process are still disputed.
References
- Long Marchen.wikipedia.org
- Long Marchmilitary-history.fandom.com
- The Long Marchalphahistory.com
- The Long March (1934-35)cpbml.org.uk
- The Long March (1934–35) - shorter versioncpbml.org.uk
- LONG MARCH: HARDSHIPS, MYTH AND REALITYfactsanddetails.com
- From Jiangxi to Shaanxi: The Long Marchacademic.mu.edu
- What was the Long March (1934-1935)?bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com
- Zunyi Conferencebritannica.com
- Mao Zedong - Chinese Revolution, Communism, Chairmanbritannica.com
- Project MUSE - Changes in the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party During and After the Long Marchmuse.jhu.edu
- (6) The Long March of the CCP Red Army and the Establishment of the Northern Shaanxi Basechiculture.org.hk
- Bo Guen.wikipedia.org
- 90 years on, Long March's legacy inspires China's progress in the new eraenglish.scio.gov.cn