The 9,000-Kilometre Communist Long March of October 1934 to October 1935 That Established Mao Zedong's Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong had established the Jiangxi Soviet — a rural Communist-controlled enclave in southeastern China — in November 1931. The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek had launched five successive encirclement campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet across 1930-1934. The fifth campaign of 1933-1934, using approximately 700,000 Nationalist troops and German military advisors under General Hans von Seeckt, progressively constricted the Communist enclave through fortified blockhouse lines.

By October 1934 the Jiangxi Soviet had become untenable. The Communist leadership — under Comintern-appointed Otto Braun and Bo Gu, not Mao — decided to evacuate.

16 October 1934

The break-out began on the night of 16 October 1934. Approximately 86,000 Communist soldiers and 35,000 civilian political workers crossed the Yudu River at night carrying approximately 33,000 rifles and volumes of printing equipment, currency, and Party archives.

The First Front Army moved southwest, breaking through four Nationalist blockade lines across late October-November 1934. The Battle of the Xiang River on 25 November - 3 December 1934 cost the Communists approximately 45,000 casualties — more than half their initial force. The retreat continued.

The Zunyi Conference

The Communist Central Committee held an extraordinary conference at Zunyi in Guizhou Province across 15-17 January 1935. The conference removed Bo Gu and Otto Braun from command and elevated Mao Zedong to effective leadership of the Party. The conference is the conventional starting point of the Mao era of the CCP.

The crossings

The remaining march featured several iconic episodes:

— Crossing the Jinsha River — a contested crossing in May 1935 using captured Nationalist riverboats — The Luding Bridge — the iron-chain suspension bridge across the Dadu River in Sichuan, seized on 29 May 1935 by 22 volunteers who crossed under fire (the heroic version of the seizure is now contested by recent scholarship — Sun Shuyun’s 2006 Long March reconstruction indicates the bridge had been undefended) — The Snow Mountains — the high passes of western Sichuan crossed in June 1935 at altitudes above 4,500 metres — The Grasslands — approximately 500 km of swampy high plateau in eastern Tibet crossed in August 1935 with losses from cold, malnutrition, and dysentery

The First Front Army arrived at Wuqi in northern Shaanxi on 19 October 1935 with approximately 8,000 survivors. The Second and Fourth Front Armies arrived progressively across 1936. The total survivors of the original 86,000 break-out force were approximately 8,000.

At Yan’an

The Communist headquarters were established at Yan’an in early 1937 after relocations from Wuqi and Bao’an. Yan’an remained the Communist capital across 1937-1947.

The Long March transformed the Chinese Communist Party. The pre-march urban-intellectual leadership under Comintern direction was displaced by the rural-guerrilla leadership of Mao, Zhou Enlai, Lin Biao, and Peng Dehuai. The march itself became the foundational mythology of the Party — mythologized in Party historiography across the subsequent decades.

The Nationalist-Communist civil war was paused by the Japanese invasion of 1937 then resumed in 1945. The Communists captured Beijing in January 1949. The People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on 1 October 1949.

Mao Zedong remained Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party until his death on 9 September 1976.