Long March

Between 1930 and 1934, Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) launched a series of five military encirclement campaigns against the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in an attempt to annihilate their base area on the border between Jiangxi and Fujian in southeastern China.

The Red Army successfully fought off the first four campaigns using tactics developed by Mao Zedong (1893–1976). In the fifth campaign, however, the Red Army failed simply because the CPC had removed Mao Zedong from the leadership early in 1934, and abandoned his strategy. As a result, the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army suffered heavy losses and were forced to retreat to Shaanxi in northwest China. This in history is known as the Long March.

In January 1935, the Red Army leaders held a summit conference in Zunyi of Guizhou, which had decisively established Mao Zedong's leadership of the CPC and the Red Army troops. From then on, the Red Army troops passed through 14 provinces, crossed 18 mountains and 24 rivers, and traversed grasslands, covering a combined distance of some 12,500 kilometers. Finally, they reached Yan'an in northern Shaanxi in October 1935, marking the victorious end of the Long March.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 90th anniversary of the departure of the Red Army's Long March.

Hu Shizong at the Loushan Pass in Zunyi, southwest China's Guizhou Province, in 1975. Chairman Mao wrote a famous poem "The Loushan Pass" after the Red Army secured an important victory here in 1935 during the Long March. [Photo courtesy of Hu Shizong]

Throughout my life, I have twice had the great opportunity to follow the route of the Long March of the Red Army led by the CPC.

The first time was in 1975 when I was working as an intern editor of People's Daily. Following an assignment from the newspaper, I accompanied Yuan Ying (1924–2023), a writer, poet and editor, to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the Jinsha River and Chishui River areas, Zunyi, the Loushan Pass, and other historical Red Army sites.