Long March

The Fall of the Jiangxi Soviet

In the early 1930s, Chinese Communist forces controlled base areas in parts of rural southeast China, the most important of which was the Jiangxi Soviet base area, founded by Mao Zedong and Zhu De (1886–1976). From 1930 to 1934, the Nationalist government of Jiang Jieshi launched five military “extermination” campaigns designed to annihilate Communist forces. The first four expeditions were repulsed by Mao's use of mobile warfare and guerrilla tactics.

Despite these military victories, Mao Zedong was in a losing struggle with the national leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, which had moved from its illegal underground headquarters in Shanghai to a safer location in Jiangxi. Dominated by the Moscow-oriented internationalist faction, headed by Bo Gu (1907–46) and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), the Central Committee removed Mao from the party's Military Committee in 1932, but temporarily allowed him to retain other offices in recognition of his support among local activists. Mao's opponents, condemning his reliance on guerrilla tactics, gave control of military policy to Zhou Enlai and Otto Braun, a German military advisor sent by Moscow.

During the fifth extermination campaign, from 1933 to 1934, Nationalist leader Jiang Jieshi took personal command and employed almost a million men, including his best German-trained units. This overwhelming force was backed by an air force of 400 planes and a new strategy of encircling the Jiangxi Soviet with concentric rings of fortifications and blockhouses, while units advanced forward in a slow, methodical fashion. Braun's adoption of conventional positional warfare against the more numerous and better-armed Nationalists led to military disaster.

In August 1934, the Communist leadership concluded that the Jiangxi Soviet had to be abandoned. On 15 October 1934, 85,000 troops and 15,000 administrative personnel broke through enemy lines. Left behind was a rearguard of 28,000 men (of whom 20,000 were wounded) and most of the wives and children. Mao's pregnant second wife, He Zizhen, joined the Long March, but his children and younger brother remained behind.

The Cunyi Conference and the Rise of Mao

Despite an auspicious start, the First Front Army columns—slowed down by the Central Committee's decision to bring along cumbersome baggage trains—suffered grievous losses from aerial bombardment and pursuing troops. Prevented from moving north to link up with He Long's (1896–1969) forces in the Sanzhi Soviet, the army instead swung westward into Guizhou province. At a Politburo meeting in Cunyi in January 1935, Mao emerged from political disgrace to begin his ascendancy as party leader. He convinced his colleagues that fundamental policy errors by the internationalist faction caused the fall of the Jiangxi Soviet and unnecessary military losses on the Long March. The Cunyi Conference gave Mao control over the military and endorsed his political policies as the correct approach to the Chinese revolution.

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