Quick questions on The Jiangxi Soviet and Communist guerrilla strategy 1928-1934: HSC Modern History National Study China

Mao reached Jinggangshan with around 1,000 survivors of the Autumn Harvest Uprising in October 1927. Zhu De joined him in April 1928 with the remnants of the Nanchang force. Their combined Fourth Red Army numbered around 10,000. Pressure from KMT forces and food shortages pushed them east in January 1929 into the more populous Jiangxi-Fujian border region.

The first All-China Soviet Congress met at Ruijin on 7 November 1931 (the anniversary of the Russian Revolution) and proclaimed the Chinese Soviet Republic. Mao was elected chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. A constitution, courts, currency, schools, and a postal service followed. At its 1933 peak the Soviet covered around 30,000 square kilometres with a population of around three million.

The Jinggangshan Land Law (December 1928) confiscated all land for redistribution. The Xingguo Land Law (April 1929) protected the property of middle peasants. The Jiangxi Land Law (1930) refined the policy: landlord land was confiscated and redistributed; rich-peasant land was equalised but not eliminated; poor and middle peasants gained land.

Mao and Zhu codified the "Sixteen Character" formula: > "When the enemy advances, we retreat. When the enemy halts, we harass. When the enemy tires, we attack. When the enemy retreats, we pursue."

Chiang launched five "bandit suppression" (jiaofei) campaigns against Jiangxi.

In December 1930 Mao purged the "Anti-Bolshevik" (AB) Corps inside the Red Army; perhaps 4,000 cadres were killed, many tortured. The episode reveals two things. First, factional struggle inside the Jiangxi CCP was severe: Mao, the local "rural" leadership, and the Comintern-backed "28 Bolsheviks" under Wang Ming and Bo Gu fought for control. Second, the violence of later campaigns (Yan'an Rectification 1942-1944, the Anti-Rightist Campaign 1957, the Cultural Revolution 1966-1976) had a Jiangxi precedent.

Chiang's fifth campaign was different. He hired German adviser Hans von Seeckt (former head of the Reichswehr) and General Alexander von Falkenhausen. The KMT built around 14,000 concrete blockhouses on a slowly tightening ring, denied the Red Army space to manoeuvre, and applied an economic blockade.

Stuart Schram (Mao: A Preliminary Reassessment, 1983; The Thought of Mao Tse-tung, 1989) traces the development of Mao's adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to peasant China in this period.

Mao led until 1932, was sidelined from 1932 to 1935, and returned at Zunyi (January 1935) during the Long March.

Jiangxi is 1929-1934 in the south. Yan'an is 1937-1947 in the north-west, after the Long March.

Futian (1930) prefigures Yan'an Rectification (1942) and the Cultural Revolution.