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NSWModern HistoryQuick questions
Section III (Personalities): Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China
Quick questions on Mao and the Long March 1934 to 1935: HSC Modern History Personality
7short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the Fifth Encirclement Campaign?Show answer
Chiang Kai-shek launched five encirclement campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet between 1930 and 1934. The first four were defeated by Mao and Zhu De's mobile guerrilla tactics. The fifth campaign (1933 to 1934) used Hans von Seeckt's blockhouse strategy, building thousands of fortified posts that compressed the Soviet to starvation. The Comintern adviser Otto Braun (the German Manfred Stern, known in China as Li De) and the 28 Bolshevik Bo Gu insisted on positional defence.
What is the breakout, 16 October 1934?Show answer
On 16 October 1934 about 86,000 troops, with around 35 women including Mao's third wife He Zizhen, broke out from Ruijin to the west. Mao was politically marginalised at the moment of departure. The column carried printing presses, gold reserves, and the apparatus of a state.
What is the Zunyi Conference, 15 to 17 January 1935?Show answer
At the captured Guizhou town of Zunyi the CCP Politburo held an enlarged conference. Mao, allied with Zhou Enlai, Wang Jiaxiang, and Zhang Wentian, accused Braun and Bo Gu of "left adventurism" and "purely defensive" doctrine. The conference removed Braun and Bo Gu from military command; Zhang Wentian replaced Bo Gu as General Secretary; Mao was elected to the Standing Committee and shortly after to a new three-man military command with Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang. Zunyi is conventionally dated as the moment Mao took command of the CCP, though formal supremacy was completed only at Yan'an.
What is the march to Shaanxi, January to October 1935?Show answer
From Zunyi, Mao led a series of feints and forced marches:
What is q1?Show answer
Source A is Edgar Snow's account of the Zunyi Conference (Red Star Over China, 1937). Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the consolidation of Mao's leadership. [5 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Evaluate the extent to which the Long March was the foundation of Mao's later authority. [25 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Compare the views of Philip Short and Jonathan Spence on the Long March. [10 marks]
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