What role did Mao Zedong play in the Long March, and how did the experience consolidate his position in the Chinese Communist Party?
Mao's role in the Long March of 1934 to 1935, including the breakout from the Jiangxi Soviet, the Zunyi Conference of January 1935, the trek to Shaanxi, and the consolidation of Mao's authority within the CCP leadership
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Personality dot point on Mao Zedong's role in the Long March. The October 1934 breakout from Ruijin, the disaster at the Xiang River, the Zunyi Conference of January 1935 that elevated Mao, the Luding Bridge crossing, the trek over the Great Snowy Mountains and Grasslands, and the arrival at Yan'an in October 1935.
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What this dot point is asking
NESA expects you to outline the Long March of 1934 to 1935 with a focus on Mao Zedong's role: the breakout from the Jiangxi Soviet, the disaster at the Xiang River, the Zunyi Conference that elevated Mao, the route through Sichuan and Gansu, and the arrival at the northern Shaanxi base. Strong answers integrate the military narrative with the political consequence: the Long March made Mao the leader the CCP would not displace.
The answer
The Fifth Encirclement Campaign
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. By late summer 1934 the Soviet was untenable.
The breakout, 16 October 1934
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.
The Xiang River, November to December 1934
The KMT had three blocking lines across Hunan. The crossing of the Xiang River at Daoxian and Quanzhou in late November and early December 1934 broke the Red Army. Estimates vary, but the force was reduced from about 86,000 to about 30,000. The disaster discredited Braun and Bo Gu.
The Zunyi Conference, 15 to 17 January 1935
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.
The march to Shaanxi, January to October 1935
From Zunyi, Mao led a series of feints and forced marches:
- Crossing the Jinsha (Yangtze) River, May 1935, by feinting south to threaten Kunming.
- Luding Bridge, 29 May 1935. The famous (and contested) assault across a chained iron bridge over the Dadu River gorge in Sichuan. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2005) argued the assault was a propaganda construction; most historians accept the bridge was held by KMT defenders but disagree about the scale of resistance.
- Jiajin (Great Snowy) Mountains, June 1935. The crossing of the 4,000 m passes inflicted heavy losses to cold and altitude.
- Maoergai, July 1935. Mao met Zhang Guotao's Fourth Front Army; Zhang outnumbered Mao but Mao prevailed politically. The forces parted and Zhang's southern column was destroyed.
- The Grasslands, August 1935. The crossing of the high marshes of Aba prefecture inflicted further losses.
- Lazikou Pass, September 1935. The breakthrough into Gansu.
- Wuqi, Shaanxi, 19 October 1935. About 8,000 of the original Jiangxi force reached the existing northern Shaanxi Soviet. The CCP relocated its capital to Yan'an in late 1936.
The total distance is conventionally given as 9,000 km (the figure was 25,000 li, where 1 li is about 0.5 km). The duration was 370 days. The survival rate was below 10 percent.
Significance for Mao's leadership
The Long March made Mao the leader of the survivors. The Comintern's influence, severed by the loss of radio contact for much of 1935, declined. Wang Ming, the Comintern's preferred CCP leader, was discredited. At Yan'an from 1936, Mao consolidated authority through the Rectification Campaign (1942 to 1944) and the Seventh Party Congress (1945) elected him Chairman of the Central Committee with Mao Zedong Thought enshrined as official doctrine.
Timeline
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 1934 | Fifth Encirclement chokes Ruijin | Soviet untenable |
| 16 Oct 1934 | Breakout | About 86,000 leave |
| Nov to Dec 1934 | Xiang River | About 56,000 lost |
| 15 to 17 Jan 1935 | Zunyi Conference | Mao to Standing Committee |
| May 1935 | Jinsha crossing | Escape from Sichuan trap |
| 29 May 1935 | Luding Bridge | Iconic episode |
| Jun to Aug 1935 | Snow Mountains and Grasslands | Heavy attrition |
| 19 Oct 1935 | Reach Wuqi, Shaanxi | About 8,000 survivors |
| Late 1936 | Yan'an established | Northern base secured |
Historiography
Edgar Snow (Red Star Over China, 1937) gave the original Western narrative of the Long March, based on interviews at Bao'an in 1936. Snow's narrative is heroic and broadly accepted in outline.
Harrison Salisbury (The Long March: The Untold Story, 1985) re-walked the route in 1984 with PRC cooperation and produced a detailed reconstruction.
Sun Shuyun (The Long March, 2006) interviewed surviving veterans and emphasised the suffering of ordinary soldiers and the political function of the foundation myth.
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Mao: The Unknown Story, 2005) argued that several Long March episodes (Luding Bridge, the Grasslands losses) were exaggerated and that Chiang allowed the Red Army to escape. Their thesis has been criticised by Andrew Nathan, Stuart Schram, and Lowell Dittmer.
Maurice Meisner (Mao's China and After, 3rd ed. 1999) treats the Long March as the central foundation myth of the PRC, embedded in school curricula, films, and political legitimacy from 1949 onwards.
Examples in context
Example 1. The Zunyi Conference (15 to 17 January 1935). The Politburo expanded conference in Guizhou criticised the Bo Gu-Otto Braun leadership and confirmed Mao's military command. Sun Shuyun (The Long March, 2006) draws on veteran interviews. Philip Short (Mao: A Life, 1999) treats Zunyi as the consolidation of Mao's authority. Jonathan Spence (Mao Zedong, 1999) provides the canonical short biography.
Example 2. The split with Zhang Guotao (June to September 1935). At Maoergai and Baxi, Zhang's Fourth Front Army (with around 80,000 troops) clashed with Mao's First Front Army. Mao headed north to Shaanxi; Zhang headed south and was defeated. Edgar Snow (Red Star Over China, 1937) recorded the rivalry from Bao'an. The 8 January 1936 declaration of the United Front for Resistance against Japan reshaped CCP strategy.
Try this
Q1. 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 the marker wants. Identify Zunyi Conference; cite Mao's military command; link to the split with Zhang Guotao.
Q2. Evaluate the extent to which the Long March was the foundation of Mao's later authority. [25 marks]
- What the marker wants. Weigh the military disaster (90 per cent casualty rate) against political consolidation and the founding myth; use Sun Shuyun, Short, Spence.
Q3. Compare the views of Philip Short and Jonathan Spence on the Long March. [10 marks]
- What the marker wants. Short (Mao's full consolidation) versus Spence (Mao's authority still negotiated through 1937); judgement.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Practice (NESA)10 marksAssess the significance of the Long March for Mao Zedong's rise to leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.Show worked answer →
A 10-mark "assess" needs a sustained judgement.
- The breakout
- The Fifth Encirclement Campaign of Chiang Kai-shek used Hans von Seeckt's blockhouse strategy to compress the Jiangxi Soviet. Otto Braun (Li De) and Bo Gu prepared positional defence; it failed. On 16 October 1934 about 86,000 troops broke out from Ruijin.
- The Xiang River disaster, November to December 1934
- The crossing of the Xiang River at Daoxian against KMT forces cost roughly half the strength of the column. The defeat discredited Braun and Bo Gu.
- The Zunyi Conference, 15 to 17 January 1935
- At Zunyi in Guizhou the Politburo enlarged conference removed Braun and Bo Gu from military command and elevated Mao to the Standing Committee. Mao became, with Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang, the effective military leader.
- The march to Shaanxi
- From January 1935 Mao led the column on a series of feints across Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, and Gansu. The Luding Bridge over the Dadu River (29 May 1935), the Jiajin Snow Mountains, and the Grasslands of northern Sichuan were the storied episodes. About 8,000 of the original force reached Wuqi in northern Shaanxi on 19 October 1935.
- Consolidation
- The Long March created the Long March generation: Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Lin Biao. Mao's leadership of the survivors gave him a charismatic authority Wang Ming and the Comintern could no longer override.
- Judgement
- The Long March was a military catastrophe (a 90 percent loss rate) and a political triumph: it relocated the CCP to the friendly hinterland and made Mao the leader of the survivors.
Related dot points
- Mao's background and rise to prominence, including his peasant upbringing in Hunan, his exposure to the New Culture and May Fourth Movements, his role as a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, and his ascent within the CCP through the late 1920s and early 1930s
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Personality dot point on Mao Zedong's background. The Shaoshan peasant origins, the Hunan First Normal School, the 1919 May Fourth Movement, the 1921 founding congress of the CCP at Shanghai, the Hunan peasant report of 1927, and the path through the Autumn Harvest Uprising to the Jiangxi Soviet.
- Mao at Yan'an from 1936 to 1948, including the development of the Yan'an Way, the Rectification Campaign of 1942 to 1944, the elaboration of Mao Zedong Thought, and the elevation to Chairman of the Central Committee at the Seventh Congress in 1945
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Personality dot point on Mao's Yan'an period. The 1936 move to Yan'an in Shaanxi, the Sinification of Marxism, the Yan'an Way of self-reliance and mass-line politics, the Rectification Campaign of 1942 to 1944, the Kang Sheng terror against Wang Shiwei, the Seventh Congress of 1945, and the elaboration of Mao Zedong Thought.
- Mao's leadership in the Chinese Civil War of 1946 to 1949, including the failure of the Marshall Mission, the decisive campaigns of 1948 to 1949 (Liaoshen, Huaihai, Pingjin), the role of land reform, and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Personality dot point on Mao's victory in the Chinese Civil War. The 1946 collapse of the Marshall Mission, Lin Biao's Manchurian base, the three decisive campaigns of 1948 to 1949 (Liaoshen, Huaihai, Pingjin), the Outline Land Law of 1947, and the proclamation of the PRC on 1 October 1949.