The History of China - The Long March

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) led the Communist revolution in China that, in 1949, added one-fifth of the human race to the roster of nations grouped under the red banner. Few individuals match so perfectly with their time and place that they have such a major impact on the world. Chairman Mao, the first red emperor of China, born into a farming family in Hunan province, was one such.

Today, Mao's portrait is no longer ubiquitous, and his 'little Red Book', The Thoughts of Chairman Mao, is a long way down the bestseller lists, but Mao still commands respect from ordinary Chinese. This is evident in the way the crowds shuffle respectfully past his embalmed body at his mausoleum in Beijing. After graduating from a teachers' training college in Changsha, Mao moved to Beijing where, in 1921, he became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1923, the Communists forged an alliance with the Nationalists, and together the 'united front' consolidated power in southern and central China. In 1926, however, the alliance ended in armed conflict and the Communists were driven out of their strongholds. Mao learned two lessons from this: that guerrilla tactics were the way forward, and that 'political power grows through the barrel of a gun'.

Mao settled in Jiangxi province, but the Nationalists were determined to destroy their former allies. In October 1934, Nationalist forces drove Mao and his followers from the province, and thus began the Long March. Trekking more than 9,500km across China, with some 86,000 men, Mao intended to find a new and more secure base in Shaanxi province from which to pursue his 'people's war'. The epic march, across some of the roughest country on the earth, took a year, and only 6,000 of his troops survived. Yet it was from his secure foothold in Shaanxi that Mao would emerge to take over China 15 years later.