According to the Chinese Communist Party, the Red Army’s Long March was to “go north to resist The Japanese“. But in fact, when the CPC Central Committee and the Central Red Army evacuated the Jiangxi Soviet in October 1934, there was no specific goal for their advance, and the destination has changed several times since then, none of which has anything to do with “going north to resist Japan. The Long March of the Red Army was in fact a great escape, and it had nothing to do with “going north to resist Japan”. The article “Was the Long March of the Red Army really for the purpose of “going north to resist Japan”? An article by Mr. Ding Lyr has made a detailed uncovering of this.
According to the author, the fifth “siege” of the Kuomintang, which began in October 1933, was repeatedly thwarted by the tactics of constructing bunker groups to surround the “Soviet Union”, and not giving the Red Army the opportunity to fight guerrilla and movement wars. In April 1934, the northern gateway to the “Central Soviet”, Guangchang, was lost and the Red Army was greatly wounded. On or about June 10, the Central Political Bureau held an enlarged meeting to discuss the “breakout”. Zhou Enlai proposed two options: the first option was to move to the northeast, along the Min and Gan border to the Min, Zhe and Gan border, which could threaten the Kuomintang heartland of Jiang and Zhe. The second option was to break out to the southwest, along the border of Gan and Guangdong. Zhou advocated the second option, Mao Zedong advocated the first option, and Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai agreed with Mao’s opinion. As a result, the meeting was adjourned with the adoption of Zhou’s case.
Obviously, neither of these two options took the “northward anti-Japanese” into account.
The next day, Bo Gu, the “General Secretary” of the CPC (Note: After the defection of Xiang Zhongfa, the former General Secretary of the CPC, the head of the CPC was no longer called General Secretary, but General Secretary. Li De, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Xiang Ying and Gong Chu, military advisers to the Communist International, met to study the preparations for the breakout. At this point, “Bogu proposed to send two advance teams north in the name of anti-Japanese resistance to test the Red Army’s main force to break out of the siege.” It was decided that: first, Fang Zhimin would lead the “first advance party of the Red Army against Japan” to “advance to Quzhou to create a base in Anhui, Zhejiang and Gan.” Second, to form the Sixth Army Corps, “with Xiao Ke as its leader, called the Second Advance Party of the Red Army against Japan, to break out between Guidong and Rucheng, along the Xianggui border north to western Hunan, to rendezvous with He Long, and to prepare for the action of the Red Army after the main force broke out.” Third, “change the Yue-Gan Military Region into the Gannan Military Region …… with Gong Chu as the commander and political commissar of the military region and Liu Bojian as the director of the political department, responsible for the deployment of preparations for the breakout.”
It is clear from this that the “Red Army Anti-Japanese advance team” does not have the task of fighting against Japan, nor does it have the intention of going north. The Chinese Communist Party formed the “Red Army Anti-Japanese Advance Party” purely for the purpose of breaking out to make a signboard, which had nothing to do with “anti-Japanese”.
Bo Gu was the head of the Russian faction of the party, and became the number one figure in the party with the support of the Communist International, but was actually a scholar. The signboard of “anti-Japanese advance team” is certainly loud, but the Japanese are 3,000 miles away, the people do not understand how it anti-Japanese, the political effect is almost zero. The military is even more unworkable. The first advance party was defeated, Fang Zhimin was captured and the remnants returned to northern Fujian. The second advance party also lost most of its men, with only 1,000 left to join He Long’s men. According to Gong Chu: “The dispatch of these two anti-Japanese advance parties, whether in terms of political influence, military action, are not complementary to the main force of the Red Army breakout, but in vain scattered forces, incurring significant losses.”
However, without Bo Gu’s idea, the term “anti-Japanese advance party” would not have existed in the history of the CPC, and the Red Army would not have been able to “go north to resist Japan”. Therefore, Bo Gu’s idea of “sending an advance party in the name of anti-Japanese resistance” later gave the CCP a capital for self-aggrandizement, which perhaps cannot be said to be useless.
In December 1934, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Red Army arrived in Liping, Guizhou, via Passage County at the border of Hunan and Guangdong. An enlarged meeting of the Politburo was held there to discuss where to go and where to stand. The meeting decided to “temporarily establish a Soviet base area centered on northern Qianjiang”. This is what led to the march to Zunyi. Zunyi is the largest city in northern Qianjiang. Obviously at that Time, Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai’s group did not have the intention of “going north to resist Japan”.
In January of the following year, the Red Army captured Zunyi and again held an expanded meeting of the Politburo. Mao Zedong contacted Wang Jiaxiang, persuaded Zhang Wentian, got Zhou Enlai, took down Bogu and the foreigner Li De sent by the Soviet Union, and put Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang in charge of the military command.
In early February, a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau was held in a village on the border of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, where Zhang Wentian replaced Boku as the “chief in charge”. He was responsible for drafting and presiding over the adoption of the resolution of the Zunyi Conference. The resolution also did not mention the “northward anti-Japanese”, but only changed its destination: “The enlarged conference unanimously decided to change the resolution of the Liping Conference to create a Soviet base centered on Qianbei, and unanimously decided that the Red Army would cross the Yangtze River and establish a Soviet base southwest or northwest of Chengdu. The rationale for this decision was that because Sichuan was better politically, militarily (better coordination with the Fourth Front Army, backed by an empty enemy-free area in Xikang), and economically than Qianbei.”
Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai overestimated the strength of the Kuomintang army in Sichuan at the Zunyi Conference. The idea of entering Sichuan and establishing a Soviet base area southwest of Chengdu could not be implemented. On June 12, the Central Red Army rendezvoused with the Fourth Front Army led by Zhang Guotao in the Mao Gong area (present-day Xiaojin County, Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture), about a hundred kilometers northwest of Chengdu. If the CPC had a “northward anti-Japanese” policy, the direction of the rendezvous would not be debatable. Because there is no such consideration, the two sides have a great difference. Zhang Guotao advocates westward, to Qinghai, Xinjiang to seek development, or southward, out of the Yangtze River, down to Wuhan. On the side of Zhang Wentian, he advocated establishing a base in northwest Sichuan first, and then gradually occupying Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. on June 16, Zhang, Mao, Zhou and Zhu jointly called Zhang Guotao and others, saying that “the general policy should be to occupy the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, establish Soviet power in the three provinces, and in due course to organize an expeditionary force to occupy Xinjiang.” It can be seen that the occupation of Xinjiang, open the way to the Soviet Union, this point the two sides do not disagree. Zhang Wentian people opposed Zhang Guotao to give up Sichuan westward reason, not because the Japanese in the east, but because the west to thousands of miles of sparsely populated, the difficulty of replenishing supplies. Zhang Guotao certainly do not consider the “anti-Japanese”, Zhang, Mao and Zhou side as well.
On September 17, the Red Army broke through the natural danger of Lazikou and arrived in Hadaopu, Min County, Gansu. At this point, the Central Committee met again to study the route forward, discussing whether to fight the road west to the Soviet Union, or to somewhere else.
At this time, Jia Tuofu put forward the proposal to land in northern Shaanxi. Jia Tuofu was an intellectual youth, only 22 years old, who was sent to Shanghai in early 1934 by the “Shaanxi and Gansu Border Area” party organization to report to the Central Committee on behalf of the work. At this time, the CPC Central Committee had already moved to Jiangxi. Jia went to Shanghai but failed, so he moved to Jiangxi and joined the Long March with the Central Red Army in October.
In Hadapu, Min County, seeing that the Central Committee still had not made up its mind where to go, Jia Tuofu suggested to Mao Zedong that he should go to Shanbei. He told Mao that there were tens of thousands of Red Army led by Liu Zhidan in northern Shaanxi and there was a not-so-small Soviet area. At this time, the Central Red Army totaled less than 10,000 people, and upon hearing Jia’s introduction, Mao immediately said, “There are 10,000 Red Army to go, not to mention there is such a large Soviet area!”
On September 26, the Central Committee held a standing committee of the Politburo in Panglao Town, Weiyuan County (or Tongwei County), to which Jia Tuofu was especially invited. It was during this meeting that Mao Zedongers made the decision to gain a foothold in northern Shaanxi.
After the meeting, Jia led a company of soldiers and a radio station as an outpost and set out in search of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi. In Ganquan County, Shaanxi Province, he met Guo Hongtao, a party leader in northern Shaanxi, and Cheng Zihua, a political commissar of the 15th Red Army Corps, and completed the task of liaising with the party organization in northern Shaanxi.
On October 19, the Central Red Army reached the town of Wuqi in Baoan County, Shaanxi Province, and rendezvoused with the Red Army of Northern Shaanxi led by Liu Zhidan. The Long March ended.
On October 24, the CPC Central Committee held a meeting of the Politburo in Ganquan County, at which Mao Zedong said: “(On the Long March) got new materials, knowing that there is such a large Soviet area and Red Army in northern Shaanxi, so decided to go to northern Shaanxi …… to lead the national revolution with the Soviet area in northern Shaanxi. “
Note that here Mao Zedong said “to lead the national revolution with the Soviet area in northern Shaanxi”, not to lead the national anti-Japanese resistance with the Soviet area in northern Shaanxi. The “Central Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic” and the “Revolutionary Military Committee of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army” jointly issued the “Manifesto of Anti-Japanese Salvation” in late November. And its slogan was ‘Anti-Japanese and Anti-Chiang’, “Anti-Chiang” was the reality, “National Revolution” was the reality, and “Chinese Soviet Republic “The “anti-Japanese” is just a flag to win the hearts and minds of the people.
All in all, the phrase “the Red Army went north to resist Japan” was fabricated by the CCP after the end of the Northern Expedition.
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