The 85th Anniversary of the Victory of the Long March Relive the stories of those great expeditions that started a new situation

Source: People's Daily - Theory Channel Original draft

Editor's note: Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly told the story of the Long March with deep affection, emphasizing that "today's Progress and Development in China is the coming out of the Long March" and "we must remember the spirit of the Great Long March, learn from the spirit of the Great Long March, and carry forward the spirit of the Great Long March from generation to generation." On the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March, let us relive the story of the Long March of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, an unprecedented feat in the history of the world, feel the spirit of the Long March, and on the road to the new Long March to achieve the second centenary goal, hold the belief in victory, overcome major risks and challenges, and forge ahead toward the goal of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

(Source: "The Great Spirit in the Centennial Journey: The Spirit of the Long March")

Fang Zhimin: "Friend! China is the mother who gave birth to us. ”

Fang Zhimin and Liu Yuxi led their troops all the way north, and encountered the enemy when they reached Tanjia Bridge in Taiping County, the northern foothills of the Huangshan Mountains. Xun Huaizhou, the commander of the young Andying Red Nineteenth Division, was seriously wounded and died shortly after, at the age of 22. Le Shaohua, political commissar of the corps, Liu Ying, director of the political department, and 8 other cadres at or above the division level were wounded one after another, thus affecting the fighting mood of the vast number of commanders and fighters of the Red Tenth Army.

The enemy army was chased and blocked in three ways, and the Red Tenth Army fought with great difficulty, reducing the number of troops by more than one-third, and had to return to the base area of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Gansu. It was Already January 1935, and it was winter, and the officers and men of the Red Army were still wearing jackets. Chiang Kai-shek concentrated nearly 200,000 troops and set up layers of ambushes in northeast Jiangxi to encircle the Red Army.

The enemy army formed a multi-way "search and suppression" team, which was interspersed vertically and horizontally, and divided the main force of the Red Tenth Army into several sections. After a long march and battle, the Red Army was very tired, and after falling into the enemy's heavy siege, it ran out of ammunition and food, the casualties increased, and it encountered sudden changes in the weather, rain and snow, and many commanders and fighters did not enter the grain of rice for several days, and only filled their hunger with grass root bark. In this extremely difficult situation, they still fought tenaciously and fought bloodily against the enemy to the end. The enemy is barbaric and cruel, killing people when he sees them, burning houses when they see them, and burning all the grain that can be found. Because the mountains were high and densely forested, it was inconvenient to search, so the enemy set fire to the mountains, and some of the wounded and sick of the Red Army who could not move were burned alive. In the end, due to the disparity between the crowds and the exhaustion of food, only a small number of comrades broke through the siege, and most of them died heroically by the end of January. The main leaders of the legion, Liu Yuxi and Fang Zhimin, were unfortunately arrested.

In the face of the enemy's severe punishment and various abductions, Fang Zhimin's righteousness was awe-inspiring and unyielding. While in prison, he wrote such immortal famous articles as "A Brief Description of My Revolutionary Struggle," "Lovely China," and "Poverty Alleviation," praising the greatness and beauty of the motherland with passion, painfully telling the people's ravages and humiliations, and expressing his determination to save the motherland with blood and life.

"Friends! China is the mother who gave birth to us. ”

"It is true that the current China is of course a broken country and a poor country, but who can assert that China does not have a bright future? No, absolutely not, we believe that China must have a bright future to praise. ”

"Friend, I believe that by then there will be active creations everywhere, rapid progress everywhere, songs of joy instead of lamentations, smiling faces instead of crying faces, richness instead of poverty, health instead of suffering, wisdom instead of ignorance, fraternity instead of vendetta, happiness in life instead of sorrow of death, bright gardens instead of desolate wastelands! At this time, our nation can stand in front of mankind without shame, and the mother who gave birth to us will also be most beautifully decorated and join hands with all the mothers in the world on an equal footing. ”

Fang Zhimin said: "I am a hater of darkness, I am a thirst for light. "I sincerely love my class brothers, love our party, and love my Chinese nation." In the face of the enemy's butcher's knife, he solemnly swore an oath before he bravely and righteously: "The enemy can only cut off our heads, and must not shake our faith!" For the doctrine of our faith is the truth of the universe! Sacrificing for communism, shedding blood for the Soviets, that is what we are very willing to do!"

Fang Zhimin, Liu Yuxi, and others were unyielding and regarded death as a homecoming, and the enemy was poor in skill and had no choice but to order "secret execution." In the early morning of August 6, 1935, Fang Zhimin and Liu Yuxi bravely fought in the secret execution ground of Xiashawo north of Nanchang City, Fang Zhimin was only 36 years old, and Liu Yuxi was only 38 years old.

From the bloody battle of the Xiang River to the crossing of the old mountain boundary, Chen Shuxiang, commander of the 34th Division, was wounded and captured and died heroically

From November 28 to 30, the Red Army, at a heavy price, finally secured the passage to the Xiang River, allowing the CPC Central Committee, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission and directly subordinate organs to pass through the Xiang River.

The Red Fifth Army served as the general rearguard, and the Thirty-fourth Division of the Corps moved to the area of Guanyang and Daoxian, and finally ran out of ammunition and food, and the entire army was destroyed. Division commander Chen Shuxiang was heavily entrusted with responsibilities and was unfortunately captured. When the enemy heard that the commander of the Red Army division had been captured, he went mad with joy and carried him to his superiors to ask for merit and reward. Taking advantage of the enemy's lack of preparation, Chen Shuxiang strangled his intestines from the abdominal wound with his hands and sacrificed himself heroically, at the age of 29.

Breaking through the enemy's fourth blockade line was the most intense and fierce battle since the Long March. Although the commanders and fighters of the Vast Number of Red Army officers fought bravely, due to the erroneous command of the "Left" leaders, the Red Army paid an extremely heavy price, from 86,000 at the beginning of the Long March to more than 30,000. The Battle of Xiangjiang declared the bankruptcy of the "Left" dogmatic military guidance. The fact of blood has made everyone realize that only by putting an end to the dogmatic leadership of the "Left" can the Red Army gain the initiative and the Long March can win victory.

After the Red Army crossed the Xiang River, the troops were tired and the order was not in order, so the Central Military Commission decided to rest for a day or two in the western extension, and then advance according to the original plan. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek planned to annihilate the Red Army west of the Xiang River and prevent the Red Army from entering Guizhou to join the Red Fourth Front and the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies. To this end, Chiang Kai-shek divided the garrison areas of the three provinces of Hunan Province, Guizhou and Qian.

Under the above circumstances, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission still decided to continue to advance westward and go north out of Xiangxi to join the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies. As a result, the Red Army entered the mountainous area of YuechengLing (the boundary of the old mountain) in northern Guizhou.

Lu Dingyi's article "Old Mountain Boundary" describes the scene of the Red Army crossing the first high mountain during the Long March, and is full of revolutionary optimism throughout.

The sky was full of stars, and the torches were lit up. Looking up from the foot of the mountain, I saw that the torches were arranged in many zigzags, until the sky was connected to the starlight, and it was impossible to tell whether it was the fire of the torch or the starlight. It was a spectacle I had never seen in my life!

Everyone knows how steep this mountain is, and they can't help but be nervous, shouting back and forth, helping to finish the mountain quickly!

"Go up!"

"Don't be left behind!"

"Don't be left behind to be a turtle!"

One man shouted, "We're in heaven!"

Everyone laughed and laughed.

Step by step on the road of "ZigZag". Looking upwards, the torches are lined up a little above the head to the sky, and looking down, it is simply a cliff, and the torches shine on the face of the person, just under the feet.

...... The insurmountable old mountain boundary was defeated by a bulky team like ours.

As Lu Dingyi said, in the future, "when we have crossed the Jinsha River, the Dadu River, the snow-capped mountains, and the meadows, the difficulties in the old mountain boundary are already insignificant and insignificant compared to these places." Indeed, compared with the thousands of rivers and mountains in the later Long March, nothing earth-shattering happened in the process of crossing the old mountain boundary. But why do so many old Red Army soldiers talk about the old mountain boundary in their memoirs, and they all have a deep heart for crossing the old mountain boundary?

In fact, the difficulties encountered by the Red Army when crossing the old mountain boundary were twofold, with the obstruction of natural dangers and the low mood at that time. At that time, the Red Army suffered a defeat on the Xiang River, and more than half of the personnel were lost, and many people were confused and confused about the future of the revolution. Where will the Red Army go next? It became the most concerned and most worrying issue for the commanders and fighters of the Red Army.

At that time, Mao Zedong's words "look back in shock, three feet away from the sky" is a sentence, one is the height of the mountain, and the other is the seriousness of the crisis. But after all, the Red Army broke through this gap of "three feet and three feet from the sky", which indicated that the Chinese revolution would usher in a bright and smooth road.

From this we seem to understand why the old Red Army is unforgettable for crossing the old mountain boundary. Crossing the high mountain of the old mountain boundary, the officers and men of the Red Army not only boosted their morale, but also began to have a gradually clear and correct way of thinking on the future of the revolution.

The convening of the Zunyi Conference

On the evening of January 15, an enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee was held in the residence of the warlord Bai Huizhang in Zunyi City. This was the best building in Zunyi City at that time, and there was a small living room on the main building on the north side, which could accommodate more than 20 people. The venue is located in this living room. On that day, a kerosene lamp hung from the ceiling, a rectangular table was placed in the middle, 20 chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, and a pot of charcoal was burned in the living room. Present at the meeting were Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, and Bogu, members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Fa, and He Kequan (Kaifeng), alternate members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Liu Bocheng, Li Fuchun, Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen, Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun, and Li Zhuoran, responsible persons of the Headquarters of the Red Army and various corps, as well as Deng Xiaoping, secretary general of the CPC Central Committee. Li De and Wu Xiuquan, who works as an interpreter, also attended the meeting as observers. The meeting was presided over by Bogu, responsible person of the Party Central Committee.

The meeting lasted for 3 days, the atmosphere was intense, the voice was very high, and the meeting was always held until midnight every day. Finally, the meeting made the following important decisions: Mao Zedong was elected as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee; Zhang Wentian was designated to draft the resolution of the meeting, entrusted to the Politburo Standing Committee to examine it, and sent it to the branch for discussion; the Politburo Standing Committee then carried out an appropriate division of labor; the "three-man regiment" established before the Long March was abolished, and the supreme military leaders Zhu De and Zhou Enlai were still the military commanders, and Zhou Enlai was entrusted by the party to be the person responsible for making the final decision to command the military.

Thereafter, on the way to the Red Army, on February 5 in a village at the junction of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Qianqian provinces, the Members of the Politburo Standing Committee divided their labor and, according to Mao Zedong's proposal, decided that Zhang Wentian would replace Bogu in the overall responsibility of the Central Committee (also known as the General Secretary); it was decided that Mao Zedong would be Zhou Enlai's helper in military command, and Bogu would be the acting director of the General Political Department. On March 4, after the second stationing in Zunyi, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission set up a former enemy headquarters, with Zhu De as commander and Mao Zedong as political commissar. Subsequently, in view of the rapidly changing operational situation and the need for centralized command, Mao Zedong proposed the establishment of a "three-man regiment" with full authority to command the military. In mid-March, in the area of Yaxi and Gouba in Guizhou, a new "three-man regiment" composed of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Wang Jiaxiang was established, with Zhou Enlai as the leader, responsible for directing the military operations of the whole army. In a war environment, this is the most important leading body of the central government.

The Zunyi Conference, held in an urgent war situation, did not comprehensively discuss the question of the political line. A process is needed to achieve a correct understanding of all major issues in the work of the Party over the years. Therefore, the resolution of the conference only affirms the political line of the central authorities in general and does not explore the profound political reasons for the error of military command. However, the Zunyi Conference clearly answered the question of right and wrong in the strategic and tactical aspects of the Red Army, pointed out the mistakes in the military command of Bogu and Li De, and at the same time changed the leadership of the Central Committee, especially the military leadership, solved the most pressing organizational and military problems facing the Party, and put an end to the rule of the "Left" dogmatic errors in the Central Committee. These achievements were achieved independently and autonomously under the circumstance that the Communist Party of China broke off ties with the Comintern.

Deng Xiaoping once said: "In history, before the Zunyi Conference, our Party did not form a mature Party Central Committee. From Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Xiang Zhongfa, Li Lisan to Wang Ming, none of them had formed a capable center. "The leadership collective of our party was gradually formed from the Zunyi Conference, that is, Comrades Mao Liu Zhouzhu and Ren Bishi."

During the Long March, the Zunyi Conference convened by the Party Central Committee was a turning point in the history of our Party that was crucial to life and death. This meeting established Mao Zedong's leading position in the Red Army and the Party Central Committee, began to establish the leading position of the correct Marxist line with Comrade Mao Zedong as the main representative in the Party Central Committee, and began to form the first generation of the Party's central leading collective with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core.

The three main red army victory divisions

After the meeting, the Central Red Army, under the command of Mao Zedong and others, crossed the Chishui River in four directions, pretended to attack Guiyang, threatened Kunming, crossed the Jinsha River by chance, and jumped out of the encirclement circle of the Kuomintang army.

In order to cooperate with the Central Red Army, the Red Fourth Front launched the Battle of The Jialing River in late March 1935, and actually began the Long March (it is also believed that the Long March of the Red Fourth Front began in May).

In late May, the Central Red Army advanced to the northwest of Sichuan. In mid-June, he met the Red Fourth Front in the Maogong (present-day Xiaojin) region of Sichuan. After meeting the division, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting at the mouth of the Two Rivers and decided that the Red Army would continue to move north and establish a base area in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu. However, Zhang Guotao opposed the central government's policy of going north and insisted on going south. The CPC Central Committee has repeatedly urged and persuaded without results. On September 9, Zhang Guotao sent a telegram ordering Chen Changhao, political commissar of the Right Route Army, to lead his troops south to "thoroughly carry out the struggle within the party." The CPC Central Committee led the Red First and Red Armies and the Column of the Central Military Commission to go north first. On September 12, the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting at the Russian border of Diebu County (now Gaoji) in Gansu Province, to adopt the "Decision of the Central Committee on Comrade Zhang Guotao's Mistakes" and decided to rename the Red Army going north as the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment.

According to the instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, on November 16, 1934, the Red Twenty-fifth Army, in the name of the Second Advance Detachment of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army to the North to Resist Japan, withdrew from the revolutionary base area of Eyu and Anhui and began the Long March from Luoshan County, Henan. On September 15, 1935, the Red 25th Army arrived at the town of Yongping (present-day Yongping) in Yanchuan, Shaanxi.

On October 19, 1935, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China led the Shaanxi-Gansu detachment of the Red Army (the main force of the Red Army) to the town of Wuqi in Shaanxi.

After the Red Fourth Front moved south, it moved to the Chuankang area. In early July 1936, he went north with the Red Second Front. During this period, the vast number of commanders and fighters of the Red Fourth Front, under the leadership of Zhu De, Liu Bocheng, and Xu Xiangqian, bravely fought bravely, and waged a resolute struggle against Zhang Guotao's separatism; the arrival of the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies led by Ren Bishi, He Long, and others further strengthened the red army's strength to unite and move north. In early October, the Red Fourth Front met the Red Front in Huining, Gansu Province.

After completing the task of responding to the Central Red Army, the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies faced the heavy "encirclement and suppression" of 130 regiments of the Kuomintang Army. On November 19, 1935, the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies took the initiative to withdraw from the Xiang'echuanqian Revolutionary Base Area and set out from Sangzhi Liujiaping and other places in Hunan to begin the Long March.

On July 2, 1936, the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies arrived in Ganzi, northwest of Sichuan, and joined the Red Fourth Front. On July 5, the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies and the Red Thirty-second Army were formed into the Red Second Front, with He Long as the commander-in-chief and Ren Bi as the political commissar at the time.

In early July, the Red Second and Fourth Red Fronts marched north together. In late October, the Red Second Front reached the area of Jiangtai fort (present-day Xiji, Ningxia) northwest of Longde, Gansu, and joined the Red Army.

Marked by the meeting of the Red First, Red Second, and Red Fourth Fronts in the Huining and Jiangtaipu areas, the Long March of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army came to an end in victory. (Excerpt from Chapters 14 and 15 of "A Hundred Years of Party History in the Literature", by Li Ying, Xuelin Publishing House)