The Long March of the Chinese Red Army

Date

October 1934 – October 1935

Category

Military & conflict

Region

East Asia (China)

Era

Modern

Significance

Encircled by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces in their Jiangxi Soviet base, the Chinese Communists broke out beginning around 16 October 1934 and embarked on a fighting retreat that became known as the Long March.

Over roughly a year the main Red Army column marched thousands of kilometres across southern and western China, crossing numerous mountain ranges and rivers, before reaching a new base in northern Shaanxi in October 1935. Casualties were enormous: of the tens of thousands who set out, only a small fraction survived. Despite being a military defeat, the march became a foundational legend of the Chinese Communist movement. At the Zunyi Conference of January 1935, Mao Zedong consolidated leadership of the party, setting him on the path to ultimate control. The march preserved the Communist movement, forged a hardened cadre, and shaped the strategy that would carry the party to power in 1949.

Empires active in October 1934 – October 1935

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related military & conflict events

• The Long March Reaches Shaanxi
  1934–1935
• Italy Invades Ethiopia
  1935–1936
• Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre
  7 July 1937 – 2 September 1945
• German invasion of Poland and outbreak of World War II
  1 September 1939
• Attack on Pearl Harbor
  7 December 1941
• Operation Barbarossa: German invasion of the Soviet Union
  22 June 1941

Also relevant

• Japanese Invasion of Manchuria and the Mukden Incident
  18 September 1931 (Manchukuo declared 1932)

Further reading

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

The wider story

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Herbert P. Bix

Pulitzer-winning life of the emperor and his empire.

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