The Long March and the Making of Mao

How propaganda, symbolism, and shifting narratives cemented Mao Zedong’s power in revolutionary China

This essay was written by Nika Ozhelskaya: a university student in London

The Long March of 1934-35 was a widespread military retreat undertaken by the Red Army division of China’s Communist Party (CCP), taking place at a tumultuous period of modern Chinese history. Although the march had taken place in retaliation of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) army, its legacy became predominantly symbolic rather than military. In October of 1934, Some 86,000 Communist troops in the Jiangxi-Fujian border base broke through the Nationalist lines and began to move westwards. About 10% of the estimated peak of 160,000 participants reached the northwestern province of Shaanxi. Thus, both Mao’s leadership and the toil of his devoted followers inspired many young Chinese to join the CCP in the 1930s and 40s, determining China’s future as a Communist Republic. This essay argues that it was the symbolic value of Chairman Mao’s propaganda campaigns, rather than objective military victories, that placed power in his hands. Additionally, this essay makes a case for the malleability of historical interpretation. Throughout changing times and political climates, the role of the Long March in shaping history had been decisive, yet ambivalent. This exhibits that historical debate itself has no discernible terminus; interpretation will continue to hold the upper hand over objectivity, enriching intellectual understanding by inviting nuance, contestation, and critical reflection.

Many render the Communists’ Long March as an integral component to the rise of Mao and his cult of personality; it is not improbable to suggest that the cult of Mao Zedong was born out of the Long March, as believed by Marxist historian Maurice Meisner. An abundance of historians, both Maoists and Revisionists alike, regard the Long March as a tangible founding myth of the People’s Republic. Meisner believes that it was the legendary tales to which the Long March gave rise to that had provided an essential feeling of hope.

Conversely, fervent anti-Maoist historians Chang and Halliday go further to suggest that the Long March was steered by Chiang Kai-Shek himself, seeing it predominantly as a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party. Consequently, this removed the personal agency of Mao in its success, instead showcasing its triumph to be deceptive, and ultimately serendipitous. It was the galvanization of the metaphorical voyage, rather than the harsh reality of the nightmare of death and pain that Jonathan Spence sheds light on, cleverly utilised as a tactic of propaganda. The forging of a cohesion with CCP leadership, together with the assertion of ideological authority, were ultimately used as a means through which Maoist ideals were induced in Chinese society.

The Long March became a platform for Mao’s rise to power, as he was able to meet the arduous journey, as well as the ensuing hardships with decisive leadership. The Zunyi Conference of 1935, perhaps, was the most significant of conferences in the history of the Chinese Revolution; Maoist Hu Qiaomu, for instance, claims that the conference enabled the triumphant conclusion of the Long March through the implementation of correct leadership. Spence believes that The Zunyi Conference gave a major boost to Mao’s prestige; however, the historian posits that Mao's position in the broader Party was by no means unchallenged. The Post-Mao Revisionist Gao Hua believes that, owing to the Army having become thwarted repeatedly and overwhelmed with problems, Mao cleverly manipulated the Party structure in his favor through various reorganizational maneuvers, in turn facilitating the ease with which he expanded his influence in the military to the wider Party. The Huili conference of 1935 was said to be decisive in establishing Mao’s position in the Party. Mao used his iron will to put the Red Army’s key figures firmly under his control, by squelching the dissatisfaction expressed against him and his capabilities as a military leader. Suppressing these suspicions, hence, helped Mao place himself in an unassailable position. The new ‘triumvirate’ established at the Zunyi conference, consisting of Zhou Enlai, Mao and Wang Jiaxiang, had been of no little importance; revisionist John Fairbank claims that a most successful development had been Mao’s finding a close Party confidante in Zhou, who later devotedly served Mao as prime minister the same way the imperial house served the emperor. Gao also describes that another one of Mao’s strategies had been expanding his influence with the help of more feigned notions of alliance, such as the one formed with Zhang Wentian after the Zunyi Conference, giving ‘a cloak of legitimacy’ to the expansion of his power. This tactical move allied Mao with members of the Party’s ‘dogmatist faction’. Subsequently, the alliance was cleverly switched out for an alliance with Liu Shaoqi, whose views on the Party’s ‘leftist deviation’ aligned more closely with Mao’s, as soon as the Chairman had vaguely consolidated his position.

Additionally, Gao claims that to fulfil the expectations of a skilled military leader during Zunyi, Mao’s focus in 1935-36 had been the first battle line with the KMT. In the same way he was able to cleverly conceal perceived failures of military conduct during the Long March during Politburo meetings, he was able to exhibit his successes to the Party, by obstructing KMT’s assault on the CCP’s newly established base in Shaanxi through the mobilization of civilians, which had been of no little significance to his political career. Fundamentally, it was the use of guerrilla warfare, the effect of which was amplified by Communist propaganda, which, alongside later events, such as the retreat of KMT forces and the Japanese invasion of 1937, bore the identity of Maoism, allowing the CCP to effectively mobilize Chinese peasants, and organize many for guerilla warfare which, according to Meisner, was fundamental to the spread of Communist popularity under Mao Zedong. For instance, Marc Opper offers a more socio-historical approach on the matter, claiming that it was the devotion to a protection of the fruits of that struggle that CCP guerrillas professed. This, in turn, provided human resources for the obstruction of the KMT, as well as the procurement of supplies, which led to a progressive tax policy that allowed for successful interaction between rural China and the CCP.

The ultimate tool in Mao’s pursuit of power had been the skillful use of the Long March as a source of Communist propaganda, in its being one of the biggest propaganda tours in history, as put by Mao sympathizer and journalist Edgar Snow. Mao himself stated that the Long March had been ‘a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding machine, helping portray Mao as the prophet who had led the survivors through the wilderness. Chinese media and arts were manipulated to galvanise the God-like status obtained by the legacy of Mao’s Long March. The idealism of the Long March promoted by the propagandists made the founding myth close to impregnable, according to the Post-Mao Revisionist Sun Shuyun, though she cunningly sheds light on the disillusionment experienced by the participants of the Long March. Through interviews with soldiers and eyewitnesses, Sun reveals that many did not share the revolutionary zeal that was later attributed to the march. Furthermore, she points out that some ‘monumental’ moments were grossly exaggerated to fit the later fabricated narrative. Sun posits that Mao’s rise came about through mythmaking. Similarly, Meisner claims that the origins of one of China’s most vital ideological movements, the Yan’an Rectification campaign, had stemmed from the March’s ‘ascetic values’, which lay at the core of what later became known as the “Yan’an spirit”. According to Christopher Maiytt, such values were often dispersed via replication art of Chinese propaganda artists, for the sake of creating an epic backstory for the CCP. Propaganda posters were similarly used to promote reformed Chinese ideas, such as the advancement of Chinese peasants and the destruction of landowning social elitism at the village level, which had been crucial to the success of CCP’s collaboration with rural China.

Historians of various schools of thought, ranging from orthodox Maoists to radical Post-Mao Revisionists, generally depict the March’s significance within its long-term implications. The development of the March directed Mao towards a significantly more powerful position within the CCP. Valid structural points regarding the economy, such as Meisner’s suggestion of its importance in the Yan’an campaign, or Maiytt’s emphasis on its role in the synthesis of Communist propaganda underpin this argument; however, post-Maoist Gao Hua’s extensive evaluation of the Long March’s role in the Party’s structural reorganization is, perhaps, the most comprehensive in its consideration of the various strategies undertaken by Mao. Ultimately, the appearance of new evidence, as well as gradual changes in the political climate, show the Long March itself in an entirely different light, such as through the groundbreaking findings of historian Sun Shuyun. The Long March’s significance lies as much in its symbolic reconstruction as in its historical reality. As new evidence emerges and interpretations evolve through space and time, historical debate becomes a platform for ideological contestation; proof that history is never static.

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