Significance of the Long March to the Chinese Communist Party - Essay Example

The Long March SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LONG MARCH TO THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY Introduction Forced by encircling nationalist troops to abandon their base area, in eastern and central China, the Chinese red army struck out across China in the mid-1930s. They strove to move north so as to join their comrades, but were constantly prevented from doing so by enemy forces. The red army retreated to the southern border of China, finally turning north through the mountains on the edge of Tibetan plateau into the treacherous grasslands. Starving and in tatters, the decimated first front army emerged from the grasslands and fought their way across yet another mountain range to converge with other Red army troops in the northern Shaanxi province. For twelve good months, they were under reconnaissance and bombing from the skies by scores of planes, while on land they were encircled and pursued, obstructed and intercepted by a force of several hundred thousand men. They also encountered untold difficulties and dangers on the way. Based as it was on dogged perseverance, almost superhuman endurance, and incredible acts of courage this odyssey became the symbol of the invincibility of the red army. This journey came to be known as the Long March. The long march is very significant to the formation of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party turned the Long March into a magnificent propaganda tool to amass support for the party and the army, and as such, stories about the long march spread around the country. On October 1934, the first contingents set out on what ultimately came to be known as the long march. It became an important event in the Chinese revolutionary history, this trek which was in meandering fashion covered around six thousand miles and took over one year to complete (Lewis, 1978). As the Red Army applied their guerilla warfare tactics in the remote mountainous areas of the provincial border and established Chinese soviet Base Areas, young peasant women, many facing no good future joined the revolution through the local communist organization. At least, two thousand women participated. They acted as soldiers from the three major contingents of the red army. These women came from eight different provinces and their ages ranged from twelve to thirty two years. Their work on the march included decoding telegrams for the head quarters, doing propaganda work in the villages they passed through, carrying stretchers, doing administrative work, working in security, working in the factory and caring for the wounded among others. Some of these women rose to become leaders, typically in women’s department and were in the right place when the Red army began the legendary retreat to victory. Jiangxi soviet was the most important of the rural areas governed by the Chinese Communist Party between the breakup of the united front between communists and the nationalists. The group under Mao established itself under Jing Gang Mountain and commenced employing guerilla warfare tactics (Schwartz, 1951). However, they faced grave difficulties. In November 1930, the first encirclement campaign was defeated in Jiangxi. Hundred thousand men and women started on the long march but out of this hundred thousand soldiers, only thirty thousand had survived when they arrived at Tsunyi, many of them had died on the march since they were frequently attacked by the Nationalist and other allied provinces (Salisbury & Salisbury, 1985). As losses increased, most of the members of the red army decided to abandon some of the heavy equipment they had carried along. The First group reached Shanxi in September 1935, the group with Mao in October 1935, and the last group with Zhang Guotao and Zhu De in October 1936. The long march was fundamental in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party as it significantly captured the world imagination. Thus, it profoundly affected the Chinese Communist Party’s future. The long march played a critical part in ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party survived. Thus it was a major dividing line; it ensured the survival of the Party’s veterans into anti-Japanese war in the 1937 to 1945 henceforth creating a heroic epic for the Chinese communist party. The long march showed openly the strength and party discipline, and the ideological commitment (Saich, 2011). For instance, Mao enhanced the party’s discipline by initiating rules such as ,the members of the communist party were supposed to obey all the orders in every doing, they were not supposed to take anything that does not belong to them even if it was small, they were not supposed to steal, they were also supposed to surrender everything they had had captured or taken illegally further, they were supposed to be polite, account for every damage they had done, to avoid damaging crops, avoid mistreating the captured men and women, purchase anything and pay for it and they were to avoid swearing at others unneccassarily.The enforcement of this laws applied even to the treatment of the poor and the disabled in the society. Those who were accused of unethical issues such as rape were directly imprisoned. This helped a lot in enhancing the Chinese Communist Party as many individuals including the peasants gave the communist party support as they really admired their behavior in comparison with other troops or armies that existed during that period. Politically, the long march saw the emergence of Mao as a senior leader at the Zunyi conference in January 1935, where he was elected to the standing committee of the polit Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party and made the director of the central committee Military Affairs Committee. Therefore, after being appointed as a great leader in the Chinese communist party, He corrected the military strategy that was initially used. The initial military strategy only led to failures; the strategy required the red army to hold out against the Kuomintang encirclement campaign. Mao helped in making an important decision that the first front army was to join the fourth front army under Zhang Guotao. He aimed at joining the forces so that they can together fight and bring victory home. Furthermore, the long march held a tremendous significance for Mao’s rise to power. He therefore continued to encourage members of the communist party to carry on to the north of Shaanxi or to march west to Tibet or Xinxiang. The long march was crucial since it was more than an escape from destruction and a battle for power for Mao and his followers. This is because, the epic of the march itself, the proof of the endurance in overcoming endless and extreme natural adversities such as the crossing of the morass grassland which was very difficult due to the attitude of about ten thousand feet. The militant adversities and dangers gave the survivors an emotional bond of shared glory that greatly strengthened their cohesion throughout the civil war and in the building of the communist state. The third strong bond of loyalty forged among the top ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party during the difficult months of the long march, secured leadership by tight-knit, yet often internally feuding group. These bonds later led to the formation of central and dynamic Government of the People of the Republic of China (Fritz, 1988). Despite the heavy losses, the long march unified the communists and it became a symbol of their resolve in the Chinese communist party. The long march was more than a symbol since it was considered as a great human epic. This is so because, the long walk tested the men and women ability, their strength, wills, courage and perseverance to the continuity of the Chinese people’s party. The long march further enhanced the foundation for rural based strategy for the revolutionary movement; this was through Mao’s victory when he defeated his principal rivals most of whom had been members of the twenty eight Bolsheviks with the strong ties to the Comintern who believed that the communist party movement should be based in urban areas only. Further, the long march accelerated the evolution towards unity. It is during the long march that a formal agreement was signed by the Chinese communist party. This union came by when the few thousand troops who had participated and survived in the long march came back in the North West in the autumn of 1935. These veterans encouraged the movement towards a renewed United Front with the Kuomintang, therefore the comintern at the seventh congress in Moscow called for an anti-fascist United front, thus the Chinese Communist Party came to agree and accept to join the front, including Chiang Kai Check who was an adversary of Mao. Moreover, Mao fought for freedom of discussion and critics in the CCP. Mao who was amongst the Red Army in the long march, participated in initiating a programme under the slogan ‘let hundred flowers boom ‘which refers to the developments that were distinct, significantly different although related, and he offered the Chinese Communist Party the freedom of discussion for intellectuals and wider tolerance in the fields of art, and literature of certain academic issues and literature. Secondly, he contributed to a positive encouragement of greater freedom of debate in public ralies, which briefly allowed unprecedented freedom of criticism of the communist party of china. Therefore, as a result of encouraging open debates and discussion, his slogan of hundred flowers boom was criticized by the Chinese intellectual and the school of thought. These critics helped the communist party relook at its slogan; therefore the communist party of china began an intensive process of rethinking in both the economic and the political fields. Therefore, Mao enhanced the political discussions and critics in the communist Chinese party. He further pointed out that soviet theory was inappropriate in the socialist community since conflicts among people, between the people and the state inevitably continue under socialism, he therefore concluded that these conflicts stimulate the society’s progress, that if somebody made a statement, it does not mean that the statement was made toward the party, rather it was directed towards the state conference to address the issue. Thus he appealed for greater freedom over the heads of the part leaders of Chinese communist party. The long march brought about a reversal of power relationships within the Chinese Communist Party. The serious losses suffered by the party and the Red Army during the first two and half months of the march created a situation in which Mao Tse-Tung was able to lead a revolt against the Internationalist dominated leadership. Further, it brought together the two members of the Communist Party of China, these were, Mao and Zhang who had earlier conflicted in 1923. During that time, they were opposing each other about the issue of communism. Zhang finally met Mao and accepted that he was the successful leader who was supposed to take charge of the group. They embraced each other as a sign that nothing was to come between them. Mao assumed chairmanship of the revolutionary Military Committee which gave him a voice in the formulation of the party policy. They moreover, had a political meeting where the two developed new strategies concerning the future of the communism forces. They also come to an agreement concerning the distribution of the troops and everything was successful at the end. The long march was very important to the Chinese Communist Party since it improved the administrative experience (Shuyun, 2006). For instance, it set up a party army. Further, it brought together all the administrative levels, this was necessary since during that period, and Mao had proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China. This party faced a lot of problems for instance establishment of authority, control of hyperinflation, restoration of war racked economy, redistribution of land to the peasants and the definition of its problems.therefore,all the levels of administration including provinces and counties were brought together and the Chinese Communist Party was called and they supported a new democracy. Hence inflation was controlled successfully, economic recovery was given priority over immediate social change and private industries were also encouraged.Further, treaty of friendship, alliance and mutual assistance was signed between china and the USSR (Peerenboom, 2002). Also, it led to the development of a new strategy called the guerrilla warfare, the Chinese communist’s party learnt the guerilla warfare skills, and the party members began the consolidation of Mao’s leadership and broke the party on, reliance and advice and legitimating from Moscow. For instance the red army was under instructions of Mao who gave them instructions on the guerrilla tactic of hit and run and they succeeded in wiping the element out with flash of seconds. They also used this tactic in the Japanese war and they came out successfully. Moreover, the long march facilitated the change of strategy by the communist party of china since it was concerned about the problem of desalinization as well as experience of popular hostility to centralized bureaucracy, shown during the hundred flower movement, led the communist party of china to consider substantial changes in strategy and organization so as to embrace communism. The result was a cautious decentralization accompanied by some reduction in the level of capital accumulation. In the 1957, Mao succeeded in winning the support of the majority of the central committee for a radical alternative to the orthodox soviet organization of production and investiment.This was seen in one of his speeches that was proposed to help the peasant communities to build their own industries and carry on their own firm land construction, it was decided that tax should be limited and procurement too so as them with greater means. Mao thus systemized his critics on Stalinism beginning with the government relationship. This was because Stalinism resulted to accumulation of capital out of the peasant’s surplus too high and so drained the pond to catch fish. Further, Mao overstressed on collective incentive schemes, he neglected the individual schemes, he gave no opportunity for any massive individuals who wanted to participate in social change and development in which, were merely passive recipients (Styron, 2010). The communist party of china also relied on these collective schemes since when they too lacked capital they induced development of labor intensive schemes, intermediate technologies thus due their scattered nature of the territories they also depended on communist development rather than that of the central programme. The long marchers having survived the long walk which was the most trying ordeal were ready to save the nation. Those who had endured the most devastating ordeal embodied the will to face up to the demonic force from abroad. Those who could mobilize the property-less peasantry in a fierce struggle against the landlord class, furthermore, would reinvigorate the revolutionary power of the seemingly enfeebled communists, enabling them eventually to prevail over the nationalists. Mao’s leadership was established by his ingenuity as military strategist, fearless as a revolutionary, vision as a theoretician, persuasion as an ideologist, rapport with the peasant’s community and charisma. His ability to win the support of an experienced general like Zhu De outmaneuvered a shrewd competitor like Zhang Guotao (Dillon, 2012). He gained the loyalty of the season intellectual like Zhou Enlai.This clearly indicates that Mao’s ascendancy in the Chinese communist movement was the result of many undeniable factors. This manifold assessment of Mao’s strength provides a necessary background for an in-depth analysis of the sources of his authority, specifically his appeal and manipulation of the intellectual community. Therefore, Mao played a very important role in the long march and he also enhanced the growth of Chinese communist party. Conclusion The long march was very significant to the Chinese communist party. It is during this period that Mao rose to power. Also, the long march unified the party. Additionally, the party gained the support of the masses as a result of the heroic acts of those involved in the march. Reference Dillon, M. (2012). China: A modern history. Fritz, J. (1988). Chinas Long March. Putnam Publishing Group. Lewis, J. W. (1978). Leadership in communist China. Greenwood Pub Group. Peerenboom, R. (2002). Chinas long march toward rule of law. Cambridge University Press. Saich, A. (2011). The governance and politics of China. Salisbury, H. E., & Salisbury, H. E. (1985). The long march: The untold story (p. 16). New York: Harper & Row. Schwartz, B. I. (1951). Chinese communism and the rise of Mao (Vol. 4). Harvard University Press. Shuyun, S. (2006). The Long March. HarperCollins. Styron, W. (2010). The long march. Open Road Media. Read More