Having no Understanding of the Long March Means no Understanding of the Great Revival of the Chinese Nation

By Professor Zhang Lihai, Xi’an Poitical Institute of PLA



Having no Understanding of the Long March Means no Understanding of the Great Revival of the Chinese Nation

By Professor Zhang Lihai, Xi’an Poitical Institute of PLA

The Long March is a great expedition of the human spirit and resolve, and is a magnificent march for the Party-led Red Army to seek a great national rejuvenation. Having deep concern about and bearing responsibility for the fate of the country and future of the nation make the Party and its led - Red Army generate great power and wisdom to save the nation in peril, thus having left behind an immortal legend of the Long March victory, and started the new journey of national rejuvenation. Having no understanding of the Long March – a "history textbook" – means having no understanding of the great revival of the Chinese nation.

Take responsibility for national justice with struggle and sacrifice

Confronting the national holocaust by invaders, whether to stand up or draw back is the true touchstone to test a political party, or an army whether it had national justice in mind. The Long March took place under the circumstances that the anti-Japan aggression for the national salvation and for getting the Chinese nation out of genocide became the most urgent task of the whole nation. The Party and the Red Army in the face the survival crisis still had decisively and desperately shouldered the heavy responsibility to save the nation in slavish. As far as the Party is concerned, this is determined by her "original mission", from the date of birth the Communist Party of China takes the heavy responsibility for national liberation and national revitalization.

To take responsibility for the national justice is to blaze the trail with struggle and sacrifice. How conscious and strong the sense of national justice is assures how heroic and glorious the struggle and sacrifice are. In early 1935, an anti-Japanese aggression Advance Contingent was composed by the 10th Red Army group to go to the north to fight the Japanese aggressors. On the way, the Advance Contingent met with the Kuomingtang troops in Huaiyu mountain area, Zhejiang province, the wounded Advance Contingent Commander Hu Tiantao was captured in the lost battle. A Kuomintang top general Wang Yao-wu was stunned to see the Red Army commander wearing patched clothes, two repaired sandals of different colors and carrying a food bag as his army men during the first meeting as Wang Yao-wu later on recalled. Wang Yao-wu said to Hu Tiantao that Generalissimo Jiang offered a lenient treatment as long as anyone could make reflection, and would get promoted. Hu returned by saying that only carrying out revolution, downfalling imperialism, feudalism and the warlords, could China have an outlet. Wang said again to Hu that KMT also worked to build the country better, resisted the invasion of imperialism, and showed any evidence for the KMT collusion with imperialism. Hu refuted him that the KMT had strong military, but commanded it to fight the civil war rather then resisting the Japanese aggressors, it also asked the imperialist officers to serve as advisers, is it not a collusion with imperialism? Hu Tiantao preferred death rather than disclosing whereabouts of the Red Army.

What is the Long March? The Long March is to tie the survival of the Chinese nation firmly together with the survival of the Party and the Red Army, hold the nation's independence and liberation over the head, and inject new passion, justice, honour and resolve into the body of the Chinese nation to save the nation in danger with huge sacrifice by the Party-led Red Army. The Long March tested and witnessed the heroic feat and quality of the Party and the Party-led Red Army in bearing responsibility for the national justice.

The spiritual fulcrum for the Chinese national rejuvenation

A nation in the course of rejuvenation always needs a kind of spiritual power, and the Long March by the Red Army is the spiritual fulcrum for the Chinese nation to seek revival.

The will and strength displayed by the 25000-li expedition is the new spiritual milestone for the Chinese nation. The main reason that the Long March becomes the new spiritual milestone for the Chinese nation is that the Party and the Party-led Red Army constantly inject into the national spirit the revolutionary heroism, revolutionary idealism, and revolutionary optimism by exemplary role, so that the Chinese nation’s spiritual character, spiritual realm, spiritual strength have a qualitative leap. Therefore, to create a new spiritual miracle, nothing can be matched with the Red Army Long March.

Hence, people can see a great disparity in strength between the Red Army and the KMT military, the bad natural environment, serious intra-party struggle, and heavy mass work, the history spontaneously threw out these quadruple tasks to the Red Army -- a young armed forces -- which tests the Party and the Red Army with almost all human suffering – scores of military aircrafts daily dropping bombs in the air, several hundred thousand troops encircling, untraversed canyons and valleys, snow-capped mountains, dangerous marshlands, plateau of thin air, shortage of medicine and clothing, hunger and starvation, lying on ice and in snow, climbing high snow-capped mountains and crossing deep rivers, eating grass roots and wild fruits, the dogmatist fetter and splitist provocation, etc. The 25000-li Long March is full of dangers, risks, and passes to life-or-death everywhere, the Party and the Red Army could still remain very optimistic and self-confident, take one difficult pass after another in unimaginable difficulties, and bring the dying party and army to life, and finally raised the victorious red flag in the war front of anti-Japanese agression. In the summer of 1936, a French missionary R. A. Bosshardt in his memoirs described his 18 months-life with the Chinese Red Army in the following way, they could only eat one meal every day, had to be on the march day and night ... But these young soldiers dressed in rags and wore sandals often came together to discuss human spirit, philosophical propositions ... From here, we can get understanding of infinite possibility by human potential, human perseverance, human belief, human mental strength and creativity, and also surprised to see new miracles created by human spiritual power.

"If you fail to reach the Great Wall you are no man, twenty thousand-li expedition is completed by counting on fingers", Mao Zedong during the Long March in the poetic language matched the "Long March" with the "Great Wall", this is apt. Because both the "Great Wall" and the "Long March" are the amazing miracles in the human world created by the Chinese nation. For over a thousand years, the "Great Wall" has been the pride and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. While the Long March victory makes the Long March itself a new spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. This is the great contribution to the Chinese nation by the Party and the Party-led Red Army.

The Long March victory makes the "heroic image" of the Party and the Party-led Red Army known across the country and the world at large, completely changed the "demonized" situation of the Party and the Red Army in the international community. To "demonize" the Party and the Red Army is a long-term "political" weapon used by reactionaries at home and abroad. Because the country’s public opinion tool was then in the hands of the Kuomintang reactionaries for a long time, in quite a long period the "demonized" image of the Chinese revolution, the Party and the Red Army was misleading the international community. We won't forget that it is an American journalist Edgar Snow who had in-depth interviews in June to October 1936 with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the Red Army that he had published in England in October 1937 the Red Star Over China, which highly spoke of the Long March as an epic expedition known unparalleled in today's world. Since then, the red area isolated for nine years under the tight news censorship was revealed. The heroic name of the Red Army, the legend stories of the Long March and the "magic power" of the nation’s spirit spread throughout the world. It not only immediately attracted a huge number of intellectuals, students. Etc. in the KMT controlled areas yearning for a bright future and pursuing national rejuvenation to go to Yanan, the northern Shaanxi, and even in the next few decades it constantly attracts many foreign journalists, writers, friends to make interviews, publish books and write commentaries to comment the Long March, and even to repeat it along the same route. The Long March, from then on, is viewed by the international society as a pronoun for the human miracle created by the CPC and the Party- led troops and the new spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation

The Long March upgrades the Chinese national spirit to the unprecedented heights. H. E. Salisbury had a book the Long March – the Untold Story published in 1985, in the Preface of which he writes that there is no event more fascinating and more profoundly influencing the future of the world than the Long March in this century. The well-known international strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski comments that the Long March Is much more than a unrivalled heroic epic, its significance is much more profound; it is a spirit of national unity as well as the necessary factor to overcome backwardness. The British scholar Dick Wilson in his academic work The Long March 1935: the Epic of Chinese Communism’s Survival views the Long March as a model of "human spirit". The Long March just as such raises the nation to "stand up" in terms of spirit, while the entire world in front of the Long March legendary gets stunned and in-deep thought, the Long March also becomes a star in the sky of human spirit and an immortal monument to the human spirit history.

Never forget the original mission, command well the new Long March

The Long March 80 years ago already accumulated the collective consciousness for the Chinese nation. Over the past 80 years, at every major historical turning point, people always use the Long March as a proper metaphor. Whenever encountering difficulties and hardships, people always wish to review the Long March. On July 18, 2016, General Secretary Xi made a special trip from Beijing to Guyuan -- place where the Red Army troops joined together, presented a flower basket to the Memorial Monument to the Red Army Troops Coming Together and visited the Memorial Hall. He meaningfully states that the Long March is forever on the road...... Never forget the original mission, pioneer well the new Long March.

The Long March and the New Long March are a relay race for one generation after another of the communists to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We have already reached the key point to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and have never been so close to that goal, so we have the greater confidence and the ability to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than anytime time. While we are clearly aware that the New Long March road is also full of difficulties and risks, in the face of "containment and encirclement" and challenges of "the culture cold war" as well as various "stigmatized " smear by some western countries, it is more necessary for us to straighten up nationally, and to tightly combine individual future and destiny with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and continuously enhance the self-confidence in growing national prosperity.

The Long March incubates the infinite wisdom and creativity of the Chinese nation. On the New Long March road, along with deepening and expanding of reform and opening up, in the face of various new situations, new contradictions, new problems, new risks, it is more necessary for us to confront with problems and difficulties, to arouse the creativity of the whole nation, to write a new Long March chapter with our practical actions, and to extend the glorious chapter of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the era creativity. The Long March has not only set the shining example for us to stand up among nations of the world, but is also the head source of power and wisdom for us to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We firmly believe that with the suffering and glory, the Chinese nation can undoubtedly realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!

(Abridged translation of the article from ww.gmw.cn on October 5, 2016)