The Long March

What the specification asks for

“The events and importance of the Long March 1934–35.” — examined through significance. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The breakout and the route

The fifth Extermination Campaign strangled the Jiangxi Soviet with blockhouses and blockade, and in October 1934 the Communist forces broke out to the west. What followed was a fighting retreat of roughly six thousand miles over a year, through mountains, marshland and territory held by hostile warlords, ending in the remote northern province of Shaanxi at Yan'an.

The human cost was enormous. Something in the order of eighty-six thousand set out from Jiangxi and roughly eight thousand of that column arrived, though other units joined along the way; losses came from fighting, from cold and starvation in the mountains and grasslands, and from desertion.

It is important to state plainly that this was a defeat. The party abandoned its base, its land reform and most of its army, and it survived by reaching somewhere its enemies did not consider worth pursuing it into.

Zunyi

The decisive event of the March was political rather than military. At Zunyi in January 1935 the party leadership met and criticised the conduct of the campaign that had lost Jiangxi, which had been directed under Comintern advice. Mao Zedong's position in the leadership was substantially strengthened, and from that point his influence over strategy grew.

That is the March's most examinable consequence. A military disaster produced a change of leadership that lasted more than forty years, and the man it raised held power until his death in 1976. Any answer about the March's significance that does not reach Zunyi has described a journey rather than assessed it.

A second consequence was strategic. Yan'an was remote, defensible and far from Guomindang power, and the party spent the next decade there building an administration, an army and a political method that could be applied when circumstances changed. That decade is what made 1949 possible.

The March as evidence and as myth

The March also became the party's founding story: proof of endurance, of the willingness of leaders to share hardship, and of a discipline that distinguished the Red Army from warlord and Guomindang forces. That reputation was worth a great deal during the Japanese war, when the party's conduct towards villagers was compared with that of other armies.

A candidate should handle the mythology carefully. Accounts of the March were shaped afterwards for political purposes, particular episodes have been questioned by historians, and the numbers vary between sources. What is not disputed is the distance, the scale of losses and the change of leadership at Zunyi.

The honest formulation is that the Long March was a defeat with two consequences that mattered more than the defeat: it gave the party a leader and a base, and it gave it a story. A movement that can explain its own suffering as proof of its worth is much harder to destroy than one that cannot.

There is a further consequence, easily missed, which is geographical. Yan'an sat in the poor north-west, close to the areas the Japanese would occupy after 1937 and far from the coastal cities that mattered to the Guomindang. That accident of destination put the Communists in exactly the position from which a guerrilla war behind Japanese lines could be conducted, and it placed them where the Soviet Union could eventually be reached. A retreat chosen because it led away from an enemy delivered the party to the one place in China where the next decade would work in its favour.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

October 1934

The Communists break out of Jiangxi after the fifth Extermination Campaign. Why this date: The March begins as an escape from a successful encirclement, not as a strategic initiative.

January 1935

The Zunyi conference strengthens Mao's position in the leadership. Why this date: It is the March's decisive outcome, and it lasted more than forty years.

October 1935

Surviving forces reach Shaanxi and establish themselves at Yan'an. Why this date: It provides a remote and defensible base in which the party built the army and the method that won in 1949.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• About 6,000 miles — The distance of the Long March over roughly a year. (Route and distance figures vary between accounts and between the columns that made the journey.)
• About 86,000 to about 8,000 — The numbers setting out from Jiangxi and arriving in Shaanxi. (Other units joined en route, and the figures are those given in accounts shaped after the event.)
• January 1935 — The Zunyi conference, three months into the March.

The people to place

• Mao Zedong — Strengthened his position in the leadership at Zunyi and directed strategy thereafter.
• Zhu De — Commander of the Red Army during the March.
• Zhang Guotao — Rival Communist leader whose forces separated from Mao's during the March.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'defeat with consequences' reading: The March was a catastrophic military retreat whose importance lies in what it produced — a leader confirmed at Zunyi, a secure base at Yan'an and a founding story — rather than in anything it achieved militarily. Contested by The reading that the March's importance has been inflated by later party history, and that the decade at Yan'an and the Japanese invasion did far more to make 1949 possible than a year of retreat..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Long March was a military success.

This: The party abandoned its base and lost the great majority of its forces. Its importance is political and strategic — the leadership change at Zunyi and the base at Yan'an — rather than military.

Not this: Mao led the Communist Party from its foundation.

This: He was one leader among several and his position was strengthened decisively at Zunyi in January 1935, fourteen years after the party was founded.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The March's events and the March's significance.

The distinction: The events are a fighting retreat with enormous losses; the significance is Zunyi, Yan'an and a founding narrative. A question about importance is answered by the second, not the first.

Blurred: The March as evidence and as party history.

The distinction: Distance, losses and the leadership change are well attested. Particular episodes were shaped afterwards for political purposes, and a candidate should say which category a claim falls into.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer measures the March by what it produced rather than by what it endured. Nine-tenths of an army was lost and the party's base was abandoned, and in January 1935 a conference in a small town settled who would lead China for the next four decades — so the significant thing about a six-thousand-mile retreat happened in a room.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: Zunyi named and dated. It is the difference between describing a march and explaining why it mattered for the next forty years.

The cap that bites here: The 16-mark question requires three aspects; two will not reach the top band.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which the Communist Party's position in 1936 was different from its position in 1934. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the Long March. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO causes of the Communists' survival during the Long March. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the Long March in the Communist victory in China, in the years 1927–49? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How far was Mao's leadership responsible for the Communist victory, in the years 1934–49? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 1: Sun, Chiang, the United Front and the Shanghai Massacres
• Next lesson: The war with Japan and the limitations of the Guomindang
• Also in this key topic: The Civil War and the reasons for Communist victory
• Key topic 2 · The triumph of Mao and the CCP, 1934–49 · China: conflict, crisis and change, 1900–89 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of China: The fall of the Qing, Warlordism and chaos, 1900–34 · Change under Mao, 1949–63 · The Cultural Revolution and its impact, 1965–76 · China, 1976–89