Great Long March

Author: Li Qingshan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: In the Central Secretariat meeting held in May 1934, the contradictions among the "comrades who returned from Moscow" finally broke out. Zhang Wentian openly criticized Bo Gu and Li De for personally directing the Guangchang Campaign, labeling it as "heroism without strategy." Since this meeting primarily focused on summarizing the Guangchang Campaign, Li De attended as the military advisor and planner of the campaign. In his recollection of this first major public confrontation, he wrote: "Lu Feng lacked military experience but was relatively familiar with military literature. He blindly accepted Mao's arguments, yet his ability to express himself was better than Mao's, making it easier for him to gain an audience, especially as he avoided the nationalist tone that always accompanied Mao's speeches. Lu Feng and Bo Gu clashed fiercely over the Guangchang Campaign. Lu Feng argued that under unfavorable terrain conditions and a disadvantageous force ratio, there should have been no battle. Bo Gu retorted that Lu Feng adopted the attitude of Plekhanov toward Lenin after the Moscow Uprising of 1905, when Plekhanov had a typical Menshevik slogan: 'People should absolutely not pick up weapons.' At the same time, Bo Gu reminded Lu Feng that the resolution on the Guangchang Campaign had been unanimously approved by the Political Bureau and the Military Commission, and both Lu Feng and Mao had agreed to it. Faced with the unexpected conflict between Bo Gu and Lu Feng, Zhou Enlai, Xiang Ying, and others remained silent. This meeting was almost a verbal battle between Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, with neither willing to yield, performing a play that ended in discord. However, Bo Gu's trust in Li De remained unchanged. Shortly after this meeting of the Central Secretariat, Li De was commissioned by the Central Revolutionary Military Committee to formulate a three-month quarterly plan for military measures and operations from May to July 1934. This plan required: the main forces to prepare for breaking through the blockade; independent units to operate deep behind enemy lines; partially abandoning direct resistance on the front lines to facilitate more flexible operations within the Soviet region. This plan also included: stockpiling food, winter clothing, establishing new armories, strengthening armed mobilization efforts, and military unit reorganization, among other things. Later, a strategic and tactical directive was drafted, which was conveyed to the senior military leaders in the summer. The military plan for May to July 1934 already proposed the "Great Transfer," which was the initial intention of the later Long March. The issue of the "Great Transfer" was discussed in the second meeting of the Central Secretariat in late May. The meeting approved the military plan for May to July 1934 while also deciding to withdraw the main force of the Red Army from the Central Soviet Region to seek operations on the outside. In Li De's own words, "At this moment, seeking decisive battles within the Soviet region was meaningless." Li De and Bo Gu completely rejected Mao Zedong's guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare, proposing what they called "new military principles"—fortified battles, positional battles, and brief, concentrated offensives—aiming to "repel the enemy at the gates." However, these military principles proposed by Li De and others led to the Red Army's successive defeats and the gradual shrinkage of the Soviet region within half a year. But Bo Gu and Li De did not learn from these failures, nor did they seek the root causes from a subjective perspective. Instead, they believed the losses were mainly due to the enemy's overwhelming strength and poor material conditions in the Soviet region. But the reality was: