Does someone has any info on the long march of the chinese communist, after it fled westwards to escape from the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang)?

I would like to know more about its history..

Here is a map of Long March..

There is a good website on Long march history:

http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Long-March/L...ch-history.html

Here is a brief history about long march and chinese communist party:

The Beginning of the Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party had its origins in 1921. The shaky alliance with the Nationalist Party headed by Chiang Kaishek came to a halt on the morning of April 12th, 1927 with a feast of heads. Thousands perished. Some were shot; some beheaded; some hurled alive into the glowing furnaces of steam locomotives. So many heads were chopped off that the weary arms could hardly raise their great scimitars from their sides. What few escaped, including Zhou Enlai fled to the west to Jiangxi Province. The remoteness of Jiangxi was so great in the 1930s that the government had almost no control over this area. Roadless, as was most of China in those years, it was traversed only by mountain footpaths by people carrying bundles on their backs, horse-and-mule caravans, single file, too narrow for even carts, made Jiangxi a haven for rebellion. Everywhere flourished illiteracy, disease, poverty, and ignorance. It was here that Mao Zedong set up his new Soviet Communist zone.

The Soviet Zone in Jiangxi

For seven years the communists prospered despite everything Chiang Kaishek and his Nationalists Koumingtong (KMT) could do in The First, Second, Third, Fourth, and now the Fifth, "annihilation" campaign against the "Red Bandits" as he referred to them. Until the Fifth Campaign, the Communists had played hit-and-run. They sucked the KMT deep into their territory and sandbagged them with deadly ambushes. The Communist captured huge quantities of guns and ammunition and from the thousands of KMT prisoners, they replenished losses in their ranks. Now in the Fifth Campaign, thanks to Hitler who had dispatched one of his best Generals, Hans von Seeckt, to come to China to direct the newest tactics. Von Seeckt moved the KMT troops forward very slowly and then built concrete reinforced blockhouses and pillboxes (some 3,000 in the past year). This allowed the KMT to control every path and road. The noose was being drawn around the Red Army slowly but surely. Now the Red Army was confronting the KMT in costly head to head battles. For Chiang, the end to the Red Bandits was near at hand and he took great comfort in this.

Moscow had sent their German, Otto Braun, to advise the Chinese communist group. The Red Army was now under the leadership of Otto Braun, (Chinese name of Li De) Bo Gu, (a Moscow trained Chinese), and Zhou Enlai. Mao was not in a leadership role and had no say in the operations, military or otherwise. After a year of terrible losses (about 60,000 men), one disastrous battle after another throughout Chiang's Fifth Campaign, the end was near. As autumn 1933 gave way to winter 1934, the Fifth Campaign chewed into Communist territory. The Soviet Republic contracted again and again. By autumn of 1934, the Communists had lost 58% of their territory. It was decided that the Red Army must leave the area in order to survive. On October 16th, the move began. No one was sure where they were heading, they were just leaving.

The Long March Begins

86,000 men and woman began the trip that would last over a year until October 19, 1935 in Yan'an in Sha'anxi Province. Some of the prominent Chinese leaders that began the Long March were Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, leading the Third Army Group, Lin Biao, leading the First Army Group, Nie Rongzhen, political commissar of the First Front Army, Liu Bocheng, Ye Jianying, (the preceding from Zhu to Ye would later be declared Marshals in 1955), and Li Xiannian, who would become the President of the People's Republic of China. He Long, (also to be named a Marshal) had been sent ahead leading the Second Army Group and to-be-Marshal Chen Yi was left behind with the wounded and sick.

By its standards, the Red Army started the Long March quite well armed. It had 33,243 rifles, carbines, pistols, submachine guns, light machine guns, and heavy machine guns. It processed 38 mortars. They brought along a store of 1,801,640 cartridges, 3,523 mortar shells, and 76,526 hand grenades. A KMT force of 300,000 to 400,000 men opposed them. Numerous deals were made with local KMT warlords about passing through their territory unmolested. The Red Army agreed to just pass through and leave and the warlord promised to look the other way for a short period while they passed through.

The Crossing of the Xiang River

The first major battle was crossing the Xiang River. It was fought for a week --- November 25th to December 3rd. By most accounts, it was a disaster. By the time they reached Zunyi, a month later, the Red Army had about 30,000 troops left. One of the major problems was the baggage train of equipment carried by porters stretched out for 50 miles. A great deal of equipment was tossed into the Xiang River. Things were not going well for the leadership of Li De (Otto Braun) and discontent was spreading. The Red Army was heading south and west to join He Long's army. Because many KMT troops blocked the way, they wheeled south into Guizhou Province to draw off forces guarding the Yangzi River crossings. By January 7th they had taken and occupied Zunyi.


Mao Takes Over Command

At Zunyi a conference took place that would forever change the face of China. Mao emerged from the conference as the leader of the Communists Party and overall commander of the Red Army. Otto Braun was out. There was much change taking place. With Mao in command the men felt at ease. Now the men were told what they were doing and what was happening. The plan had been to forge to the north, join with He Long's Second Army group and cross the Yangzi River. Red Army intelligence reported that the KMT had 400,000 crack troops poised to block such an attempt. As the Red Army left Zunyi to the north Mao had about 35,000 troops including many he had just recently recruited. Now Mao changed course and the Red Army doubled back to the south and west.

Loushan Pass Victory

Close calls were the common thing. As they approached Loushan pass blocking Zunyi, Peng Dehuai set his men off at the double (they had been at the double for several days). Peng's troops reached the pass minutes ahead of the KMT who arrived about 200 yards down the pass on the other side. In the next two days, they smashed the enemy forces, knocking out two divisions and eight regiments, killing or driving into the mountains some 3,000 KMT troops and taking 2,000 prisoners. They captured 1,000 rifles and 100,000 rounds of ammunition. The Nationalist press admitted "extremely great losses." At the River Wu, KMT General Wi Qiwei was caught with half his army on the wrong side of the river. More than 1,800 men surrendered and handed over their weapons. About 800 signed up to serve in the Red Army.


Chiang's KMT is set in disarray

Mao sent his men in several directions trying to confuse Chiang. Chiang had between 500,000 and 750,000 men on the chessboard to prevent Mao from escaping north across the Yangzi. The KMT leader sent men to this place and that to defend where he thought Mao would attack next. A feint was made to Guiyang and KMT forces were sent to defend that city. A feint was made to Kunming and KMT forces were sent to defend that city. In fact, the Red Army was everywhere. Probably never before or afterward has it been so scattered, moving simultaneously in so many directions. Red Army forces were, by this time, down to 20,000 men. The feints succeeded in opening a way for the Red Army to cross the Golden Sands River, a tributary of the Yangzi.

Zhang Chaoman helped ferry the Red Army across the Golden Sands River. Fifty years later at 71 he is still a ferryman.

Loved Han Su Yin's book "Till Morning Comes", where they depicted so well parts of the long march...

The most interesting part of the Long March in my opinion was the legendary battle of the Tatu River. The Communists had reached the main bridge to cross the river, but the Nationalists [entrenched on the other side] had removed all the wooden planks from the bridge, leaving only the iron chains. Apparently, 30 brave Communist soldiers volunteered to cross the river swinging from the chains, all under a hail of Nationalist gunfire. Although many were killed, those that reached the other side then used explosives to completely destroy the Nationalist machine gun outposts, allowing for the rebuilding of the bridge and the rest of the Communist army to cross safely. Alot of the story of the Tatu river is based on Communist accounts, which must be taken with a pinch of salt, but this was a decisive part of the Long March for them. Does anbybody know anymore about this battle?

You mistook Mao and his CENTRAL Front Red Army as the only one that mattered.

Mao's Red Army had less than 5000 men by the time they arrived in Shenxi. The only reason they arrived in Shenxi safe was because Chiang Kai-shek made a wrong judgment call in directing the government troops against Zhang Guotao's Red Army FOURTH Front which had close to 100,000 men.

Check out the Battle of Baizhangguan to see how central government and provincial armies halved Zhang Guotao's Red Army.

You did not hear Baizhangguan Pass because the Communists had written off Zhang Guotao as a traitor.

The difference between Mao and other communists lied in the qualities of being ruthless [against his friends and allies], always rebellious [even against Stalin], opportune [in saying and doing anything as long as ends justified means], and cowardly [in saving his skin whenever possible].

Absent Mao, China's communist movement would have been shifted to a French-style "popular front" during the WWII, and communists would have followed Stalin and Wang Ming's instructions to merge the REd Army into the National Army. The civil wars would have been avoided.

With Mao, enemies of China, Russians and British [and Japanese] included, found it possible to employ the schism to make China DIVIDED and WEAK, depriving CHina of the possibility to emerge from WWII to be a truly strong country.

Communist Red Army had three major bands, under Mao, Heh Long and Zhang Guotao.

The Long March occurred in autumn 1932, not 1934 as commonly perceived.

In 1932, central government began a campaign against Heh Long and Zhang Guotao, driving them away from Lake Honghu and Mt Dabieshan, respectively.

Heh Long, after he reached Guizhou in autum 1934, had 3900 men, after absorbing at least 1500 local militia bands under "divine soldiers corps". This means Heh had only 1400 men from his original enclave. In autumn 1934, Xiao Ke led about 3000 remnant Central Army to a conversion with Heh Long.

Zhang Guotao, fleeing from Mt Dabieshan in autumn 1932, had 15,000. After he reached Sichuan, he expanded headcount to 100,000.

Mao's number was like 50,000+, including 12,000-15,000 Northwestern Army rebels from Ningdu. It began the escape in autumn 1934 without a major fight, and recruited 30,000 civilians to claim to have 80,000+ at the start of Long March. Without major fight with government, they left in Oct 1934 till it got halved at the Xiangjiang River.

The reason Mao's Red Army enjoyed two years' life, from 1932 to 1934, was Japan's invasion against Jehol and the Battle of the Great Walls in 1933. The other reaon was Jiangxi Soviet's relative remote locality versus the other two communist enclaves which were next to Wuhan the heartland of China.

While Mao's Red Army were built on basis of mutinies, Heh and Zhang's Red Army had much less mutiny elements. Heh's army was built on top of his former subordinate officers. Zhang's army was built on county militia that were penetrated by communists in 1927. Liu ZHidan's Shenxi Red Army had 100% mutiny elements. Liu claimed that had conducted 70+ mutinies from beginning.

Hope this will help you get a correct perspective of the Red Armies, its origin, development and the escape.

Is Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China still the main book to read regarding the Long March?

Its not the only book that is very good for the Long March, but it is regarded as a classic, and is very informative. It also benefits from the fact that the author bases the book on his own experiences and accounts he heard from Communists, rather than secondary evidence. A must-read i think.

I never said that Mao's grouping was the only one that mattered, but it was important. I feel that if Mao's army had not completed its part of the 'Long March' the Communist movement would have been in trouble, as i believe [note my use of the phrase 'i believe'] there were no other major figures with the same calibre of Mao, that could have led them to government. I wouldn't judge importance merely by headcount, but by strategical importance and what composed the grouping. Mao was carrying alot of the Communists' equipment used in bases, the Communist archives [inbcluding records of its previouses congresses] and such other vital pieces of equipment of information. I believe that the reason why people date the Long March to 1934 was precisely because that was the date that the grouping that was to matter the most began to move. Certainly the other armies were vital for Communist military action.... I thus stick by the importance of the Battle of the Tatu River...

Edgar Snow, rather than as you said previously, was a dupe. His writings on Liu Zhidan's Shenxi Red Army were a complete crap. Edgar Snow talked about how Liu Zhidan failed and rose up again, and even mentioned Liu's organization of a transportation band. The "transportation band" was also remnants of a mutiny of GAo Guizi's government troops conducted in Shanxi Province, across the Yellow River, but not a mutiny by Liu ZHidan.

Altogether Shenxi communists had 70+ mutinies and repeatedly failed even though Yang Hucheng had 500-1000 communists scattered in his neo-Northwestern Army and took no action against the communists. -Throughout communist Red Army history, what you read mostly was about Red Army sacking county capitals and killing county magistrates, as well as destroying villege and town militias, and secret society organizations like Red Spear Society, Devine Solders Corps, White Pole SOciety, Hardened Belly Society ....

Mao's 5000 Red Army, after re-conversion with Zhang's halved REd Army of 40000, was still not a one-man dictator force. It was after Zhang Guotao in 1936 lost his 30,000 REd Army during the Western Expedition in the Western Corridor that Mao finally established his leadership over the whole communist organization. Got my point? Gun barrel indeed dictates powers. Whoever has more guns holds the sway. Mao's Red Army, destroyed or not at Dadu River, did not matter. Mao himself, alive or dead at Dadu, did make a difference since Mao was the most cunning nine-life fox of the century. Should Mao be dead, there would be another Mao, Mao 2nd, Mao 3rd, Mao 4th ... substituing his role. Judging by the fact Mao always took off at times of risk, he would have escaped by himself at any of the Datu river crossings, not the bridge, to save his skin. The meaning of a Luding Bridge crossing did not matter much in my opinion. The demise of Red Army Western Expedition Force was the turning point as far as Mao's rise in power within the communist organization was concerned.

'Dupe', 'Crap'- Well, that's certainly some high quality analysis of Edgar Snow and his writing there...Whether or not Snow got everything completely factually correct is not as important as the fact that the book remains a 'classic'. A classic book is one that is definitely worth reading, and Snow gives a great impression of life in the Red Army and prevailing conditions of China at the time, all very useful in understanding the Long March. Its not the amount of guns that you have, its where you are to use them and who is has the decision of how they are used. So i'm afraid i don't get your point... 'Mao's Red Army, destroyed or not at Dadu River, did not matter'- Are you then suggesting that if Mao's army had got destroyed at the Dadu river, there would have been absolutely no consequences of this at all?

I suggest you read Edgar Snow, two volume books before we talk about Edgar Snow. Edgar Snow's pals in Shanghai were Comintern agents. If he was not a dupe, who was?

His book became a classic because the American publisher was a Comintern-sponsored organization propagating the book as the best seller by having cronies write book reviews on behalf of each other. This is back to the stroy of the Institute of Pacific relations.

Should Mao be dead, there would be another Mao, Mao 2nd, Mao 3rd, Mao 4th ... substituing his role. Judging by the fact Mao always took off at times of risk, he would have escaped by himself at any of the Datu river crossings, not the bridge, to save his skin. The meaning of a Luding Bridge crossing did not matter much in my opinion. The demise of Red Army Western Expedition Force was the turning point as far as Mao's rise in power within the communist organization was concerned.

I'm not going to accept that Red Star Over China is a 'classic' just because 'the American publisher was a Comintern-sponsored organization propagating the book as the best seller by having cronies write book reviews on behalf of each other'. Having read the book myself, i can see why it is known as a classic account, and why it is recommended reading for those wanting to know more about china. The demise of the Western Expedition Force certainly helped matters along for Mao, but what would have been gained by Mao 'saving his skin'? Certainly not any further rise to prominence in the Communist Party. Who were you thinking of that could have been Mao 2nd, Mao 3rd e.t.c? I belive Mao was a unique leader...

Again I do not know who you are, and found puzzeled about your writings and perspectives, albeit you carrying a non-Chinese name "Willis".

Can you cite Snow's sentence or paragraph, and then we zero in to see why you thought he wrote the 'truth', not the propaganda? Snow had fundamental mistake and flaws in his understanding about communist revolution in China. For non-Chinese who thought about going to China for participating in a revolution, better know what Edgar Snow and Rewi Alley's roles and know what they were actually doing, either propagating the fallacy of Chinese people's support for the revolution or actually doing the criminal work such as washing blood off the money bills that communists had collected from the corpses and sent to Shanghai money store for conversion to national currency (i.e., "xi [wash] qian [money] or money laundering).

I used to be puzzeled about Chiang Kai'shek's slogan of 30% military & 70% "political" in sweeping against communist enclaves in 1932 [not 1934] - the starting point of communist Long March. What did Chiang actually mean about 70% "political" to retake the Soviet enclaves?

After reading Heh Long's Red Army escaping across the Yangtze with 100,000 civilians [in 1931 prior to Canton rebel's establishing a new government and challenging Nanking regime]], I got the perspective as to the government strategy. It was not the scenario of Three Kingdoms period when hundreds of thousands of civilians followed Liu Bei on a flee towards Yangtze/Han rivers. The 100,000 civilians in He Long's Honghu Lake enclave were too scared to stay behind because the blood feuds created when the communists killed the landlords and destroyed the village/town militia in the area were too much for the civilians, who more or less had some blood staint on their hands, to stay behind not fearing retribution. This was similar to the 1947 "land reform" when communists, to win the civil war, launched massive execution campaign against the landlords in northern China and Manchuria. You now had the scenario of Heh Long's Red Army demanding that the 100,000 civilians detach from the Red Army so that the Red Army could escape across the Yangtze. What happened was that innumerable civilians, who would rather die in following Red Army than to be left behind, were drowned in the Yangtze - how many out of 100,000 - no record!!! Heh Long Biography claimed that after crossing the Yangtze, they had only 8000-9000 civilians left, and they managed to recruit more soldiers out of the pool of civilians. In communist terminology, there was "pao [run away from] fan [reactionary or government troops]" and "fan [turn upside down] shui [water] - meaning defection to government side". You could find the two terms to be most frequently used words in any of their writings. Communist territories, after the Red Army escape, had probably 2 to 3 out of 10 households left.

Chiang's policy of 70% "political" in sweeping against the enclaves was the cease and desist to the militia and secret society armed bands in stopping them from retribution and revenge against the civilians. By adopting this approach, government troops were able to defeat the Red Army and win back the civilians. The former communist enclaves, during WWII, became the strongholds of resistance wars for government troops.

About Mao 2nd or 3rd. Mao, even after 1936, was not a 100% dictator politically although militarily Mao controlled the majority Red Army with Zhang Guotao's loss of wstern expedition force. There was a nominal Moscow-returnee secretary called Zhang Wentian. Mao always referred Zhang Wentian as "ming jun", i.e., wise emperor, and called Zhang Wentian's wife by "niang niang", i.e., empress. It was in late 1938 that Mao used the same trick as the one during Mao Tse-tung-Zhang Guotao split of 1935-1936, namely, borrowing Stalin's purported instructions, to assert the control over the rest of folks. In 1936, Mao used Lin Yuying as an arbitrator, claiming that Stalin wanted the two CCP Centrals to report to Comintern direct instead of competimng against each other. In 1938, Mao used Wang Jiaxia's relay of Comintern instructions as to Wang Ming's relationship with Mao Tse-tung to strike a final say over the party internal discords. Both times, Mao used Russians, i.e., tiger's skin, to establish his authority. A lot of things could have changed before 1938 and in 1938. After 1938, Mao's control over CCP could not be challenged again. Mao's policy from 1938 onward was what led to the breakup of KMT-CCP collaboration and the civil wars. Now, there were indeed lots of candidates who could be Mao the 2nd. The most notable would be Liu Shaoqi the future PRC president who were persecuted to death in the cultural revolution of 1960s.

I'm not Chinese- my views don't automatically mean that i must be Chinese... And you got my surname wrong...

Not everything in Snow's book is gospel truth, that fact is abundantly clear, especially bearing in mind that much of his informtation came from Chinese Communists. But propaganda is not historically useless- it still gives us a good and very valuable idea of the condition of China at the time and how the Communists viewed the development of China e.t.c- very few books get absolutely everything right, but again i say that books are called 'classics' for a reason. The fact that Snow had communist sympathies does not make his book an historical irrelevance.

I maintain that Mao was unique. People like Liu Shaoqi were certainly talented politicians, but i don't believe that they had the audacity and mind that Mao posessed that meant he was to build a strong government relatively quickly, stave off capitalist threats to Party policy and retain firm control of government. Liu was more conservative than Mao, and less keen to take major decisions that would ineveitably 'rock the boat'.

Your statements, like
"to build a strong government relatively quickly, stave off capitalist threats to Party policy and retain firm control of government"
are something I found very strange to be uttered by someone who you claimed to be.

Mao's roadpath was industrialization and collective farming, the same way the Soviet Union did - which wise communists already pointed out to be something avoidable since Soviet Union had a bad record of such experiments from 1920s and 1930s. Mao's China was a total economic disaster as a result of his ignorance about economics. After Stalin's death, he went all out to experiment with the Great Leap Forward which led to starvation death of 70 million peasants. By the time he was dead in 1976, China was bankrupt.

Where was the 'strong' China you talked about? If it was the A bomb or H bomb. That was plagiarism. All the bomb design had origin from the Manhattan Project. And the Comintern agents had made sure that USA was not to become the monopoly on the bombs. Before the US ever finalized the bomb design, the Comintern agents had sold ships of uranium to the Soviet Union via Alaska.

By the way, both Mao and CHiang had interest in A-H bombs. In 1948, Chiang recalled a nuclear scientist back to China. CHinese communists went one step ahead to intercept this guy and had him transferred to the "liberated area". The sister of American atomic scientist went to communist China - Yenan in 1947 around, and the ethnic-Chinese nuclear scientist was let go by CIA in exchange for American prisoners in Korea.

Your talk of "capitalist threats". How could this be from the mouth of someone born and educated in the United States? There was no such "capitalist threats" to China, but "communist threat" to the rest of world. British was among first "capitalists" to acknowledge PRC and Mao. USA would have followed the same path if there was no Korea War. Ever know communist rebellions in Indonesia, Malaysia ...? And export of communist revolution to Indochina, Latin AMerica, Mideast and Africa?

Mao retaining "control" of his government. This is truly his talent, and what a dictator was about. Care to engage in paragraph by paragraph discussions of Edgar Snow's Long March?.

We have slightly wandered off-topic here, so to bring it back to the Long March lets have a go at paragraph by paragraph discussions. What chapter/page would you like to start at?

Let's start with the chapter on Liu Zhidan's Shenxi Red Army.

I assume you mean the chapter 'The Shenshi Soviets: Beginnings'. What are your comments?

Correct. Let's start with Liu Zhidan's Red Army as Edgar Snow had too much hype about him. I had wrapped up the complete history of Shenxi Red Army, as well as the purge period -with the purge czar being the same guy as the weapons depot czar sitting in Pyongyng from 1946 to 1950 to direct the shipment of Russian supplies for communist civil wars. Liu Zhidan's Red Army is fully covered in my book on REPUBLICAN CHINA, THE UNTOLD HISTORY (1929-1941).

I already debunked the myth of Liu's Red Army as 70+ failures of mutinies. Like you to cite something for further analysis. I want you to know communist revolution, from day one, was a Comintern instruction to stage mutinies. After initial mutiny failures of 1927-1928 Liu Zhidan's ventures of 1929 onward were under the headline of "Anti-Imperialism League Army" which was after the the naming of the League of Anti-Imperialism set up in Berlin by Comintern, when Germany and USSR were in honeymoon time period. Communists arrested and imprisoned in Shenxi were completely set free in 1930. Yang Hucheng sent dozens of them to Europe where they operated chapters of anti-imperialism leagues under French, British and German communists. After those guys returned to China, they went back to Yang Hucheng's camp. (Some of them went to Japan-occupied Manchuria where they operated with the Manchukuo puppets till the end of WWII.) So in Shenxi, you had two interesting groups of communists, one being the Europe-returnees working in Yang's army, whose job was to stage the bigger mutiny, i.e., the Northwest National Defense Government -leding to Xi'an Coup, and the other Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang's group. Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang's group never fought against Yang Hucheng's army, but merely the county militia and secret society gangs. It was after Xu Haidong's Red Army came to Shenxi in 1935 that the Shenxi Red Army began to engage in real wars. That was because Xu Haidong's Red Army had no historical relationship with Yang Hucheng's Northwestern Army which had several brigade commanders being undercover communists. That's why most of the time in between, as Edgar Snow described, Liu Zhidan's Red Army were acting as quasi "constabulary" forces after they mixed up or replaced the county militia, with one band, the "transportation band", which was remnants of mutinies of Gao Guizi's army in Shanxi (not Shenxi), engaging in "bodyguard" business and armed protection of shipment of merchant's goods as well as smuggling. None of them had anything to do with land revolution of southern China.

Here's my citation- i'm not sure the communist revolution was entirely about staging mutinies. I believe the views of maurice meisner, who stresses that there was one wing trying to raise the urban proletariat and semi-proletariat in mutiny, and another wing [under Mao] who were believers in revolution in the countryside amongst the peasants- this explains why Mao based his initial activities in the countryside of China, while the Comintern backed parts of the party tried to ferment urban revolution in Shanghai e.t.c. Nothing really to do with the Long March, but i thought that was an interesting comment.

maurice meisner, like Suzanne Pepper, were dupes who had no clue about the materials they cited had been written by Comintern agents. They had the chance to examine VENOANA PAPER to revise their views, but they refused to do so, especially so with Peper who published her civil war book without a word's change.

First, Mao's army was not peasants' army, but the Wuhan Garrison Regiment that was commanderd by two officers called Lu Deming and Yu Sadu. Lu was killed in battle, and Yu yielded the control to Mao and fled to Shanghai where he joined first Third Party and then Resurrection Society. Mao was having wine with bandits on Mt Jinggangshan for four months before a vendor told him that Zhu De's Army had launched a Soviet in Binzhou of Hunan, which prompted Mao into a move down the mountains to have a union with Zhu De's army. Zhu De's army was remnants from government troops as well, i.e., the Nanchang Mutiny.

From 1927 to 1937, Red Army had tried ten years but failed to make a success story. The armed rebellions in the cities were even worse. In the countryside, Red Army had taken advantage of the Wars of Central Plains, Japanese invasion of manchuria and Shanghai, Battles of the Great Wall, Fujian Republic and etc, to expand the forces and domain but ultimately they still died down. -Because communist revolution was what you call "killing the goose for the gold egg". Non-productive, in summary. They ultimately exhausted the eco-system where they grew and having spent the resources, would not be able to grow. Long March was merely a desperate way to survive as all historical banditry did in China's history.

What saved the communist revolution was the machinations in the cities. That is, Xi'an Coup of December 1936, and the Japanese invasion. Example: Communist records clearly stated that Japanese's eviction of the "Blue Shirts Society" from Peiping-Tientsin area allowed the communist organizations to re-grow from almost nill to tens of thousands. Japanese special services boards' records had descriptions of "joint" operations with Chinese Communists in Peiping-Tientsin area, with the same goal, i.e., igniting a full invasion against China. Also note Japanese ships betweek Vladivstoc and Shanghai were responsible for transporting the communist agents back and forth, with Japanese immigration officers having clear knowledge who the passengers were. You would need to put Chinese communist revolution in the perspective of Soviet-Japanese power struggles.

I think meisner deserves a bit more credit that being simply called 'a dupe'. After all, Foreign Affairs hailed it as one of the few books that will stand the test of time. And i can see where MM is coming from in many of his arguements. When i read the book, i don't think to myself 'this work is clearly nothing more than an extension of Communist propaganda'. I'm not so sure he was duped...

That means that i am obviously going to disagree with you on the idea that the revolution was saved by machinations in the cities. Many of the early mutinies in the cities were of little consequence, and after the Long March it was the work of the CCP in fomenting a rural revolution amongst the peasantry that saved the revolution. Such actions brought hundreds of thousands of new members to the Red Army- numbers that were crucial in the conflicts with the KMT and Japanese later on, and the CCP rose to power on the back of a wave of rural revolution. The pesasantry were also logistically very useful to the Communists for supplies e.t.c. Much of the urban revolutionary activity was destroyed in the White Terror of the early 1930s [leading to the Long March], making it difficult for me to see how this activity saved the revolution.

But i do agree with your idea of the Long March being a 'desperate' move. It was the last option open to the Communists other than directly fighting the Nationalists, and sources paint a picture of a bitter struggle for survival against the elements and the enemy, far from the glory that Communist histories describe.

Ever heard of Huang Chao's banditry in Tang Dynasty? Huang Chao's long march should be double that of Mao's Red Army. HUang CHao went from Sichuan border to Henan, then Huai and Yangtze to Fujian, then Canton, and then back to the Central China to sack Tang capital in Shenxi. Still, the rebels were ultimatly quelled though he killed 8 MILLION people along the way.

You talked about "White Terror". Ever heard about RED TERROR?

Communist Red Army killed probably more of their comrades than government siege campaigns. In Fujian-Jiangxi Soviet, about 100,000 Red Army officers, soldiers and Soviet government officials and cadres were purged, not to mention the peansantry that got wiped out.

You had the wrong perspective on communist revolution because the press and publications in the west took for granted that Mao's Red Army was formed among peasants after a conveniently-coined word called "autumn harvest uprising". It did not mean peasants, after harvest, went out to fire some shots to celebrate the yearly good work. Check out below for what I said the source of Mao's Red Army:

武昌警備團是中共黨員領導的部隊，國共分家後，因赶不到参加南昌暴動，遂改赴湘東参加秋收暴動，失敗後，隨毛澤東上井崗山，成爲毛澤東的基本軍事力量。

Yes, i do know of the way in which the CCP purged its own, though not sure what the relevance of that is to the Long March...

I saw the bit on Mao's army, but post the Long March it was more of a peasant army than one from the cities...

The relevance of purge to long march is communists defeated themselves by killing their own best generals.

Another example of a dupe is some professor called Richard Hooker, as follows:

Richard Hooker, at wsu.edu:8001/~dee/MODCHINA/COMM.HTM, naively claimed that "on August 1, 1927, a peasant army numbering 15,000 men attacked and seized the city of Nanchang in Kiangsi in southern China."

The Nachang Mutiny was the combined forces of NRA 20th Corps and 11th Corps, at least 20,000+ troops.

After the Long March, and before when? There is another myth about the numbers of communist forces. Vladimirov Diaries had two places pointing to 300,000 as the number of total communist forces in 1942 and later. The number stayed about the same till Japanese surrender.

Where did they get the guns of 160,000+ during WWII?

In civil war time period of 1927 to 1937, they got the guns from county militia. In Xiao Ke's memoirs, he talked about eliminating over 1000+ caves in the mountains of western Hunan Province, just to extract guns from the secret society and Daoist society gangs that were hiding from the Red Army.

During WWII, indeed, communists had recruited more soldiers among new population. In WWII, they got guns mostly from killing government troops and government guerrilla forces. There were quite a few accounts by people who expressed regret to have joined the wrong army that did not fight Japanese, especially after the Russo-Japanese neutrality treaty of 1940. A few communist generals' memoirs had this kind of writing, with one account stating that he was one of half a dozen lads who joined Eight Route Army, and he was given a pair of cloth shoes that he did not wear throughout the 1937-1945 years. During the most ferocious battle of the civil war in Shandong Province, in 1948, he decided to wear the shoes before possible death, only to find out that his mother had wrongly packed two shoes for the same foot. During that battle, all his half dozen village kids died after surviving through resistance war period.

The "two shoes for the same foot" story was from a famous speech of a communist military district general made about 10 years ago.

Maybe the CCP did lose some of its best generals, but others like Zhu De, Peng Dehuai survived to fight another day. And i am not sure that the CCP defeated itself because it lost a few generals. The Long March, if you see it as a defeat at all, was a desperate flight from an enemy with superior numbers and firepower- few generals if any could have made good of such an overwhelmingly negative situation. The fact that 10 000 Communists reached Yenan with Mao is something to be praised- although 7/8 of Mao's grouping died, the remaining 10 000 arrived against the odds.

In a battle, it was fist against fist, teeth against teeth. Like what ancient saying goes, in a well-designed campaign, you kill 10,000 enemies and you would lose 3,000 of your own men. Unless fire power or surroundings (ambush, e.g.) were extremely imbalanced to route the enemy without loss on your part. Battles were a process of either sustained attrition or the process of one-time elimination. In the first civil war of 1927 to 1937 between CCP and KMT, the Red Army did not achieve the goal of either attrition or elimination of opponents - which you could tell from the numbers of Red Army forces. One day, Red Army might have ambushed and destroyed 1, or 2, or 3 provincial or central army divisions, the other day, the governmet troops dealt a defeat on the Red Army. At the end of day more and more government troops were deployed, while Red Army ranks were shrinking.

The purge did eliminate significant number of Red Army officers, all regimental commanders and above in some cases, like the case of Xu Jishen or Duan Dechang or Li Wenlin in three enclaves, respectively. Often, the purge was launched at both army-soviet level, as well as at the civilian level. After you get the right picture about the people's fate, you would not believe there could have been people's support for the Red Army cause. In Sichuan Province, Zhang Guotao's Red Army killed 270,000 people in five counties alone. Sichuan fought against Red Army for two years without the help of the central government army. See the writings by Li Huang the Youth Party leader:
"故盧作孚救濟組中的好心居士們所掩埋的新匪區只三四縣的民屍，便得數二十七萬具。"(In total, Lu Zuofu -the future architect for China’s Dunkirk Retreat along the Yangtze River during the resistance war - and his Buddhist philanthropy team collected over 270,000 corpses for burial in the three counties of Peng’an, Yingshan and Yilong, as well as partial areas of Yuechi and Guang’an counties, the new “red” area that fell under the control of the Red Army since July 1933.)

Communist generals, especially those who survived both the fightings and the purge, were no doubt excellent commanders. Unfortunately, up to the civil wars of late 1940s, there was no particular campaign that proved those generals to have exhibited the 'excellency' in the fight against 'comparable' enemy or enemies. Heh Long and Ye Ting, with close to 15-20,000 Nanchang Mutiny troops, and Zhu De, with the rest of Nanchang rebels, had a complete debacle in September 1927 at the Tangkeng Battle and Sanheba Battle, near Shandou, for example. In pitched battles of comparable troop size, I did not see Red Army winning any particular rounds, no matter Zhu De, Peng Dehuai or Lin Biao.

Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Heh Long ... were generals of warlord era. Zhu De gambled and lost two brothers in Sichuan provincial civil war, after getting disatisfied with physical education job at a middle school and enrolling in army. Zhu De, in 1922, took 60,000 silver dollars (equiv to 40,000 US dollars of the time) and four teenager concubines to Shanghai, where he was rejected CCP application by Chen Duxiu. In Germany, Zhou Enlai recruited him, knowing the military skillsets were what communists needed for revolution. In 1926, Zhu, after studies in Moscow, returned to Sichuan provincial troops as "Comintern rep", and consecutively staged two mutinies (among provincial armies who already declared loyalty for Canton government) from 1926 to early 1927 before escaping to Nanchang to be police chief under classmate Zhu Peide's protection and launched the 8-1-1927 Nanchang Mutiny. Zhu De was hijacked of military leadership since Gutian Meeting of Nov-Dec 1929, after which Lin Biao was promoted to be one of two lieutenants of Mao, together with Peng Dehuai. Lin Biao was a Whampoa cadet, part of Ye Ting's NRA 11th Corps that joined the rebellion at Nanchang. Lin Biao was one of hundreds of communist cadets from Whampoa Academy that fought on the communist side. Most of them had been referred to Whampoa by communist headquarters at provincial level during the KMT-CCP collaboration period, not recruited while studying at Whampoa. Peng Dehuai, according to defector Red Army general Gong Chu, was converted to communist cause by a female communist. That was the case with Red Army general Kuang Jixun who staged Pengxi Mutiny after being seduced by two communist women.

Communist generals and government generals, in another sense, were from the same origin. This is in parallel to the case of resistance war, during which time you had Japanese generals against Chinese generals who were graduated from Tokyo's Imperial Infantry Cadet Academy. The abilities and fighting skillsets were similar, both between CCP and governmet generals (not all generals were KMT, Sichuan generals being of Youth Party members) and between Chinese and Japanese generals.

You still got numbers wrong about the Long March. Mao had 50,000 regulars [plus 30,000 new recuits - all able-bodied men from age 14 to 50 were drafted before the long march, but at Xiangjiang, all 30,000 new guys escaped home]. At the end Mao had 5000 left. The original 50,000 included 17,000 Ningdu rebels, i.e., Northwestern Army. And, you ignored Heh Long and Zhang Guotao's Red Army, which was same case, Whampoa cadets-staffed Red Army. Heh Long and Zhang Guotao's Red Army numbered much more than Mao's, and produced more PRC founding marshals and generals than Mao's army. To better understand what the Red Army was like, you may want to read into stories of communist defector generals, such as Gong Chu, Yang Yuchun, Kong Hechong (mentioned in Otto Braun's book), ... Those guys were written off by communists and did not appear anywhere in official documents. After reading their stories, you could tell those guys were more 'humane' and decent than the other Red Army generals. That would give you a balanced account. As I mentioned last time, Buhite's Patrick Hurley is a must read to know what happened at Yalta, and why Chiang Kai-shek was duped in believing that Americans would not have sold him out to Russians - the big mistake that led to the downfall of ROC in the subsequent civil war. As long as Soviet Union, Britain and Japan had the intention to see a divided China, they could always find proxies to achieve it. Even if Red Army was wiped out during long march, they would find new agents. The answers to the success of communist revolution in China lies in Yalta, not people's support or Red Army generals' fighting abilities or Mao's talents.

Well, i have read in several places that Mao had 80 000 regulars with him and 10 000 reached Yenan, so i'll stick with that figure. I was careful NOT to ignore the armies of Heh Long and Zhang Guatoa, which is why i wrote 'reached Yenan with Mao' rather than just 'reached Yenan', which would be incorrect. Its a technical difference, but one which changes the meaning of the phrase entirely.

And the fact that the generals of the Communists and the Government both originated from the Whampoa Academy does not automatically mean that they had the same levels of military skill. This is exactly the same as say in the UK- many of the major politicians originate from Oxford or Cambridge universities, but they do not all have the same level of political skill...

You could also stick with communist troops reaching 1 million regular and two million guerrilla in 1945, which was also the number Jung Chang also copycat'ed.

I guess you were finding it difficult to substantiate people's support without an exaggerated number.

Here's another quote for you:

'victory came on the basis of a massive popular social revolution that involved the active and meaningful support and participation of tens of millions of peasants...' M.Meisner again, summing things up well...

Let me give you some sense of logic. Dupes like M.Meisner, like Fairbank and Pepper, did not want to read stats. They gave out generalized statements by looking at the results of a process, not the on-going cause and effect. People with common sense could tell those generalizations did not stand on basis of facts and stats.

About Mao's Red Army in 1934. Mao, who was deprived of military leadership for 2 years, was recorded to have asked a female communist Liu Ying to immediately return to Ruijin the Soviet capital for the long march which was approved by Comintern 5 months earlier, April 1934. From June to October, Liu Ying worked fervently through the territories to recruit for Red Army but still fell short of the assigned quotas. The 30,000 new recuits, out of the total 80,000+ force, were the result of massive recuitment in the months immediately after the Comintern approved the long march. Your number of 100,000 was fabricated, or an exaggerated number of the 80,000+ (including 30,000 new recuits or civilians without guns).

About the communist force of 1 million regular and 2 million irregular in 1945. George Marshall, in telegram to Truman, stated that Mao and Zhou Enlai had exaggerated their troop level. I found over 10 citations, both Chinese and American, to validate the point that communist forces numbered just above 300,000+ at the time Japan surrendered. This was same as Vladimirov's numbers, the actual strength the Russian spy reported to Stalin. You could alternatively argue by listing the names of communist division level commanders? Can you give me 100 communist division commanders to prove me there was 1 million regular communist forces?

(The civil war after 1947 was a different story. That was already the results, i.e., Yalta betrayal, not the cause-effect. In another post, you nullified China's contribution to WWII - what you don't understand is that I have 3-5 accounts by White men and White women from 1930s and 1940s stating how China had contributed to the victory of WWII by averting the possibility that Japan would embark on a Euro-Asia conquest with millions of 'yellow' army. Roosevelt personally talked about the possibility Japan might have diverted its field army to the battles against allies if China was ever conquered. You don't have to trash Chinese nationalists to elevate the communists.)

Talking of generalisation, i think this statement- 'Let me give you some sense of logic. Dupes like M.Meisner, like Fairbank and Pepper, did not want to read stats. They gave out generalized statements by looking at the results of a process, not the on-going cause and effect. People with common sense could tell those generalizations did not stand on basis of facts and stats.'- is a sweeping generalisation. I'm not going to accept that Fairbank and Meisner, two of the most distinguished sinologists interested in modern china- could have been so easily 'duped'. Remember these were professional historians- its crazy to suggest that they 'didn't want to read stats'.

I'm afraid i cannot give you 100 communist division commanders- but as they say, abscence of evidence is not in itself evidence of abscence. I am not specialised enough in the Red Army to know or research that level of detail.

'Your number of 100,000 was fabricated, or an exaggerated number of the 80,000+ (including 30,000 new recuits or civilians without guns).'

How can this fabrication be proved, when the figures relating to recruitment of soldiers at the time could also be in doubt?

The dupes only cited statistics which were fabricated by other dupes who created stats on basis of Comintern agents' writings.

Let me show you some real stats provided by Yang Yuebin, the Red Army mobilization department director of the Jiangxi Soviet.

據七月份統計,共約三萬三千八百餘人,八九月來,大量減少,當無上述之數。

By July, Red Army regulars accounted abot 33,800 men.

被指爲AB 團社會民主黨:被赤匪屠殺達十數萬人(廿年冬匪軍在甯都黃陂分佈,僅七日屠殺官兵四千三百餘名皆指爲AB團——肅反至半年之久各縣各區之被屠殺者動輒以千萬計,故瑞金興國東固橋頭(雩都屬)等處男人幾皆絕跡據赤匪機關報(紅色中華)去年十一月登載興國全縣人口原有二十四萬,截至去年年底止,在家之成年男子,仅伍千三百余人,今年五月赤匪又強迫該縣動員一千餘人去當匪軍,現今存在者,已僅壯年三四千人矣,東固係吉安縣之一部人口約九千餘,自被匪化至今該區存壯年二百五十餘名

County of Xingguo, which used to have 240,000 population, now (May 1934) possessed only 3000-4000 able-bodied men.

五次圍剿匪共共黨偽中央及匪首朱毛,即計畫擴大紅軍五萬,令投誠人督促進行,限兩月完成,投誠人堅決反對寧死不願強迫數萬生命,拋妻別子,葬身匪區,故九十兩月,僅擴大新兵三千余名,共黨即聲言投誠人表面動搖,違抗中央,將投誠人撤職開除共產黨籍,派到甯化,限一月內在甯化擴大新兵一千二百名,

Yang Yuebin, ordered to expand Red Army by 50,000, managed to recuit 3000 in Sept-Oct 1933.

五六兩月,驅使黨徒數百人,散佈于各縣區鄉組織擴大紅軍突擊隊,經濟運動突擊隊,強迫十六歲以上四十五歲以下之男子加入紅軍,所有匪區民衆,按人口捐谷捐錢,挨戶查倉,民衆稍生怨言即行屠殺,五六月來,各處被屠殺者,不可勝數,此次匪區民衆,被強迫去當匪軍者,約五萬三千餘人,被壓迫交集之谷米約二十余萬担

In May-June 1934, Ted Army forcefully recruited men, age 16 to 45, of about 53,000.

This was where the Red Army of 80,000+ or your 100,000 was from.

What makes the evidence of 'comintern agents' any less reliable than those of a communist officer?

Note I am posting REPLIES on chinahistoryforum, only, and never ever created a thread and asked a question like who was founder of Korea or China.

My reply was not directed at you, only, but to present the facts to the general public who browsed this forum.

Whether people will see the statements written by Comintern agents or their proxies as true, or the statistics provided by Red Army recruitment director as more correct, it is not something you are or I am to decide.

Cambridge version of Chinese History needs a big revision to catch up with the new data available after the declassification of Russian archives. Like Red Start Over China, it was full of craps. The reason was obvious: John Fairbank had a colored view of China as a result of long time associations with Comintern agents. He spent years with Comintern agents while serving in China. He was a member of Rights' League run by Smedley in 1930-1931. Somewhere else, I mentioned British intelligence's work with Chinese communists. The collaboration was run through the Institute of International Studies which was purportedly an organization set up to study Japan matter but was hijacked by Chinese communist agents. You would have to trace the origin and routes of operators of 1930s and 1940s to know where and how they had formed their perspectives.

That's fair enough, its great to discuss these issues anyway. I haven't read the full vols. 14 and 15 of the Cambridge History of China, but from what i've read i can't see clear evidence that Fairbank's writings were somehow tainted by Communist agents' misinformation. And Roderick Macfarquhar has also worked on these volumes, and he has always seemed to me to be fairly reliable. Have you got any quotes?

I haven't studied Roderick Macfarquhar. If you could paste a few paragraphs, we could go over that to see where his merits were.

I haven't got cambridge to hand- a few paragraphs from his 'origins of the cultural revolution' [vol. 3] okay?

To talk about cultural revolution would be too much a stray from the topic here.

Roderick Macfarquhar, as I briefly scanned writings related to him, was someone whom I believe was embarking on a road of going nowhere since he attempted to explain Mao using logic while the truth was Mao was illogical and whimsical. There was no grand ideal involved as far as Mao's motive for launching the cultural revolution was concerned, whatever the propositions Roderick Macfarquhar was to put forward, such as catching up with Britain or Soviet Union, or maintaining permanent revolution or something. Mao's only life philosophy was to maintain his dictatorship at any cost.

To understand Mao, you would have to go back to where he came from: someone who was interested in making money, such as the bookstore business around 1920; someone who was interested in womonizing, from Tao Siyong to Heh Zizhen et al.; someone who did not care about human life such as the encouragement and organization of the massive lynching movement against landlords during the northern expedition and the so-called 50,000-200,000-peasant "pu cheng" [downpour on city] attack on provincial city Changsha on June 1st, 1927 [ prior to CCP-KMT split of July 15th, 1927] - the very origin of Mao's "people's war"; someone who was ruthless, such as evicting division commander Yu Sadu and executing regimental commanders and battalion commanders of Whampoa background along the way to Mt Jinggangshan; someone who escaped the moment danger appeared, such as fleeing the mountain during 2nd siege and adamantly refusing to stay put during the 3rd Mt Jinggangshan Siege; someone whom the Hunan provincial commissariat members repeatedly cautioned colleagues to be on guard against for Mao's caprice and cruelty; and someone who had been repeatedly deprived of party, military and administrative leadership throughout the years of 1928 to 1934 - not once, twice, but like 5-6 times.

Zhang Guotao gave an example of a Red Army division commander committing suicide for criticisms he received when arguing the case of guerrilla war with Red Army tactician Liu Bocheng, a Frunze graduate. Zhang said the only difference between the suicide guy and Mao was that the Red Army officer could not stand the criticisms over the empirical guerrilla warfare experiences he had touted as the ultimate weapon againnst the enemy, while Mao, who also consistently argued for guerrilla warfare versus regular warfare as advocated by tactician Liu Bocheng, could take the humiliation to go some monastery for sick leave, not one time, but more than three times.

The long march was not the result of Red Army wrongly waging a positional warfare versus guerrilla warfare. Three factors had contributed to the downfall of Jiangxi Soviet, 1) massive government troop deployment, the pillbox and highway blockade line, 2) 70% political approach, and defection of Red Army new recruits and old soldiery; 2) Communists' internal bloody purge campaigns.

Nothing pretty here. I am kind of appalled by your obessesion with Mao. For Chinese, Mao was not a hobby like for you, but a disaster. In case you still harbor admiration, let me tell you Mao was like 10,000 kilometers away from the great Chinese emperors in history. None of the great Chinese emperors in Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties had ever utilized any "outsider force[s]" in uniting China. Mao's success was the result of dozen years' workings of Soviet communists, imperialists and colonialists - with Yalta betrayal being the apex of all.

Hold on a moment. Obsession does not equal admiration. On the basis of this quote, it is wrong for historians to be interested in anybody in history [especially world leaders] as it is apparently wrong to study those who have done wrong. I think it is right that historians should be so interested in particular individuals. Hence why i am very interested in Mao.

So you are saying you did have an obsession with Mao but not really admiration?

Sounds like you, "MattW" [??]], or Roderick Macfarquhar, thinks China's Red Army or communist revolution history, especially cultural revolution, was so much shrouded in mystery that it would have to take some great current or future historian, like you, "MattW" [??]], or Roderick Macfarquhar, to properly analyze to make a true historical account.

Make no mistake here about the nature of communist regime in its various stages of development, no matter during the civil war period, or resistance war period, second civil war period or cultural revolution period. The KILL-LIFE nature was innate and remained the same, with minor variations at one time or other to serve the dialectical purpose. This kill-life nature was not much different from that of the Soviet Union as had existed during the Stalin purge movement. Hundreds and possibly thousands of Chinese communists had been killed in USSR by Stalin in 1930s. Shi Zhe memoirs had account of experiences working for NKVD. Brilliant agents from Sorge spy ring, like female agent Wu Xianqing, was killed by Russians. It did not take too much brain to imagine the horrors that had been and could have been transplanted to China. Before the success of communist revolution, there were quite some high profile defection. After communist victory, you still have wise people who would not passively wait for death. Example was musician Ma Sicong who swam across the HK straits for asylum in mid-1960s. And, CIA and American consulate of 1960s certainly knew what cultural revolution was and granted asylum to Ma Sicong.

The difference between China and Russia was that Russians today, having realized how screwed up they had been in the past, had completely broken off from their past, while China still lives in the shadow of the past. Russians were fortunate to have strong men like Solzhenitsyn and Putin, while China had too many eunuch leaders who could not look beyond the wall of their bedrooms.

You, "MattW" [??]], or Roderick Macfarquhar could do a better service to victims [us and we Chinese] by stop pretending that cultural revolution was still a mystery or the Chinese revolution was a mystery or the success of the revolution was a mystery or Mao was a mystery or Long March was a mystery, or pretending that they were miracles. Simply, there was no mystery or miracle. Long March history was no mystery or miracle, either. I already stated that Huang Chao Rebellion of Tang Dynasty had a long march twice the length of the Red Army.

On a side note, you might be interested in reading MacFarquhar's most recent book on the Cultural Revolution, or at least a recent review of it:
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/mitter.html

Thank you Yun for the review. I found the last 4 lines of the article very telling. Great utopian ideals becoming a living hell in reality. If Liu and Deng had been able to remain in positions of power the CR may never have occured despite their own wolf in sheeps clothing reputations.

This to me appears an erie precurser to what happened in 1989. The demonstrations started off as a noble ideal to introduce democracy yet just before the crackdown the demonstrators had morphed into an anarchistic rabble led by demagogues and opportunists hell bent on overthrowing the govenment. No was listening anymore to the ones who promoted the noble ideals. Yet this time Deng was around to stop it.

It was not the descriptions of torture, murder and mayhems jotted down by MacFarquhar that I was having problem with.

What I feel the dis-service thoese guys, like MacFarquhar, did was the purported search for the root cause of the cultural revoluion, thinking it was a good thing turning bad - without tracing the origin of the evils which were none other than what had been invented by Russian masters since day one of the establishment of Chekha.

Let's say Mao had the ideal for catching up with Britain and America - which purportedly led to the disasters of the great leap forward. Was there such an ideal at all? Not al all. The root cause of the launch of the leap forward was to win an idelogical battle against Kruchchov after the negation of Stalinism and personal cult. Kruchchov's exposing Stalin murders was like dropping a bomb on the communist world though the horrors were nothing new as people like Kruchchov had personally experienced the horrors and had been accomplices to perpetrating those horrors.

There was nothing logical in Mao's instincts to launch the leap forward other than to deliberately challenge Kruchchov on both negation of Stalin's cult and on the new Russian peace initiative to the "capitalist" camp.

It was Mao's personal whims at stake, not ideals to make China better, i.e., good thing turning bad. Same is true of the la