The Long March lesson about transformation

Editor's note: Zhang Muyun, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at School of Marxism, Tsinghua University. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

From 1934 to 1936, the Chinese Red Army undertook the historic Long March, involving its First, Second and Fourth Front Armies and the 25th Army. This extraordinary undertaking became a defining chapter in the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Nine decades later, the experience of the Long March still offers a lesson in how to respond when circumstances change: When established approaches no longer work, progress depends on the courage to rethink, adapt and find a new path.

The lesson was learned at great cost. In the second half of 1933, the then ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party's leader Chiang Kai-shek launched the fifth "encirclement and suppression" against the CPC's revolutionary base areas. Adopting a new strategy advised by German military experts, his forces built extensive networks of fortifications around these areas.

The then leadership of the Communist Party responded by pursuing a strategy of confronting the enemy directly, attempting to fight superior forces through positional warfare. The Battle of Guangchang in Jiangxi Province, east China, exposed the limitations of this approach. After 18 days of fierce fighting, the Red Army suffered heavy casualties and lost the town.

The consequences became even more severe when the Red Army tried to break through the blockade at the Xiangjiang River in Hunan, central China. Caught between KMT forces from Hunan and Guangxi, the Red Army suffered enormous losses and its numbers fell from more than 86,000 at the beginning of the Long March to just over 30,000.

The scale of the losses forced a fundamental reassessment.

Learning to change course

While the CPC's meeting at Tongdao, Hunan, on December 12, 1934, laid the foundation for a strategic shift, the subsequent Liping Conference in Liping County, Guizhou Province in southwest China, around one week later resolved the pressing issue of the Red Army's marching direction.

Then came the Zunyi Conference in January 1935, held in Zunyi, a city in Guizhou. It was a turning point in the history of the Communist Party. Its significance lay not simply in a change of personnel or military tactics, but in a willingness to confront mistakes and adjust strategy in light of experience. The conference, which established Mao Zedong's leadership within the CPC Central Committee and the Red Army, marked the beginning of a new stage in which the Party increasingly sought to address its own problems independently, rather than mechanically apply foreign models and experience.

What followed demonstrated the practical value of that shift.

Between January and March 1935, the Red Army crossed the Chishui River four times before successfully crossing of the Jinsha River and breaking out of the enemy's encirclement.

The importance of "Four Crossings of the Chishui" military campaign was not the capture or loss of any particular city. Its strength lay in unpredictability. The Red Army repeatedly changed direction, moving north and south and creating uncertainty about its main objective. By refusing to remain bound to a predetermined route, it created opportunities in motion rather than waiting for favorable conditions to appear.

Mao Zedong later described the operation as one of the proudest achievements of his military career.

The military episode illustrates a straightforward principle: Strategy cannot be separated from changing circumstances. A plan that works under one set of conditions may become a liability when those conditions change. Adaptation is therefore not a departure from strategic purpose; it allows that purpose to survive.

Finding the destination through practice

When American journalist Edgar Snow visited the Communist-controlled areas in 1936, he described the Long March as one of the great achievements in military history.

Yet the destination of the Long March was not determined in advance. It was found gradually through experience, adjustment and trial.

The experience also led the Communist Party to a broader conclusion: Marxist principles needed to be integrated with China's specific circumstances, and the major problems facing the Chinese revolution had to be addressed independently rather than through mechanical imitation of foreign models.

This is perhaps the most enduring dimension of the Long March's legacy. It was not simply a story of overcoming physical hardship. It was also a process of learning – recognizing when an established approach had failed, drawing lessons from setbacks, and developing new ways to move forward.

Every generation, the Chinese saying goes, has its own "Long March" to complete.

The challenges facing today's world are obviously different from those of the 1930s. Yet the broader problem of navigating uncertainty remains. Ninety years later, the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. Globalization faces headwinds, while unilateralism and protectionism have gained ground.

In such circumstances, the historical experience of the Long March suggests that complexity should not lead to paralysis. When familiar paths become increasingly difficult to follow, the answer is not to cling more tightly to them but to reassess, learn from experience, and explore new routes while keeping sight of the larger objective.

The Long March therefore remains more than a historical memory. It is a reminder that difficult journeys are rarely completed by following a fixed map from beginning to end. Sometimes the path forward becomes visible only through the journey itself.

And when circumstances are in flux, the ability to open a new path may be as important as the determination to keep moving.

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