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Rare photographs offer visual records of Chinese Red Army's Long March

China 15:10, 22-Oct-2026

CGTN

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As China commemorates the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March, a rare collection of photographs documenting the historic expedition from 1934 to 1936 has come to light.

In an earlier interview, reporters from China's Xinhua News Agency learned that an extensive collection of materials left by Helen Foster Snow, an American journalist and the wife of Edgar Snow – a US journalist who brought the story of the Long March to the world – has been preserved at Brigham Young University (BYU) in the US.

In 1937, Helen Snow risked her life to travel to Yan'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, where she spent more than four months interviewing people in the region. Her works include Inside Red China, the sequel to Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China. She took with her the documents, manuscripts and photographs she had collected when she left China.

Helen Snow died in 1997. In accordance with her wishes, a large collection of her archival materials and photographs was donated to BYU.

To mark the 90th anniversary, Xinhua reporters went to the university's library, uncovering a collection of precious photographs documenting the Long March, including two particularly rare images.

The Chinese Red Army's 25th Army crossing the Wei River in August 1935. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

One image captures soldiers of the 25th Army crossing the Wei River, offering a rare glimpse of the march.

Two people from an ethnic minority group encountered along the Long March. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

The other photograph features two people from an ethnic minority group encountered along the Long March. It was personally given to Helen Snow by Kang Keqing, the wife of Chinese general Zhu De, who served as commander-in-chief of the Red Army at the time.

Here are other precious photographs from Helen Snow's collection exhibited in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU's Harold B. Lee Library.

A graduation ceremony of a training unit of the Chinese Red Army in 1932. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

A group photo of all delegates at the First National Political Work Conference of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in 1934. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

The Red Army's 25th Army arrives in Yongping (today's Yongping Town, Yanchuan County, Yan'an City, southwest China's Shaanxi Province), where it joins forces with the 26th and 27th armies in September 1935. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

Wang Zhen (front row, first from left), political commissar of the Red Army's Sixth Corps, poses for a group photo with representatives of the Miao and Han ethnic groups at the Baihuashan Gospel Church in Bijie County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

Commanders and fighters of the first company, fourth regiment, second Division of the Red Army's Anti-Japanese Vanguard capture Xiangling in north China's Shanxi Province in 1936. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

Red Army cavalry conducting drills. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

Chinese Red Army soldiers fire a mortar on the front line in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. /L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library

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