90 years on, Long March's legacy inspires China's progress in the new era

HISTORICAL TURNING POINT

The Zunyi Meeting took place at a critical crossroads for the CPC.

In the harsh winter of 1934, the CPC was forced to retreat from the Central Soviet Area in east China's Jiangxi and move northwest after enduring a series of encirclement campaigns by rival forces of the Kuomintang party (KMT). The setback was the result of the left-leaning errors in military strategy and rigid Soviet-inspired dogmatism.

After suffering a heavy loss in a battle along the Xiangjiang River in southern China, the number of the CPC-led Red Army soldiers dwindled from over 86,000 to around 30,000, who were depleted and short of food and ammunition. The failure sparked a backlash from the soldiers who demanded new leadership and revised strategies.

The three-day meeting was thus convened after the Red Army seized Zunyi to draw lessons on why they were defeated by the enemy. The sessions often stretched late into the night, marked by passionate debates, criticisms and self-criticisms. In the end, many key issues were resolved, including the establishment of a new leadership within the Central Committee of the CPC, with Mao Zedong at the helm.

The meeting later proved to be a crucial turning point in the Long March.

"Mao Zedong displayed remarkable military prowess in the subsequent battles, ultimately leading the Red Army to complete the monumental feat of the Long March. This was a crucial moment that shifted the course of events," said Zhang Xiaoling, the deputy curator of the memorial museum.

The communist army, under Mao's leadership, took fresh heart and eventually defeated the KMT. Fourteen years after the Zunyi Meeting, the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) marked the beginning of a new chapter in history.

In his book "The Long March: The Untold Story," Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Harrison Salisbury wrote: "Zunyi was over. The Long March continued. Mao was in charge. China's course had been set for at least half a century to come."