The Failure of the Central Red Army in the Fifth Campaign against Encirclement and Suppression and the Beginning of the Long March

As the CPC Provisional Central Committee was still located in Shanghai in the early 1930s, it was some time before its “Left” policies penetrated the Red Army and the revolutionary base areas.

From November 1 to 5, 1931, the Party organizations in the Central Soviet Area held their first congress (known as the Southern Jiangxi Meeting) in Ruijin, Jiangxi. At this meeting, which was presided over by the delegation sent to the Central Soviet Area by the Central Committee after its enlarged Fourth Plenary Session, Mao Zedong’s correct views were denounced as reflecting “narrow empiricism,” “the rich peasants’ line,” and “extremely serious and consistent Right opportunism,” and the idea that concentrated efforts should be made to fight against Right opportunism was underscored. Thereafter, Mao found himself in a more difficult situation.

In May 1932, Chiang Kai-shek launched a fourth encirclement and suppression campaign against the central revolutionary base area. His strategy was to proceed in two stages: an attack on the Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Western Hunan-Hubei revolutionary base areas, followed by a concerted attack by all forces on the central revolutionary base area.

On July 14, Chiang Kai-shek personally took up the post of commander-in-chief of the “suppression of bandits” army and amassed 300,000 troops to attack the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base area. At this time, the Fourth Front Army had grown to a force of 45,000 seasoned men, which would have been able to thwart the enemy’s encirclement and suppression if it was guided by the right guidelines. However, after the enlarged Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, Zhang Guotao was dispatched by the Provisional Central Committee to the area to serve as secretary of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee and chairman of the Military Commission. With the aim of eliminating dissidents, he wrongly ordered the execution of Xu Jishen and many other outstanding cadres during a campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries. As the KMT was preparing to launch a large-scale attack on the base area, Zhang underestimated the enemy, reducing the Red Army to a passive position. Without the permission of the Central Committee, he decided that more than 20,000 of the main forces of the Fourth Front Army should cross the Beiping-Hankou Railway and move west. After more than two months of marching they entered northern Sichuan and established the Sichuan-Shaanxi revolutionary base area.

Just as the attack on the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base area was being launched, more than 100,000 KMT troops launched an assault against the Western Hunan-Hubei revolutionary base area. After the enlarged Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, Xia Xi was dispatched to serve as secretary of the Western Hunan-Hubei Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee and political commissar of the Third Red Army. He too pursued the policies of “Left” adventurism and sectarianism. He wrongly executed Duan Dechang and many other outstanding cadres in the movement to eliminate counter-revolutionaries. At first Xia Xi underestimated the enemy and advanced too rapidly. The Third Red Army suffered heavy losses and was forced into the defensive, eventually having to withdraw from the revolutionary base area (Xia Xi died during the march). After protracted fighting, the army was finally able to create the Eastern Guizhou revolutionary base area.

At the end of 1932, Chiang Kai-shek brought together more than 30 divisions, composed of three converging columns, to launch a fourth encirclement and suppression campaign against the central revolutionary base area. At that time, the First Front Red Army had about 70,000 men. Under the command of Zhou Enlai and Zhu De, they conducted a counter-campaign against the KMT forces. Based on the successful experience of the past, they were able to wipe out three divisions of the KMT and capture more than 10,000 enemies in two ambushes in Huangpi and Caotaigang in February and March 1933, which smashed the KMT army’s campaign yet again. This victory set a precedent in Red Army history—that of ambushing the enemy with large troop formations.

It was during this campaign that the CPC Provisional Central Committee moved to the central base area, where it soon comprehensively implemented a policy of “Left” dogmatism. To overcome resistance, it took a sectarian approach organizationally, regarding all cadres who adhered to the correct guidelines and who had practical experience as “opportunists,” attacking them mercilessly. Luo Ming, acting secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, and Deng Xiaoping, secretary of the Party Committee of Huichang (directing work in the three counties of Huichang, Xunwu, and Anyuan), opposed this “Left” line of going on the offensive. However, they were denounced as followers of a Right opportunist line who were pessimistic about the revolution and were trying to flee before the enemy. The Provisional Central Committee struggled first against the “Luo Ming line” in Fujian, and then against the “Jiangxi Luo Ming line” of Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zetan, Xie Weijun, and Gu Bai in Jiangxi. What these struggles actually targeted were the correct views that Mao Zedong represented.

In the second half of 1933, Chiang, serving as commander-in-chief, gathered one million troops to mount the fifth encirclement and suppression drive against the central revolutionary base area. Having learned from previous failures, he now relied “30 percent on military means and 70 percent on politics.” He imposed a tight economic blockade on the central revolutionary base area and utilized the principle of protracted war and the new tactic of building blockhouses. From late September, he launched an attack on the central revolutionary base area, beginning with half a million troops.

By this time, the main forces of the Red Army in the central revolutionary base area had grown to more than 80,000 troops. Lacking military experience, Bo Gu, leader of the Provisional Central Committee but a green hand in military affairs, handed military command over to Otto Braun (Chinese name Li De), a military adviser sent by the Communist International. With little knowledge of China’s real conditions, Braun rigidly applied experience from formal positional warfare. They discarded the active defense policy that had proved so effective in repulsing earlier encirclement and suppression campaigns, resorting instead to a policy of military adventurism and advocating “engaging the enemy outside the gates”—that is, having the Red Army fight the enemy outside the confines of the base. The result was that they were obliged to move between the main forces of the enemy and its blockhouses, forcing them into passivity. After this, they adopted a policy of passive defense and tactics of short swift thrusts, forcing the poorly equipped Red Army to fight positional warfare and blockhouse warfare in a war of attrition against a KMT army that was equipped with new weapons and equipment.

One good opportunity did arise for the Red Army to smash the fifth encirclement and suppression campaign. On November 22, 1933, Cai Tingkai, Jiang Guangnai, and other generals of the KMT’s 19th Route Army, who had tried to defend Shanghai against the Japanese aggression, founded the People’s Revolutionary Government of the Chinese Republic in Fuzhou, Fujian Province and appointed Li Jishen as its chairman. They openly declared that they would resist Japanese aggression and oppose Chiang Kai-shek and sent representatives for negotiations with the Red Army on cooperation, which resulted in an initial agreement between the two sides. Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Peng Dehuai, and others proposed to engage in military cooperation with the 19th Route Army. However, Bo Gu and others held that the action taken by the leaders of the 19th Route Army to resist the Japanese aggression and oppose Chiang was merely designed to deceive the people, and they refused to support Cai’s action. As a result, isolated and cut off from help, the 19th Route Army was soon defeated by Chiang’s military attack and political trickery. Afterward, Chiang was able to complete his encirclement of the central revolutionary base area.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee was held in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province in January 1934, seeing a culmination of the “Left” adventuristic line. The meeting re-elected the Political Bureau and elected the Secretariat of the Central Committee (also known as the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau), with Bo Gu remaining the chairman.

In mid to late April 1934, the KMT army concentrated its forces to attack Guangchang. Bo Gu and Braun ordered the main forces of the Red Army to defend Guangchang. After 18 days of fierce fighting, the Red Army had suffered heavy casualties and Guangchang finally fell. In May, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission put forward two options for the Red Army if it could not break through the KMT’s encirclement and suppression: continuing guerrilla warfare in the Soviet area or withdrawing the main forces to another battlefield.

In order to tie the enemy down and ease the pressure on the central revolutionary base area, the Seventh Army Group of the Red Army was reorganized as the Northern Counter-Japanese Advance Force in early July 1934. The Advance Force entered the Fujian-Zhejiang-Anhui-Jiangxi border area, where it joined forces with the Tenth Red Army, which was led by Fang Zhimin, to form the Tenth Army Group of the Red Army, and then a military and administrative commission was established with Fang as its chairman. However, in late January 1935, after being intercepted and pursued by far superior KMT forces, the newly formed army group sustained grievous losses, and Fang Zhimin was captured. While imprisoned, Fang wrote *Lovely China*, *Honest Poverty* and *Prison Documentary*, works which expressed his noble patriotism and firm faith in communism and demonstrated an unyielding revolutionary integrity. Fang Zhimin died a heroic death in Nanchang in August.

In early August 1934, the Sixth Army Group led by Ren Bishi—with Xiao Ke as commander-in-chief and Wang Zhen as political commissar—was ordered to withdraw from the Hunan-Jiangxi revolutionary base area and march west. The Sixth Army Group’s westward march prepared for a strategic shift by the Central Red Army. On October 24, it joined forces with the Third Red Army led by He Long in Muhuang, Yinjiang County, Guizhou. Then, the Third Red Army resumed its designation as the Second Army Group and was reorganized with He Long as commander-in-chief, Ren Bishi as political commissar, and Guan Xiangying as deputy political commissar. Afterward, the second and sixth army groups acted in unison to open the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou revolutionary base area.

In early September 1934, the KMT army stepped up their attacks on the heart of the central revolutionary base area. Under such a barrage, all possibility of the Red Army turning the tide disappeared. On September 17, Bo Gu telegraphed the Communist International, requesting that the Red Army prepare for a strategic shift. On September 30, the Communist International telegraphed their approval. In mid-October, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission led more than 86,000 troops constituting the main force of the Central Red Army in embarking on the long journey to make a strategic shift. This was the beginning of the Long March. The central revolutionary base area fell in the aftermath of the failure of the fifth campaign against encirclement and suppression.

 “Left” dogmatism caused grievous harm to the Chinese revolution: all major revolutionary base areas except the Shaanxi-Gansu base area fell into the enemy’s hands and the Party organizations in the KMT-controlled areas were destroyed. This was a bitter and tragic lesson for the Party.

source from:100 Years of the Communist Party of China