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The [[Chinese Communist Party]] was founded in Shanghai, China's largest city, in 1921. It was allied with the KMT but in classical Marxist style its goal was initially to foment revolution among urban workers and to seize the ultimate political power of entire China. It was controlled by [[Stalin]] in Moscow through the Comintern. In 1927, however, a bloody anti-communist coup by the Nationalist, destroyed the CCP in the cities. Forced into the countryside, the CCP broke with Russian guidance and developed a new strategy based on agrarian revolution, mobilizing poor peasants by promising to confiscate and redistribute the lands held by landlords. [[Mao Zedong]] took the lead.<ref>Spence, ''Search for Modern China'' (1990) ch 14</ref>  

The [[Chinese Communist Party]] was founded in Shanghai, China's largest city, in 1921. It was allied with the KMT but in classical Marxist style its goal was initially to foment revolution among urban workers and to seize the ultimate political power of entire China. It was controlled by [[Stalin]] in Moscow through the Comintern. In 1927, however, a bloody anti-communist coup by the Nationalist, destroyed the CCP in the cities. Forced into the countryside, the CCP broke with Russian guidance and developed a new strategy based on agrarian revolution, mobilizing poor peasants by promising to confiscate and redistribute the lands held by landlords. [[Mao Zedong]] took the lead.<ref>Spence, ''Search for Modern China'' (1990) ch 14</ref>  

====The Long March: 1934-36 ====

====The Long March: 1934-36====

In 1934-35, the CCP fled the KMT with over 100,000 men and women.They divided into several armies, marched 6,000 miles inland through a brutal terrain of frigid mountain passes, freezing rivers and marshes in search of a sanctuary to continue their revolution. Only 7000 survived the march.<ref>John M. Glionna, "China's reality check on Long March," [https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-longmarch16jan16,0,3463382.story?coll=la-home-center ''Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 2008]</ref>

The Long March was a 6,000 mile retreat of the Chinese Communist Army back to the northwest to Outer [[Mongolia]] and the Soviet Union after it being routed by the [[Kuomintang]] in October 1933 to January 1934. In the fifth operation by the KMT, which aimed to encircle and annihilate the CCP, the CCP lost its rural strongholds one after another. With its base areas continually shrinking, the main CCP Army had to flee. They were divided into several armies.

The Long March became the heroic memory of the CCP, and virtually all the Communist leaders of the next 70 years were marchers or their children.<ref>Sun Shuyun, ''The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth'' (2007)</ref>

 

The Long March traveled through Shanxi and Suiyuan through a brutal terrain of frigid mountain passes, freezing rivers, and marshes where no Japanese troops were deployed, in search of a sanctuary to continue their revolution. Along the way, the Army of the CCP claimed to be fighting the Japanese.  A year later, when the CCP finally arrived at Shanbei (northern Shaanxi province), the main force of the Central Red Army had decreased from 80,000 to 6,000 people. 

 

Only 7000 survived the march.<ref>John M. Glionna, "China's reality check on Long March," [https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-longmarch16jan16,0,3463382.story?coll=la-home-center ''Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 2008]</ref>

 

All the Communist leaders of the country after 1949 were on the Long March. Virtually all the Communist leaders of the next 70 years were marchers or their children.<ref>Sun Shuyun, ''The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth'' (2007)</ref>   By the 1960s, the children of people on the March started to gain power.

===The Nanjing decade: 1927-1937===

===The Nanjing decade: 1927-1937===