China's Long March represented an arduous chapter for the Communist Party of China (CPC), demonstrating the Party's endurance, determination and resilience while laying groundwork for the nation's later development into one of the world's most powerful countries, said British scholar Martin Jacques.
Jacques, a former senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University, made the remarks in a recent interview with the China Radio International (CRI).
"It was a very difficult moment in the struggle of the Communist Party of China. The Long March was suffered huge casualties. It marched around large parts of China. And in so doing, it obtained the recognition and support of people in many different provinces," he said.
"It was a tremendous act of defiance which left an indelible memory for the Chinese down the ages over the last 90 years. What it did was to show the Chinese people, and demonstrate to the Chinese people the endurance, the determination and the resilience of the Chinese Communist Party, also to remind the Chinese of the unity of China," he said.
"What it shows is how difficult it was, but how determined the Communist Party of China was, and then to go on after the revolution to begin to build a new China to the point today where China is one of the most powerful countries in the world. Those people who know the story of China's Long March cannot help but admire what was achieved, the courage, the resilience. It is a reminder of what China is capable of," the scholar added.
The Long March (1934-1936) was a military maneuver by the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army that later became a defining episode in modern Chinese history, symbolizing endurance and perseverance as the poorly armed soldiers crossed some of the country's harshest terrain, enduring hunger, thirst and cold, to establish a new revolutionary base. The official record of the Long March made by the First Front Army of the Red Army was 12,500 km, which took it one year from 1934-1935. Two other front armies of the Red Army, the second and the fourth, started the journey later, took different routes, and completed the march in 1936.
Long March forges CPC's resilience behind China's rise: British scholar
Long March forges CPC's resilience behind China's rise: British scholar
