What Are You Currently Reading? 2015

[Bill Moore]

The Long March
The True History of China's Founding Myth
by Sun Shuyun

http://www.amazon.com/Long-March-His...The+Long+March

This book was enlightening from both a historical perspective and because it provided very personal views of the numerous people the Sun interviewed as she followed the path of the Long March. I have read several books in recent years that put Mao that characterize Mao more honestly than the popular myths spun in the West about him. One of his strongest points was his ability to write, to propagandize and inspire, and he had many U.S. journalists, but especially Edgar Snow helped create the myth of Mao in the West. Once a narrative is established it takes time to change it, now researchers have that opportunity to examine the conflict with less bias. Sun is one of those authors. A few excerpts:

She provided interesting insights on the German Otto Braun who the Comintern put in command of the Red Army (there were German advisors on both sides, but Braun appeared to be mercenary, while the Germans advising Chiang were nurturing an important relationship so Germany could retain access to resources critical to developing their war machine). Despite Braun's apparent incompetence (he is blamed for communists' defeat before the long march) they referred to him as the supreme emperor.

He was Stalin's envoy, and Moscow's support was paramount for the Chinese communists-ideologically, politically, financially, and militarily.

Beckoned to today's discussion on women in combat, the communist had no qualms about this. There is a lengthy discussion the women cadres and fighting units.

"You could not easily tell us apart on the outside," she said. "We all had our heads shaved so the enemy wouldn't know they fighting women. And we all wore caps."

The Fourth Army formed the "Independent Woman's Regt," led by a beautiful Chinese woman who was a good leader. One example when they ran into a regt of a local warlord.

She organized attacks from several directions to confuse them. Then she told the women to call and plead with the men to turn their weapons on their officers. To their complete surprise, the firing stopped and white flags came up--Five Hundred Peasant Women Defeat Regt-- ran the headlines in the local newspapers.

On the march through Tibet the communists oddly complained about the Tibetan's irregular tactics (also discussed why the Tibetans hated the communists).

We could hear their tribal horns calling them to battle from the cliffs and mountains. More battles than we ever had with the Nationalists. The Tibetans would not fight properly. They attacks us at the rear. Once they isolated a few of our men they pounced on them like vultures on corpses.

Note these are interviews with participants, and of course they only saw the civil war from their perspective, so I doubt the Maoists had more battles with Tibetans than the Nationalists, but they certainly had a hard time marching through that region.

There are several pages on the American journalist Edgar Snow, who wrote the widely popular book "Red Star over China" that put Mao and the communists in a positive light in the West. It also helped shape the Chinese people's view of the communists.

Mao was deeply grateful to Snow and gave him the highest praise a Chinese could. He said Red Star over China had a merit no less than that of the Great Yu, the mythical emperor who was supposed to have brought China's floods under control and saved the people. A genius of propaganda, Mao knew the importance of the pen, but even he did not expect Snow's pen could be so powerful--it profoundly influenced the fate of the Red Army, the Communist Party, and Mao himself.

Throughout the book there were stories of terror and suffering during the long march. Mao's forces killed thousands of Chinese deliberately, but other incidents were simply due basic human instincts.

Mao's Western Legion was largely wiped out by the Mas, who were Muslim warlords. All but 400 of 20,800 men and women were either killed or captured, yet this tragic story has been largely left out Long March History.

She interviewed one of Mao's soldiers who was captured and converted to Islam.

You know, Mao's Little Red Book is not that different from the Koran. Both tell us to do good and no evil, help the poor, and make the world a better place. It is a pity you can't buy the Little Red Book so easily anymore, otherwise I would have my sons read it.
Why did he think the Mas were so cruel to the Red Army then?
Ma Fucai didn't hesitate. You can see the land is too poor to support many people. For their own survival they had to get rid of us. That was why their soldiers were so brave, as if they were on drugs. They were unlike any of thee warlord troops we fought before and we could not get any recruits.

Just a few random quotes from my underlining in the book. Several comments about starving, killing innocents to get food, desertions, and yet a core of dedicated communists endured a very arduous march and then skillfully exploited a weakened Nationalist Army after the Japanese surrendered. The West didn't provide adequate support to Chiang largely because of the narrative Snow and Stilwell created. Certainly Chiang was not a good leader, but based on Taiwan's success compared to massive mass murder of Chinese in Mao's purges it certainly, at least in hindsight, calls into question our decision to limit support to Chiang.