The marchers lived off the land, though the Communists never mentioned plunder, spoke only of "confiscation committees." Provincial populations fled in terror before "Mr. Soviet," as the Red army became known. The Reds' first great obstacle was the Yangtze, where Chiang hoped to stop them. A Red detachment in captured Nationalist uniforms managed to take a samll river port which permitted the whole army to cross. But the most famous incident on the Long March was the crossing of the Tatu River, where a detachment of Communists swung across hand over hand on the bare iron chains of a half-destroyed suspension bridge, straight into Nationalist machine-gun fire.
Mao Tse-tung made the entire march on foot, except for a few weeks when he was ailing. After a year, the marchers arrived in bleak Shensi. Of the 80,000 who hadstarted out, only 20,000 reached their promised, unpromising land. Mao Tse-tung moved into a convenient cave in the cave city of Yenan, just below the Great Wall, and proceeded to build his beaten Communist remnants into a new Soviet state.
10% War. The year the Communists got to Shensi (I935), the world Comintern line swung to the "united front" policy which advocated solidarity among-all anti-fascist forces. Moscow instructed Yenan to seek a united front with Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese.
In 1937, the Communists undertook formally to abolish the Soviet system, and to merge the Red army with Chiang's forces. To the rank & file, Communist leaders explained carefully that these were "temporary" measures to give the Communist forces a chance to recover from their "battle fatigue." Very clearly, Mao spelled out Communist strategy: "The war between China and Japan is an excellent lent opportunity for the development of our party. Our determined policy is 70% selfdevelopment, 20% compromise, and 10% fight the Japanese . . ."
The Reds carried out these instructions to the letter. When the Japanese were defeated by the Allies in 1945, the Communists scrambled to "accept" their surrender. They took over vast areas formerly held by the Japanese, seized huge amounts of Japanese arms.
At the same time, the Russians marched into Manchuria in their one-week war against Japan and for months prevented the Nationalist troops from entering the northern provinces. Li Li-san returned with the Red army from his Moscow exile and was established in Manchuria. He had successfully purged himself of Trotskyism, had married a Russian girl, and was said to be in high favor with Stalin.
