Class Work 2/4

A.

1. Between Jiangxi and Zunyi, the communists marched along a very straightforward route.
2. After Zunyi, the communists took a much less direct path, dividing the Red Army at some points and making full circles around certain areas before moving forward.
3. Chiang Kaishek and the Guomindang was able to predict the communists' movements and interrupt them when they were marching in straight lines. The communists changed their movements so that they would not be caught so easily.
4. The Red Army may have been trapped and defeated by the Guomindang if they had not changed their tactics.

B.

1. Source A is supported by the fact that less than a quarter of the 87,000 communists who started the Long March finished it. However, the fact that any of them made it to Shaanxi makes the Long March a success for communists to some extent. The countless obstacles that the communists had to overcome, particularly the crossing of the Dadu river, proved the determination of the communists, supporting the claim made in Source B. However, Chiang Kaishek was very successful in reducing the numbers of the communists, even if he did not exterminate them completely.
2. I think that the first view is much more accurate. Many communists were lost in the Long March, but as the source says, it was not a decisive defeat; the communists eventually won the civil war and gained dominance over China, despite the great losses after 1928.