In January 1935, in the midst of the Long March, the
Zunyi Conference took place in a two-storey wood and brick building of
combined Chinese and Western architectural styles located at No.80,
Hongqi Road in the old town of Zunyi, Guizhou Province. The place was
formerly known as Pipa Bridge. The meeting exposed and criticized the
military mistakes of CCP leaders. Mao Zedong was elected a member of
the Political Bureau and in doing so, the Conference ended the "left"
opportunist line of Wang Ming (who had the support of Comintern agent
Otto Braun) that prevailed at the time. The meeting was a turning point
in the history of the CCP. The roll call of the meeting reads like a
who's who of significant leaders: amongst those present were Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Lin Biao,
Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Yang Shangkun, Liu Bocheng,
Wang Jiaxiang, Peng Dehuai, and Nie Rongzhen.
The places where the Long March had passed through
provided great drawing power for Red Guards who gave heed to Mao
Zedong's call to share their revolutionary experiences with others. In
the period of revolutionary networking (chuanlian
串联) which lasted from August 1966 until March 1967, many youngsters
considered
themselves to be on a Long March of their own, and Zunyi was one of the
"Memorial Places of Revolutionary History", which also included
Shaoshan
(Mao's birth place), Jinggangshan (the cradle of the Communist Party), Luding Bridge
(where a heroic crossing over the Dadu River took place), and Yan'an.
Listed as a major cultural relic site under state
protection, the building now houses the Zunyi Conference Memorial
Museum. The slogans written at the time have been preserved.
s.r.landsberger@let.leidenuniv.nl
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International Institute of Social History