Long March in the context of "Second Sino-Japanese War"

Mao Zedong (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese politician, communist revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and led the country from its establishment until his death in 1976. Mao served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1943 until his death, and as the party's de facto leader from 1935. His theories, which he advocated as a Chinese adaptation of Marxism–Leninism, are known as Maoism.

Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao studied in Changsha and was influenced by the 1911 Revolution and ideas of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism. He was introduced to Marxism while working as a librarian at Peking University, and later participated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In 1921, Mao became a founding member of the CCP. After the start of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and CCP, Mao led the failed Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan in 1927, and in 1931 founded the Jiangxi Soviet. He helped build the Chinese Red Army, and developed a strategy of guerilla warfare. In 1935, Mao became leader of the CCP during the Long March, a military retreat to the Yan'an Soviet in Shaanxi, where the party began rebuilding its forces. The CCP allied with the KMT in the Second United Front at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, but the civil war resumed after Japan's surrender in 1945. In 1949, Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan.

Guizhou is an inland province in Southwestern China with its capital and largest city as Guiyang, located in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to the south, Yunnan to the west, Sichuan to the northwest, the municipality of Chongqing to the north, and Hunan to the east. Guizhou has a humid subtropical climate. It covers a total area of 176,200 square kilometers and consists of six prefecture-level cities and three autonomous prefectures. The population of Guizhou stands at 38.5 million, ranking 18th among the provinces in China.

The Dian Kingdom, which inhabited the present-day area of Guizhou, was annexed by the Han dynasty in 106 BC. Guizhou was formally made a province in 1413 during the Ming dynasty. After the overthrow of the Qing in 1911 and following the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party took refuge in Guizhou during the Long March between 1934 and 1935. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong promoted the relocation of heavy industry into inland provinces such as Guizhou, to better protect them from potential foreign attacks.

The Jiangxi Soviet, sometimes referred to as the Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet, was a soviet area that existed between 1931 and 1934, governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was the largest component of the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) and home to its capital, Ruijin. At the time, the CCP was engaged in a rural insurgency against the Kuomintang-controlled Nationalist Government as part of the Chinese Civil War. CCP leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De chose to create the soviet in the rugged Jinggang Mountains on the border of Jiangxi and Fujian because of its remote location and defensible terrain. The First Red Front Army successfully repulsed a series of encirclement campaigns by the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army (NRA) during the first few years of the Soviet's existence, but they were eventually defeated by the NRA's fifth attempt between 1933 and 1934. After the Jiangxi Soviet was defeated militarily, the CCP began the Long March towards a new base area in the northwest.
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Ruijin (Chinese: 瑞金; pinyin: Ruìjīn) is a county-level city of Ganzhou in the mountains bordering Fujian Province in the south-eastern part of Jiangxi Province. Formerly a county, Ruijin became a county-level city on May 18, 1994.

It was an early center of Chinese communist activity and developed a reputation as cradle of the Chinese Communist Revolution. In the late-1920s, the Nationalists forced the Communists out of the Jinggang Mountains, sending them fleeing to Ruijin and the safety of its relative isolation in the rugged mountains along Jiangxi-Fujian border. In 1931, Mao Zedong founded the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) with Ruijin as its capital; it was called Ruijing by the CSR. The Communists withdrew in 1934 on the Long March after being surrounded again by the Nationalists.

The Yan'an Soviet was a soviet governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the 1930s and 1940s, established in North-Central China on the border area between Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia. In October 1936, it became the final destination of the Long March, and served as the CCP's main base until after the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the CCP and Kuomintang (KMT) formed the Second United Front in 1937, the Yan'an Soviet was officially reconstituted as the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region (traditional Chinese: 陝甘寧邊區; simplified Chinese: 陕甘宁边区; pinyin: Shǎn gān níng Biānqū; Wade–Giles: Shan-kan-ning Pien-ch'ü). In CCP historiography, Yan'an is celebrated as the most important of revolutionary sites and the birthplace of Mao Zedong Thought.

Yan'an is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several counties, including Zhidan (formerly Bao'an), which served as the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before the city of Yan'an proper took that role.

Yan'an was near the endpoint of the Long March, and became the center of the Chinese Communist Revolution from late 1935 to early 1947. Chinese communists celebrate Yan'an as the birthplace of the revolution.

The Zunyi Conference (simplified Chinese: 遵义会议; traditional Chinese: 遵義會議; pinyin: Zūnyì huìyì) was a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in January 1935 during the Long March. This meeting involved a power struggle between the leadership of Bo Gu and Otto Braun and the opposition led by Mao Zedong. The result was that Mao left the meeting in position to take over military command and become the leader of the Communist Party. The conference was completely unacknowledged until the 1950s and still no detailed descriptions were available until the fiftieth anniversary in 1985.

Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1978 to 1989. Emerging as China's most influential figure after Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng consolidated political power and guided the country into an era of "reform and opening up" that transitioned the nation toward a socialist market economy. Credited as the "Architect of Modern China", he is recognized for shaping both socialism with Chinese characteristics and Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Born into a landowning peasant family in Sichuan, Deng was introduced to Marxism–Leninism while studying and working in France during the 1920s as part of the Work–Study Movement. He then studied in Moscow and, after returning to China, joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1924. During the Chinese Civil War, he worked in the Jiangxi Soviet and maintained close ties with Mao. Deng later served as a political commissar in the Chinese Red Army during the Long March and Second Sino-Japanese War, helping secure CCP victory in 1949 and taking part in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) capture of Nanjing.