Zunyi Meeting Site

Zunyi Meeting Site

The meeting site was a two-story brick and wood house that was built in the early 1930s. It was the best house in the city at the time, and you can see a mix of Chinese and Western architecture. Mao Tse Tung wrote in big characters which means "Site of Zunyi Meeting," and this sign is hung on the gate. Inside the gate is a courtyard paved with slate. The courtyard north of the main building was the venue of the Zunyi Meeting.
English Name: Zunyi Meeting Site
Chinese name: 遵义会议遗址
Best Seasons: All year round
Opening Hours: 8：00－18：00
Recommended Visiting Time: 1 or 3 hours
Tickets: Free
Address: Ziyin Road No. 96 in the Zunyi Old City

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Zunyi Meeting Site

Zunyi, in the northern part of Guizhou province, was the site of a pivotal meeting in 1935 during the Communist Party Long March. Zunyi, in the northern part of Guizhou province, 170 km north of its capital city Guiyang, was the site of a pivotal meeting in 1935 during the Communist Party famous Long March. Since then the Chinese revolution was pulled through and on the correct path. Zunyi Meeting Site is a north-facing two-story building of brick-wood structure, which has been converted into a museum commemorating the Long March.

Introduction of Zunyi Meeting

The Zunyi Conference (simplified Chinese: 遵义会议; traditional Chinese: 遵義會議; pinyin: Zūnyì huìyì) was a meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) 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 a 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.

Background

In August 1934, with the Red Army depleted by the prolonged Chinese Civil War, a spy (Mo Xiong) placed by Zhou Enlai in the KMT army headquarters in Nanchang brought news that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing a major offensive against the Communist capital, Ruijin. The Communist leadership decided on a strategic retreat to regroup with other Communist units, and to avoid annihilation. The original plan was for the First Red Army to link up with the Second Red Army commanded by He Long, thought to be in Hubei to the west and north. Communications between divided groups of the Red Army had been disrupted by the Kuomintang campaign, and during the planning to evacuate Jiangxi, the First Red Army was unaware that these other Communist forces were also retreating westward.

Initially, the First Red Army, with its baggage of top communist officials, records, currency reserves and another trapping of the exiled Chinese Soviet Republic, fought through several lightly defended Kuomintang checkpoints, crossing the Xinfeng River and through the province of Guangdong, south of Hunan and into Guangxi. At the Xiang river, Chiang Kai-shek had reinforced the KMT defenses. In two days of bloody fighting, 30 November to 1 December 1934, the Red Army lost more than 40,000 troops and all of the civilian porters, and there were strongly defended Nationalist defensive lines ahead. Personnel and material losses after the battle of the Xiang river affected the morale of the troops and desertions began. By a 12 December 1934 meeting of Party leaders in Tongdao, discontent with Bo Gu and Otto Braun appeared. Under these conditions, the Communists met in Zunyi to reshuffle the Party politburo.

Meeting

In January 1935, after the Red Army took over the city of Zunyi, a town of military importance in Guizhou, Southwest China, an enlarged meeting of the politburo of the CPC was held. It was once commonly thought to have been held from January 6–8, but now it is accepted to have taken place between January 15–17.

The names and numbers of participants in the conference have always been disputed. These details are of importance to the larger Soviet view that elected members of the party were outvoted by non-members. Those who are most strongly agreed to have attended by all are Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi, Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu, Liu Bocheng, Li Fuchun, Lin Biao, and Peng Dehuai. Chinese sources which show that non-members could not have outvoted members have the following participants:

  • Politburo members: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu.
  • Alternate politburo members: Wang Jiaxiang; Liu Shaoqi; Deng Fa, the notorious boss of the secret police for the CPC; Kai Feng (He Kequan), leader of CY.
  • Generals: Liu Bocheng, Chief of Staff of Red Army; Li Fuchun, acting director of political department of Red Army (acting General Commissar); Lin Biao, and commander of 1st Field Army; Peng Dehuai, commander of 3rd Field Army; Nie Rongzhen, Lin’s commissar; Yang Shangkun, Peng’s commissar and another member of 28 Bolsheviks; and Li Zhuoran.
  • Secretariat and chief editor of the CPC newspaper, the Red Star, Deng Xiaoping.
  • Otto Braun and his interpreter Wu Xiuquan.

Various scholars dispute the attendance of Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi, Wang Jiaxiang, He Kequan, Deng Fa, Nie Rongzhen, and Deng Xiaoping. On the other hand, Liang Botai, Wu Liangping, Teng Daiyuan, Li Weihan, Wang Shoudao, and Yang Shangkun are also held to have attended by some sources.

How to Get There

Take No.1, No.17, No.23 and No.6. Get off at the “conference site station” and walk through dingzikou in the center of the city. It’s twenty minutes away.

Main Attractions in Guizhou

Edited by  Lynette Fu/付云锐