Zhang Guotao - Military Leadership

Military Leadership

In 1932 Zhang led the 4th Red Army into Sichuan and set up another base. Slowly he turned it into a prosperous autonomous region by way of land reform and enlisting the support of locals. However, once the prosperity was in reach, Zhang repeated the Stalinist style purges again, as a result, he and the Red Army lost the popular support, and was driven from the Red base. In 1935 Zhang and his army of more than 80,000 reunited with Mao's 10,000 troops during the Long March. It was not long before Mao and Zhang were locked in disagreements over issues of strategy and tactics, causing a split in the Red Army. The main disagreement was the Zhang's insistence on moving southward to establish a new base in the region of Sichuan that are populated by minorities. Mao pointed out the flaws of such move, pointing out the difficulties to establish any communist base in regions where the general populace was hostile, and insisted on moving northward to reach the communist base in Shaanxi. Zhang tried to have Mao and his followers arrested and killed if needed, but his plan was foiled by his own staff members Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun, who fled to Mao's headquarter to inform Mao about Zhang's plot, taking the all of the code books and maps with them. As a result, Mao immediately moved his troop northward and thus escaped arrest and possible death.

Zhang decided to carry out his plan on his own, with disastrous results: over 75% of his original 80,000 + troops were lost in his adventure. Zhang was forced to admit defeat and retreat to the communist base in Shaanxi. More disastrous than losing most of his troops, the failure discredited Zhang among his own followers, who turned to Mao. Furthermore, because all of the code books were obtained by Mao, Zhang lost contact with Comintern while Mao was able to establish the link, this coupled with the fact of Zhang's disastrous defeat, discredited Zhang within Comintern, which begun to give greater support for Mao.

Zhang's remaining troops of 21,800 were later annihilated in 1936 by the superior force of more than 100,000 combined troops of warlords Ma Bufang, Ma Hongbin and Ma Zhongying during efforts to cross the Yellow River and conquer Ma's territory. Zhang lost the power and influence to be able to challenge Mao and had to accept his failure as a result of the disaster which only left him 427 surviving troops from the original 21,800.

An alternate version of events, which disputes the traditional view of Zhang as a traitor, is presented in a controversial account by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. They contend that Mao methodically sabotaged Zhang's troops by ensuring they faced the toughest battles and terrain. According to Chang's book, Russian archives released in 2005 indicate that Mao once told an envoy of Joseph Stalin that his forces had destroyed 30,000 of Zhang's troops.