How did Mao come to power? Out of the rough and tumble scrum of early CCP politics, how did a rich peasant’s son from Hunan emerge as “The Chairman,” the bright red sun of a nation’s heart? It’s a tough question. Traditional PRC historiography usually describes Mao’s final ascension to power as the outcome of the Zunyi Conference, which began this date in 1935.
My handy desktop copy of 历史的今天 (This Date in History) reports that a conference held in Zunyi, Guizhou during the Long March, “ended the Leftism of Wang Ming, and established Comrade Mao Zedong as head of the military. Thus at this critical juncture, both the army and the party were saved.”
However, the events at Zunyi and the means by which Mao eventually attained and consolidated his control over the CCP, are still disputed among historians. The problem of course is that we really don’t have the kind of materials necessary to say for sure. Most accounts are based on memoirs, interviews with people who might have been on the Long March but didn’t actually attend the meeting, and on documents released later, many of which were composed and edited after the fact. There are