Editing Long March (section)

==Historical controversies==
The Long March is surrounded by conflicting accounts of what occurred.  Some critics and researchers call the earlier accounts myths, but find that they are difficult to prove or disprove because the Chinese government prevents independent historians from exploring the topic.  The few who were able to perform research recently struggle with the fact that many years have gone by since the march took place. Many of the survivors are no longer alive or able to accurately recall events.<ref name="project-syndicate.org">Sun, Shuyun. "The Real Long March." March 2, 2006.http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sun1/English (Retrieved April 2011).</ref>

===Length===
In 2003, controversy arose about the distance covered by Mao's First Front Army in the Long March.<ref>CNN (November 5, 2003): [http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/05/china.shortmarch.ap/index.html Mao's long March 'comes up short'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317033358/http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/05/china.shortmarch.ap/index.html |date=March 17, 2008 }} (Retrieved November 25, 2006)</ref> The figure of 25,000 [[Li (unit)|li]] (12,500 kilometres or about 8,000 miles<ref name="Zhang">Zhang, Chunhou. Vaughan, C. Edwin. [2002] (2002). Mao Zedong as Poet and Revolutionary Leader: Social and Historical Perspectives. Lexington books. {{ISBN|0-7391-0406-3}}. p. 65.</ref>) was Mao's estimate, quoted by his biographer [[Edgar Snow]] in ''[[Red Star Over China]]'', published not long after the end of the Long March in 1938. But in a poem written by Mao in October 1935 at the end of the Long March, ''Mount Liupan'', Mao states their distance as 20,000 [[Li (unit)|li]] (10,000 kilometres or about 6,200 miles).<ref>Marxists.org (2007): [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/poems/poems17.htm "Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung - Mount Liupan] (Retrieved October 10, 2023)</ref> In 2003, two British researchers, Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen,<ref name=step/> retraced the route in 384&nbsp;days,<ref name=cd /><ref name=step>Indo-Asian News Service (October 22, 2006): [http://in.news.yahoo.com/061022/43/68om7.html Retracing Mao's Long March]{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (Retrieved November 23, 2006)</ref> and in their 2006 book "The Long March" estimated the March actually covered about 6,000&nbsp;km (3,700 miles or 11,154 li).<ref>{{cite book | last = Jocelyn, Ed & McEwen, Andrew| year = 2006 | title = The Long March | publisher = Constable & Robinson | pages = 288  | isbn = 1-84529-255-3}}</ref> Chinese media, Beijing Daily disputed their report: "The 25,000 li of the Red Army's Long March are a historic fact."<ref>Richard Spencer, (April 3, 2006):
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070311102040/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2006%2F04%2F03%2Fwmao03.xml&sSheet=%2Fnews%2F2006%2F04%2F03%2Fixworld.html British pair under attack for doubts over Mao's march] ''Daily Telegraph'' (Retrieved November 23, 2006)</ref> Beijing Daily proved that even the First Red Army, which had the least walking distance, travelled closer to 18,088 li (9,375&nbsp;km or 6,000 miles), and the two British young men did not follow the route in those years.<ref>Beijing Daily (2006): [http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-03-27/15028541072s.shtml "The Long March" of 25,000 is not a rumour] (Retrieved May 08, 2022)</ref> In 2005, Xiaoai Zhang, the daughter of Aiping Zhang and [[David Ben Uziel]], Israeli soldier and photographer, retraced the route again and recorded around 24,000&nbsp;km.<ref>People's Daily (2006): [http://military.people.com.cn/n1/2016/1024/c1011-28801350.html "The Long March" is a road of hope] (Retrieved May 09, 2022)</ref>

===Luding Bridge===

{{quote box |quote =  Well, that's the way it's presented in our propaganda. We needed that to express the fighting spirit of our forces. In fact, it was a very easy military operation. There wasn't really much to it. The other side were just some troops of the warlord who were armed with old muskets and it really wasn't that much of a feat, but we felt we had to dramatize it.| source= — [[Deng Xiaoping]], Quote according to [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]], 2005<ref>Brzezinski, Zbigniew. "America and the New Asia." Michel Oksenberg Lecture. Asia-Pacific Research Center. Stanford University, 09 Mar 2009. Lecture.</ref>}}

The [[Battle of Luding Bridge]] has been portrayed as a glorious and heroic moment in Chinese Communist history, analogous to the Texan [[Battle of the Alamo]].  The official account of the battle depicts exhausted and depleted Communist forces in a desperate situation, where they must fight across a bridge that is guarded by the numerically superior forces of Chiang Kai-shek and his warlord allies.  The Communists send a small volunteer force that braves a hail of gunfire to climb across the bridge on underlying chains and assault the enemy positions on the other side, hence securing the bridgehead for the rest of the army to cross.

However, there is evidence that differs from the official account of the battle. This suggests that much of the fighting was dramatized by Communist leaders for propaganda purposes. Authors Andrew McEwen and Ed Jocelyn who retraced the route of the Long March, interviewing survivors along the way, said that a woman in her early 80s recalled that local people led the way across the bridge and were all shot and killed.<ref>''The Economist'' Apr 27, 2006.[http://www.economist.com/node/6849932 "China's Long March: The Long and Winding Road."].</ref>  Author [[Sun Shuyun]] quotes a witness who said that there was a small enemy force on the other side armed with guns that could "only fire a few metres". They panicked and fled.<ref>Shuyun, Sun. The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth. 1st. New York City: Anchor Books, 2008. p. 145</ref>