"Chinese youths don't know that millions died in the 1950s, or that the CCP ordered a famine in Changchun [Jilin province] that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, far more than died in Nanjing [a Japanese Army massacre]," says Wang Fei-ling, a Chinese-born historian now at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
BEIJING – For China, it's Paul Revere's ride and Washington crossing the Delaware in one.
The Luding Bridge battle is the most famous moment in the Long March, itself the defining legend of modern China. The Red Army is hotly pursued in 1935. Soldiers hoof it 24/7 for 140 miles. They must cross the Dadu River, or be wiped out! But a 300-year-old chain-suspension bridge is closely guarded. So a suicide squad shimmies over the chains, under machine-gun fire, and wipes out the dreaded Nationalist enemy. The Red Army crosses! The China of Mao is saved!
Mao told the story to American chronicler Edgar Snow, who apotheosized it in his 1937 "Red Star over China." Mao's poem about the battle, "Gunfire licked the heavens/ Iron chains rocked," is included in the book and became a Chinese Gettysburg Address, memorized by kids.
Just one problem: A "battle" never quite happened. A skirmish with guards of a local warlord might have occurred. But the machine guns, the Nationalists, the 140 miles, and the chain crawling - today is regarded as mythical. Most likely, no Red soldiers died at Luding. As Gen. Li Jukui wrote 50 years later in a memo never published until last month by author Sun Shuyan in her new book, "Long March:" "This matter was not as complicated as people made it out to be later."
Full story: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0522/p01s02-woap.html
Posted by proutist-universal on June 8, 2006 01:44 PM | TrackBack
