The Zunyi Conference as One Step in Mao's Rise to Power: A Survey of Historical Studies of the Chinese Communist Party

In January 1935, three months after the epic Long March was under way, the Chinese Communists captured the second largest city in Guizhou province, Zunyi, and held an enlarged Politburo conference there. The importance of the Zunyi Conference in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history and, particularly, in the late Chairman Mao Zedong's political career has aroused the interest of both Chinese and western scholars; their reflections on this episode have in turn greatly enhanced its importance, perhaps too much so.