Reviewer: Truong Buu Lam: Dr. Lam earned his Doctorate in History from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium many years ago. He has since taught history of Southeast Asia at several Colleges and Universities in Vietnam and the USA. He has authored a few works on Vietnamese history. He is now retired and the last affiliation was the University of Hawaii.
Author: Dean King
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-16708-6
Author: Dean King
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-16708-6
Click Here To Purchase Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival
It
is an intriguing idea to devote an entire book to celebrate the
women who had taken part in the legendary Long March of the
Chinese Communist Party members. In fact, it is an extremely
effective idea: it allows the author to write much about
the Long March without being blamed for belaboring on a
worn out subject as it lets him, at the same time, bring in
a harrowing tale of woes befalling a group of thirty women whose
fate it was to be unbound, “both metaphorically and in
some cases literally.” (p. xxiv)
In effect, there is much the author can contribute to this topic. In his own words, besides meeting with people who have been closely involved in the trek, during five years: “..I have driven and walked the Long March route in many provinces, talked to Long March survivors and historians across China, and examined histories and accounts of the journey, some of which have emerged in the more open periods of the post-Mao era and others of wich had never been translated into English before.” (p. xxv)
The
circumstances leading to this Long March harked back to
the Revolution of 1911that ushered in the Republic of China
while it, at the same time, fragmented the Chinese
territory into as many warlords fiefdoms as there were
provinces. It reduced the Chinese political and
ideoplogical arena into two opposing factions: the Guo Min Tang,
usually translated into Nationalist Party, and the Communist
Party. From 1923, the two protagonists entered into a coalition
whereby they jointly trained a National Revolutionary Army (NRA),
with the ultimate aim of using it to unify China. From
Canton, in 1926, the Commander of the NRA launched the Northern
Expedition against the warlords in view of the reuninification.
The Expedition was exceedingly successful: in less than a year
the NRA reached Shanghai and the reunification feat was
well on its way. The commander of the NRA who was a Guo Min
Dang member had a second thought: if success
has been this easy, why the coalition with the
Communists?
A thorough purge of Communist members from the NRA was effected in Shanghai in 1927. At least 12000 persons were executed and those who escaped the massacre regrouped in the rural south of China, mainly in Jiangxi province, where they slowly rebuilt the party. From that time on, every now and then the NRA which had been rebaptized the Nationmalist Army under the GMD Commander tried to exterminate the Communists in their southern hideout at the same time as it continued –with apparently much less enthusiasm-- its reunification efforts against the warlords. In 1931, the situation became more complicated with the Japanese incursion into Manchuria and the creation of an autonomous kingdom called the Manchukuo under Japanese control. Still, instead of fighting against the invaders, the Nationalist Army kept trying to eradicate the Communists.
In 1934, it put a virtually unbreakable siege around the Communist bases. Here began the saga of the Communist army and communities which covered on foot a distance of four thousand miles in a single year. It has not been a walk for pleasure. If not harried by Nationalist troops and their American-made bombers, they were hounded by local warlords fighters, many of them so mobile on horseback. They “would cross southern China from est to west and then head north up the daunting Tibetan plateau. In the remote forests of the south, on the ice-capped peaks of the west, and across the bitter swamps of the northwest, they marched at ablistering pace and fought when they had to. Bullets, fever, exposure, and starvation decimated their ranks, but they still carried on.” (p.xxiv)
I
would not be surprised if this book will also be honored with
some distinction as with some of the author’s previous
publications, because this work is outstandingly
well executed. The narration is clear and precise although
dealing with a situation which could not be more complicated
and more confusing. In effect, there was not one
single marching army, but five different ones, coming out of all
different places and, fortunately, converging toward the same
target. With the help of detailed and neatly drawn maps, the readers
easily follow each one army in its own trajectory.
The pictures give out not only views of the landscapes or features of the personalities but more of the mood of the times and of the places. The interviews with the survivors and the memoirs left by some marchers allowed the author to make his text so lively, penetrating and full with special and highy personal details.
It is really fascinating to find prominent personalities, such as Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai among others, who will be playing such crucial role in the government of the People’s Republic of China in their unusual and trying environment, overburdened by heavy responsibilities, encountering overwhelming difficulties, on the verge of disasters, making decisions which sometimes were to be found way off the mark! Fortunately, the author did not leave out anecdotes concerning the amorous affairs of the marchers and their convoluted matrimonial arrangments.
Much has been written about the Long March although books especially dedicated to it alone do not exceed a handful. But none is as comprehensive, detailed and focused as this one. The author is to be commanded for concentrating his attention on what occurred principally to the chosen thirty women. He, nevertheless, did not leave out completely the other actors of this prodigious feat. On the contrary. The emphasis was on the women, but other people found their place in the march and the part they played interacted harmoniously with the activities of the women.
We should also congratulate the author for making his book readily, maybe I should write readingly, available to the public at large by not using jargon or by overburdening it with academic paraphernalia.
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