Nine decades ago, vastly outnumbered, outgunned and critically undersupplied, how did the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army prevail in the roughly 25,000-li (12,500-kilometer) Long March? Why was it ranked among the 100 events that most shaped human history over the past millennium? And what does the spirit of the Long March mean today?

In this episode of "Diplomacy Talk," we sit down with Senior Colonel Wang Lihua of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), a scholar of the PLA history and the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), to examine why the Long March was destined to succeed and to reflect on a spirit that has only grown more relevant with time.

Following is the transcript of the interview.

Diplomacy Talk: This year marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Long March. Looking back from today, what do you think is its most essential historical significance?

Wang Lihua: The Long March is often described in terms of countless hardships and perils, and endless treacherous mountain ranges and raging rivers. But those were obstacles of nature.

For the revolutionary army, every step was a matter of life and death, and a single misstep could mean death or destruction. That is what made the decisions of the Long March unprecedented; they were taken under constant threat of destruction. It is a testament to what human wisdom and capability can achieve under the most extreme conditions.

As for the most pivotal factor, I would put the Zunyi Conference first. It established Mao Zedong's leading role.

Chinese President Xi Jinping once remarked, "A great journey, the Long March was a test of truth." "A test of truth" meant that during the course of the Long March, leadership belonged to whoever held the truth.

In the first half of the march, before the Zunyi Conference of January 1935, the Red Army was on the defensive. It had suffered failure of the fifth counter-encirclement and suppression campaign, which ran from September 1933 to October 1934. The Battle of Xiangjiang River in late 1934 had ended in defeat. The troops eventually reached Guizhou in southwest China, where 400,000 enemy troops were closing in on a Red Army of just over 30,000. Could they still break out? Without strong leadership, escape would have been impossible.

At that life-or-death juncture, choosing Mao Zedong meant choosing the right leadership, choosing the truth and choosing the correct revolutionary path.

Diplomacy Talk: Most people talking about the Long March tend to emphasize ideals, convictions and the spirit of sacrifice. But from a military professional's perspective, what was the most critical strategic factor behind the victory?

Wang Lihua: Ideals, convictions and the readiness to sacrifice their lives were the prerequisites. Without them, there would have been no Red Army. But they alone were not enough.

Let me put it this way: In the early stages of the Long March, the senior leaders — Bo Gu and Comintern adviser Otto Braun, known in China as Li De — did not lack conviction. Their ideals and beliefs were also firm, and they were committed to the cause of communism. Yet they lost battle after battle.

So ideals and convictions alone are not enough. Just as a good-hearted person still needs real ability to be truly able to serve society and the people, a revolutionary force must combine faith with capability.

Beyond conviction, you must also follow the correct line. Chairman Mao once said: "When the Party's line is correct, then everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns … If its line is not correct, even what it has it may lose."

Faith alone is not enough. Nor is willpower, nor a readiness to die. You also need supreme wisdom in war, and wisdom in war is among the highest forms of human intelligence. Why?

Consider the business world. If you fail in the marketplace, at worst you lose some money. If you don't come first, you can still come second. The Fortune 500 are all champions in their own right. But on the battlefield, there's no second place; to come second is to perish. You either win or perish.

And we should never dismiss Chiang Kai-shek as a mediocre figure. He was a formidable figure, and he had subdued many powerful warlords who stood against him. Yet when he came up against the Red Army and Chairman Mao, he found himself led by the nose, always a step behind.

Diplomacy Talk: During the Long March, the Red Army faced overwhelming disparities in troop numbers, equipment and supplies. How were those problems solved?

Wang Lihua: That is an especially important question. Whatever the army, whoever the soldiers, they first have to eat and sleep, and they have to be armed before they can fight and defeat an enemy. Without those things, everything else is empty talk.

This is precisely where the Long March faced an enormous challenge: sustained fighting with no rear base.

Almost everything we do today rests on some form of logistical support. Take this interview as an example. We have a roof over our heads, food and water, and somewhere to rest when the day is done.

When the Red Army set out, the troops carried a few days' rations. After that, what would they eat? They were marching largely through enemy-controlled areas, with no supply lines. When the ammunition ran out, where would they get more? Where would they camp, and would there be anywhere to sleep? Every one of those questions had to be answered.

From the day it was founded, the Red Army took what it needed from the enemy and used it against the enemy. Where did food come from? From overthrowing local despots and redistributing the land, and from seizing supplies from the enemy. Where did guns and ammunition come from? From capturing them in battle.

And wherever the Red Army stopped, however briefly, it immediately set about establishing revolutionary political power, building local Party organizations, and mobilizing the masses to overthrow local despots, redistribute the land and share out property. That is how it won the people's support.

Diplomacy Talk: Which key decisions during the Long March reflected the most brilliant strategic judgment?

Wang Lihua: The Wayaobu Conference was truly remarkable. It was epoch-making. After the First Front Army and the Fifteenth Army Group — that is, the Red Army in northern Shaanxi — joined forces, the question became: What next?

They needed to analyze the situation. What was the situation at that time? The principal contradiction in Chinese society had already shifted.

Previously, class struggle had been the principal contradiction — the life-and-death struggle between the workers and peasants and the Chiang Kai-shek regime, and the Long March itself was a manifestation of that contradiction.

But by that point, Japan had occupied Northeast China and was moving on North China, and it was already taking action on the ground. The whole country was in an uproar, demanding resistance. The contradiction between the Chinese nation and the Japanese aggressors had risen to become the principal one.

Under those circumstances, what policy did the CPC need? It needed to unite every patriotic force in China to fight Japan. All different parties across the Chinese nation needed to form a united front.

Understand how hard that was. The Kuomintang, or KMT, had just killed so many of our people. But we set that aside. We were ready to form a united front with them, as long as they were willing to fight Japan.

Many people could not grasp it at the time. The KMT had been hunting us down, and even after we reached northern Shaanxi, hundreds of thousands of its troops were still encircling us, bent on wiping us out. How could the Japanese army, more than 1,000 li (500 kilometers) away in Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin, be the principal enemy? Yet that was a transcendent judgement that cut to the essence of things and that pointed in the right direction.

Diplomacy Talk: From the perspective of modern military studies, what significant value does the Long March hold for our contemporary understanding of asymmetric warfare, strategic initiative and organizational resilience?

Wang Lihua: Our armed forces were never on equal terms with the enemy, from the day they were founded. The enemy's strength was always overwhelming. They controlled the national government, commanded vast material resources and military might, and time and again pitted tens or even hundreds of thousands of troops against our thousands or tens of thousands.

Was that symmetric? Far from it. We were outmatched in strength, in finances, in matériel and in military power. Under such conditions, could we afford to fight a symmetric war? Absolutely not.

Li De and Bo Gu failed in the fifth counter-encirclement and suppression campaign, as Chairman Mao pointed out, because they did not seek truth from facts.

Li De was a German with formal military academy training, and when Chiang Kai-shek used blockhouses against the Red Army, Li De met blockhouses with blockhouses. Chairman Mao's approach was to strike behind enemy lines and render those blockhouses useless. But Li De would have none of it. The enemy's fortifications were reinforced concrete, ours were mere earthworks, and a single shell could blow ours apart. We could not breach theirs.

Marshal Liu Bocheng criticized them sharply at the Zunyi Conference, saying: Mao Zedong fights with the weapons he has. Without modern foreign weapons, why try to fight a foreign-style conventional war?

And how did Mao describe them? As a beggar trying to compete in wealth with the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, a figure from Chinese mythology who rules the waters and possesses untold riches. You show me a treasure, I show you a treasure. You show me another, I show you another. Let's see who has more in the end.

But what does a beggar have? A stick to fend off dogs, nothing more. How could he match the Dragon King, whose undersea palace holds countless jewels? The moment you think that way, you have already lost.

So, the Red Army never fought symmetric battles against the KMT. When the enemy tried to engage, we would stay beyond its reach. What did we do instead? When the enemy advanced, we withdrew; when the enemy encamped, we harassed; when the enemy tired, we attacked; when the enemy retreated, we pursued. We struck when the enemy was unprepared or exhausted.

Another tactic was to lure the enemy deep into our territory. We would draw them into the heart of our base area, close the encirclement and catch them completely off guard.

The right way was to fight when you could win and withdraw when you could not: you fight your way, and we fight ours.

And what did Chairman Mao call that kind of symmetric warfare? Pig-headed tactics — only a fool would fight that way.

Diplomacy Talk: Mr. Wang, if we place the Long March in the broader context of 20th-century world history, what connections did it have with the national liberation movements, anti-colonial struggles and socialist movements of the same era?

Wang Lihua: The Long March is an illustrious chapter of history today, but at the time the KMT imposed a tight blockade, and news could hardly get out.

Then, soon after the Long March, the renowned American correspondent Edgar Snow made his way to northern Shaanxi. He returned after the interviews there and wrote a book called "Red Star Over China." On publication, it took the world by storm. It became known that in a poor, remote corner of rural China, there was an army of idealists fighting for its own liberation, with so many moving stories and such noble aspirations. The account traveled far and wide, and the Long March became a global event.

Later, when Time magazine compiled its list of the 100 events that shaped world history over the past millennium, the Long March was prominently included.

Soon after, the World Anti-Fascist War began, and across the Western world and among oppressed and colonized peoples, this book became a model to learn from, greatly strengthening the faith and resolve of those struggling for liberation.

Diplomacy Talk: World history is full of great retreats, evacuations and expeditions. Compared with Napoleon's campaigns, the Dunkirk evacuation and the strategic withdrawals of other national liberation wars, what most sets the Long March apart?

Wang Lihua: The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's completion of the 25,000-li Long March was an unprecedented feat of arms, and none of the examples you mention can compare.

Shortly after it ended, Chairman Mao said that since Pangu separated the heavens from the Earth and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors reigned, has history ever witnessed a long march like ours? The answer is no — certainly not in Chinese history. (Pangu is a giant in Chinese mythology; the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors are the legendary rulers of ancient China.)

What about Western history? Snow drew comparisons of his own. He noted that the Bible tells of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt on a long and arduous journey to the Promised Land, an event many in the West regard as almost legendary. How far was it? Less than 1,000 li, or about 500 kilometers. Even allowing for wandering, you could hardly stretch it to 25,000 li.

Western antiquity also gives us Hannibal, the general of Carthage, a great power of the Roman era, who led his army across the Alps to attack Rome — another expedition inscribed in the annals of history. How far did he march? Less than 2,000 li (1,000 kilometers), far short of 25,000.

Napoleon's campaigns, which you mentioned, began as wars of self-defense and later became wars of conquest, culminating in the march on Moscow, his farthest advance. How far was that? About 5,000 li (2,500 kilometers).

Dunkirk is not really comparable. It lasted less than 10 days and was essentially a wartime evacuation rather than a long strategic expedition.

In scale, duration and distance, the Long March is without parallel in history.

Beyond the sheer magnitude, there's the question of its nature. This was a 20th-century expedition undertaken by a country then lagging far behind, which had embraced Marxism and was fighting for the liberation of its people and the independence of its nation. And its outcome changed both China and the world. No ordinary expedition carries that kind of significance.

Diplomacy Talk: President Xi Jinping said that every generation has its own long march, and every generation must see that march through. The challenges facing China today are no longer snow-capped mountains and grasslands. We face new tests in technological competition, economic transition, external pressure and risk management. In your view, what is the greatest practical significance of invoking the spirit of the Long March now?

Wang Lihua: The Long March is not merely a chapter of history. It's a magnificent epic, and it serves as a metaphor for all great endeavors. Any great undertaking can be likened to the Long March.

The comparison began with Chairman Mao at Xibaipo in North China's Hebei province, on the eve of victory in the Chinese revolution. He said that we are about to win, and we must guard against arrogance and impatience. Why? Because to win countrywide victory is only the first step in a long march of 10,000 li. The road ahead is longer and greater, and we must keep marching.

Since then, the great historical journeys of the CPC have all been invoked through the metaphor of the Long March. What does this metaphor convey? It tells us never to assume that the road ahead will be smooth sailing. The Long March was a passage through life-and-death ordeals, across countless mountains and rivers, through innumerable perils and hardships, and yet it ultimately ended in victory.

Therefore, every great cause we pursue, every team's endeavor, and indeed every individual's struggle can be described as a Long March. When we invoke the Long March as a metaphor for our cause, it reminds us not to fear hardship, to hold fast to unwavering ideals and convictions, to follow the correct path, and to break through every obstacle through arduous struggle.

President Xi said: "We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios, and be ready to withstand the major test of high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms."

We should never become complacent. When we are ready for this worst-case scenario, when we treat our cause and our future as a Long March, we become more prudent, more rational and more resilient. Only then can we overcome every difficulty and march toward that great day of victory.

Presenter: Xu Rong

Production supervisor: Li Xiaohua

Co-production supervisor: Zhang Liying

Editors: Zhang Heling, Jiao Yuan, Xia Fangting

Produced by chinadiplomacy.org.cn