ABSTRACT
T HE LONG MARCH ended in October, 1935.1 Eight thousand Party members and Red Army survivors arrived in the northwest - one
of the most remote and impoverished areas of the country - to join groups of Communists who had established base area governments in northern Shanxi in the early 1930s.2 The CCP gradually expanded its territory and in July 1936 a base was established where Shanxi. Gansu and Ningxia provinces intersect. It was called the 'Sha-GanNing Border Area' or 'Border Area' or simply the Liberated Area. Its capital city was Yan' an. 3 In 1936 the population under Communist control was less than one million. From this inauspicious beginning the CCP spread across north China and back into south and east China. In about 15 years it controlled the whole mainland of China.4
