Photographs for Our Time

In the early 1930s, China's Jiangxi Province was a hellish place to be.

As home to the famed Chinese communist Jiangxi Soviet, it would be attacked again and again by Guomindang forces under the control of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). But, using mobile, guerrilla tactics developed by Mao Zedong and his commanders, the Chinese Workers and Peasants Army (Red Army) savaged Jiang's troops and repulsed almost every attack, despite being vastly outnumbered and less well-equipped. With each victory, the soviet base area grew, more recruits joined the cause, more civilians sought its protection and more weapons were captured. The Red Army grew stronger, contradicting all doubters.

Then came Jiang's "fifth encirclement campaign." Launched in August 1933, Jiang committed about one million soldiers to the battle, giving the Guomindang about a 10 to 1 advantage over the Red Army. Unfortunately, the attack came at a time of great political tumult inside the central Communist Party leadership that, among other things, resulted in the Red Army adopting new defensive tactics to counter Jiang's German advisers' trench-warfare and blockhouse strategies. The ill-advised defensive strategy failed miserably, resulting in a loss of approximately 58 percent of the soviet base area and the near annihilation of the Red Army. Writer Edgar Snow (Red Star over China) would later estimate that the fifth encirclement campaign had resulted in the deaths of one million Chinese, either by direct violence or starvation. Massacres and summary executions of tens of thousands of people at a time were reported.

By October 1934, commanders in the soviet base area had realized their mistake and had decided they must "break out" of the encirclement, end the siege and return to guerrilla warfare in the countryside. About 86,000 troops directly under the command of the Red Army, plus an unknown number of civilians, porters, children, responded to the command. On October 7, 1934, Zhou Enlai, who would later become China's much-beloved premier, dispatched a coded message to Red Army units reportedly saying: "The dove is ready to fly away." With this, one of the greatest and most fateful of strategic retreats in military history began, the Long March, an event of inestimable importance for the Communist Party of China, the Red Army and the Chinese people.

It was to get a sense of this tragedy/triumph and to savour its history that two British residents of Beijing, Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen, the "New Long Marchers," who had worked as journalists in the Chinese English-language press in Beijing since 1997, set out 68 years after the fact, on October 16, 2002, from Yudu, Jiangxi Province, to retrace this trail of horror, endurance and human triumph. They were not disappointed, despite their exhaustion when they arrived in Wuqi County Town in Shaanxi Province 384 days later.

And neither will the readers of their books that relate and illustrate their adventure, the latest of which is a book of photographs entitled: 红色之旅：384天重走长征路(Hongsi zhilu: 384 tian chongzou changzhenglu) or, in English, Red Road: 384 Days on the Trail of the Long March. The book was released in Chinese on May 14. The English-language edition is due out in late May, both published by the China Intercontinental Press. This edition follows the Chang Jiang Literature and Art Publishing House's Chinese-language account of their trek in 两个人的长征 (Liang ge ren de changzheng or Two-man Long March), which English-language edition is expected to be published by Constable & Robinson Book Publishers of London in spring 2006.

The writers' approach is cool and detached, with only a smattering of idealistic sentiment. Their non-descriptive commentary seems more a mix of regret at the sad events of history and a hope for something better for the people they encountered than a judgment on history and its actors. This is important, because it allows a reader to connect more to the history of the Long March and the people involved, especially the people Jocelyn and McEwen met, photographed and interviewed along the way. Their approach was as natural as possible and mostly unaffected. This shows in their photographic account. Though they photographed each other often, the images serve more to authenticate the Long March itself and to bring us into the experience, not to tout the adventurous spirits of two young men. They use themselves to bring us the people and places, not the other way around.

War for the combat soldier -- including those on the original Long March -- involves many long hours of monotonous marching and climbing mountains, while bearing heavy loads of gear, ammunition, machine guns or mortar tubes. Wet from sweat or rain, shivering from cold and fatigue, a foot soldier is deprived of humanity, constantly beset by nature with its rocks and mud, clinging vines, leeches, snakes, mosquitoes, narrow, slippery mountain trails and over-swollen streams. There's too much water, then too little.

These moments of common, relentless terror are broken by sudden outbreaks of savage fighting, an explosion of shells and whizzing of bullets, yelling, cursing, crying, moaning, bleeding…then comes the sad quiet of what remains.

The New Long Marchers did not have to face gunfire, but as with the original march, there were plenty of natural perils along the way. Jocelyn was nearly swept away by a raging stream before being rescued by four Chinese youths who are shown in the book, and he nearly stepped into a mud pit from which he could not have escaped. McEwen suffered extreme stomach distress for much of the trip, but pushed on until he could go no more, suffering somewhat as a soldier, with a serious stomach ailment, before collapsing entirely.

On days of long marches, they said they sometimes hoped "to see nothing interesting" so they could get on with their trek, instead of stopping their momentum to talk and photograph what lay before them.

So the common traveller in China can understand the effort that went into the excellent photographs included in Red Road: 384 Days on the Trail of the Long March. Too often, as photographer-travellers in China, we do not have the time to stop and take the photos we want; we have to take what we can get - mere snapshots. So it's interesting to realize that even taking the time to walk across China is insufficient to give us satisfaction in our craving for recording our China experiences and sharing our respect for this great land.

The New Long Marcher's goal was humbly modest and was achieved. They have succeeded in encouraging us to reconsider the historic Long March, a significant event that has affected virtually every aspect of modern Chinese life. All of new China's most successful leaders sublimated themselves to it, survived it and earned their place in China's history because of it.

Because of the New Long Marchers and their Red Road: 384 Days on the Trail of the Long March, we are drawn back into this fateful moment and are all the better for it.