Diary Entry of a Soldier on the Long March

Day, night, walking for what we believe in...

I am a peasant soldier, and I am on this march for my family. I refuse to live in poverty any longer, and same as all of the other people on this march, I believe that a classless society where the wealth is shared would be better for China. 

The past few weeks have been sheer torture, nonstop walking every day. The hours blur into days and the days blur into weeks. I’m not exactly sure how long we have been walking, but from what I heard, Mr. Otto Braun is no longer leading us. The leadership has gone back into the hands of Mao and Zhu. I personally think that this was a wise decision. Mao did make some mistakes in the past, but he was always a far better leader than the German. I don’t see how we all were supposed to trust the betterment of the country of China in the hand of a foreigner. Everyone in the Communist society knows that Mao Zedong has no ulterior motives, and only wants what is best for the country, as the rest of us do.  He believes in equality throughout, sharing the wealth, and a classless society. All 80,000 of us that are following him on the road to Yanan, believe that too.

The day-to-day life is horrible. If I didn’t firmly believe in the fact that switching to a Communist government would greatly benefit China as a whole, I wouldn’t be here right now. I have not slept on a proper bed in weeks, and it is cold. There are many people on this march, and I have watched my friends die of starvation and diseases picked up along the way. At least one person dies a day it seems, if not more.  All of my loved ones have stayed at home. They too believe in communism, but the little ones are only a few years old, and they most likely would not have survived the journey, so they have stayed in my house with my wife, and my parents. We have never been particularly wealthy, and with ideas like the Land Law, proposed by the Communists, we would be able to own property and benefit in the wealth of others. I am here now fighting for what I believe in. I know that the days will be long, but I am willing to make the effort to push though it, so that my children will not have to grow up in the same poverty I suffered in. I believe in a new China, where the wealth will be shared among, and the power is in the word “we”, not the word “I”. I, along with many others, am marching to Yanan in hope of living this dream.