Chapter 37 <Did the Red Army fail>

During the Second Civil Revolutionary War, due to the erroneous leadership of leftist opportunism, the Red Army failed to break through the fifth encirclement and suppression campaign launched by Chiang Kai-shek, and finally had to withdraw from the Central Soviet Area and embarked on a grand strategic shift of 25,000 miles.Faced with this situation, Zhang Guotao, who later degenerated into a traitor, asserted: the Red Army has failed, and the enemy of the Red Army has won. Is Zhang Guotao's judgment correct?Let us see how Comrade Mao Zedong analyzed it.He said: When Marxists look at a problem, they must not only see the part, but also the whole.A toad sat in the well and said: The sky is as big as a well.this is not right.Because the sky is bigger than a well.If it says: A part of the sky is as big as a well.That's right, because it's true.

We say that the Red Army has failed in one aspect (maintaining its original position), and has won in another (fulfilling the Long March plan).The enemy has won in one aspect (occupying our army's original positions), but in another aspect (realizing the encirclement and suppression plan) he has lost.It is only appropriate to say that, because we have completed the Long March. ("On the Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", Volume 1, Second Edition, p. 149) Comrade Mao Zedong's thesis is comprehensive, true, and appropriate, while Zhang Guotao's is one-sided and inappropriate, because it only reflects one aspect of things (the failure of the Red Army), and does not reflect another, more important aspect of things. Aspect (the aspect of the victory of the Red Army).Its essence is to spread pessimism and defeatism about the future of the revolution.

When sophistry argue their point of view, one of the usual methods is to collect only factual materials that are favorable to their point of view as arguments, and deliberately avoid those factual materials that are not conducive to their point of view, which makes their judgments necessarily One-sided and inappropriate.