The Long March (Chinese: 长征; pinyin: Chángzhēng, lit. Long Expedition) was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. Strictly speaking, the Long March was a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. However, the most famous began in the Kiangsi (Jiangxi) province in October 1934 and ended in the Shensi (Shaanxi) province in October 1935. The First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by an inexperienced military commission, was on the brink of annihilation by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops in their stronghold in Kiangsi province. The CCP, under the eventual command of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed over 9,000 kilometres (5,600 mi) over 370 days. The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, to Shensi.

The Long March began the ascent to power of Mao Tse-tung, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the party. The bitter struggles of the Long March, which was completed by only about one-tenth of the force that left Kiangsi (about eight thousand of some hundred thousand), would come to represent a significant episode in the history of the CCP, and would seal the personal prestige of Mao Tse-tung and his supporters as the new leaders of the party in the following decades.