From January 15 to 17, 1935, the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Zunyi, Guizhou Province. Attending the meeting were full members Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian (1900-1976), Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun (1905-1995) and Bo Gu (1907-1946), as well as alternate members Wang Jiaxiang (1906-1974), Liu Shaoqi, Deng Fa (1906-1946) and He Kequan (Kai Feng, 1906-1955), and Liu Bocheng, Li Fuchun (1900-1975), Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen (1899-1992), Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun (1907-1998) and Li Zhuoran (1899-1989), all being persons in charge of the Red Army general offices and army groups. Deng Xiaoping, secretary-general of the Central Committee, also attended the meeting. Otto Braun and his translator Wu Xiuquan (1908-1997) were present at the meeting in their capacity as non-voting members.
The Zunyi Meeting was held to resolve the most critical military and organizational issues of the time. The participants reviewed the causes of the defeat against the enemy's fifth encirclement campaign. After the meeting, based on many speeches and particularly those of Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian drafted a resolution of the Central Committee evaluating the five counter-campaigns against the encirclement and suppression. The document upheld the basic principles advocated by Mao and some others on the Red Army's military operations, and exposed the military errors of Bo Gu and Otto Braun.
In accordance with the opinions and suggestions of most participants, the meeting reshuffled the Central Secretariat and the Central Revolutionary Military Committee, elected Mao Zedong to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, and withdrew Bo Gu and Otto Braun from their posts in the highest military command. Consequently, Zhang Wentian replaced Bo Gu and took charge of Central Committee affairs, and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai took command of military affairs. Soon afterward, Mao, Zhou and Wang Jiaxiang composed a new three-man team responsible for the army's military operations.
The Zunyi Meeting ended the dominance of Wang Ming's rigid Soviet-inspired dogma in the Party's Central Committee and established Mao's leadership in the Red Army and the Central Committee. It was a meeting organized by the CPC to resolve the problems of its guidelines, principles and policies through applying Marxism-Leninism, and thus saved the Red Army and the Central Committee from an extremely critical situation.
After the meeting, the Red Army took fresh heart and finally completed the Long March. The Zunyi Meeting was a vital turning point in the history of the CPC and the Red Army, which saw the CPC take a long stride toward greater political maturity.
