BRAUN'S LAST RESIDENCE AND DAYS

    In July 1934, CPC central organizations were moved from Shazhouba to Mount Yunyan.

    Today at Yabei Village on Mount Yunyan, tourists can see a two-story Jiangxi-style building. A plaque on its yellow brick wall states that Otto Braun lived in the building from July to October 1934. Living with him were two senior CPC leaders, Zhu De and Wang Jiaxiang. They started their Long March from there. Braun was the only foreigner in the Red Army to complete the 12,500-km-long trek.

    Ling Buji, a CPC history expert in Jiangxi, said, "Actually it was Braun who came up with the evacuation idea that was later called the Long March. That was a wise decision, which should be recognized. Chinese historians have reached consensus on the point."

    Braun's last residence was also called "solitary house."

    In January 1935, a meeting was held in Zunyi, in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

    At the meeting the CPC, for the first time since its inception in 1921, made an independent decision about the destiny of the revolution in China.

    The Zunyi Meeting, free from Comintern intervention, is regarded as a critical turning point in CPC history. It was the first time the CPC made an independent strategic decision about the direction of the Chinese revolution. Braun was dismissed from military command and the first CPC leadership with Mao at the core began to take shape for New China, according to Shi Zhongquan, a CPC history expert in Beijing.

    Braun returned to the Soviet Union in 1939 and lived a peaceful life in East Germany after World War Two. He died at age 73 in 1974.

    According to Liu Liang, since 2000 he has received more than a dozen journalists and scholars from the United States, Canada, Israel and other countries and regions. Most of them were interested in Otto Braun, even in details of his daily life in China, including what he looked like when he lost his temper.

    Since the beginning of 2006, Chinese media have flocked to Ruijin to collect information for stories about the Long March. Xinhua, however, is the only agency to have released a story about Otto Braun. Enditem

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