Chinese 370

British Say 'Long March' Not That Long By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

Two British men who spent more than a year retracing the rugged route of the 1930s "Long March" by Mao Zedong's communist guerrillas said it turned out to be about one-third shorter than reported by Communist Party propaganda--3,700 miles, instead of 6,200 or even 8,000 miles. Not that it matters that much; it's one of those symbolic things.

Update
In a later version, the reporter says,

Not a chance, say communist traditionalists.

"How could they possibly know the exact route and distance well enough to revise the figure?" said retired party historian Liu Binyan. "What kind of exact map could they have had?"

But Liu Binyan is hardly a traditionalist. After writing a couple of exposes in the late 50's, he was
denounced and expelled from the party during the anti-rightist movement:

after living for a few months in banishment in a barren, mountain village, Liu reluctantly concluded there were "two kinds of truth" in China: the theoretical "truths" that filter down from Party central; and the actual truths of daily life for impoverished citizens. He never regained his faith in organized Chinese communism.

According to the People's Daily,

In January 1987, because he preached bourgeois liberalization and opposed the Four Cardinal Principles, he was expelled from the Party.

And last I knew, he was exiled to the US. But he still wants to believe the myth. Anyway, it's like whether Jesus was married or not. I don't see how that affects anything. Of course, I don't believe in either of these religions.