The Long March

In this alternate history, the world took a very different path. In the 1920s, Bukharin defeated Stalin and took control of the Soviet Union, only to see his free-market reforms fail. By the 1930s, the Soviet Union was weakened by economic stagnation and political crisis, while isolationism dominated the United States. Germany faced no power capable of stopping its expansion. Britain fell. The Soviet Union collapsed after a disastrous war with Germany. Across Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Axis powers continued their advance. In China, the situation was even worse. After a series of devastating defeats and the collapse of the Nationalist government, the Chinese Communist movement faces a desperate choice: continue fighting in northern China, or abandon its existing bases and retreat westward. Mao Zedong chooses the latter. The Red Army begins a Second Long March-not toward Yan'an, but toward Xinjiang. But reaching Xinjiang is only the beginning. With the Soviet Union collapsing, Japan expanding into Mongolia, and the old international order falling apart, the revolutionaries must fight to survive, build a new state, and continue the war in a world that no longer resembles the history we know. This is the story of the Long March.