The End of the Long March
on December 19, 1985
In Peking last September, China’s supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, pensioned off the surviving generals of the Long March. Fifty years after their epic exploit, these old soldiers finally agreed to fade away. Deng must hope that the legend has now been laid to rest, and that China can enter a new era in which the potent myths of the past will no longer distort thought and action in the present or in planning for the future.