Autumn Harvest Uprising

The Autumn Harvest Uprising was an insurrection that took place in Hunan province and Jiangxi province, China on September 7, 1927, led by Mao Zedong, who established a short-lived Hunan Soviet.

Mao led a small army of peasants to fight the Kuomintang and the landlords of Hunan. The uprising was defeated by Kuomintang forces and Mao was forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi province, where emerged an army of miners. This was the first armed uprising by the Communists, and it marked a significant change in their strategy. Mao and Red Army founder Zhu De went on to develop a rural based strategy that centered on guerrilla tactics, paving the way to the Long March of 1934.