The original signatories – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the USSR’s Ambassador to the US Maxim Litvinov, and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs T. V. Soong – were joined the next day by a further 24 nations.

It was during the Long March that Mao Zedong emerged as the best person to lead the Chinese Communist Party, and his survival alongside less than 10% of the original troops mythologised him and reinforced his authority.