The Restraining Hand: Captivity for Christ in China, a memoir written by R.A. Bosshardt, a British-born Swiss missionary and published in the United Kingdom, was the first book ever found to introduce the stories of the Long March of the Red Army to the West, it was published one year earlier than The Red Star over China by U.S. journalist Edgar Snow.

　　In early October 1934, Bosshardt was detained as a "spy" by the Sixth Army Group of the Red Army fighting the enemy in Guizhou. Later, he joined the Sixth Army Group in the Long March and was released in April 1936. Based on his experiences with the Red Army during that period, he wrote The Restraining Hand: Captivity for Christ in China. In his book he expressed his own opinions about the Red Army and the Long March. In the preface of the book, he wrote that the Red Army was not 'bandits' or 'robbers' as described in some news reports. But actually, the Red Army leaders were firm believers and practitioners of Communism and Marxism-Leninism.

　　The Restraining Book: Captivity for Christ in China, as a book written by a foreigner who personally experienced the Long March, has provided a truthful record of the battles and lives of the Red Army, and the Red Army's political and ideological work, flexible strategy and tactics as well as its art of doing the "united front "work. It can serve as an important source of historical information for making a study of the Long March of the Red Army.

　　By Zhang Tiannan