(January 1930)

Brother soldiers of the Guomindang army!

1. The warlords are now opening fire again!

The warlords are now fighting again. On the one hand, the imperialist allies are
attacking the Soviet Union (Russia), and the Chinese warlord Chiang Kaishek is
their loyal running dog; on the other hand, Chiang Kaishek, having usurped all
power over the central government, has aroused the opposition of warlords big
and small throughout the nation. The first kind of war, the attack on the Soviet
Union, is a worldwide war of all counterrevolutionary forces attacking the revolutionary forces, while the latter is a contest among the Chinese warlords, representing imperialist interests, to seize the central government's territorial sphere
of control. The outbreak of both these wars has aggravated the suffering of the
workers, peasants, and soldiers, especially our brothers who are soldiers, who are
tragically sacrificed directly for the warlords and imperialists. Since the situation
has become this serious, you must absolutely think, brothers, about what is the
way out for us soldiers!

2. Listen to the views of the Red Army:

We are China's Red Army. Two years ago a portion of our comrades fighting to
the death for the national revolution, struggling bitterly, saw with their own eyes
old brothers and new brothers, one group after another, become cannon fodder
for the army commanders and division commanders of the Guomindang high
command. Not one iota of the slogans that the Guomindang addressed to the
workers and peasants and soldiers was actually carried out. Moreover, they
defended the mounting oppression of the people by the local bullies and bad
gentry. Especially detestable was their murder of leaders of the workers and
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 3, pp. 61-68, where it has been taken
from two documentary collections published in China, one in 1979 and the other in 1982.

peasants associations and of Communist Party members. It was not until the
black plot of this phony revolution was exposed that we really understood that
the Guomindang was a counterrevolutionary thing. It was only then that we got
our comrades together and with our rifles went into the countryside to join the
workers and peasants to carry out the land revolution. In the last two years, the
counterrevolutionary national government, using military forces from three provinces, has attacked us several times, but in the end has not been able to hurt the
Red Army in the slightest. On the contrary, we thank them for sending us
reinforcements which have served to make the Red Army stronger. The fact that
today the Red Army is appearing everywhere throughout the nation is full proof
that the strength of the worker and peasant masses is growing day by day. We
are people who have been deceived by the Guomindang, and as the day of this
battle approaches we think of the suffering of our brothers, and we specially and
very sincerely offer an opinion to our brothers!
3. Why do we want to support the Soviet Union?
Brothers! First, we must realize the danger that the imperialist attacks on the
Soviet Union pose to those of us who are soldiers. Today the entire world is
divided into two fronts, one of which is the front of imperialist capitalism, of
countries like Great Britain, the United States, Japan, and France, which specialize in oppressing the proletariat and the weak and small nations. Since coming to
power in Nanjing, Chiang Kaishek has shamelessly surrendered to the imperialists, because he is both a capitalist and a warlord and, therefore, acts as a
running dog of the imperialists. The other is the front of the proletariat, of those
like the Soviet Union and the impoverished workers, peasants, and soldiers of
various countries. More than ten years ago, the Soviet Union overthrew the
Russian emperor and established a government of the workers, peasants, and
soldiers that swept away all the capitalists, landlords, and so on. When the
workers, peasants, and soldiers themselves administer their own country, they
attain true freedom and equality. As the proletariat of the entire world come to
see that the Soviet Union has done as well as this, they will all rise up in
revolution and join with the Soviet Union. For example, China had a great
revolution between 1925 and 1927, which did indeed receive help from the
Soviet Union. If the Guomindang had not turned against the revolution, if the
revolution had not failed, the workers, peasants, and soldiers would long ago
have gained political power and would long ago have established the second
Soviet Union. It has now been two years since the Guomindang turned traitor,
but the revolution still has not been destroyed. Furthermore, it is again gradually
raising its head. This is true of China, and it is also true of other countries. The
Soviet Union has become the elder brother of us workers, peasants, and soldiers,
leading millions of wretched people to overthrow imperialism and the warlords.
This has aroused extreme fear among the imperialists, who have no choice but to
join together to attack the Soviet Union in order to suppress all the revolutionary
forces. Under the direction of the imperialists, Chiang Kaishek has been loyally
and bravely going out to attack the Soviet Union, creating the agitation of these
past several months regarding the Chinese Eastern Railway.¹ This is plainly and
clearly the beginning of the imperialist attack on the Soviet Union.² When one
morning war erupts, you will see that the imperialists and the Chinese warlords
will want to move tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of troops into the
battle. Indeed, they intend to use our toiling worker and peasant masses to strike
at the toiling worker and peasant masses. How vicious! Brothers! We must make
sure that we are not cheated. We must defend the Soviet Union, defend the state
of the proletariat, and turn our rifles around and shoot at the Chinese warlords!
4. We must rise up and overthrow the warlords.
Brothers! Second, we must realize that the senseless wars of the Chinese warlords add to the sufferings of those of us who are soldiers and to that of the
workers and peasants. The Chinese warlords, creatures such as Chiang Kaishek,
Zhu Peide, Tang Shengzhi, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan,4 Zhang Fakui, Zhang
the Japanese. See Jürgen Domes, Vertagte Revolution. Die Politik der Kuomintang in
China, 1923-1937 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969), pp. 375-80 (hereafter Domes, Vertagte Revolution).
Xueliang, and others, are sometimes peaceable, sometimes the opposite, and
when they start fighting, today it's Nanjing attacking Wuhan, tomorrow it's
Wuhan striking at Nanjing. Sometimes Guangdong attacks Guangxi, and sometimes Guangxi attacks Guangdong. This happens several times a year, to the
point that we soldiers become dazed and confused. Every time they go to war,
we soldiers must die by the hundreds of thousands, while the warlords, whether
they win or lose, always strip the land to the extent of hundreds of thousands and
into the millions in some cases. As for the common people, at least several
provinces if not the entire nation suffer catastrophe! Ai! Why should such wars
be fought? Do not Chiang Kaishek, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and the others
all belong to the same Guomindang? Are they not all comrades loyal to the same
Three People's Principles? Do they not all pay the same kind of lip service to
making revolution? All this turns out to be completely false. The Guomindang is
a skin-the-people party of the warlords, in which [the principle of] nationalism
means capitulation to Great Britain, France, the United States, and Japan,
people's rights means forbidding people from holding meetings, and people's
livelihood means raising rents and increasing fees and taxes. The Guomindang
warlords understand only fighting over territory, stripping the land, getting rich
on foreign money, capitulating to the imperialists and relying on their patronage,
and defending the interests of the imperialists. The imperialists aid the warlords
with money and bullets, so the warlords' fighting will never stop, and it will
never overthrow imperialism. Brothers! Because the territory was distributed
unevenly after the overthrow of the Guangxi faction, Chiang Kaishek, Yan
Xishan, Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Fakui, and the others are fighting again! This war
must inevitably further aggravate the suffering of the soldiers and add to the
exploitation of the people. Soldier comrades should rise up to oppose this, and
everyone should refuse to fight for the warlords. Let the soldiers on both sides
turn around and overthrow the warlords and seek their own way out!
5. What are the sufferings of us soldiers?
Brothers! Third, we must realize the source of our own suffering and also our
way out. Brothers! We were not born soldiers, nor was it fated that we should be

scoldings, from hitting the palms of our hands to beatings on the buttocks, being
locked up tight, expelled, and even used for target practice. These ways of
treating us are a matter of course to the warlords! The main idea is to cultivate in
us a slavishness of character so that we dare not rebel. And the soldier's clothing? At most two sets of clothing to wear, too long, too short, clothes that don't
fit at all, so that when we go out people laugh at us. Bedding? Just a bed or two
of old blankets, too heavy in summer and too light in winter, full of big holes,
which might as well be a base camp for bedbugs. And living quarters? The army
officers are leeches and refuse to spend money for repairs. With the wind blowing and the sun scorching, they treat the soldiers worse than prisoners in a jail.
The army salaries that aren't paid for several months or years go into their
pockets. The money for food is never given out, and the warlords skimp on food
by providing terrible meals of rice gruel and cabbage every day, all with no oil
and no salt. This is the clothing, food, and housing for soldiers. If one is
wounded in battle and taken to the hospital for wounded soldiers, there are even
stranger things to be seen-men who are blind, crippled, or have broken backs,
lying on cots unable to move. Over there someone sobbing, over here another
screaming, no funds, no medicine, the nasty stench of yellow pus running from
wounds. A wounded soldier can only die a painful death. So everyone hopes for
the relief of one last bullet, to end the torture of living. Ai! Compare these
conditions with the Western-style houses of the warlords, playing mah-jongg,
eating Western food, sleeping with several mistresses apiece, with millions in the
bank-is any of them worth it? There are also warlords who deliberately embezzle money from the soldiers' salaries, so that the soldiers are totally impoverished, and then even say to our brothers: Don't worry, the war starts soon.
When the war reaches a big place, our brothers can take a lot of things. Ai! This
is the evil plot of the warlords! They embezzle from the army's salaries and
command us to go into battle to steal. They really want us to risk our lives for
them. Some brothers are happy when they hear that they are going to fight,
thinking that this will be their chance to get rich, and every time they rush


forward to steal wildly. This is part of the warlords' poisonous plot. Think
about it. Every time the fighting reaches a city, the warlords have long before
announced that the big stores and banks are to be protected. Who would dare
touch them? To get rich you could only go to the small merchants and the
suffering common people, but they, like us, are suffering! Think about it again.
The soldiers have fought several hundred wars for the warlords, from
Guangdong to Beijing, with the result that there has been a reduction in troop
size, keeping the strong and healthy and getting rid of the maimed. Let me ask
you, has any soldier ever gone home with money in his pocket? The warlords'
statement that you can get rich by fighting is nothing but one of their poisonous
schemes to get us to risk our lives for them! Brothers, you must not let them
cheat you! Ai! Brothers! At home, the oppression of the imperialists, warlords,
and despotic gentry forced us to run out and join the army, and after joining the
army we are still oppressed by the imperialists and, furthermore, become the
tools for defending the oppression of the people by the imperialists, warlords,
and despotic gentry. Without us soldiers, the imperialists, warlords, and despotic
gentry could not be as cruel as this; without us soldiers, the workers and peasants
and toiling common people would not suffer or be oppressed like this. We
soldiers are ourselves oppressed, and we act as running dogs for others, oppressing our own wretched compatriots, getting nothing out of it for ourselves, just
helping the warlords to get rich. Ai! How stupid this is! It's not worth it! Do we
still not understand?

6. What alternative do we have?

Brothers! In the past, some of our brothers in the Red Army were, like you, very
obedient to the warlord officers, and did not understand that the warlords are
detestable. Afterward, the facts allowed them to see through the dark curtain of
the warlords' oppression of the soldiers. Only then did they fully understand that
the workers, the peasants, and the soldiers are of the same flesh and blood, that
they should join together, so only then did they resolve to leave the warlords and
come over to the side of the Red Army. Brothers! Do you want to know what the
advantages of the Red Army are?

7. The Red Army is the army of the revolution of the workers and peasants.

First of all, the Red Army is the army of the worker and peasant revolution. The
brothers of the Red Army cannot be separated from the workers and peasants.
Worker and peasant comrades, shouldering rifles and making up the ranksthese are the Red Army. Red Army comrades, putting down their rifles and
going out into the fields and into the factories these are the workers and peasants. This is why, when the Red Army reaches a location, the workers and
peasants form a crowd to welcome us, cook rice and make tea, kill pigs and
slaughter sheep, to welcome us. Those local bullies and bad gentry who flee run
away; those who are caught are fined, or else they are brought to trial and
sentenced by a meeting of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. All their lands and
property are disposed of by decision of a big meeting of the workers, peasants,
and soldiers. It is for this reason that the Red Army and the workers and peasants, joining together as one, divide the lands, and with their own government for
governing themselves, create a world of true freedom and equality. For example,
Red Armies exist today in many places, in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan,
Hubei, Henan, and Sichuan. All these are organized by the workers and peasants
themselves!

8. The Red Army is an army of the soldiers themselves.

Second, the Red Army is an army of the soldiers themselves. The Guomindang
army hangs out the label, National Revolutionary Army, but in its bones it is an
army of the warlords. The officers have authority; the soldiers have no authority.
The relationship between officers and troops in the Red Army is like that between teacher and student, like the bond of affection between older and younger
brothers. Clothing, food, and living quarters are managed jointly by representatives elected by the soldiers, and are provided by the government of the workers,
peasants, and soldiers. Thus in the Red Army the officers, the soldiers, and the
laborers all dress, eat, and are paid the same. In the Red Army, there are only
different tasks; there are no class distinctions. The commanding officer does not
beat the soldiers; the soldiers respect the commanding officer; finances are open
and public; and the representatives of the soldiers have the right to ask questions.
How much the entire army has and how much it uses is clear and open. There is
absolutely no such strange thing as the private pocketing of funds for salaries or
food allotments. If an inequity occurs, a meeting can be called to raise and
question it, and it will be dealt with immediately and fairly. That is why only the
Red Army is a real army, based on the interests of the troops, with absolutely no
oppression.

9. The Red Army supports the Communist Party in uniting the forces of the
world revolution.

The Red Army supports the Communist Party in uniting the forces of the world
revolution. The forces of imperialism and of the warlords are extremely great,
and they have, moreover, a worldwide union. Our revolution of the workers,
peasants, and soldiers must assuredly also have a worldwide union if we are to
be able to overthrow them. The Communist Party is the guiding organ of the
worldwide revolution and has very good organizations in various countries. The
Red Army must necessarily support the Communist Party, for only thus can it
attain unity with the world revolution. The political views and military plans of

--- Notes

1. Diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union, established by the treaty
of March 14, 1924, between Moscow and the Beijing government, had been officially
broken off in December 1927, in the wake of Chiang Kaishek's conflict with the Chinese
Communists, but de facto contacts continued. In particular, the agreement regarding joint
control of the Chinese Eastern Railway was still observed. In May 1929, on the grounds
that the Soviet-dominated railway administration was conducting subversive propaganda
in the northeast, the Chinese authorities closed the Soviet consulate in Harbin and seized a
large quantity of documents. The tension rose rapidly until, in July 1929, railway traffic
was interrupted and all Soviet personnel arrested and expelled. In retaliation, the Soviet
Far Eastern Army attacked and occupied several Chinese cities near the border. The
undeclared war lasted until December, despite attempts by the United States to mediate,
in the name of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. On December 22, 1929, a Sino-Soviet protocol
was, however, concluded in Khabarovsk with Zhang Xueliang, leading to the reopening of
the railway. A Sino-Soviet conference, originally scheduled for January 25, 1930, finally
met in October, but was soon adjourned following the occupation of Northeast China by

2. In this and the previous sentence, Mao follows very closely the language of a
Comintern statement of July 18, 1929, regarding the dispute, of which the relevant sentence reads: "Chiang Kaishek, the executioner of Chinese workers and peasants, acting on
the orders of world imperialism, is openly provoking a fresh war against the Soviet
Union." See Degras, Communist International, III, p. 74.

3. For a note on Zhu Peide see above, the declaration of August 1, 1927. For a note on
Tang Shengzhi, see above, the Central Committee Circular of July 20, 1927.

4. Regarding Yan Xishan, see above, the note to the draft resolution of October 5, 1928.

5. For a note on Zhang Fakui, see above, the Jinggangshan Report of November 28,
1928.


6. Zhang Xueliang (1898-), zi Hanqing, a native of Liaoning, was the eldest son of
Zhang Zuolin. After graduating from the Fengtian Military Academy, he served in his
father's army, and by 1919 had attained the rank of colonel. He played an active role in the
first and second Fengtian-Zhili wars of 1922 and 1924, in which he held important commands. As noted above, he became ruler of Manchuria following the assassination of his
father on June 4, 1928. Having learned that the Japanese army was responsible for Zhang
Zuolin's death, he turned against Japan and, in December 1928, pledged his allegiance to
the Guomindang government in Nanjing. In early 1930, Chiang Kaishek, on the one hand,
and Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, on the other, were both seeking his support.

7. These figures may refer to amounts of income to be gained from the land.

8. This is a pun on the name of the Guomindang. The Chinese for "skin-the-people
party" is guamindang.
soldiers. It's just that at home we had no clothes to wear, no food to eat, so we
had no choice but to run off and become soldiers. Why is it that we had no
clothes to wear and no food to eat? First of all, it's because the imperialists
invaded China and used foreign goods to make money from China. The vast
market for foreign goods made it impossible to sell local products, so local
production had to stop. As a result, tens of millions of workers and peasants
inevitably lost their jobs. To this was added the successive years of warlord
fighting, oppression by greedy bureaucrats and corrupt officials, local bullies and
bad gentry, and exploitation by harsh fees and miscellaneous taxes. All these
things together left our common people with no way of making a living. Having
nowhere to turn, anyone who didn't become a bandit had no alternative but to
serve as a soldier. After we joined the army, we first entered an army camp,
where every day we had three drills and two lectures, seven beatings and eight