OPEN LETTER TO FRATERNAL SOLDIERS OF THE WHITE ARMY ON THE FORCED OCCUPATION OF MANCHURIA BY JAPANESE IMPERIALISM

25 September 1931

[Text] Fraternal soldiers!

Did not warlords of the Kuomintang often tell you that your duty is to "protect our country and defend our people?" But look, troops of Japanese imperialism have occupied by force all of the major cities in Manchuria, massacred with guns and bombs the toiling masses of workers and peasants and soldiers in Manchuria, and consider Manchuria wholly as a colony of theirs. May I ask you: How are warlords of the Kuomintang performing their duty to "protect our country and defend our people?" What are they saying to you now?

As far as Japanese imperialist brutality is concerned, warlords of the Kuomintang order you to "offer no resistance," to "receive adverse circumstances with acquiescence," to stretch out the neck so as to allow the Japanese imperialism bandits to massacre you. They order you to become "national slaves of Japanese imperialism peacefully." From here you can see that warlords of the Kuomintang can only do court and yield to imperialism, they can only act as running dogs of imperialism, they not only cannot "protect our country," but also cannot "defend our people!"

Nevertheless, the Kuomintang warlords, for the purpose of struggling for positions and extending their areas of exploitation and wholesale slaughter of the Chinese people, they have staged wild battles among themselves year after year. For the sake of these warlords' cars, they have very courageously driven you to the battlefield to kill your own brothers and destroy the life and property of the people. They are exacting exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies, impressing men and horses for military coolie-service, and sucking up the last drop of blood of the toiling people. They are massacring the revolutionary workers and peasants; they are compelling people to cultivate opium so as to infect the masses; they are creating all over the country calamities (flood, drought, famine), the like of which has never seen before. In exploiting and massacring the people, they all have shown considerable resoluteness and fearlessness!

Above all others, at a time when the masses of workers and peasants in our Soviet areas, standing up voluntarily, have driven out all imperialists, toppled the rule of the Kuomintang, confiscated all land of the landlord class, carried out the 8-hour work system, created their own armed forces in the Workers and Peasants' Red Army, and established the Workers and Peasants' Soviet Government, all warlords of the Kuomintang are fighting desperately for their lives and demonstrating their determination and bravery. Have relied upon help from the imperialists to attack us, not once or twice, but three times. They have used planes, bombs, poison gas, artillery, and machine guns to slaughter the people in the Soviet areas. All their attacks have been smashed fearlessly by us and by the people, but if we do not root them out completely they will never case up on us. In attacking the Soviet Government of the people and the Red Army of the people, they also are extremely brave!

Fraternal soldiers! Have you not suffered enough from the deceit and oppression of these warlords? Think about it: After all, why are you risking your life for these warlords? It may be that you are doing it so as to support your family. As a matter of fact, you yourselves often do not receive one cent in wages. You yourselves do not have enough to eat or enough to wear, then how can you support your family? Your superior officers take you as their oxen and horses, as cannon fodder, and want you to risk your life in killing your own fraternal worker and peasant brothers so that they may be promoted in rank and become wealthy!

Fraternal soldiers! You have got to think of a way out! There is a way out for you. It is revolution! Now what you have in your hands are guns. First of all, you kill your reactionary superior officers. Then join efforts with the workers, peasants, and all other toiling people in your locality to topple the government of the Kuomintang, confiscate the land of the landlord class and distribute it among the poor peasants, seize the grain and dwellings of the rich and portion them out for the poor to live and to eat. Make it so that workers labor for only 8 hours a day, and organize yourselves so that you manage your own affairs. In this way you will have created a workers, peasants, and soldiers' government--i.e., a Soviet Government--and you all will have become a workers and peasants' armed force--a workers and peasants' Red Army. If there is already a Soviet Government or Red Army near your garrison, then you either catch your reactionary superior officers alive or kill them and go there and join the Red Army. Only the Soviet Government, only the Red Army, can safeguard the interests of workers, peasants, and soldiers, overthrow the Kuomintang, overthrow imperialism, and truly protect our country and defend our people!

Fraternal soldiers! Unite! Turn round your guns and fight so as to overthrow imperialism and the Kuomintang, which are exploiting, oppressing, and massacring the toiling masses of China, and establish a Soviet Government and a Red Army of the workers, peasants, and soldiers! Several hundred thousand fraternal soldiers of the Red Army welcome you to join our ranks!

Down with Imperialism and the Kuomintang!

Establish a Soviet Government of the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers!

Long Live the Workers and Peasants' Red Army!

Long Live the Victory of a Soviet Revolution in China!

Commander-in-Chief, Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army and concurrently
Commander, 1st Army Corps: Chu Teh

Director, General Political Department, Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army

Commander, 2nd Army Corps, Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army Ho Lung

Commander, 3rd Army Corps, Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army P'eng Te-huai

Commander, 3rd Army, Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army Huang Kung-lueh

25 September 1931

*Soviet China, Soviet Union Foreign Workers Press (Moscow 1933)