Telegram of the Central Government to the International
Conference Against Imperialism and War1
(August 30, 1933)

To the representatives to the International Conference Against Imperialism and
War, to be communicated to the proletariat, the impoverished masses, and all the
revolutionaries of the world:

The deepening panic of world capitalism and the end of the temporary stability
of postwar capitalism have forced the imperialist bourgeoisie to launch an even
more frenzied attack against the proletariat and toiling masses in their own
countries, placing the entire burden of the economic crisis on their shoulders, and
using the cruelest bloody fascist tactics against the organizations of the working
class and all revolutionary activities. In Germany, Italy, Japan, and all the capitalist countries of the world, the mad tide of fascism is waging a life-and-death
struggle at present with the revolutionary movement of the working class and
toiling popular masses of the world.

In their external relations, the various imperialist countries are currently preparing for a cruel imperialist war to seek a way out of the economic crisis. Their
attacks against the Soviet Union and their plundering of the colonies have intensified. First of all, the Japanese imperialists have waged a bandit war in China,
occupying China's Three Northeastern Provinces and a huge area in Rehe, Chahar,
and the region east of the Luan [River],2 and placing the fifty million toiling popular masses there under the iron heels of the Japanese imperialists. In western China,
the British imperialists are making use of Tibetan forces to attack and occupy our
Xikang and Sichuan provinces, and are preparing to turn western China completely into a British colony.3 Elsewhere, the French and American imperialists
are similarly vying with each other to divide up the territory of China and are
fighting a desperate imperialist war to divide up anew their markets in China!
The evil imperialist bourgeoisie is the common enemy of the proletariat and
toiling popular masses of the whole world. It allies itself with the evil White-terrorist
Guomindang government in China; it supplies hundreds of millions of gold dollars4
worth of rifles, guns, warplanes, and poison gas to arm the millions of troops of
the Guomindang and attack the bases of the Chinese revolution and the soviet
areas in China, in an attempt to destroy the revolutionary movement in China by
bloody slaughter. They hope to turn China completely into an imperialist colony,
in order to maintain their rule and continue their exploitation and enslavement of
the proletariat of their own countries. With such aid from the imperialists, the
Guomindang government is launching what is now already the fifth massive
attack against the soviet areas in China.
The Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic declares
to the proletariat and toiling popular masses of the whole world: the Provisional
Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic is the representative of the
oppressed popular masses of all China.
In the past, the Chinese Soviet Republic has been consolidated and developed in
the war against imperialism. It will deliver a fatal blow to the Fifth "Encirclement
and Suppression" against the soviet areas now being conducted by the imperialists
through the medium of the Guomindang. It repudiates all of the secret treaties
concluded by the imperialist powers with the Guomindang government of China.
Moreover, it has just issued a call for mobilizing and arming the popular masses of
all China to wage a national-revolutionary war against the imperialists' partition of
China; overthrow completely the rule of the imperialists in China; establish a soviet
political power for all of China; and maintain China's independence, unity, and
territorial integrity. It is a powerful companion of the proletariat and toiling popular
masses of the whole world in their struggle against imperialism.
Proletarians, toiling popular masses, and revolutionaries of the whole world!
On behalf of the oppressed popular masses of all China, the Provisional Central

Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic calls upon you to stand together
with us and overthrow the common enemy of the workers, the toiling popular
masses, and the revolutionaries of the whole world—the world imperialist bourgeoisie! Furthermore, we ask you to use every method to stop the imperialists of
different countries from sending rifles, guns, airplanes, and poison gas to China
to be used to slaughter the Chinese people. Moreover, we ask that you call upon
our brothers, the soldiers of your own countries, to oppose imperialist aggression
against the colonies and to refuse to slaughter the toiling popular masses of
China in the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie!
Proletariat and oppressed nations of the world, unite! Oppose the imperialist
wars! Oppose the imperialists' partition of China! Down with world imperialism!

Chairman, Provisional
Central Government of the
Chinese Soviet Republic
Vice-Chairmen
Mao Zedong
Xiang Ying
Zhang Guotao

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Notes

This telegram was first published in Hongse Zhonghua, no. 106, August 31, 1933. We
have translated it from Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 3, pp. 361–63.
1. As indicated above, in a note to the resolution of July 11, 1933, the Comintern had
designated August 1 a "day of international demonstrations against imperialist war" as
early as 1929. The "Conference Against Imperialism and War," which met in Shanghai at
the end of August 1933, was a further expression of the same impulse, and received
coverage in the publications of the International.
2. The Luan River runs roughly from north to south in the eastern part of Hebei
Province. The area between it and the Great Wall was part of the buffer zone established
by the Tanggu Truce and the Dalian Agreement. See above, the circular telegram opposing
the Dalian conference of July 1933.
3. Tibet had achieved de facto independence following the end of the Qing dynasty in
1911, but in the eastern part of the Tibetan highlands fiercely independent chieftains
continued to go their own way, contributing to a variable and contentious fracture zone
separating territory controlled by Lhasa and territory under Chinese control. Britain sought
to maintain Tibet in an ambiguous status in which it was nominally subject to but not
occupied by China so that it could serve as a compliant buffer north of its colony India.
Therefore, Britain gave Tibet limited arms and assistance in strengthening its army to resist
a possible Chinese reinvasion.
4. The Chinese is jin yuan, which can mean either "gold dollars" or "U.S. dollars."