To the Officers and Soldiers of the Various Units Besieging the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area, from the First Front Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (November 1935)

Officers and soldiers, brothers!

The Kuomintang Nanjing government has already acceded to Japan’s demands, in effect placing China under Japanese administration, handing the Kuomintang army over to Japanese officers for training, and having Japan directly command you to go to Shaanxi and Gansu to “suppress the Communists.” Although in name you are still under the command of Chiang Kai-shek and other traitors who sell out the nation, in reality you are already under the command of the Japanese military authorities to fight the anti-Japanese Red Army, so that Japan may monopolize China!

Four years ago, the Red Army already formally declared war on Japan. Recently, the Central Red Army and the 25th Army, in order to carry out the northward march to resist Japan, have all arrived in Shaanxi and Gansu. The Red Army is Japan’s mortal enemy, and that is why Japan wants to personally direct the offensive against the Red Army!

Now China is about to perish! All our compatriots throughout the country are about to become slaves of a conquered nation! Are you still willing to be commanded by the Japanese devils to fight the anti-Japanese Red Army?

All officers and soldiers who are unwilling to become slaves of a conquered nation!
All officer and soldier compatriots who are unwilling to be commanded by the Japanese devils!

The Red Army most sincerely proposes to you: so long as you do not attack the Red Army and the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area, we are willing to send representatives to each other to conclude an anti-Japanese operational agreement and to form an anti-Japanese allied army and a national defense government, to unite and fight Japan to save China. Regardless of which faction’s army, regardless of whether it is a corps, a division, or even a company or a platoon, regardless of whether it has previously fought against the Red Army and the Soviet areas, in order to carry out our four-year-long proposition of resisting Japan and saving the nation, we uniformly welcome all to unite with us in the common resistance against Japan. We hereby issue this declaration.

Peng Dehuai, Commander of the First Front Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army
Mao Zedong, Political Commissar
Wang Jiaqiang, Director of the Political Department
Lin Biao, Commander of the 1st Army Corps
Nie Rongzhen, Political Commissar
Zhu Rui, Director of the Political Department
Xu Haidong, Commander of the 15th Army Corps
Cheng Zihua, Political Commissar
Guo Shushen, Director of the Political Department

November 1935