To the Laboring Masses of Workers and Peasants in the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area

(December 8, 1935)

Laboring masses of workers and peasants in the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area:

Dear comrades, you surely have not forgotten the incomparable sufferings you endured under the rule of the Kuomintang, have you? How the warlords and bureaucrats oppressed us then, with endless exactions and levies, the collectors biting into us like poisonous insects—before one levy was paid off, the next was already imposed. When we could not pay in time, they immediately seized us and threw us into prison, or shot us dead! Comrades, these things we cannot forget!

Remember how the evil gentry and landlords viciously came to our doors day after day to press for rent and demand repayment of debts, and when we could not deliver the rent or debts, our cattle, livestock, and household goods were taken away. Even our sons and daughters were seized and sold off. Comrades, how can we ever forget these things!

Even more heartbreaking, when the White Army came, they devoured all our grain, cattle, chickens, and pigs. They drove off and plundered our livestock, tore down and burned our houses to the ground, dragged away our able-bodied men to serve as soldiers, and raped our women to death in turns! Comrades, these things we shall never forget!

The Kuomintang warlords, bureaucrats, gentry, and landlords mainly seek to bring about our death!

We could not endure such cruel suffering, so we bravely rose up in revolution, overthrew the counterrevolutionary rule, and established the Soviet regime. Now no one presses us for levies or hounds us for rent

and debts anymore. We have been allotted land and houses, we have gained freedom and liberation, and now this is our world.

We must sacrifice everything and use all our strength to protect our land and freedom, to defend our Soviet regime.

Comrades, now the Kuomintang warlords and the gentry and landlords, under the direction of the imperialists, are launching brutal attacks on our Soviet area. The Kuomintang bandit troops are looting and seizing people everywhere, burning and killing on a massive scale. The gentry and landlords want to snatch back the land we have gained, force us to pay double rent and repay debts, and strip us of all the revolutionary gains. The Kuomintang bandit troops not only aim to restore the rule of the landlords and capitalists but also bring in the imperialists to slaughter us. Chiang Kai-shek is now selling our land and people in Shaanxi and Gansu to Japanese imperialism, seeking to make us slaves of a conquered nation, subjecting us to the butchering and ravaging by the Japanese imperialist bandits, and aiming to exterminate our race and our people.

Comrades, can we allow the Kuomintang bandit troops and the Japanese bandits to slaughter and butcher us? Can we endure the agony of national subjugation and racial extermination? Absolutely not!

Comrades, the struggle is now extremely intense! Our heroic Red Army at the front has recently won a great victory, annihilating four enemy regiments. Our Red Army needs to expand further to wipe out even larger numbers of the enemy. Dear comrades, we must protect our land, property, parents, wives, and children. We must sacrifice everything to crush the enemy’s offensive and safeguard our sacred Soviet area! We must not cling to the comforts of home and property; we must bravely join the Red Army and go to the front to fight bloody battles against the utterly evil enemy!

Comrades, we either achieve victory or face the extermination of our race and people. To achieve complete liberation, the only way out is to join the Red Army!

Dear workers and peasants, all of you, join the Red Army and come to the front!

Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, Liu Zhidan

December 8