Proclamation of the Anti-Japanese Vanguard
Army of the Chinese People's Red Army
(March 1, 1936)¹
It is hereby proclaimed: Whereas Japanese imperialism is running rampant in
North China, no one is putting a stop to it. Chiang Kaishek, Yan Xishan, and
Song Zheyuan are subservient lackeys whose nature is to fawn on foreign powers. The death and destruction of the whole country is imminent. The Central
Government of the Chinese Soviet People's Republic and the Military Commission of the Chinese People's Red Army has sent this army eastward to resist
Japan. Our army wants to unite with all noble-minded patriots and public-spirited revolutionaries, whether new or old, of whatever party or faction, and regardless of social origins, so long as they are in sympathy with fighting against
the Japanese imperialists, to carry forward together the great cause of national
revolution. Wherever this army goes, it protects the patriotic movement, protects
the revolutionary people, protects the interests of the workers and peasants,
protects the intellectuals, and protects industry and commerce. This army advocates the cessation of all civil war, and the union of the Red Army and the White
army to resist Japan together. This army is willing to enter into negotiations with
and conclude agreements or understandings with all patriotic military personnel,
whether they actively join with this army to resist Japan, or passively refrain
from opposing resistance against Japan on the part of this army and the patriotic
people. The greatest enemy of our Chinese nation is Japanese imperialism. All
those who are supported by this piece of earth,² and are descended from Emperor
Yan and the Yellow Emperor,³ should rise up as one and unite for the sake of the
the Chinese Communist Party's Northeast Central Bureau.
271-272, date this document March 10, as does Dierci guogong hezuode xingcheng, p. 91,
where it is taken from the archives. On the assumption that the editors of Mao Zedong junshi
wenji had access to more materials useful in elucidating this point, we follow them here.
2. To indicate the whole of China, the text alludes here to a passage from the Zuo
and the kingdom, what ground is there which is not the ruler's? What individual of all
3. On the Yellow Emperor, see below, the note to Mao's elegiac address to him dated
April 5, 1937. Emperor Yan is also a legendary figure, equated in some sources with
Shen Nong.
where it is reproduced from the April 24, 1936, issue of Douzheng (no. 96), the organ of


1. Several documentary collections drawn upon in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 4, pp.
zhuan, seventh year of Duke Zhao, translated by Legge as follows: "[W]ithin the State
whom the ground supports is there that is not the ruler's subject?" (Legge, Vol. V, p. 616).

--- Notes

We have translated this document from Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 470-71,