Operational Principles of the Western
Expedition
(July 14, 1936, 5:00 P.M.)
Comrade [Peng] Dehuai:
1. When engaged in battle with enemy forces of two regiments or more, it
may be better to gather even stronger forces, with a view to destroying them in
one blow.


2. When conditions for doing battle are not yet met, it is just as well to
retreat slightly and lure the enemy into a situation in which the conditions do
exist for wiping him out in one blow. In this case more patience is required.


3. Expand and train the troops so as to build up the Red Army's strength,
thereby creating a principal condition for launching a large-scale strategic counterattack in the future.


4. As for the Northeastern Army "advancing to suppress [the bandits]" under
the command of He Zhuguo,¹ we had best decide to wipe out one of its units. To
do this would not hinder the overall situation; rather, it would benefit the overall
situation.


5. With regard to the command as a whole during the western expedition, I
am in agreement. The above-mentioned points were, generally speaking, all
included in your previous deployments and are raised here with the request that
you give them special consideration.
North China a base for attacking the whole of China. They are, moreover, engaged in ruthless invasion of China's Northwest, Central China, and South China
in an attempt to swallow up all of China and turn it into their colony, and to
make slaves and beasts of burden of our four hundred million compatriots. The
grievous misfortune of the loss of our state and the extinction of our race is
already singeing our eyebrows; we find ourselves before an imminent crisis in
which life and death, survival or ruin are at stake. Apart from a few traitors who
are selling out their country, there is no one among all those Chinese who are in
the slightest degree upright, among those Chinese who are unwilling to be slaves
without a country, whose hair does not stand on end with anger, whose bosom is
not filled with rage, and who does not want to wage a war of resistance to the
death against Japan! Today the military leaders of the southwest, Li Zongren,
Chen Jitang,¹ and others, have raised the banner of resistance to Japan


[Mao] Zedong


We have translated this document from Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 556-57,
where it is reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.
moved their armies northward. Moreover, they have demanded of the Nanjing
government and Mr. Chiang Kaishek to go forth and do battle against Japan. The
anti-Japanese national revolutionary war has already entered a new stage.


This document was first published in Douzheng, no. 105, July 12, 1936. We have
translated it from Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 5, pp. 59-61.

--- Notes

1. He Zhuguo was commander of the cavalry forces under the Guomindang army's
Northwest "Bandit Suppression" General Headquarters.


Appeal of the Central Soviet Government
to the Gelaohui


Brothers of the Gelaohui!
(July 15, 1936)


Recently the barbaric acts of robbery in swallowing up China on the part of our
Chinese nation's mortal enemy, Japanese imperialism, have been increasing in
ferocity and viciousness. Not only have they forcibly occupied our Four Northeastern Provinces, they have gone further and established de facto rule over the
whole of North China. They have not merely made use of smuggling to ruin the
whole of our country's economic life, and increase all sorts of suffering such as
bankruptcy and unemployment, but they have also made use of the colonial
systems in Taiwan and Korea to increase by more than 50,000 the number of
soldiers sent into North China. All of these political and economic measures are
calculated to turn North China into a second "Manchukuo," and to make of

1. For a biography of Li Zongren, see below, the relevant note to Mao's letter to him
dated September 22, 1936. Chen Jitang (1890-1954), zi Bonan, a native of Guangdong,
became chief commander in his native province in 1929, and remained dominant there
until July 1936, when the failure of the Southwest expedition toward the north led to the
collapse of his power and his flight to Hong Kong and thence to Europe.