To Cai Yuanpei¹
(September 22, 1936)
Mr. Jiemin and associates:

During the period of the May Fourth Movement I had the pleasure on several
occasions of hearing you, sir, expound your marvelous ideas and opinions in the
classrooms of Beijing University, at rallies in the old capital, and at lectures in
Changsha. And now twenty years have passed in a flash since then! And what
are things like today? Now our people and our nation hover between existence
and subjugation. Older people such as you, sir, and your generation, middle-aged
people such as myself, Zedong, and my generation, and youngsters such as
today's students, be they poor or rich, workers, peasants, businessmen, or intellectuals, no matter what their beliefs, will together fall into the hands of the
foreign invaders. The mountains and rivers will no longer be our own mountains
and rivers; the people will no longer be our own people; the cities and towns will
no longer be our own cities and towns. This is what is called the loss of the state
and the destruction of the race, something truly unprecedented in ancient times
and in our own day. What would you, sir, do about this? The Communist Party
has proposed to establish a united front against Japan. People all over the country
believe this is feasible, and we assume that you believe so, too. Only those
gentlemen in positions of power are doing nothing, either saying that it can't be
done or advocating a delay in carrying it out. This is tantamount to failing to
resist the robber who breaks into your home, or refusing to fight the tiger who
threatens to eat you alive, and will lead the whole country into a hopeless
disaster in which the people become utterly apathetic and await their own death
by suffocation. And what would you, sir, do about this? Mr. Sun Yatsen's policies of uniting with Russia, uniting with the Communist Party, and uniting with
the peasants and workers, were carried out and proved to be effective during the

Our source for this letter is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 66-69, where it is reproduced
from a copy in the Central Archives.
1. Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940), zi Heqing, hao Jiemin, was a native of Zhejiang. In 1894
he became a compiler at the Hanlin Academy. After studying in Germany and then in
France in the years 1908-1916, he returned to China and was appointed chancellor of
Beijing University. Cai held this post until 1926 and was thus in charge when Mao
Zedong made his two visits to Beijing, in 1918-1919 and 1919-1920. In 1927, he took
Chiang Kaishek's side in the conflict with the Communists and assumed various official
posts, but in 1928 he resigned from the government to become the first president of
Academia Sinica. In 1935, he resigned all official posts and issued a public statement
denouncing the restrictive political and intellectual controls exercised by the Guomindang
authorities.
First Great Revolution from 1925 to 1927. What is more, the period of cooperation between the two parties, the Guomindang and the Communist Party, was the
most revolutionary period for the Guomindang. With Mr. Sun Yatsen's revolutionary policies trampled and abandoned, civil war has been raging ceaselessly,
and foreign invasion has got out of hand like a torrential wave bursting open an
embankment! What is proposed in the Communist Party's August 25 letter to the
Guomindang, even though a reaffirmation of an old principle, is actually the best
stratagem to save the country from destruction. And what would you, sir, do
about this? When I read A Commentary on the New Words,² I was greatly
impressed to find that your honorable name occupied the first place. After twenty
years to suddenly see that Mr. Jiemin, a man I deeply admire and respect, had
expressed an entirely fresh idea that sharply differs from that of any ordinary old,
new, or diehard faction—you must know, sir, that I am surely not the only
person, and the Communist Party is surely not the only party, to rejoice upon
seeing it but, rather, that countless people will do so! There is, likewise, not a
single doubt that those who rejoice upon hearing from comrades and friends
about your supporting the cause of resistance against Japan and national salvation are surely not limited to me alone or to the Communist Party, but, rather,
include all honest and sincere sons and daughters of the nation. And yet there is
still a long way to go after this first important step. For the sake of such a noble
cause, you should stand up in the lead as the national hero of the Restoration
Society and the Tongmenghui³ and as the academic leader of Beijing University
and Academia Sinica, to harness the raging wave of this adverse current, not
only with words but also with deeds, not only with sympathy but also with
leadership, strongly urging that the Nanjing authorities immediately stop the civil
war; abandon their erroneous policy of making concessions to the foreign powers
while imposing harsh treatment domestically; abolish their subjugationist guideline of punishing patriots as criminals and rewarding traitors as heroes; mobilize
all the forces of the navy, army, and air force in the country to wage an authentic
war of resistance against Japan; revive the spirit of Mr. Sun Yatsen's revolutionary Three People's Principles and three major policies; rescue our 450 million
compatriots from the abyss of suffering; call together a congress of representa-

2. The text referred to here (Chinese title: Xin wenzi yijianshu) may be the statement
of 1935 mentioned in the previous note.
3. Sun Yatsen's Tongmenghui or "Revolutionary Alliance," referred to in these
volumes by its Chinese title, was the most important revolutionary organization in the
early years of the twentieth century, to which many of those who played a role in Chinese
politics during the 1920s and 1930s had belonged. The Restoration Society (Guangfu hui)
was active mainly in Zhejiang in the years 1903-1907, but contacts were also made
outside the province, and Cai Yuanpei, himself a native of Zhejiang, was persuaded to
become its nominal head. In fact, his role was very limited. Its most celebrated figures
were Xu Xilin, who assassinated an imperial governor, and the woman revolutionary Qiu
Jin, both of whom were executed in 1907.