Telegram to Chiang Kai-shek on the Japanese Army’s Attack on Lugou Bridge[1]

(July 8, 1937)

His Excellency Chairman Chiang at Lushan:

The Japanese bandits’ attack on Lugou Bridge is the implementation of their predetermined scheme to seize North China by armed force. Upon hearing this news, we are overcome with grief and indignation beyond words! Beiping and Tianjin are vital strongholds of North China, and no further negligence can be tolerated under any circumstances. We respectfully and earnestly request that strict orders be issued to the 29th Army to resist bravely, and that, in accordance with the Third Plenary Session’s[2] guiding principle of resisting foreign aggression and waging war of resistance, a nationwide general mobilization be carried out to defend Beiping and Tianjin, defend North China, and recover our lost territories. All officers and soldiers of the Red Army are willing, under Your Excellency the Chairman’s leadership, to devote their lives to the nation and engage the enemy in protracted struggle, so as to achieve the goal of protecting our land and defending our country. We urgently lay forth these words, unable to contain our breathless anticipation as we await your commands.

Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, He Long,
Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, Xu Xiangqian, with deepest respect

Geng-Hai[3]

[1] This is a telegram sent to Chiang Kai-shek by Mao Zedong and the chiefs of the Red Army General Headquarters and various front armies—Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, He Long, Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, and Xu Xiangqian.

[2] The Third Plenary Session refers to the Third Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, held in Nanjing from February 15 to 22, 1937, following the peaceful resolution of the Xi’an Incident. Because the session had received beforehand the five demands and four guarantees put forward by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in a telegram dated February 10, and because during the session Song Qingling and thirteen other members of the Central Executive Committee and Central Supervisory Committee jointly submitted a proposal to restore Sun Yat-sen’s Three Great Policies, the session, under the pressure of the nationwide demand to stop the civil war and unite against Japan, effectively accepted the policy of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party to resist Japan, and affirmed the principles of peaceful unification, revision of the election law, expansion of democracy, and release of political prisoners.