A Command to March through the Entire
Country
(April 21, 1949)
To all comrade commanders, and warriors in every field army, and to every comrade in the People’s Liberation Army in the guerrilla areas in the south:
After long negotiations, the domestic peace accord drafted by the delegations
from the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang government has been
rejected by the Guomindang government in Nanjing.1 The representatives of the
Guomindang government rejected this domestic peace accord because they still
follow the orders of the American imperialists and the Guomindang bandit leader
Chiang Kaishek, who seek to halt the progress of the Chinese people’s liberation and to prevent the use of peaceful means to resolve the country’s internal
problems. The eight sections and twenty-four paragraphs of the draft domestic
peace accord, resulting from discussions by delegates on both sides, expressed a
magnanimous policy of dealing with the questions of war criminals, Guomindang
soldiers and officers, and persons employed by the Guomindang government.
As for other issues, everything was suitably resolved; not one solution was not
based upon what would benefit the people and the citizenry. The rejection of this
peace accord reveals that the reactionary clique in the Guomindang is resolved
to fight to the end the counterrevolutionary war that it began. Its rejection of this
peace accord reveals that the peace talks proposed on the first day of the first
month of this year by the reactionary clique in the Guomindang were nothing
but a trick to halt the advance of the People’s Liberation Army and to give this
reactionary clique breathing space so it could stage a comeback and stamp out the
strength of the revolution. Its rejection of this peace accord exposes as a complete
sham the so-called “acknowledgment” by Li Zongren’s Nanjing government
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xuanji (1991, second edition), Vol. 4,
by Mao Zedong. After the Guomindang government refused to sign the domestic peace
accord, the People’s Liberation Army, under Mao Zedong and Zhu De, carried out a major
campaign during which the Communist forces crossed the Yangzi River on April 20 and
21, occupied Nanjing on April 23, and declared the collapse of the Guomindang regime.
that the Chinese Communist Party’s eight criteria for the accord should be the
basis for negotiations; since it agreed to [our] basic conditions such as the punishment of war criminals, using democratic means to reorganize all the reactionary Guomindang troops, and taking over the power of the Nanjing government
and its affiliated governments at every level, then it has no excuse for refusing
the agreed-upon and extremely magnanimous concrete methods for carrying out
these eight fundamental criteria. Under these circumstances, we command you:
to resist; liberate all the people of the country; and protect the independence
and totality of China’s sovereign rights on her own territory.
war criminals. No matter where they try to run, you must capture and arrest
them, then punish them in accordance with the law. Especially attend to
apprehending the bandit chieftain Chiang Kaishek.
Guomindang local government and local military group. You can follow the
gist of this final version and sign a local accord with whomever is willing to
stop fighting and to use peaceful methods to resolve the problems.
Nanjing government has not yet scattered and is willing to sign the domestic
peace accord, we will be willing to give this government another opportunity
to sign it.
Chairman of the Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military
Affairs Commission, Mao Zedong
Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army, Zhu De

pp. 1449–51. It also appears in Xuanji (1960), pp. 1451–58. This command was drafted

--- Notes
Party, in Beiping from April 1 to April 15, 1949, resulted in the drafting of a domestic peace
accord. On April 20, the Guomindang government in Nanjing rejected the final revision
presented by the Communist delegation.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-258

--- Notes

1.	 Courageously march forward, and firmly, thoroughly, cleanly, and completely annihilate every reactionary Guomindang clique in China that dares

2.	 Courageously march forward and capture all incorrigible and unrepentant

3.	 Proclaim the final amended version of the domestic peace accord to every

4.	 After the People’s Liberation Army surrounds Nanjing, if Li Zongren’s

1.  Peace talks between the Guomindang government and the Chinese Communist