Telegram on Ceasing Fire, Negotiating Peace and Uniting Against Japan

To the National Government at Nanjing, to the Military Affairs Commission, to all the army, navy and air forces, to every party and every organisation in the country, to every newspaper, and to all compatriots unwilling to be slaves of a lost country:

Since the Soviet Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Red Army organised the Anti-Japanese Vanguard Army of the Chinese People's Red Army and crossed the Yellow River to march east, it has been victorious wherever it has turned, and the whole nation has answered. But just when the vanguard army had seized the Tongpu railway and was actively preparing to move east out of Hebei to fight the Japanese imperialists directly, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek threw in more than ten divisions to cooperate with Mr. Yan Xishan in blocking the Red Army's road of resistance, and ordered Messrs. Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng and the forces of northern Shaanxi to advance upon the Shaanxi-Gansu soviet area and disturb our anti-Japanese rear.

The Anti-Japanese Vanguard Army of the Chinese People's Red Army had it in mind to concentrate its full strength on destroying the forces with which Mr. Chiang barred the road of resistance, and so achieve the aim of direct war against Japan. But the Soviet Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission, weighing the matter again and again, concluded that with the national calamity at the door, a pitched battle between the two sides — no matter whose the victory — would be a loss to China's power of national defence and a source of rejoicing for Japanese imperialism; moreover, in the armies of Messrs. Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan there are not a few patriotic officers and men who wish to stop the civil war and resist Japan as one, and their present compliance with those two gentlemen's orders in blocking the Red Army's road of resistance is in truth an act against their own conscience.

The Soviet Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission have therefore — in order to preserve the nation's defensive strength and so facilitate the speedy prosecution of the war of resistance; in order firmly to honour the proposal we have proclaimed to our countrymen again and again, to stop the civil war and resist Japan as one; and in order to hasten the final awakening of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the patriotic officers and men under him — withdrawn the People's Anti-Japanese Vanguard Army to the west bank of the Yellow River, despite the many victories it had won in Shanxi. By this action we show our good faith to the Nanjing government, to the army, navy and air force of the whole country, and to the whole people: within one month we are willing to conclude an armistice and negotiate peace with every armed force attacking the anti-Japanese Red Army, so as to attain the aim of resisting Japan as one.

The Soviet Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission respectfully offer this earnest counsel to the authorities of the Nanjing government: at this emergency juncture of national ruin and racial extinction, you ought in reason to turn back and mend your ways; in the spirit of “brothers quarrel within the walls, but together they defend against insult from without,” stop the civil war throughout the country and first of all in Shaanxi, Gansu and Shanxi, and let the two sides each send representatives to consult on concrete ways of resisting Japan and saving the nation. This would be not only your good fortune, sirs, but a blessing for the nation and the state. If you persist in your delusion and choose to remain traitors who sell the country, then your rule must in the end fall to pieces and must be cast off and overturned by the whole Chinese people. The saying runs, “Pointed at by a thousand men, one dies of it though unwounded”; it says also, “Lay down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot.” We beg you, sirs, to ponder this deeply.

The Soviet Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission call further upon every organisation, every person and every party in the country unwilling to be slaves of a lost country to support our proposal of an armistice, negotiated peace and united resistance to Japan; to organise associations for promoting the stoppage of the civil war; and to send representatives to stand between the two firing lines, urging and watching over the complete realisation of this proposal.

Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Government of the Chinese Soviet People's Republic

The base text is the Wikisource version, seven paragraphs. The addressees are the Nanjing National Government, the Military Commission, all land, sea and air forces, all parties and groups, all newspapers, and 'compatriots who will not be slaves to a perished nation'.

The text quotes such idioms as 'brothers quarrelling at home, defend against intruders without' and 'he whom a multitude points at dies without illness', urging Nanjing to stop the civil war; the last paragraph proposes organising a promotion society to stop the civil war, and sending representatives to separate the two sides' firing lines and supervise the proposal's realisation.

The date 'May 1936' comes from common cataloguing; the body of the base text states no month. This piece and the previous one describe the before and after of one event, and may be read together to see the passage from blocked advance to truce.