The September 18, 1931 full-scale Japanese imperialist invasion of Manchuria after the spurious ‘Mukden incident’ came in the midst of the First Civil War between the Communist-led Chinese Red Army and the Koumintang’s National Revolutionary Army, on which it would impact greatly. Here is the first formal response of the recently-formed Chinese Soviet Republic, led by Mao and based in Ruijin, far from Manchuria. The KMT was also weak in the north and would remain largely non-responsive to the Japanese invasion, Chiang-Kai Shek instead pursuing the ‘encirclement camapigns’ against the Soviet districts.

‘Appeal of the Central Chinese Soviet Government against the Robber Campaign of Japanese Imperialism’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 11 No. 55. October 29, 1931.

The Japanese imperialist troops stationed in Manchuria, during the night of 18th September, occupied Mukden, Chang-chun, Yüngkow, and the towns on the Southern Manchurian and Mukden-Antung railway line. They bombarded the arsenal, the north quarter, the houses in Mukden, the public buildings of the occupied towns and the most important strategic points; they disarmed the Chinese troops, and killed and wounded hundreds of the Chinese population and soldiers. The Japanese troops are continuing their advance on the province of Kirin, on the districts through which the Kirin-Changchun and Peking-Mukden railway lines pass, and have already occupied the towns of Kirin, Jaidj and Chen-Ming. Japanese marines landed on the coast of Tsingtau, Yingtai, Tientsien, Ch wangtao and Fulutau. The Chinese North Eastern fleet is surrounded by Japanese warships. Chinese gun-boats at the mouth of the Ya-Lu-Kinng river have been destroyed by the gun fire of the Japanese fleet. Japanese troops have arrived from Korea and troops are being mobilised in Japan itself. The present goal of the Japanese advance is Northern Manchuria, Eastern Mongolia and the provinces of Chili and Shantung.

This aggressive action of the Japanese imperialist troops was long planned and prepared by the Japanese government. The Chinese Soviet government previously repeatedly declared that the imperialist robber States would never abandon their endeavours finally to colonise China and divide it among themselves, until the working masses drove the imperialist robbers out of the country and shattered the Kuomintang government of the Chinese bourgeoisie and landowners, who capitulate to the imperialists. The present measures of occupation and oppression on the part of the Japanese government are the continuation of its aggressive imperialist policy towards China which commenced already with the Sino-Japanese and the Japan-Russian wars, with the dictated treaty containing the notorious 21 points, and with the Tsinan blood bath. The precursors of the new imperialist advance by Japan, of the present occupation of Manchuria and the future attacks on Inner Mongolia and North China, were the pogroms in Wan Bau Schan and the massacres in Korea in general, the bloody events in Tsingtau and the affair of Captain Nakamura. The “counter-measures” of the treacherous Kuomintang government consist in concealing from the masses the enormous importance of these events, keeping, the masses calm and peaceful, and thus patiently to await the complete enslavement of the Chinese people by imperialism.

The intentions of the Japanese Imperialists are perfectly obvious. With the occupation of Manchuria they aim at consolidating their rule in Manchuria and Mongolia, bringing the Chinese people still more under the yoke of their exploitation and oppression, in order to increase their own profits and thereby overcome the economic crisis in their own country, and beyond this to prepare the imperialist war for hegemony in the Far East and the war against the Soviet Union. The present events are a warning signal for the world proletariat; they are the harbingers of a second world war, of a war against the Soviet Union! As a result of recent events the oppressed and exploited masses of China are more and more coming to realise that the fight against the robber campaigns of the imperialists against China is inseparably connected with the fight against imperialist war, with the defence of the Soviet Union.

That the action of the Japanese imperialists has assumed such an open and unrestrained form is solely because the reactionary Kuomintang government, ever since its existence, has continually grovelled in the most shameful manner before world imperialism; because, as for instance in the negotiations on the occasion of the various bloody attacks of the imperialists in Nanking, Hankow, Tsinan and more recently in Wan Bau Schan, it has sold the interests of the Chinese people. The Nanking government has always endeavoured to suppress the revolutionary mass movement against Japanese imperialism. Thus the occupation of Manchuria can take place with the toleration of Nanking government; in fact it is a result of its treasonable foreign policy!

The Chinese Soviet Government declares before all the oppressed and exploited masses of China:

Just as it did on the occasion of the bloody attack of the Japanese troops in Tsinan, so also this time the Kuomintang government is betraying the interests of the people of Manchuria, Mongolia and North China to the Japanese imperialists and leading the whole of China further on the way of colonisation.

Oppressed masses of China!

Do not place your hopes in the Kuomintang government taking any steps against the Japanese imperialists! They wish to force the revolutionary masses to their knees before imperialism! They will go begging to the robbers for peace; they will order their own troops to allow themselves to be peacefully disarmed by the Japanese troops, in order thereby to prove to the Japanese government their shameful capitulation!

Do not cherish any illusions that the various military cliques of the Kuomintang will conclude peace among themselves and unite against the Japanese attack! They will seek to outdo one another in their betrayal of the interests the people, and thus smooth the way for Japanese imperialism.

Do not give any credence to the lying phrases of a “cooperation of all classes for the common fight against the outer enemy”. The capitalists have already made use of this opportunity in order to put forward their slogan of “increased output of the workers”.

Do not have any confidence in the League of Nations or the Kellogg Pact preventing the acts of robbery of Japanese imperialism! These are the institutions of the imperialist robbers themselves!

Only the oppressed Chinese people themselves can, in the common fight together with all exploited classes and peoples of the world, overthrow the rule of world imperialism and bring their robber-plans to naught!

The exploited masses of China must recognise:

Whilst the various military cliques of the Kuomintang, the bourgeoisie and the landowners, together with the imperialist Powers, are forging their plans how best to exploit and oppress the Chinese masses, and are themselves prepared to sacrifice the interests of national independence to the imperialists (the occupation Manchuria is an example of this), the Chinese Soviet government which is leading the masses for the carrying out of the agrarian revolution and for the anti-imperialist fight, is striving with all its forces for national emancipation, for the overthrow of the rule of all imperialists in China!

In the Soviet districts the positions of power and the privileges of all the imperialists have been consistently and ruthlessly abolished. The fight of the broadest masses against imperialism is promoted and protected by the Soviets.

Already for a year the Kuomintang troops, accompanied by the aircraft and gunboats of the imperialists, have been conducting a campaign against the Soviets, against the revolutionary workers and peasants and their red army. They wish to smash to pieces the only anti-imperialist Power, the Soviet government. Therefore the reactionary Kuomintang government, immediately after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, declared: “The Red Bands must be exterminated root and branch”. They realise that without the “extermination of the Reds” the broad mass fight against Japanese imperialism cannot be crushed, and as a result Japanese imperialism cannot be appeased.

But the broad masses of the workers and peasants and all the oppressed and exploited sections of the population have in these years, in the midst of the agrarian revolution and of the anti-imperialist fight, demonstrated their inflexible determination and their unvanquishable power. The Soviet Power of the workers, peasants and poor population has been set ‘un in districts in the provinces of Hunan, Hupeh, Honan, Kiangsi, Fukien, Kwantung, Anhwei etc. The continual victories of the Red workers and peasants army and the defeat and demoralisation of the Kuomintang troops evoke a real panic mood in the Nanking government. All this is a first step on the way to the final victory over imperialism and the rule of the Kuomintang. The robber-attack of the Japanese imperialists can only increase the indignation of the revolutionary masses and extend the anti-imperialist fight. No pacification manoeuvres and measures of suppression by the Kuomintang can in any way alter this. The dockworkers on the quays in Shanghai where the Japanese ships are berthed, protest by a strike: the Chinese students leave the Japanese Tung-Wen-school: the defence detachment of the Mukden mine-thrower factory has fallen in the fight against the Japanese occupation troops.

The Soviet government expresses its revolutionary sorrow and sympathy for these victims of the mass fight against Japanese imperialism. It believes that the development of this fight will stir up the broadest masses of the oppressed and exploited. The workers will link up the fight against Japanese imperialism with the fight for the overthrow of the Kuomintang rule, for the setting up of the Soviet power; they will rally round the fighting banner of the Soviet government.

The Japanese imperialists must be called upon immediately to withdraw their troops from Manchuria, and the whole of the Japanese military sea, land, and air forces from China; to give back without compensation the Southern Manchurian railway, and the Japanese concessions in Port Arthur and Dairen. All the privileges of the Japanese imperialists, all unequal treaties which the counter-revolutionary Chinese governments have concluded with them, must be annulled.

Only thus can the basis of the Japanese imperialist attack on China be completely destroyed.

The Chinese Soviet Government, supported by the whole of the oppressed and exploited population of China, will not recognise any treacherous treaties and secret agreements concluded by the Kuomintang government with the Japanese imperialists as a result of the occupation of Manchuria.

The Chinese Soviet Government further points out that it is necessary that the working population of China, in this fight against the Kuomintang rule, against all treacherous and capitulatory views, and groupings, against all imperialists, unite with all classes oppressed and exploited by world imperialism, with the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, and especially with the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union and Japan.

In the Soviet districts of China, the broadest revolutionary working, and peasant masses, led by the Chinese Soviet Government stand in the midst of the fight against the Kuomintang militarists who are supported and led by the imperialists. This fight is at the same time an anti-imperialist fight for the emancipation of the people. The brutal action of Japanese imperialism in Manchuria is also directed against the advancing Soviet Revolution in China, and also aims at setting up and consolidating the direct rule of Janan in North China for the purpose of fighting against the Chinese revolution.

Workers and peasants of oppressed China!

Will you allow yourselves, under the rule of the Kuomintang, to be enslaved by Japanese imperialism? Or will you, under the leadership of the Soviet Power, take up the irreconcilable fight against Japanese imperialism?

The increased revolutionary fights just as the barbarous rule of the imperialists and the Kuomintang, are forcing you on to the path of the Soviet revolution. Unite for the common fight in the territories of the Kuomintang rule! Workers, down tools! Peasants, revolt! Students, school children, strike! Small shopkeepers, close your shops! Soldiers, mutiny! Wage a common fight against imperialism, for the overthrow of the Kuomintang reaction, the lackeys of imperialism! Take part in the revolutionary civil war! Extend the front of the fight for emancipation!

Thus the Soviet revolution becomes the only force for putting an end to the acts of violence of Japanese imperialism, for finally crushing the position of power of imperialism in China!

Away with the forceful occupation of Manchuria by Japanese Imperialism!

Withdrawal of all Japanese troops from Manchuria, and the whole of China!

Abolition of all unequal treaties!

No recognition of the imperialist loans to the Kuomintang government!

Away with the imperialist forces from China!

Confiscation of all property of the imperialists in China! Defence of the Soviet Union against the imperialist attacks!

Fight against the attack of the imperialists and the Kuomintang on the Chinese Soviet districts and the Red Army!

Fight against the second imperialist world war!

Confiscation of the land of the big landowners: introduction of the 8-hour day: shattering of all Kuomintang groupings, the lackeys of the imperialist robber States! Long live the Chinese Soviet revolution!

The Central Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic.

September 20, 1931.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1931/v11n55-oct-29-1931-inprecor.pdf