YOUNG FRIENDS OF CHINA FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD:
11
I warmly greet you in the name of the youths of China,
who wish to assure you of our deepest concern and hopes in
the proceedings of this momentous Congress of youths from
52 countries. I say momentous because here for the first
time in history the delegates of youth from almost the
whole civilized world definitely ally themselves with the
broad masses of humanity to fight against war and fascism
against the weapons and against the means by which rampant
aggression seeks to destroy the fruits of 2,000 years of
civilization.
While you confer in the peaceful region of Poughkeepsie,
New York, brutal massacres and ghastly horrors are being
enacted against the youth of China on a scale unprecedented
in history. Our land is being torn by enemy warplanes and
shells; our innocent unarmed women and children are being
senselessly slaughtered far behind the actual war front.
But I am sure you know from the reports of your own press
the daily savageries being inflicted upon our people by the
Japanese militarists who have brought into China the
catastrophe of total aggression.
Before such a ruthless and barbaric enemy China has but
one choice: to concede nothing, to yield nothing without
struggle to the death, to fight on to our certain final
victory. Whatever the faint-hearted may think or say, this
has already proven to be the irrevocable answer of our youth
to the challenge of war and fascism, and behind it lies an
unconquerable spirit.
Youths of the world! The future you must live in is
being made today. You must struggle to guarantee your own