Friday, 4 August

At 10.00 a.m. I went to visit British Ambassador Kerr. He told me what happened with the Soviet-Polish matter as follows: 1) When Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk went to meet President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt cabled Stalin, saying that Mikolajczyk was an understanding person, and he asked Stalin’s permission to allow him to go to Moscow and talk with Stalin to solve all the problems. Stalin replied by telegram that the Soviet attitude towards the Polish Government has been made clear, but Poland showed absolutely no sign of improvement. Therefore there was no point in him coming to Moscow to negotiate. Also recently the advancement of the Red Army has been so speedy that it was unexpected and they have reached the Polish border. Therefore the Polish Government has suddenly changed its attitude and expressed willingness to have negotiations in Moscow. Recently Prime Minister Churchill cabled Stalin and asked for his permission to allow them to go to Moscow for negotiations. Stalin agreed so they went to Moscow. They saw Stalin last night, but what happened with the negotiations he did not yet know but based on the Soviet request, there were only two points. a.) The Curzon Line to be the base for border negotiation. b.) The Polish Government should get rid of three anti-Soviet elements. These are Sosnkowski, Cot and a name unknown. a.)The Polish side has agreed to use the Curzon Line as the base for the border negotiations, but demanded that Vilna and Lwow, be returned to Poland. b.) The Polish side demanded the Soviet side support it to gain German lands in the West as compensation. c.) the Soviet side should help to repatriate the Germans in this territory to move to other places on a massive scale. d.) The Soviet Union should send all the Polish people, about several hundred thousand and scattered around the Soviet Union, back to Poland. e.) The Soviet Union should permit Poland to suppress German revenge in the future and should jointly guard against Germany. For all these terms Ambassador Kerr personally thought that they were negotiable. The Polish view Vilna as one of their cultural centres, just like Oxford and Cambridge to the British. But the Soviet side might not agree. With regard to Lwow, more than 70% of its population are Polish, although Ukrainian people live around the city, this request from Poland is not unreasonable. With regard to the reorganisation of the Polish Government, the Polish side has agreed. I asked him why the Soviet side published the editorial, saying that the Polish Committee of National Liberation should be treated as the centre. It seemed to have the intention of dissolving the Polish exile government. He said it was just for bargaining purposes, probably in the future they will unify or perhaps have another organisation. All in all, Mikolajczyk’s visit this time showed he has great determination, and people in the Polish exile government are aware that they should amend the past policy. But this is not easy, Mikolajczyk should be “wise, brave and liberal” then he will be able to achieve something. However, whether he possesses these traits or not, and how Polish politicians of the exile government in Britain and those in the Polish army who fought outside view the issue, he was unable to say. As for political manipulation, Poland is very bad. What its government did between the two wars is clear evidence. B) I asked him with regard to the proposal about post-war world peace organisation, if the British side had unceasing discussions with the Soviet Union. He said yes and Britain raised many principles to discuss with the Soviet side. The Soviet side has a lot of ideas about this. Based on these the British side sent a concrete proposal to the Soviet side, but they still haven’t received a concrete proposal from the Soviet side. I asked him if it was possible that Britain could forward to the United States and China the British proposal. He said yes. I asked him for a handwritten copy and he gave me one immediately. He also said that the original proposal from the United States was that Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and China should hold discussions at the same time, but the Soviet Union disagreed. Therefore the meetings needed to be held at different times. He thought that it was not a good time for China to discuss this issue with the Soviet Union. C.) With regard to the Nationalists-Communists issue, he was quite eager that we could get a solution together with the Chinese Communist Party. He thought that with regard to the earlier strife between Nationalists and Communists, both sides had made mistakes. He also said that people outside really did not understand He Yingqin, Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu, and the troops of Hu Zongnan resisting the Chinese Communist Party in the border were also criticised. I tried to explain. D) With regard to the war in Western Europe, he said so far the progress has been fine. The main German force is still handled by the British army in the area around Caen. The American army has already broken the Right wing of the German army. In the area around Brittany German resistance is already quite weak. Soon the American army could on the one hand cut off the rear of the German army, and the four divisions of German infantry would be eliminated. On the other hand the American army could attack the German army from the East. Then the German army would have an even bigger threat. If this line is broken through, the British army could advance along the sea to the area around Calais so that they can land at the sea shore, and destroy the enemy’s flying bomb base. As for Paris, the Allied Army could take it without any military input. We talked for about one and a half hours. After I was back at the Embassy I cabled the Generalissimo to report the details of the Polish Incident.

In the afternoon, Ying Yiquan came and said that yesterday and today he went to see the Polish Prime Minister with the Canadian reporter Davies and both times they were received by his secretary. Prime Minister Mikolajczyk said that he has talked to Stalin for two and a half hours, but is unable to announce the contents at the moment. However the discussion’s atmosphere was apparently very good. With regard to the border issue, he said if the cities Vilna and Lwow are ceded to foreigners, then Poland will be unhappy forever because Vilna was the place that gave birth to great historical figures in Poland, and its founder Pilsudsiki was also born there, also all the inhabitants within the city are Polish. As for Lwow, it is one of the Polish cultural centres. Ying and Davies stated that Vilna was too far away from the Polish border, they were not sure if it would arouse a problem (if it was given to Poland). Mikolajczyk answered that it was an extremely thorny issue, and he hoped that it could be reserved for settlement in the post-war peace conference. Mikolajczyk severely criticised the personnel of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, saying that its president Osubka-Morawski has been expelled from the Labour Socialist Party. He also tried his best to slander General Berling. Ying asked him if he wanted to talk about cooperation with the said president or if he was willing to go to Kohm. He answered that he originally planned to go to Kohm first to talk with the President and then return to talk with Stalin again. Now he has changed the itinerary, as Stalin asked them to talk first. He still hasn’t made up his mind whether he and his colleagues will go to Kohm to negotiate or if the President will come with his colleagues to Moscow. Ying also asked him why he was so late being here. He said it was because the Soviet side attacked him all the time and he said that he did not want to come again. With regard to the issue of the mass-graves in Katyn, he said it was not the right time to talk about it. In the conversation Mikolajczyk was suspicious to the Soviet Union.

In the evening, Militarty Attaché Guo invited the British naval representative.