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Monday, 24 April

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Monday, 24 April

 

In the past ten days, I have been preoccupied with learning Russian and been very busy with my work, therefore I have been unable to continue to write my diary. There are several important matters that are worthy of record. 1) The British Government does not allow diplomats to leave Britain, and also does not allow them to send secret telegrams and secret diplomatic letters, with the exception of the United States and the Soviet Union. This move by Britain is unreasonable, as leakage of military news cannot be stopped in this way. Also diplomatic etiquette is an important aspect of civilised law procedure, if Britain can stop it, then other countries will not follow its example. The restriction to our country is particularly unreasonable. Judging from what Britain has done in the past few years, it absolutely has not treated China as one of the Four Powers. Our Central Government and people should try to encourage ourselves to work better. 2) The Deputy Prime Minister Vyshinski talked to reporters about what happened over the Finnish denial of the terms, but the tone was still mild, and the door to peace is not completely shut. 3) In February, The United States Time Weekly published the talk by Madame Sun. It attacked our Government, saying anti-reactionary elements wanted to start a civil war with the Chinese Communists. She also advocated that the United States should provide help to Chinese Communists directly. I cannot understand why she spoke like this. 4) Zhongyangshe of China dispatched Ying Yiquan (英倚泉) and Zhu Qingyong (朱慶永) to be representatives stationed in Moscow. Attaché Zeng Xianheng will also come, he is also quite honest. News from China is as follows: (a) Minister Song and the Generalissimo had a misunderstanding because Tsiang Tingfu was sent to the United States as Ambassador. But before this Minister Song did not even know it, and he wanted to send Deputy Minister Hu. Therefore after this appointment was announced, Song showed his dissatisfaction to the Generalissimo and this led to a misunderstanding. They did not see each other for two months. Only after returning from the Cairo Conference did their relations take a turn for the better. This was really an unfortunate incident. (b) Li Shizeng (李石曾)[1] has married a Jewish woman in the United States. She was originally his secretary and helped him edit an encyclopedia. Therefore in their marriage agreement, it stated that (a) his wife needed to help him to edit it until it was finished, and (b) the husband and wife had no obligation to live together. It is really a joke.

 

Military Attaché Guo said that the Canadian Military Attaché just came back from the Front line and told him as follows. 1) to the West of the Dnieper River, when the German army retreated, they did not make much destruction and nobody was sent to Germany and males between 16 and 45 were not conscripted. They worked in the countryside and factories as usual. But recently when the Red Army arrived, they were sent to the rear, so many people in the Front complained. 2) German planes are scarce in the East line, therefore it became a great disadvantage. The major shortcoming is lack of manpower.

 

The younger son of Counsellor Liu heard at school that it was rumoured that Vatutin was assassinated. He received two shots in the legs, but the bullets the assassin used were poisonous, so although the two legs were amputated, he still could not survive. Counsellor Liu said that the Ukrainian independent movement is extremely volatile. They are probably people of the Ukraine resisting Germany, but they are also not willing to be ruled by the Soviet Union. So Germany especially instructed regarding the West of the Danube River that it did not allow its army to cause any damage or conscript any men. This was a really evil tactic. Because it tried to manipulate the mood of the local people who oppose the Soviet Union. Recently I also heard that the independent movements of Georgia and other places are very forceful as well. In the future when the Red Army enters Western Europe and occupies Germany for a long time the soldiers will be in Germany and taste the blessings of civilisation and freedom. When they are back it will be a question of whether they will still be willing to obey Soviet authority and its political system as before. Therefore in the near future, the Soviet Union has to face many difficulties.

[1] Li Shizeng (1882-1973) was a Chinese teacher.