Monday, 6 March

Dull

Deputy Minister Wu Guozhen replied to my telegram. He said that on the day of the Red Army Festival Chairman Chiang dispatched the Chief of Civil Service, Wei Huai, to represent him at the Soviet Embassy to congratulate, and Wei Huai brought with him the Generalissimo’s congratulatory telegram to Stalin (The text in the telegram was extremely courteous as well.) to give to Ambassador Panyushkin. He also said that he hadn’t received the telegram I sent a month ago. Now the Generalissimo has sent the congratulatory telegram I am quite relieved. With regard to the delay in the telegram I had no choice but to ask Counsellor Liu to talk to the Soviet side again.

Military Attaché Quo said he received a letter from his wife in the United States, saying that Ambassadors Wei Daoming and Zhu Shiming (朱世明) left the United States at the same time to attend the Cairo Conference, but they did not return to the United States in February, and were probably still in Chongqing. She has no idea what has happened.

This morning the Soviet newspapers announced orders from Stalin, praising the advancement of the First Ukraine region army. It said that Commander-in-Chief General Vatutin was unable to lead the war because of illness and the Soviet Chief- of-Staff Marshal Zhukov is to personally lead the war. So the honour should go to Marshal Zhukov. This seemed to be quite strange. It has been rumoured that General Vatutin is rebellious, some even said that he had surrendered to the Germans. But in the last two years he achieved much during the war and one always witnessed orders by the Government to praise him. His position in the Red Army seemed to be at its peak, so it seems unbelievable that he surrendered to the enemy at this time with the enemy losing and the Soviet Union winning. But for matters in the Soviet Union, things which are extremely unexpected can happen. So if this is the case I will not be surprised.

I studied Russian on my own.