Saturday, 13 November
In the evening, I invited the Turkish Ambassador Baydur and his secretary Dambel and Berkay, Military Attaché Zorlu, American reporters Willam Downs and Madame Rene. Counsellor Liu said that there were around 60,000 Chinese workers in Russia during the First World War and the railway between Leningrad and Omsk was built by Chinese labour. From the time the Russian army lost the battle after the 1917 Revolution, some of the Chinese workers had nowhere to go, so they joined the Red Army, and there were more than15,000 to 16,000. Probably they stayed in the vicinity of the Ukraine. Vice Minister Korneichuk mentioned them last time. They fought very bravely and so the White Russians hate them very much. Every time the White Russian army occupied a city they were ordered to kill all Chinese, Jews and Latvians. During the Paris Peace Conference, representative Lu Zhengxiang (陸徵祥)[1] asked someone to bring a secret letter to Counsellor Liu, asking him to talk with the Soviet Union and find ways to send the overseas Chinese back to China. When Liu talked to Trotsky with regard to this matter, Trotsky was very angry and said that if he talked about this matter again, he would view him as a White Russian and expel him from Russian territory. Therefore the Red Army had a very good impression of these overseas Chinese who joined their liberation war.
I received a telegram from Bingkun which was relayed by Yunsong, saying that mother had asthma on 8 November and Dr Situ Chao took care of her illness. Her condition is unstable. Kitty and Bingye have been to Liuzhou. My 10th sister and 9th sister-in-law helped to look after her. I was deeply worried and couldn’t sleep.
[1] Lu Zhengxiang (1871-1949) was a famous diplomat. He later became a priest and died in Belgium in 1949.