Saturday, 16 December
Fine, sunny and cold
From 11.00 until 1.30 I went to painter A.M. Gerasimov’s studio to pose for my portrait.
Our army in Burma have occupied Bhamo. The British army has also made progress. The war situations in Guizhou and Guibian are also fine. I heard that a portion of those troops who were originally stationed in Northwest China were transferred to Burma to fight. American newspapers are positive about it. I also heard that Ambassador Hurley had been to Yunan, if we could cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party, it would really be fortuitous for our country.
The American army landed on St.Jose of Muidoro Island and it was quite smooth. This move is very important to our war situation because the direct distance from here to South China is no more than 900 miles. There is no need to wait under the war in Manila has ended. From this and the formation of the British Second Fleet, it seems Britain and the United States can land on Mirs Bay in the near future. I felt good about it.
In the past few days American public opinion has criticised Churchill’s European policy. Walter Lippmann was particularly frank and he could represent the American Government’s majority opinion. Churchill declared in Parliament that Britain gave in completely on the Polish issue, and the news that the Labour Party representative publicised that for the Greece incident Churchill had got the consent of the Soviet Union beforehand proved that I was right to assume that Churchill wanted to divide the power of Europe with the Soviet Union. But it must end in failure because after the war Britain’s strength will be far inferior to the Soviet Union’s, and what the Soviet Union advocates has gained popularity with its people. The reason is that though Soviet policy is Ultra-Left, still, it is better than Ultra-Right. (Because after the German occupation and the suffering of Ultra-Rightists who accommodated to Germany, those neutralists normally leaned to the Left instead of the Right, but it would be fine if Britain changed to a liberal policy instead. But Churchill is not inclined to this and he leans towards the Ultra-Right side. In this case people have nothing to choose and will naturally lean to the Left.) Even in Britain people have gradually felt that Churchill’s policy was unreliable because of the Greek Incident. If Britain can change its direction the situation can still be mended, otherwise the prospect will be gloomy.
Attaché Hu said that the Soviet newspapers published an open letter to the German army and people from captured German military officers. They urged the German people to finish with Hitler and others as early as possible. This open letter was signed by more than fifty military officers, and in them twelve had been captured in Stalingrad. At that surrender, there were altogether twenty-eight military officers, now only twelve of them have signed. The whereabouts of the rest are unknown.
In the evening, I went with teacher Mishina to the Art Theatre to watch The Three Sisters. The female main character A.K. Tarasova who played Masga was very good. Because I have studied the script before I could understand more than half of it. From now on I need to watch more plays, otherwise I will be unable to practice my Russian listening.