Sunday, 1 October
Mid-Autumn Festival
Light rain
The American office of War Information publicised the estimate for the Pacific war. According to the intelligence and figures collected by the navy, army and air force, the United States reckoned that after the defeat of Germany, it will take at least one and a half or two years to defeat Japan. The reasons they listed were quite convincing.
Yesterday the current affairs review of the Central broadcast said again that the Soviets will join the war against Japan. With regard to this opinion, the Soviet Union has protested to us many times that it repeatedly thought that our side deliberately put the Soviet Union at loggerheads with Japan and added difficulties to it. It is pointless that our Central broadcast has done this meaningless thing. Now on the one hand we try to be friendly with the Soviet Union, but on the other hand we have done something that they hate most. I just do not know how to explain.
Today two overseas Chinese came from Warsaw with their families. They said they were unable to survive there. So the Soviet military authority escorted them to the Embassy. These people were most pitiful. Probably many of them came from Qingtian, doing business on small handicrafts. They said they still had properties in Warsaw, and hoped to stay here for a while and return to Warsaw after it is stable. They were penniless and pitiful. But the situation here is very special, with regard to this the Embassy is not in a position to offer help. The Soviet system doesn’t allow anyone to not work. If they haven’t been allocated jobs by the Soviet Government they will not get any food. But if they ask the Soviet Union to allocate jobs they will not be given jobs near their living places. If they are allocated jobs they cannot quit freely, therefore they will never have a chance of returning to Warsaw. As the jobs they get must be hard labour, they may not be able to get over it. So I discussed this a lot with Shaozhou, Jingchen and Diqing and we thought that the only way was to ask them to live in the Embassy for a few days. If they can work and they are honest people, we could arrange for them to live under the title of temporary workers and when Warsaw returns to normal we could try to deal with the Soviet side and send them back to Warsaw. Otherwise we could only find ways to send them back to Xinjiang.
In the evening, Secretary Qin went to the railway station and talked to the Red Army officer who sent them here. Then we knew when the Red Army occupied the area in Warsaw, they saw them there. They asked them why they were there. They replied that they were staff of the Chinese Embassy at Warsaw. The Red Army officer cabled the Foreign Office for instruction. Vice-Foreign Minister Lozovski replied in a telegram that he was allowing them to return to China via the Soviet Union. Therefore I had no choice but to send them back to China.
Ying Yiquan reported that Chairman Morawski and his Commander-in-Chief, Zymierski of the Polish Committee of National Liberation received foreign reporters last night. They said that they were strongly opposed to the newly-appointed Commander-in-Chief, Bor, of the Polish exile government. They said he instigated the Warsaw Uprising this time which incurred meaningless sacrifice and he was the culprit of Poland and should be punished. Also he himself did not direct it inside Warsaw, but took shelter in a certain place 30 km away. Bor said that he has been in touch with the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army, Rokossovsky. But they said that there was no such thing. The Vistula River which separates Warsaw city is very wide and the German army defence installations on the opposite river bank are very strong and stable. To attack it one could only go around to the other place to cross the river and surround the city. It was the only way it could be done and this kind of attack took a lot of preparation and time. Therefore militarily speaking Bor launched this attack as a crime that could not be forgiven. With regard to the recommencement of negotiations with the exile government, they replied that it hasn’t changed its attitude and refuses to restore the 1921 constitution and there is still no good sign of change. Judging from the tone of voice, it seems that what I talked to Minister Wilgress about was unfortunately correct.
In the evening we had dinner together in the Embassy to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. We were quite happy. The moon cake made of sweetened bean paste by Mrs. Liu was delicious.
The intelligence Section of the Soviet Foreign Office invited reporters to Tallinn. Attaché Hu went as well.
Military Attaché Guo reported to me that the head of the British military delegation, General Burrows, told him this morning that the majority of the British Army in the Near East was transferred to Italy to fight. There were not many remaining. Also Britain could not abandon its spheres of influence in the Balkans and Turkey and pass control to the Soviet Union, so Britain could not transfer troops from there to the Far East. This was not the same as Minister Wilgress said. Perhaps sending that army to fight in the Far East is the latest result of the meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill that Burrows doesn’t know of yet. Burrows still has a very strong bias against the Soviet Union. Probably the British Foreign Office and the middle level officials in the British military department still hold strong prejudice against the Soviet Union. It is still not completely eliminated.
Italy has declared war on Japan. The British broadcast said that Britain and the United States have 3 million troops on the German border and they have started the attack.