Thursday, 30 March

Fine, sun

Today the Izvestia editorial talked about the Italian problems. It said as follows: 1) With regard to the building of a concrete relationship between the Soviet Union and Badoglio’s Italy, the British and American newspapers deliberately publicised it and were suspicious to it. As a matter of fact Britain and the United States have many military organisations there with personnel amounting to several thousand. They could be in touch with the Italian Government, but not the Soviet Union. 2) The democratic sects are still unable to work with Badoglio, and now the pressing need is to make them cooperate. 3) British and American Governments have repeatedly said that Italy’s political problems cannot be decided until the capture of Rome. The Soviet Union disagreed with such a policy. When Eden addressed a question in the British Parliament on 22 March, he seemed to forget about the Soviet suggestion. 4) the Soviet Union has no intention of obstructing the democratisation of Italy. 5) The urgent mission now is to defeat Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini so it is of the utmost urgency to improve Italy’s situation at the moment. The tone was unfriendly towards Britain and the United States, and it was particularly harsh towards Eden. As a matter of fact Britain and the United States have been dishonest towards the Soviet Union, so it has developed like this. If anything bad happens between the Allied countries, the fault is not totally the Soviet Union’s. But all these things are not good omens for world peace.

This morning the British Ambassador sent me a summary of British news editorials. This was not easy for him as these types of daily editorials are not good for the British Government and contained many criticisms of the Soviet Union, so the Soviet Union has been unwilling about circulation here. It is also true that the Ambassadors of other countries ask for it. So the British Ambassador made a deal with me that he would dispatch it to me for private review and I had to keep it secret. These summaries of British and American editorials from various places are very important. Such organisational effort of the British and American Governments are worthy of admiration. Today the British news said that Eden’s foreign policy has been criticised severely and it is rumoured that he will resign from the post of Foreign Minister. Also the Spectator reported that at the Tehran Conference it was decided to put the occupation of Germany into various sections. 1) The Soviet Union will occupy from the East of the Oden River. 2) The United States will occupy Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg. 3) Britain will occupy the West. 4) Berlin will be jointly occupied. 5) It was first decided that Austria would be solely occupied by the United States but it was decided later that it would be jointly occupied. Reynolds News reported correspondences from Washington. Hull advised congressmen as follows: 1) The Soviet Union recognised Badoglio’s Government and was angry that Britain and the United States did not inform it about the news. 2) Because of the Polish incident, Britain and the Soviet Union had ill-feelings. 3) What Hull declared in 1939 with regard to the three states in the Baltic Sea is still valid. If all these things are true then Allied prospects are not totally optimistic.