Tuesday, 11 July

Fine, sun

At 5.00 in the afternoon, I went to Room 306 of the National Hotel to return the visit from the Italian diplomatic representative, Pietro Quaroni, and I talked to him for a long time about the recent situation in Italy. According to what he said, the provisional government is a coalition of six different parties. The six parties are as follows. 1) Liberal Party. The leader is Croce. What that party advocates is similar to the British Liberals. 2) Party of Action. The leader is Count Sforza. What it advocates is similar to the Liberal Party, and probably about the same as the French Radical party, advocating the absolute Republicanism of Mazzini, and is against any form of constitutional-monarchy. This is its difference from the Liberal Party. Both parties have few members, and they are mainly from the educated class. If they participate in the free election and the United States doesn’t exert political pressure to help them, in the future even two parties merged will only take less than 5% in parliament. 3) Democratic Christians’ Party. The leader is Luigi Sturzo. The history of the establishment of this party is probably because Italy left Austria and became independent, and the Pope is against such action by Italians, so he forbade Catholic believers to participate in any political activities in Italy. The policy slightly changed from 1905 to 1910. It only allowed Catholic believers to join elections but did not allow them to be elected as senators until the end of 1918 which was after the First World War, then the Pope decreed that Catholic believers were permitted to participate in Italian politics. At this time Sturzo organised the said party because he was a priest. The party advocated one type of very advanced social reform, but to be implemented in a mild way. For example reform in farmlands, the party advocated dividing the lands owned by big landlords but would give them a substantial amount of compensation. It also advocated state-owned heavy industry and a state-owned national defence industry, while light industry would be operated by the private sector. It also advocated the organisation of a Catholic union of workers. So what it advocates is social reform but not Socialism. Italians are deeply religious and conservative, therefore many of them are sympathetic with this party. Many old nobles, merchants and farmers joined it, and priests in particular. Its leader Sturzo would not himself take part in administration, and not even work as a senator. He arranged Di Rodino to do all the work and directed them from backstage. The original name of the party was the Popular Party. The name was only changed recently. If there is a free election, the said party will get 60 to 70 percent in parliament. 4) Socialist Party. This party is most faithful to Marxism among the Socialist Parties in Europe. When the First World War broke out, this party was against participation of the government in the war. Because Mussolini advocated participation in the war he was expelled from the party. Also the party always wanted to be consistent with the Comintern. It separated with it in 1921 because of a difference of opinion with the Comintern. So the Leftist elements organised the Communist Party on their own. The policy of the said Socialist Party is probably the same as the Leftists in the British Labour Party. 5) Communist Party. Its leader is Togliatti, and renamed as Ercoli. He was originally the Italian Communist Party Comintern representative, and stayed in the Soviet Union for a long time. The policy advocated by the Italian Communist Party is sounder than those of the Communist Parties in other countries. He formally declared that a Soviet-styled Communist political system was not suitable for Italy, and was the first to advocate cooperation with the Italian King. Now the said party has a very close connection with the Democratic Christians’ Party, and probably the strength of the Democratic Christians’ Party is equal to those of the Communist Party. By now the Communist Party might be a little bit better. If there is a free election, probably both parties can take up 30%. 6) Conservative Party. The leader is Badoglio. That party’s strength has always been insignificant. In the last 50 years it never had the strength to form a government on its own. Also now Italy has joined the war, if the Italian King and Badoglio are determined to stop this, it will not place Italy in such great disaster. Therefore Italians naturally do not believe Badoglio and his Conservative Party. Churchill wanted to support Badoglio, but this put Badoglio in an even worse situation. All in all, during the war, Italy needed American help in rebuilding in the future because all the heavy industries have been either destroyed or taken away when the German army evacuated, and food provision was scarce, so how the United States treats Italy will have influence on its internal politics. I asked him about the strength of the Italian army in the war against Germany. He said he could tell me frankly that after this major war the Italians absolutely hate war. There is absolutely no support for conscription. Italy could enlist people to join armies, but certainly few would join. As far as he knows, for now those who are enthusiastic about the fighting there is only an Italian division in Yugoslavia, and the whole division has joined Tito’s side. The ten divisions of Badoglio are in Sicily and so on. In the North of Italy volunteers of the Upper Piedmont Marshal Caviglia are there. Probably most of the Italian troops have joined this group. He also told me that the Italian Government only has a representative in Moscow, but it has no representatives in Britain and the United States. Probably because as Britain and the United States did not recognise De Gaulle, it was inappropriate to recognise the Italian Government first. Therefore they could not accept an Italian representative. But all communications could be handled by the National Liberation Committee. He is not a formal Ambassador here, but the Soviet side treats him as one. He seems to be an honest person. I heard that his wife was originally a Russian and is also quite capable. He still has no staff, and his wife worked as his secretary.

In the evening, Shaozhou and Jingchen invited the Embassy personnel of the [ ? jc] to dinner. It did not end until midnight and we were all very happy.

I studied Russian in the morning.