Tuesday, 14 September
At 4.00 in the afternoon I went to see the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs’s First Deputy Alexander Korneichuk. He is a famous Soviet writer. His recent book Front is very popular. He is a nice gentle person. He said that during the revolution he was still very young and lived in his hometown. He saw some Chinese battalion commanders in the Soviet army and they rode on white horses directing the fight against the White Russians. They were really brave. This impression stuck with him until now. In that battalion, a certain Chinese gave him a Chinese letter as a gift, but unfortunately this time his hometown has been occupied by the Germans, and he was afraid this letter had been destroyed. He also said he watched Mei Lanfang (梅蘭芳)[1]‘s play, and he said that his facial and hand expressions were beautifully performed. I talked to him about the Sino-Soviet friendship. He was quite sympathetic, but did not dare say too much. He told me after every big battle, he usually went to the Front line to see what had happened. In Stalingrad, he saw that at a certain point there were more than 400 scattered German tanks. Also, he could see a Soviet tank had gone straight through an enemy’s tank formation right up to the enemy’s command post. The enemy soldiers inside the directing trench were all killed under the tank. He said if one saw the scene then he could only imagine how brave the soldiers were and how worthy of our respect. So he has already asked his aide to inform the local command and said they should never move that tank so that people can see the truth. He also told me a joke, saying that when the Soviet army came to occupy a small trench they found an accordion. They played it in their freetime. Some of the German soldiers on the opposite trench sent them a note saying they wanted to exchange something for the accordion. The Soviet soldiers then asked what they could use for exchange. The German armies replied that they could have 20 Romanians. I asked him if the German army could solidly defend the West bank of the Dnieper River. He said although the West bank was high, the Soviet army was familiar with the topography and had no difficulty crossing the river. Also there were many Soviet guerrillas at the rear of the German army and he reckoned the German army would not be able to hold.
I received a telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the 11th Congress has passed the revision of the Nationalist Government’s organisation laws and also appointed the Generalissimo as Chairman of the country.
Today was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and also the day of the new appointment of The Generalissimo to become Chairman of the government, so we had a tea party with the other personnel in the Embassy.
Yesterday the British broadcast said that the American Secretary of State, Hull, broadcast the six points of American post-war policy. Quite good.
Germany broadcast Mussolini’s rescue by plane.
[1] Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) was Peking opera’s best-known artist.