Wednesday, 13 December
Fine, sunny and cold
At noon I visited Garreau, and talked with him for two hours. According to him: 1) Churchill and Eden visited Paris. They wanted to invite France to join the Western European alliance. Their aim was certainly to be against the Soviet Union. But France disagreed. It only agreed to have political and economic connections (with the said alliance), but not to be against the Soviet Union.
2) The Soviet side was very suspicious towards this, therefore Charles de Gaulle felt that it was necessary for him to come to Moscow to explain to Stalin face-to-face.
3) Britain knew of De Gaulle’s arrival in Moscow.
4) De Gaulle met Stalin on the first day of his arrival. Stalin immediately asked him about the Western European alliance. De Gaulle replied that France was not anti-Soviet because it was French policy that it did not join any anti-Soviet group. Stalin was quite satisfied and immediately proposed an alliance between France and the Soviet Union. De Gaulle then agreed because both sides agreed that only a France-Soviet alliance could inhibit a future German invasion. As Britian is a democratic state, it did not prepare to fight. Therefore in the two wars against Germany, France has suffered in both cases because of Britain because Britian did not prepare for the war and was also unwilling to fight. For whatever matters Britain hoped for appeasement. Also during the tentative stage of the war Britain did not dedicate its force and it needed others to sacrifice first.
5) When France negotiated that alliance with the Soviet Union, the biggest difficulty was that Stalin demanded France take the same stance as the Soviet Union regarding the Polish issue. His reasoning was that this issue was most closely related to France because if Poland had a pro-German government, both France and the Soviet Union would bear the brunt. Britain and the United States would not have this problem. Therefore France should inhibit a pro-Germany government in Poland. With regard to this De Gaulle replied sternly that it was actually two different matters. France was certainly sympathetic towards the Soviet Union in that it did not want an anti-Soviet government in Poland. However, as for taking the same stance as the Soviet Union (with regard to the Polish issue) it was beyond the capability of France. Firstly he felt that this matter should be negotiated among the Four Powers. It was not suitable to be decided by two countries first which would break the principle of joint action. Secondly France was still having diplomatic relations with the Polish exile government. So the matter regarding alliance has not yet been settled. Last Saturday (9 December) Stalin held a farewell banquet for him at the Kremlin Palace but there was still no result. At midnight De Gaulle left to go back to the French Embassy for a rest. Foreign Minister Bidault also left at 1.00. Only Garreau was still there and he talked to Molotov until 5.00 in the morning then the Soviet side agreed to sign the pact. Therefore he woke De Gaulle and Bidault up and took them back to the Kremlin Palace to sign the pact, and at 10.00 they took the train to leave. Therefore he was unable to tell me their itinerary earlier.
6) On knowing that Stalin proposed a France-Soviet alliance, Churchill immediately cabled Stalin that he advocated the alliance to be changed to Britain-France-Soviet alliance, and Stalin was not against it. But De Gaulle thought that if it was changed to be an alliance among three countries, it should start negotiation with Britain again and this would took quite a lot of time. Therefore he insisted on signing the France-Soviet alliance pact first. Stalin also agreed with it.
7) On returning to Paris, De Gaulle immediately signed with Britain a pact of France-Britain alliance, then Britain, France and Sthe oviet Union signed the pact for the alliance of the three.
8) Stalin only asked De Gaulle about the Polish issue but did not touch on other issues. It is rumoured that he touched on affairs on Spain, but Garreau said that was totally incorrect.
9) Britain just played France with different means. During the Moscow Conference Britain told France that Britain originally proposed to add France to the European Advisory Commission and only the Soviet Union opposed it. But as a matter of fact there was no such thing. Recently when Britain knew that they could not afford to exclude France, it attached conditions to French participation that only allowed it to participate in the discussion regarding Germany but did not allow it to participate with others, saying that the Soviet Union advocated this, but again as a matter of fact there was no such thing. When the Soviet side learnt about it, it was extremely angry and it immediately formally proposed that France could join in equal status. Therefore in the announcement from Moscow it said particularly that it was suggested by the Soviet Union and was agreed by Britain and the United States, which was different from what was published by London and Washington.
10) After the war Britain will lose its previous status. Even in the economic aspect, France will be better. The reason is that though France was occupied for four years it needed to supply Germany with 500 million Francs daily. But if France fought, it would need three times the said amount. And for these 500 million daily Francs the German side used it on France and the purchasing of food. Therefore although Germans took away the food which should have been for the French to feed its fellow people and the French were rather thin and weak because of this, in terms of national economy, there was no major loss of French resources. Also the French investment in foreign countries was more than that of the United States and absolutely suffered no loss, which was different from Britain. Therefore after the war British power would be inferior to French power. But Churchill and Smuts still wanted to maintain the leading political status of Britain before the war. But the actual political situation was not the same as before. The Great British Empire has gradually drifted apart from the Dominions, and the thoughts of European people have broadened. Therefore Britain has encountered failure everywhere in Europe. For instance in the Near East, the anti-British feelings of Arabians are increasingly strong, and the Egyptian King sacked the Prime Minister who was pro-British and replaced him with someone who was famous for being anti-British. As for Italy, after Britain opposed Sforza, not only did the American side not respond positively, the Soviet side also asked the Communist Party to organise a coalition government with three other parties, and these people were certainly against the wishes of Britain, but it did not dare oppose again. The Netherlands-Belgian Incident was already very unwise, and recently Greece was in the war with the volunteer army, which showed that Britain has failed completely.
11) For the American side its leaders were lacking diplomatic experience and had no knowledge about the European situation. Therefore when it witnessed the progress of many matters it was taken aback on the one hand and felt disappointed and could do nothing on the other. Americans wistfully thought that if they could provide a tiny amount of materials they could make others listen to its control. Later it found that those who accepted its ammunition used it to fight against it. Then the United States was taken aback. As a matter of fact it was because it did not understand the real situation. The United States only cared about itself so that he encountered this problem. This was not because the world had changed for the worse.
12) The Soviet side was determined to solve the Polish Incident, therefore during this week it would recognise the Polish Committee of National Liberation as the Polish provisional government.
13) The ammunitions which the American side promised earlier to supply to France were still not delivered as promised, therefore the French army was still unable to reorganise its numerous troops, but as for the French navy it was able to maintain a portion of its original size. France still has a total of several thousand naval officers, as well as more than 60,000 soldiers, Garreau expected that a portion of them could be dispatched to the Far East by spring next year to join the war against Japan.
14) In France the French Communist Party cooperated very well with De Gaulle. The French Communist Party was now taking the line of nationalism, therefore they had no conflict with other parties. They only worked behind the scene to advocate various reforms. For example the French Government took over the coal mines and big industries all following the proposals of the French Communist Party.
15) He personally thought that Stalin’s policy did not want to communise various countries in Eastern Europe. He insisted that the Communist Party should join governments because he wanted to show that the said governments did not adopt anti-Soviet policies. For the moment Stalin has tried his best to prevent the move that the Communist Party completely control the Government. I abstracted the main points to report to the Generalissimo and Minister Song.
Our army defeated the enemy at Guizhou in the past few days and forced them to the Guibian border. Our army is just six miles away from Hechi. I am rather relieved.