Wednesday, 23 February

Heavy snow

Today is the Red Army festival. In his command and declaration, Stalin emphasised the Red Arm’s wartime achievements and that they could unilaterally achieve victory over Germany. When the second war zone opens, they can cooperate with Britain and the United States, and Germany will then be hopeless. When he mentioned Germany in the two World wars, he said previously the six countries Russia, Britain, the United States, France, Italy and Japan all fought against Germany, but this time Italy and Japan have turned to Germany. He also mentioned it is the first time Japan has treated it as an enemy ally. This is also worthy of attention.

At 4.30 I went with Counsellor Liu and Attaché Hu (because she was the reporter) to [in Russian; refer to original] to sit in the general meeting of the Slavic peoples. Probably the majority of attendants are from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. When the Yugoslavian representative delivered a speech, he heavily criticised Mihailović and the Yugoslavian Government in Egypt. I sat next to the Yugoslavian Ambassador, Simic, and I felt quite embarrassed for him. But he seemed to not be caring about it. He also applauded with everyone else when everyone wished Tito good health and for the telegram to be sent to Tito. The Diplomatic Corps felt it was strange.

At 8.00 p.m. the Foreign Minister, Molotov, invited us to a banquet in the hostel for foreign guests to celebrate the Red Army Festival. But he only invited heads of embassies, counsellors and military attachés and the foreign correspondents. In the musical concert before the banquet, the soprano was excellent. No one greeted the Japanese Ambassador Satō. At the time of the music performance, the Netherlands Ambassador sat in the front row and when Satō came, he sat next to him. He then immediately left, which made Satō quite embarrassed. Then the Soviet Minister of Communication arranged for the wife of the Bulgarian Minister to take that seat, and the Canadian Minister Wilgress also wanted to stand up and leave, but I urged him not to do so and he acquiesced. This is really the Minister of Communication’s fault, because he should have dispatched two or three people to attend to Satō so as to prevent embarrassment in case other allied personnel did not take their seats next to him. Foreign Minister Molotov raised his glass in front of him and I toasted the Red Army victory as usual. But he replied directly to me that no, they did not merely want to defeat Germany, they also wanted to defeat those the Soviet Union deemed as the enemies of the Red Army. (When he uttered these words, he looked at me. It seemed to be that he wanted me to understand he referred to Japan.) I did not mention Germany, but that he uttered these words it was a clear indication of his inclination. It was great. But for the Red Army Festival this year I had cabled the Ministry of Foreign Affairs two weeks ago and asked about delivering a congratulatory telegram as early as possible. But it did not appear, I was worried about what happened. I deeply hoped that China would not be proud and look down on the Soviet Union because of the slight achievements in diplomacy re attending the Cairo Conferences and others. If this is the case the prospects for our country will be gloomy.

The Soviet Union has recovered the Southern stronghold Krivoy Rog.