765.84/341: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 30—6:10 a.m.]
215. (Section 2 of telegram No. 214.59) Litvinov also said that he had succeeded in convincing the Chinese that the Soviet Government had only commercial designs on Sinkiang. He said that he could inform me most confidentially that the Government of Sinkiang had asked the Soviet Government for assistance in establishing a Soviet form of government in Sinkiang. He said that the Soviet Government’s reply had been the same as the reply to a similar request from Outer Mongolia. He added that Sinkiang was not yet ripe for a Soviet Government or communism and that the Soviet Government greatly preferred to have Sinkiang as a buffer state under its economic control.
Litvinov denied the statement made to me by Dr. Yen, the Chinese Ambassador, that the guard of the Chairman of the Provincial Council of Sinkiang was composed of former soldiers of the Red Army.60
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
- Vol. i, p. 283.↩
- See despatch No. 540, April 23, from the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, p. 121.↩