893.00/14455: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:30 p.m.]
932. Department’s 503, October 5, 2 p.m.89 According to a local French source, Domei at London sent to its home office the following report, which may not have come to the attention of the Department and which I forward because of its especial interest in this general connection:
(Translation) “The Daily Herald published today (October 22) an interview with the Chinese Communist General, Mao Tse Tung, obtained at Yenan (Shensi) by Mr. Edgar Snow. In that interview, Mao Tse Tung declared notably that the Chinese Communist Party had never accepted the control of the Kuomintang and that it continues to pursue its own program, having as final aim social revolution.
[Page 301]Mao Tse Tung emphasized that the zones which are now occupied by the Communist armies are, from the administrative point of view, independent of Chungking.
Now that France and Great Britain have ceased to aid China, the Soviet Union contrariwise has decided to assist still more the Chinese Government, on the condition always that China pursues energetically the struggle against Japan and establishes closer political ties with the Soviet Union.
The British policy in the Far East is now completely changed: Great Britain exerts itself now to break down the Chinese resistance and to aid Japan in imposing upon China a Japanese peace.
The primary task for the China of today, continues Mao Tse Tung, is to modify the old political system. Neither the unification of the country nor victory over Japan is possible if the dictatorship of the Kuomintang is not abolished, and if China does not become a democracy in the government of which the Communists will be represented like other political groups.”
Repeated to Chungking, and Peiping. By air mail to Tokyo.
- Citation garbled; it may have referred to telegram No. 385, October 3, 3 p.m., to the Ambassador in China, not printed.↩