In brief summary: Mr. Konstantinoff is concerned over the
Kuomintang-Communist situation but denies the possibility of Russian
intervention or assistance to the Communists. He also feels that the present
Chinese Government is making a mistake in its handling of the minorities
question in the Northwest and border regions. He does not expect Russian
participation in the war against Japan.
Mr. Konstantinoff served in the Consulate General at Shanghai from about 1937
to 1940, returned to the Foreign Office for a period of duty, and then came
to Lanchow in August, 1942. He has been very friendly to me, and to Captain
Tolstoy,25
U. S. A., who has been in Lanchow for the past month, and has been willing
to discuss
[Page 307]
general problems with
an openness and apparent frankness rather unusual for our Russian
colleagues.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in
China (Service)
Mr. Konstantinoff’s comments regarding the suspicion with which he is
treated by the local authorities has been mentioned in other reports
(see despatch no. 22, August 3, 194326). He considers Americans relatively free from this
attitude and envies what he speaks of as our freedom to travel and to
make personal contacts with Chinese.
He is very much interested in the Mohammedan question in the Northwest
and in the Chinese treatment of the Tibetans and Mongols. The Mohammedan
question, he feels, is more important than Chinese realize and they will
continue to be opposed by the Mohammedans until Mohammedan interests are
recognized and given a more important share in Party and local
government matters. Mohammedan unrest, along with agrarian and landlord
resistance to taxation and conscription is, he believes, an important
factor in the recent disturbances in Kansu.
The Tibetans and Mongols, he believes, cannot be won to China unless
China abandons its attitude toward “subject” peoples, gives up its
present policy of “sinification”, and gives up its efforts to govern
them by direct control or through support of their own feudalistic
leaders. Positively he thinks that the Chinese must permit these peoples
to have their own free cultural development, grant them full powers of
local government (at the same time assisting their progress toward
democracy by weakening the power of the church and feudal nobility), and
assist their economic development by technical help in such matters as
control of animal disease. Mr. Konstantinoff has recently been reading
Owen Lattimore’s Inner Asian Frontiers of China.
He expresses great interest in it and general agreement with its
conclusions.
The model for his thinking on the minorities question is obviously the
Russian treatment of its own Central Asian minorities and the revolution
that has been brought about in Outer Mongolia. He denies Russian control
of Outer Mongolia but admits Russian assistance. The conditions of the
people as a whole have been so improved that the country will fight
against either Japan or China if the need arises.
Similarly in regard to Sinkiang, Mr. Konstantinoff fears that Chinese
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policies, unless radically
changed, will alienate rather than win the people. In any event, he
believes, Sinkiang cannot avoid having closer economic ties with Russia
than with China.
The current emphasis on the development of the Northwest has primarily
political significance. Development work cannot be carried out until
after the war and even then only in the face of physical difficulties
which the Chinese will not for some time, because of technical
deficiencies, be able to surmount.
Mr. Konstantinoff is much concerned over the present tension between the
Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists. At the same time he appears to be
without channels of information on actual developments. He has avoided
contact with the Communist representatives in Lanchow and is always
interested in attempting to learn any news that I may have. He feels
strongly that the Kuomintang will be making a “very serious mistake” if
it attempts to liquidate the Communists by force, suggesting that the
Communists may utilize forces of discontent in the country and prove too
strong for the Kuomintang. He is pessimistic about the future of
relations between the two parties and regards eventual trouble as
probably inevitable.
He laughs at Chinese rumors and stories of Soviet planes flying back and
forth to the Communist area, denies that they have received any material
assistance from Russia “for many years”, and goes on to say that Russia
is now too concerned with her own life-and-death struggle to intervene
in China or to give help to the Chinese Communists. (His remarks may be
interpreted as implying, however, that if Russia were not so concerned
with the war against Germany, she might be interested in helping the
Communists.)
In discussing the Communists he takes the line that they are not
Communistic in the Russian sense. But he believes that China is not
ready for full Communism and that the Chinese program is therefore more
appropriate for the conditions in China. He believes the Communists have
made great progress in honest government, in eliminating graft and
corruption, in economic control, in political indoctrination of the
people so that they have an interest in the war, and in representative
government.
He criticizes the reactionary tendencies of the Kuomintang and their
treatment of the people.
Discussing the possibility of Russian participation in the war against
Japan, Mr. Konstantinoff thinks that this is unlikely. Russia’s own
problems in defeating Germany and in rehabilitating her destroyed areas
will consume her entire resources for some time. She will be friendly
toward the Allies in their war against Japan but her assistance will
probably not go as far as permitting American use of Russian
airbases.
J[ohn] S[tewart] S[ervice]
