893.00/4–1745: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Hurley)
614. I have read with much interest your 1212, April 17, 7 p.m., from Moscow, and am gratified to learn that your conversations with Marshal Stalin were of a satisfactory nature.
I attach great importance to Marshal Stalin’s endorsement at the present time of our program for promoting Chinese military and political unity under Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time I feel, as I am sure you do also, the necessity of facing the probability that Stalin’s [Page 345] offer is given in direct relation to existing circumstances that may not continue for long. The Soviet Union is now preoccupied in Europe and the basis for her post-war position in Asia is not yet appreciably affected by the Kuomintang-Communist issue. Under these circumstances, I can well appreciate the logic of Stalin’s readiness to defer to our leadership and to support our efforts toward political and military unification which could hardly fail to be acceptable to the Soviet Union. If and when Russia commences active participation in the Far Eastern theater, Chinese internal unity has not been achieved and the relative advantages of cooperating with one or the other side become a matter of great practical concern to Russia’s future position in Asia, it would be equally logical, I believe, to expect Russia to re-examine her policy and revise it in accordance with her best interests.
I feel therefore that it is of the utmost importance that, when informing the Generalissimo of Marshal Stalin’s statements, you take special pains to convey to him the general thought expressed in the foregoing paragraph in order that he may fully realize the urgency of the situation. Please impress upon him the necessity for early political and military unification in order not only to bring about the successful conclusion of the war against Japan but also to form a basis on which relations between China and the Soviet Union may eventually become one of permanent friendship and mutual respect.