Chapter 40 Premier Zhou Enlai of New China visited Moscow in March 9th

Due to my work position, I had the honor to go abroad with Premier Zhou many times. I witnessed his diplomatic activities in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and deeply appreciated the extraordinary talents of this outstanding diplomat. Although I have reached an octogenarian age, these past events are still vivid in my mind, and I have never forgotten them. In order to consolidate the diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union and the great friendship between the two peoples, shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China, in early December 1949, Comrade Mao Zedong paid a friendly visit to the Soviet Union.

This was the first and most important diplomatic contact and negotiation between the leaders of the party and government of New China and the leaders of the party and government of the Soviet Union, which naturally aroused the great attention of international public opinion. On January 2, 1950, when Comrade Mao Zedong answered questions from TASS reporters, he explained that the first issues he considered during his stay in the Soviet Union were the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, the Soviet Union's loans to China, and Sino-Soviet trade exchanges.Then, Comrade Zhou Enlai was summoned to lead relevant personnel to Moscow to assist in the discussion and resolution of the above-mentioned major issues.

On January 10, Comrade Zhou Enlai led a delegation from the government of the People's Republic of China to leave Beijing for Moscow.This was a rather spectacular delegation. Apart from Chen Boda, who arrived earlier with Comrade Mao Zedong, and his staff members Wang Dongxing and Ye Zilong, the members of the delegation accompanying Zhou Enlai included Li Fuchun, then vice chairman of the Northeast People's Government, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Ye Jizhuang, Minister of Trade, Lu Dong, Vice Minister of Northeast Industry, Zhang Tadong, Vice Minister of Northeast Trade, Wu Xiuquan, Director of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lai Yali, Deputy Director of the General Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ouyang Qin, Chai Shufan, Cheng Mingsheng, Chang Yanqing , Shen Hong, Su Nongguan, He Qian and other comrades.At that time, I was one of the first to go to Moscow with Comrade Mao Zedong as an interpreter.When Comrade Zhou Enlai arrived at Novosibirsk Station via Siberia, he had a telephone conversation with Comrade Mao Zedong, but due to a problem with the line, he couldn't hear clearly, and the conversation was quickly suspended.

On January 18, when Zhou Enlai arrived at Sverdlovsk Station, he talked with Comrade Mao Zedong on the phone again.During the phone call, Mao exchanged views on the main purpose of his conversation with the TASS reporter, how to carry out work after Zhou arrived in Moscow, what results he hoped to achieve, and what questions should be considered. On January 22, the third day after Comrade Zhou Enlai arrived in Moscow, when Stalin met with Comrade Mao Zedong and him, due to the full preparations in advance, he directly raised the specific issues that China and the Soviet Union should solve in the negotiations, that is, when they talked about drafting "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance", "Sino-Soviet Agreement on China's Changchun Railway, Lushunkou and Dalian", "Agreement on Soviet Loans to the People's Republic of China" and other documents.Stalin agreed with the above opinion.Subsequently, the two sides agreed that Zhou Enlai, then Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers Mikoyan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyshinsky of the Soviet side would be in charge of drafting various documents.

From January 23, Comrade Zhou Enlai, together with Li Fuchun and Wang Jiaxiang, started talks with Mikoyan, Vyshinsky, Gromyko (Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Luo Shen (Ambassador to China) on the contents of the treaty and agreement.Sometimes Comrade Mao Zedong also participated in the talks.When negotiating the "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance", Comrade Zhou Enlai emphasized that the specific content of the "Friendly Alliance" naturally includes mutual assistance and cooperation, and the latter should also be the specific content of the treaty.The Soviet side was very interested in Comrade Zhou Enlai's explanation and attached great importance to it, so they reported the meeting to Stalin.Later, this meaning of Comrade Zhou Enlai was fully reflected in the treaty.

On February 14, a grand signing ceremony was held in the Kremlin.As the plenipotentiary representative of China, Comrade Zhou Enlai and Vyshinsky signed the "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance", "Sino-Soviet Agreement on China's Changchun Railway, Lushunkou and Dalian", "Agreement on Soviet Loans to the People's Republic of China" Wait.After the signing ceremony, Comrade Mao Zedong invited Stalin again to attend the thank-you banquet held by the Chinese side. Stalin replied straightforwardly: I have never attended such banquets, but when I knew that Chinese comrades had this wish, our Political Bureau of the Central Committee studied it. After solving this problem, I decided to let me attend your reception.Therefore, I will attend your banquet.Chairman Mao Zedong said that if you are not healthy, you can leave the meeting early. Si replied: I will not leave the meeting early. If you come, you can rest easy.

About two hours later, Ambassador Wang Jiaxiang held a grand cocktail party in a big hotel in Moscow, warmly congratulating Comrades Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai on their successful visit to the Soviet Union.The atmosphere of the reception was warm.The Soviet side was attended by Stalin, Shvernik, Molotov, Malenkov, Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Budyonny and other party, government and military forces. supreme leader.Stalin's unprecedented attendance at a reception hosted by an ambassador of a country caused a sensation not only in Moscow and the Soviet Union, but also in the entire world.

Comrade Zhou Enlai delivered a very long toast, the main content of which is: the treaty and agreement signed by our two countries will bring the relationship between China and the Soviet Union closer, will prevent the new Chinese people from feeling isolated, and will benefit China's production construction and economic recovery and development. At this time, Stalin was also very emotional, raised his glass, and also made a long toast, hoping to strengthen the friendship and unity between China and the Soviet Union and consolidate the big socialist family. On February 17, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Ouyang Tie and I returned to China in advance, while Li Fuchun, Ye Jizhuang, Wu Xiuquan and other comrades stayed in Moscow to continue talks with the Soviet side on some unfinished individual economic agreements.

On March 4, Comrades Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai returned to Beijing. In August 1952, a Chinese government delegation headed by Comrade Zhou Enlai and vice-chaired by Comrades Chen Yun and Li Fuchun visited the Soviet Union.The main task of this visit is to negotiate with the Soviet government and study China's first five-year plan planning and aid construction projects and other issues. The background of Comrade Zhou Enlai’s visit this time is: since the beginning of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea in October 1950, by the end of 1950, the armies of North Korea and China had driven the U.S. and puppet troops back to the 38th parallel, reversing the situation in the Korean War.Later, under heavy blows from the troops of North Korea and China, in July 1951 the U.S. government had to agree to sit down and negotiate an armistice in North Korea.However, on the other hand, the United States has adopted a policy of delaying and sabotaging the negotiations, and is trying to cooperate with the negotiations with military pressure to realize its unreasonable demands.After bloody battles, the Korean and Chinese troops inflicted greater and greater damage on the enemy, and at the same time firmly stabilized the front line on the 38th parallel, defeating the attempt of the US imperialists.

In view of the fact that the Korean War could not be ended in a short period of time and could not be reversed, the Party Central Committee made a timely strategic decision of fighting while building, and instructed the State Council to start studying and formulating the first five-year plan. Under the leadership of Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and other comrades, in April 1952, various government departments preliminarily sorted out their own ideas or outline materials for the first five-year plan.By August, the material had been compiled into two large volumes.Since we had no experience in formulating a five-year plan at that time, it was necessary to seek the opinion of the Soviet government on the formulation of our country's first five-year plan.Therefore, the Chinese government organized a huge government delegation headed by Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, and Li Fuchun, including heads of various departments and industries to visit the Soviet Union.

On August 17, 1952, Comrade Zhou Enlai led a Chinese government delegation to Moscow.Soon, Stalin, together with Molotov and Vyshinsky, met Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, Zhang Wentian, Su Yu and other comrades, and listened to Comrade Zhou Enlai's introduction on China's first five-year plan.The main contents discussed by Zhou Enlai are: 1. General situation of China's economy; 2. Five-year construction policy; 3. Main indicators and major projects of 5-year construction; 4. Preparations for long-term construction;Stalin gave a positive response to Zhou's introduction. On the one hand, he put forward pertinent and valuable opinions on China's economic development speed during the "First Five-Year Plan" period; plan, and is willing to provide assistance such as technology, equipment, and loans that China needs to realize the "First Five-Year Plan", and send experts to China to help with construction.Stalin's above statement provided great convenience for the Chinese delegation to carry out work in the Soviet Union. After arriving in Moscow, in order to facilitate negotiations with the staff of various Soviet departments and face-to-face research on the formulation of the plan, Zhou Enlai divided the staff of the delegation into several corresponding groups and asked them to directly contact with comrades from the relevant Soviet departments to carry out work. .By doing so, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, and Li Fuchun could detach themselves and have more time to think about and work with each group of the delegation to solve some major issues that urgently needed to be dealt with.It can be said that Comrade Zhou Enlai really worked hard and painstakingly in order to make the delegation's work more effective and finally achieve complete success. After the work of each group was roughly on track, Zhou Enlai led some members of the group to visit Stalingrad.The purpose of this trip is to express condolences to the residents of this heroic city. They performed bravely and tenaciously in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, suffered great sacrifices, and made great contributions to reversing the entire war situation; the second is to investigate the history of this city. The rarest and most brutal war - the actual situation of the German army's destruction in the Stalingrad Defense War; the third is to understand the situation of the city's post-war recovery and reconstruction work.He visited several important battlefields of the year: Flour Mill, Valley of Thousands of People (a ditch leading to the Volga River, tens of thousands of casualties on both sides in this one place alone), North Vegetable Garden, the banks of the Volga River, and the city center building.Moskvin, who served as secretary of the Provincial Party Committee here after the war, described the thrilling scenes of Soviet troops and people fighting in these places.During the tour, Premier Zhou received a spontaneous and warm welcome from the people on both sides of the canal.Premier Zhou also visited a tractor factory, a chemical plant, and toured the Volga-Don Canal.It has been six years since the end of the war, but what we encountered is still shocking everywhere we go, with traces of war such as ruined walls, trenches and ditches everywhere.The impression given to us is that this city, which suffered a lot of war disasters, only recovered some vitality back then, and it is far from talking about how far it has developed. After Comrade Zhou Enlai returned to Moscow, he inspected the work of the various groups of the delegation and made further arrangements for the work, and then appointed Comrade Li Fuchun to act as the head of the delegation to lead the various groups to continue the negotiation work. On September 24, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Su Yu and other comrades returned to Beijing with a group of 17 people. In April 1954, Comrade Zhou Enlai went to Moscow for two informal working visits to discuss and coordinate the principles and policies of China and the Soviet Union to participate in the Geneva Conference, and predicted the progress and possible results of the conference.Comrades Zhou Enlai and Zhang Wentian held talks with Khrushchev, Molotov, and Malenkov. The two sides informed each other of their plans and raised some issues for discussion.Khrushchev and Molotov believed that this is an international conference with political significance, but they should not hold too high hopes for it.In international struggles, it is very difficult to predict what will go wrong, especially if it is impossible to imagine that everything will go according to our predetermined plan.Therefore, we should only have a general vision and intended goals.In short, we need to watch as we go, adapt to the situation, find countermeasures, and use them flexibly. Comrade Zhou Enlai introduced China's opinion on considering this issue from another angle.He pointed out: China, North Korea, and Vietnam were able to attend this international conference together. This event itself is an unusual event and a victory.If we can make good use of the opportunity of participating in this meeting to clarify our principled positions on various issues and make statements of an explanatory and clarifying nature on a number of related matters, that is a political gain.If the work is carried out smoothly and certain problems can be solved, then it will be more effective.We should not have too high expectations for the meeting, but we must also strive to achieve some kind of results.It is possible, not fanciful.Comrade Zhou Enlai repeatedly stated that it was the first time for China to participate in such an international conference, and it lacked knowledge and experience in international struggles. China and the Soviet Union must maintain close contact, exchange information, exchange opinions, and coordinate actions.China's participation in the Geneva Conference has its subtleties. This is the issue to be discussed and resolved at the conference (North Korea and Indochina peace issues). Although it has a close relationship with China, it is not directly related to our own affairs, so we need to be very careful , take it seriously.The meeting also agreed that the Chinese delegation to the Geneva Conference would arrive in Moscow two or three days in advance so that the Soviet Union could introduce the struggle experience of the international conference to the staff of our delegation. After the talks, Comrade Zhou Enlai set off to return to China (I was still waiting for him in Moscow) and reported the talks to the Central Committee.A few days later, he returned to Moscow and finally agreed with the Soviet side on the principles and strategies for attending the Geneva Conference, as well as cooperation and coordination among representatives of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea (or Vietnam).Comrade Zhou Enlai was very satisfied with the results of the talks. In mid-April, after returning to Beijing for a short rest, Zhou Enlai led a 122-member Chinese government delegation to Switzerland to attend the Geneva Conference on the 20th, and stayed there for two days when passing through Moscow.Comrade Zhou Enlai took advantage of this opportunity to organize various symposiums, inviting Gromyko and others from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to introduce their experience and answer questions raised by the Chinese delegation.The Chinese delegation raised a lot of questions, and the experience of the Soviet Union was introduced and the answers to the questions were also more careful. On the afternoon of the 24th, after the Chinese delegation arrived at Geneva Airport, journalists from various countries frantically rushed to take pictures. Comrade Zhou Enlai drove to the place of residence without stopping.But not long after, he rushed to the airport to meet Molotov.Molotov got off the plane, first shook hands and hugged Zhou Enlai, and then walked side by side, talking while walking, very affectionate.At this time, foreign journalists flocked to the airport, crowding both sides of the airport corridor, and the windows were covered with people, yelling and asking for a chance for them to take a shot.So, Molotov said, we walked a little slower, stopped for a few words, and we could leave a few shots for them.Later, foreign journalists spoke highly of the friendly attitude shown by the foreign ministers of China and the Soviet Union at Geneva Airport, calling it a pioneering work in the history of contemporary diplomacy. After the Geneva Conference, the North Korean issue was first discussed, and then the Indochina issue was discussed and resolved.North Korea, China, the Soviet Union or Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union adhered to the principles of close cooperation, mutual intelligence, and coordinated countermeasures from the beginning to the end of the meeting. Therefore, we took the initiative in almost every meeting and exposed the United States' obstruction A conspiracy to achieve a positive outcome at the conference, isolating the United States. At that time, Zhou Enlai and Molotov met almost every day, and invited a third party (North Korea or Vietnam) to discuss countermeasures, act in unison, and cooperate with each other.Zhou Enlai often went to the residence of the Soviet delegation, because that place was a villa purchased by the Soviet Union, and the conditions of confidentiality were good, which was convenient for studying and negotiating issues.Here, Molotov also arranged banquets for Zhou Enlai and his entourage many times.Molotov also visited the residence of the Chinese delegation once or twice.When he came to the residence of the Chinese delegation, he made a special statement: Since your residence is leased, it is difficult to guarantee that people have not installed bugs or even video recording facilities in the house in advance, which will affect our free discussion and discussion work.Therefore, it is often Chinese comrades who go to the residence of the Soviet delegation.Although this is due to the needs of work, from the perspective of the phenomenon, it is always coming and not going, "coming and not going, it is also indecent".Anyway, it's not proper etiquette.Therefore, it is only right that we must visit you at your door.However, Zhou Enlai and Molotov still had a long conversation over the sound of the gramophone that day, exchanging views on several important issues. The struggle in Geneva was particularly complicated when discussing North Korea.Afterwards, it became clear that the U.S. and the South Korean authorities stubbornly insisted on obstructing the settlement of the Korean issue, regardless of the interests of other countries in the United Nations forces in North Korea.Therefore, no matter how many reasonable suggestions and solutions we put forward, they were all rejected by them, and finally broke up without any results. The situation at the conference was different when it came to discussing Indochina.This was mainly because the Indochina War was still going on, and the French army was losing ground on the battlefield. They suffered serious losses in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which made the French government lose face.In this way, the contradiction between the French government and the French people became more acute.After the fall of French Prime Minister Pidour, the position of the newly appointed Mendès-France can only be consolidated after the peace issue in Indochina is resolved.Therefore, the French government also wants to resolve the Indochina issue as soon as possible.When solving this problem, Comrade Zhou Enlai actively mediated, promoted contacts between Vietnam and France, exchanged ideas, and deepened understanding. On June 23, the meeting between Comrade Zhou Enlai and Mendès-France in Berne achieved very good results.Zhou Enlai not only took care of the fundamental interests of the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but also made a heartfelt statement based on the vital interests of France, which deeply moved Mendès-France. He told Zhou Enlai that he himself firmly advocated a ceasefire. He is willing to set a one-month deadline, and if the ceasefire cannot be achieved during this period, he will submit his resignation to the government.He also confessed, saying: "Now, the Viet Minh does not have to fight hard for the north-south demarcation line of Vietnam at the 17th or 15th parallel. France will not stay there for a long time, and Vietnam still belongs to the Vietnamese. " In short, Comrade Zhou Enlai did a lot of fruitful work to break the deadlock in the Indochina peace negotiations.With the active efforts of the representatives of the three Indochinese countries, France, and participating countries, the Geneva Conference finally reached the "Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference", "Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam", "On the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities in Laos, Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities in Cambodia and other agreements, thus ending the eight-year Indochina War. On July 23, Comrade Zhou Enlai led a delegation to leave Geneva to return to China.Along the way, he visited the German Democratic Republic, Poland, the Soviet Union, and the Mongolian People's Republic, and returned to Beijing on August 1, successfully completing the historical mission of easing tensions in the world and Asia.