Introduction

Abstract

This book is based upon the wartime diaries of my grandfather, Fu Bingchang (傅秉常 Foo Ping Sheung), a Chinese Nationalist statesman who was stationed in Moscow as China’s Ambassador to Soviet Russia for six years, from January 1943 to April 1949. Fu Bingchang’s records are not a gentle account of an old diplomat’s letters and memoirs just before Mao Zedong took over power. When he wrote his diaries, Fu was in the prime of his life, aged forty-seven, writing in one of the most critical periods of Chinese and world history — a time of massive change and heroic struggles when two major issues were being decided. First, was the outcome of the Allied war against the Axis and, in particular, the question of what strategy to pursue vis-à-vis Japan; and second, was the impact of international political relations (inter-Allied relations) on the contest for power in China between the national government (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party. Positioned in Moscow, practically on the very doorsteps of the Kremlin, my grandfather was at the epicentre of a great drama, in the right place at the right time; writing, observing and recording every detail from his own unique perspective.