From the Journal of Ambassador Pavel Yudin: Memorandum of Conversation with Liu Shaoqi

[stamp]: declassified

[MFA Far East Department stamp:

Incoming Nº 169/s

12.IV.1955]

from the journal

of P. F. Yudin      

SECRET Copy Nº 2

8 April 1955

Nº 332

RECORD OF A CONVERSATION

WITH CDE. LIU SHAOQI, 6 April 1955

Today I visited Cde. Liu Shaoqi and passed him the 2 April letter of Cde. N. S. Khrushchev. Cde. Liu Shaoqi expressed his ideas about the letter.

In the conversation which followed Cde. Liu Shaoqi briefly told of the work of the all-China Party conference. He noted that a report about the work of the conference had been published in the press in which some questions that were discussed at the conference were indicated. Such conference documents as Cde. Mao Zedong's speech, reports about the five-year plan and the cases of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, the approved draft of the five-year plan, and Cde. Liu Shaoqi's speech will be sent to you no later than 10 April for forwarding to the CPSU CC. The draft five-year plan is an intra-Party document. Another version of the five-year plan based on it will be drawn up to be forwarded to the all-China Assembly of People's Representatives for approval. The all-China Assembly of People's Representatives will be held in June 1955 and therefore Cde. Liu Shaoqi requests that the CPSU CC look over the draft five-year plan and give its comments about it as soon as possible.

[Translator's note: two mostly illegible handwritten notes appear in the left margin, partly off the reproduced page. They seem to refer to persons to whom this document was to be routed].

Touching on the question of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that the conference unanimously condemned their counterrevolutionary activities and expelled them from the CCP.  The fifth CCP CP plenum held right after the end of the conference sanctioned the arrest of Rao Shushi, which had already been done.

Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that materials had been recently been found that Rao Shushi had had ties with counterrevolutionary organizations. Rao Shushi disguised himself very deftly, tried to be modest in everyday life, was a good executor of the decisions of higher Party organizations, was polite to everyone, and tried to show that he was a good Communist. And he created such an impression about himself. Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that for 20 years he himself thought that Rao Shushi was a good Communist and promoted him through the ranks. In fact Rao Shushi turned out to be a counterrevolutionary. Together with [Yan Fan], the Chief of the Shanghai Bureau of Public Security, he concealed 3,000 Kuomintang agents and spies of foreign intelligence services within the security organs. Of these 3,000 agents 1,000 have already been arrested, and 1,000 have gone into hiding. The new facts of the Rao Shushi's ties with counterrevolution are still only known to several CCP CC members. The materials are being verified. The CCP CC will send complete information about this question to the CPSU CC after an investigation of the counterrevolutionary activity of Rao Shushi has been made.

Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that Gao Gang also probably was connected with counterrevolutionary organizations. In connection with these ideas Cde. Liu Shaoqi mentioned that Goglidze, who figures in the Beria case and with whom (Goglidze) Gao Gang met, arrived in Harbin in 1947 or 1948, but never reported about this to the CCP CC.

Cde. Liu Shaoqi reported that information was provided at the all-China Party conference about the decisions of the last CPSU CC plenum. The participants of the conferences listened to the information carefully.

Recalling a conversation with Cde. Mao Zedong about the question of an article for Lenin Days, I said that recently it had become known that a majority of the leaders of Communist Parties do not manage to write such articles on time. Therefore it was decided to give propaganda articles in the press during Lenin Days which have been written by newspaper or Party officials. Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that this makes his position much easier since he (Liu Shaoqi) was supposed to write such an article at the instruction of Cde. Mao Zedong.

Then I told of the proposed discussion of a textbook on political economy at conferences of political economy instructors in large cities of the Soviet Union. The comments at this conference will be considered in the next edition of the textbook.

Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that three million copies of the political economy textbook will be published in Chinese (translated from Russian) in May of this year. The stitching work is being done at the present time. In addition, he said that if the Chinese comrades and specialists in political economy have any comments about questions relating to the PRC then such comments will be sent to the authors of the political economy textbook. I asked that the comments be given not just about Chinese but about other questions, too.

At the conclusion of the conversation Cde. Liu Shaoqi said that the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, Harry Pollit, was flying to Peking today, 6 April.

Cdes. Shi Zhe and T. F. Skvortsov were present at the conversation.

     USSR AMBASSADOR TO THE PRC  /signature/ (P. YUDIN)

[Distribution list]:

4 copies sent

1- to Cde. V. M. Molotov

2- to Cde. Kurdyukov

3- to K. I. [probably Information Committee]

4- to file

Drafted by Skvortsov

Typed by Filatovich

Nº 507