861.00/11–1049: Airgram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
A–1118. Soviet propaganda efforts to rewrite the history of the recent war against Japan are illustrated by the following quotation from an eleven page article on “The Creation of the Chinese People’s Republic”, which appeared in The Agitators Notebook No. 30, October 1949, completely overlooking the part which the United States played in the defeat of Japan. It is treatment like this that has led Soviet school children to ask whether or not the United States took part in the war against Japan.
“When the Japanese imperialists attacked China, the Soviet Union came to the aid of the Chinese people and was the only country giving effective aid to China. While the United States and England were furnishing the Japanese with airplanes, explosives and strategic materials, not protesting against the blockade of Chinese ports, the Soviet Union gave several loans on favorable terms to China. The Chinese Army fighting against the Japanese occupiers received airplanes, weapons, military supplies and explosives from the U.S.S.R., while Soviet volunteer pilots guarded the peaceful population of Chinese cities and villages from attack by Japanese planes.
“Having destroyed fascist Germany the Soviet Union in August 1945 declared war upon Japan. The Soviet Army destroyed the Kwantung Army, after which Japan was obliged to surrender. In its victorious attack the Soviet Army freed and returned to China Manchuria, the peoples of which had languished for fourteen years under the yoke of the Japanese imperialists.”