"It was the same in Mukden," said Dugan-Andreanov. "Everything was taken away by my Army. That way the Fascist beasts will never be able to use Manchuria. It would take twenty years for them to rebuild it. You are perfectly safe."
Dugan hoped that he could put an idea or two into the chief's head, and leave him a worse Communist than he had found him. But Wu did not take him seriously. He agreed. "It is good that Russia took everything away like that. We Chinese do not need them. We have not yet progressed sufficiently far toward socialism. Better for the workers of Russia to use the Japanese Fascist machinery than for the Kuomintang and the American capitalists to come into our country and enslave us because of them. You have heard of what the Americans do, haven't you?"
"Many things. All bad," said Dugan.
"True. They have the lin-ch'ing. They take a person who is not of their race and they have the crowd kill him for entertainment. They keep millions of Negroes in their country just for that purpose. Nobody is happy in America. They are the richest country in the world but they are so cruel and oppressive it would make you weep to think of it. They do not even let their people know the truth of Stalin."
"What is it?" asked Dugan, innocently.
Wu looked at him suspiciously. "You say you are a Red Army man but you do not know the truth of Stalin?"
Dugan trotted faster to come abreast of the chief. "In Russia we know so many truths about Stalin that we can never decide which one is the greatest or the most illuminating among them."
That pleased the Chinese Communist. "Wisely put."
Dugan asked, "Have you ever seen the Americans oppressing people?"
"Have not seen it," said Wu.