Mao and Chou En-lai were said to be on very good terms with a number of Russian advisors. All called each other by their first names. The Chinese also were copying Russian ways with surprising alacrity. I learned that one of the most popular of the adopted Moscow customs was wife-swapping, or free love. In the New Democracy marriage was performed and terminated merely by mutual consent, Russian style. There was no exchange of vows when mating was done for the Cause, no priest or magistrate to pronounce the pair man and wife or to separate them later. Mrs. Chou En-lai told me very frankly in 1946 that she had never been legally married to her well-known husband. “The New Democracy did away with all that,” she said. “We did away with ceremonies. They are foolish and we don’t need them. Such things are for you Imperialists!” Such laxity in marital affairs has long been the accepted custom in Russia, and indeed the Russian official often finds himself going even further, sometimes involuntarily. A Soviet army officer arriving at the Shanghai Airport not long ago looked around for his wife. She was nowhere in sight. A good looking blonde walked up to him and asked, “Are you Colonel Kovicov?” “I am,” he replied, a little taken aback. He had never seen her before and felt a faint chill when she said, “I am your wife now, on Party orders.” He knew then that he was under suspicion. Another high official in Russia returned home from an arduous day in the Politburo and found that his “wife” had been replaced by a new and not so pretty one. “Who are you?” he asked rather sadly, and she replied, “You know who I am. I am the wife assigned to go with you to China.” It developed that this woman spoke Chinese fluently, a talent not possessed by the deposed mate. One may also infer that she was more adept at spying. Furs, silks, cosmetics and some jewelry were said to have been brought into China at times by the Russians as rewards for faithful service, and many a smart Party woman already had a neat nest egg laid away in clothes and other commodities, such as the Communist “unmentionable” one, money.