When the Japanese War began in the Far East. War with Japan: The Last Campaign of World War II. Basic terms and concepts

Background

At the Yalta Conference of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition, held in February 1945, the United States and Great Britain achieved the final consent from the USSR to enter the war with Japan three months after the victory over Nazi Germany. In exchange for participation in hostilities, the Soviet Union was to receive South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, lost after the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

At that time, a Neutrality Pact was in force between the USSR and Japan, concluded in 1941 for a period of 5 years. In April 1945, the USSR announced the unilateral termination of the pact on the basis that Japan was an ally of Germany and was waging a war against the allies of the USSR. “In this situation, the Pact of neutrality between Japan and the USSR lost its meaning, and the extension of this Pact became impossible,” the Soviet side said. The sudden cancellation of the treaty left the Japanese government in disarray. And it was from what! The position of the Land of the Rising Sun in the war was approaching critical, the allies inflicted a number of heavy defeats on it in the Pacific theater of operations. Japanese cities and industrial centers were bombarded incessantly. Not a single more or less reasonable person in the Japanese government and command no longer believed in the possibility of victory, the only calculation was that it would be possible to wear down the American troops and achieve acceptable conditions for surrender.

In turn, the Americans understood that victory over Japan would not be easy. The fighting for the island of Okinawa is a good example of this. The Japanese had approximately 77,000 people on the island. The Americans put up about 470 thousand against them. The island was taken, but the Americans lost almost 50 thousand soldiers killed and wounded. According to the US Secretary of War, a final victory over Japan, provided the Soviet Union did not intervene, would have cost America about a million killed and wounded.

The document declaring war was presented to the Japanese ambassador in Moscow at 17:00 on August 8, 1945. It said that hostilities would begin the next day. However, taking into account the time difference between Moscow and the Far East, in fact, the Japanese had only one hour before the Red Army went on the offensive.

Confrontation

The strategic plan of the Soviet side included three operations: Manchurian, Yuzhno-Sakhalin and Kuril. The first was the most significant and ambitious, and it is on it that we should dwell in more detail.

In Manchuria, the Kwantung Army under the command of General Otsudzo Yamada became the enemy of the USSR. It included about a million personnel, more than 6,000 guns and mortars, about 1,500 aircraft, and more than 1,000 tanks.

The grouping of the Red Army troops at the start of the offensive had a serious numerical superiority over the enemy: only there were 1.6 times more fighters. In terms of the number of tanks, Soviet troops outnumbered the Japanese by about 5 times, in artillery and mortars - 10 times, in aircraft - more than three times. Moreover, the superiority of the Soviet Union was not only quantitative. The equipment used by the Red Army was much more modern and powerful than that of its enemy.

The Japanese have long understood that a war with the Soviet Union is inevitable. Therefore, a large number of fortified areas were created. Consider, as an example, one of them - the Hailar region, against which the left flank of the Trans-Baikal Front of the Red Army acted. This area has been under construction for over 10 years. By August 1945, it consisted of 116 pillboxes, connected by concrete underground communications, a developed system of trenches and a large number of engineering defensive structures. The area was defended by Japanese troops numbering more than a division.

It took the Soviet troops several days to suppress the resistance of this fortified area. It would seem not too long, the troops were not stuck for months. But during this time, in other sectors of the Trans-Baikal Front, the Red Army managed to advance more than 150 kilometers. So by the standards of this war, the obstacle was quite serious. And even after the main forces of the Hailar region garrison surrendered, separate groups of Japanese soldiers continued to fight, demonstrating examples of fanatical bravery. In Soviet reports from the scene of the battles, soldiers of the Kwantung Army are constantly mentioned, who chained themselves to machine guns in order to knowingly not be able to abandon the position.

Against the background of the very successful actions of the Red Army, it is necessary to note such an outstanding operation as the 350-kilometer throw of the 6th Guards Tank Army through the Gobi Desert and the Khingan Range. The Khingan Mountains seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to technology. The passes through which the Soviet tanks passed were at an altitude of about 2 thousand meters above sea level. The steepness of the slopes in some places reached 50 degrees, so the cars had to move in a zigzag fashion. The situation was complicated by continuous torrential rains, impassable mud and flooding of mountain rivers. Nevertheless, Soviet tanks stubbornly moved forward. By August 11, they crossed the mountains and found themselves deep in the rear of the Kwantung Army, on the Central Manchurian Plain. The army was experiencing a shortage of fuel and ammunition, so the Soviet command had to establish air supplies. Transport aviation delivered more than 900 tons of tank fuel alone to our troops. As a result of this unprecedented offensive, the Red Army was able to capture only about 200 thousand Japanese prisoners. In addition, a large number of weapons and equipment were captured.

The 1st Far Eastern Front of the Red Army faced fierce resistance from the Japanese, entrenched on the heights of Ostraya and Camel, which were part of the Khotou fortified region. The approaches to these heights were swampy, cut by a large number of small rivulets. Scarps were dug on the slopes and wire fences were installed. The Japanese cut down the firing points in the granite rock mass. The concrete caps of the pillboxes were about one and a half meters thick.

The defenders of the Ostraya hill rejected all the demands of the Soviet troops for surrender. A local resident, who was used as a parliamentarian, was cut off by the commander of the fortified area (the Japanese did not go into dialogue with the Red Army at all). And when at last the Soviet troops managed to break into the fortifications, they found only the dead there. Moreover, among the defenders were not only men, but even women armed with grenades and daggers.

In the battles for the city of Mudanjiang, the Japanese actively used kamikaze saboteurs. Tied with grenades, these people rushed at Soviet tanks and soldiers. On one of the sectors of the front, about 200 "live mines" lay on the ground in front of the advancing equipment. Suicide attacks were only initially successful. In the future, the Red Army increased their vigilance and, as a rule, managed to shoot the saboteur before he could approach and explode, causing damage to equipment or manpower.

The final

On August 15, Emperor Hirohito made a radio address in which he announced that Japan accepts the terms of the Potsdam Conference and surrenders. The Emperor called on the nation for courage, patience and the unification of all forces to build a new future.

Three days later, on August 18, 1945, at 13:00 local time, an appeal by the command of the Kwantung Army to the troops sounded on the radio, which said that, due to the senselessness of further resistance, a decision was made to surrender. Over the next few days, the Japanese units, which had no direct connection with the headquarters, were notified and the terms of surrender were agreed.

Most of the military accepted the terms of surrender without objection. Moreover, in the city of Changchun, where the forces of the Soviet troops were insufficient, the Japanese themselves guarded military installations for several days. However, a small number of fanatical soldiers and officers continued to resist, refusing to obey the "cowardly" order to end hostilities. Their war ended only when they died.

On September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay aboard the American battleship Missouri, the act of unconditional surrender of Japan was signed. The signing of this document is the official date of the end of the Second World War.

"The Diplomat ", Japan

From May to September 1939, the USSR and Japan waged an undeclared war against each other, in which more than 100,000 troops took part. Perhaps it was she who changed the course of world history.

In September 1939, Soviet and Japanese armies clashed on the Manchu-Mongol border, becoming participants in a little-known but far-reaching conflict. It was not just a border conflict - the undeclared war lasted from May to September 1939, involving more than 100,000 soldiers, as well as 1,000 tanks and aircraft. Between 30,000 and 50,000 people were killed or injured. In the decisive battle, which took place on August 20-31, 1939, the Japanese were defeated.

These events coincided with the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact (August 23, 1939), which gave the green light to Hitler's aggression against Poland, undertaken a week later, and which served as the beginning of World War II. These events are related to each other. The border conflict also influenced the key decisions made in Tokyo and Moscow, which determined the course of the war and, ultimately, its outcome.

The conflict itself (the Japanese call it the Nomongan incident, and the Russians call it the Battle of Halkin Gol) was provoked by the notorious Japanese officer Tsuji Masanobu, the head of a group in the Japanese Kwantung Army that occupied Manchuria. On the opposite side, the Soviet troops were commanded by Georgy Zhukov, who would later lead the Red Army to victory over Nazi Germany. In the first major battle in May 1939, the Japanese punitive operation failed, and the Soviet-Mongolian forces threw back a Japanese detachment of 200 people. The frustrated Kwantung Army intensified hostilities in June-July and began to launch forced bombing strikes deep in Mongolia. The Japanese also carried out operations along the entire border with the participation of entire divisions. Japanese attacks that followed one after another were repelled by the Red Army, nevertheless, the Japanese constantly raised the stakes in this game, hoping that they could force Moscow to retreat. However, Stalin outplayed the Japanese tactically and, unexpectedly for them, launched a military and diplomatic counteroffensive at the same time.

In August, when Stalin secretly sought an alliance with Hitler, Zhukov formed a powerful group near the front line. At the moment when the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to sign the Nazi-Soviet pact, Stalin threw Zhukov into battle. In while powerful armored formations attacked the flanks, encircled and eventually smashed the enemy in a battle of destruction. More than 75% of the Japanese ground forces on this front were killed in action. Simultaneously, Stalin struck a pact with Hitler, Tokyo's nominal ally, and thus left Japan diplomatically isolated and militarily humiliated.

The coincidence in time of the Nomongan incident and the signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was by no means accidental. While Stalin openly negotiated with Britain and France to create an anti-fascist alliance and secretly tried to negotiate with Hitler on a possible alliance, he was attacked by Japan, an ally of Germany and her partner in the Anti-Comintern Pact. By the summer of 1939, it became clear that Hitler intended to move east, against Poland. Stalin's nightmare, which should have been prevented at all costs, was a war on two fronts against Germany and Japan. The ideal result for him would be such a variant in which the fascist-militarist capitalists (Germany, Italy and Japan) would fight with the bourgeois-democratic capitalists (Britain, France and, possibly, the United States). In this situation, the Soviet Union would have remained on the sidelines and would have become the arbiter of the destinies of Europe, after the capitalists would have exhausted their strength. The Nazi-Soviet Pact was Stalin's attempt to achieve an optimal result. This treaty not only set Germany against Britain and France, but also left the Soviet Union out of the fray. He provided Stalin with the opportunity to decisively deal with isolated Japan, which was done in the Nomongan area. And this is not just a hypothesis. The connection between the Nomongan incident and the Nazi-Soviet pact is reflected even in German diplomatic documents published in Washington and London in 1948. Recently released documents from the Soviet era provide supporting details.

Zhukov became famous in Nomongan / Khalkin-Gol, and thereby earned the trust of Stalin, who at the end of 1941 entrusted him with command of the troops - just at the right time in order to prevent a catastrophe. Zhukov managed to stop the German offensive and turn the tide on the approaches to Moscow in early December 1941 (this was probably the most important week during the Second World War). This was partially facilitated by the transfer of troops from the Far East. Many of these soldiers already had combat experience - it was they who defeated the Japanese in the Nomongan area. The Soviet Far Eastern reserve - 15 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions, 1,700 tanks and 1,500 aircraft were redeployed westward in the fall of 1941, when Moscow learned that Japan would not attack the Soviet Far East, as it had made the final decision on expansion into the southern direction, which eventually led her to war with the United States.

The story of Japan's journey to Pearl Harbor is well known. But some of these events are not well covered, and Japan's decision to start a war with the United States is tied to Japanese memories of the defeat at the village of Nomongan. And the same Tsuji who played a central role in the Nomongan incident became an influential supporter of southern expansion and war with the United States.

In June 1941, Germany attacked Russia and inflicted crushing defeats on the Red Army in the first months of the war. Many at that time believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of defeat. Germany demanded that Japan invade the Soviet Far East, avenge the defeat at the village of Nomongan, and seize as much Soviet territory as it could swallow. However, in July 1941, the United States and Britain imposed an oil embargo on Japan, which threatened to leave the Japanese war machine on a starvation diet. To avoid such a situation, the imperial Japanese fleet intended to capture the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. Holland itself was occupied a year earlier. Britain was also struggling to survive. Only the American Pacific Fleet stood in the way of the Japanese. Nevertheless, many in the Japanese army wanted to attack the USSR, as Germany demanded. They expected to avenge Nomongan at a time when the Red Army suffered heavy losses as a result of the German blitzkrieg. The leaders of the Japanese army and naval forces discussed this issue during a series of military conferences with the participation of the emperor.

In the summer of 1941, Colonel Tsuji was a senior officer in the Operations Planning Staff at Imperial Headquarters. Tsuji was a charismatic man as well as an eloquent speaker, and he was one of the army officers who supported the position of the naval forces, which eventually led to Pearl Harbor. After the war, Tanaka Ryukichi, who headed the military service bureau of the army ministry in 1941, said that "the most determined supporter of the war with the United States was Tsuji Masanobu." Tsuji later wrote that the Soviet firepower he saw at Nomongan made him abandon his attack on the Russians in 1941.

But what would have happened if it had not been for the Nomongan incident? And what would have happened if it had ended differently, for example, would not have revealed a winner or would have ended with a victory for Japan? In this case, Tokyo's decision to move south might look very different. Less impressed by the military capabilities of the Soviet armed forces and forced to choose between a war against the Anglo-American forces and participation with Germany in the defeat of the USSR, the Japanese might have considered the northern direction the best choice.

If Japan had decided to move north in 1941, the course of the war and history itself might have been different. Many believe that the Soviet Union would not have survived the 1941-1942 war on two fronts. Victory in the battle near Moscow and a year later - near Stalingrad - were won with exceptionally great difficulty. A determined enemy in the east, represented by Japan, at that moment could tip the scales in Hitler's favor. Moreover, if Japan had moved its troops against the Soviet Union, it would not have been able to attack the United States that same year. The United States would have entered the war a year later, and this would have happened in significantly less favorable circumstances than in the grim reality of the winter of 1941. And how, then, would it be possible to end the rule of the Nazis in Europe?

The shadow from Nomongan was very long.

Stuart Goldman is a Russia Specialist and Research Fellow at the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. This article is adapted from his book Nomonhan, 1939. The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II.

Ilya Kramnik, military columnist for RIA Novosti.

The war between the USSR and Japan in 1945, which became the last major campaign of World War II, lasted less than a month - from August 9 to September 2, 1945, but this month became a key month in the history of the Far East and the entire Asia-Pacific region, completing, and vice versa, initiating many historical processes lasting tens of years.

Background

The preconditions for the Soviet-Japanese war arose exactly on the day when the Russian-Japanese war ended - on the day of the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty on September 5, 1905. Russia's territorial losses were insignificant - the Liaodong Peninsula leased from China and the southern part of Sakhalin Island. Much more significant was the loss of influence in the world in general and in the Far East, in particular, caused by the unsuccessful war on land and the death of most of the fleet at sea. The feeling of national humiliation was also very strong.
Japan became the dominant Far Eastern power, it almost uncontrollably exploited marine resources, including in the Russian territorial waters, where it conducted predatory fishing, crab, sea animals, etc.

This situation intensified during the 1917 revolution and the ensuing Civil War, when Japan actually occupied the Russian Far East for several years, and left the region with great reluctance under pressure from the United States and Great Britain, which feared an excessive strengthening of yesterday's ally in the First World War.

At the same time, there was a process of strengthening Japan's position in China, which was also weakened and fragmented. The reverse process that began in the 1920s - the strengthening of the USSR, which was recovering from military and revolutionary upheavals - quickly led to the formation of relations between Tokyo and Moscow that could easily be described as a "cold war." The Far East has long become an arena of military confrontation and local conflicts. By the end of the 1930s, tensions reached a peak, and this period was marked by two of the largest clashes between the USSR and Japan during this period - the conflict on Lake Khasan in 1938 and on the Khalkhin-Gol River in 1939.

Fragile neutrality

Having suffered rather serious losses and convinced of the might of the Red Army, Japan chose on April 13, 1941 to conclude a pact of neutrality with the USSR, and to free its hands for the war in the Pacific Ocean.

The Soviet Union also needed this pact. At that time, it became obvious that the "naval lobby", which was pushing the southern direction of the war, was playing an increasing role in Japanese politics. The army's position, on the other hand, was weakened by hurtful defeats. The likelihood of war with Japan was not assessed very high, while the conflict with Germany was approaching every day.

For Germany itself, Japan's partner in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which saw Japan as the main ally and future partner in the New World Order, the agreement between Moscow and Tokyo was a serious slap in the face and caused complications in relations between Berlin and Tokyo. Tokyo, however, pointed out to the Germans that there was a similar pact of neutrality between Moscow and Berlin.

The two main aggressors of World War II could not agree, and each waged its own main war - Germany against the USSR in Europe, Japan - against the United States and Great Britain in the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, Germany declared war on the United States on the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, but Japan did not declare war on the USSR, as the Germans hoped for.

However, relations between the USSR and Japan could hardly be called good - Japan constantly violated the signed pact, detaining Soviet ships at sea, periodically allowing attacks by Soviet military and civil ships, violating the border on land, etc.

It was obvious that the signed document was not valuable for any of the parties for any long time, and the war was only a matter of time. However, since 1942, the situation gradually began to change: the marked turning point in the war forced Japan to abandon long-term plans for a war against the USSR, and at the same time, the Soviet Union began to increasingly carefully consider plans to return the territories lost during the Russo-Japanese War.

By 1945, when the situation became critical, Japan tried to start negotiations with the Western allies, using the USSR as a mediator, but this did not bring success.

During the Yalta Conference, the USSR announced its commitment to start a war against Japan within 2-3 months after the end of the war against Germany. The allies saw the intervention of the USSR as necessary: ​​for the defeat of Japan, the defeat of its ground forces, which for the most part had not yet been affected by the war, was required, and the allies feared that the landing on the Japanese islands would cost them great casualties.

Japan, with the neutrality of the USSR, could count on the continuation of the war and reinforcement of the forces of the mother country at the expense of resources and troops stationed in Manchuria and Korea, communication with which continued, despite all attempts to interrupt it.

The declaration of war by the Soviet Union finally destroyed these hopes. On August 9, 1945, speaking at an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council for War Leadership, Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki stated:

"The entry of the Soviet Union into the war this morning puts us completely in a hopeless position and makes it impossible for the further continuation of the war."

It should be noted that nuclear bombings in this case became only an additional reason for an early withdrawal from the war, but not the main reason. Suffice it to say that the massive bombing of Tokyo in the spring of 1945, which caused about the same number of victims as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, did not lead Japan to surrender. And only the entry into the war of the USSR against the background of nuclear bombings - forced the leadership of the Empire to admit the futility of continuing the war.

"August storm"

The war itself, nicknamed the "August Storm" in the West, was rapid. Possessing rich experience in military operations against the Germans, Soviet troops broke through the Japanese defenses with a series of quick and decisive strikes and began an offensive deep into Manchuria. Tank units successfully advanced in seemingly unsuitable conditions - through the Gobi sands and the Khingan ridges, but the military machine, fine-tuned for four years of war with the most formidable enemy, practically did not fail.

As a result, by August 17, the 6th Guards Tank Army had advanced several hundred kilometers - and about one hundred and fifty kilometers remained to the capital of Manchuria, the city of Xinjing. By this time, the First Far Eastern Front had broken the resistance of the Japanese in the east of Manchuria, occupying the largest city in that region, Mudanjiang. In a number of areas in the depths of the defense, Soviet troops had to overcome fierce enemy resistance. In the zone of the 5th Army, it was rendered with special force in the Mudanjiang region. There were cases of stubborn enemy resistance in the zones of the Trans-Baikal and 2nd Far Eastern fronts. The Japanese army also made repeated counterattacks. On August 17, 1945, in Mukden, Soviet troops captured the Emperor of Manchukuo Pu Yi (formerly the last emperor of China).

On August 14, the Japanese command made a proposal to conclude an armistice. But in practice, hostilities from the Japanese side did not stop. Only three days later, the Kwantung Army received an order from its command to surrender, which began on August 20. But he did not immediately reach everyone, and in some places the Japanese acted contrary to the order.

On August 18, the Kuril landing operation was launched, during which Soviet troops occupied the Kuril Islands. On the same day, August 18, the commander-in-chief of Soviet troops in the Far East, Marshal Vasilevsky, ordered the occupation of the Japanese island of Hokkaido by forces of two rifle divisions. This landing was not carried out due to the delay in the advance of Soviet troops in South Sakhalin, and then postponed until the instructions of the Headquarters.

Soviet troops occupied the southern part of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Manchuria and part of Korea. The main hostilities on the continent lasted 12 days, until August 20. However, individual battles continued until September 10, which became the day of the end of the complete surrender and capture of the Kwantung Army. The fighting on the islands ended completely on 5 September.

The Japan Surrender Act was signed on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

As a result, the million-strong Kwantung Army was completely defeated. According to Soviet data, its casualties amounted to 84 thousand people, about 600 thousand were taken prisoner. Irrecoverable losses of the Red Army amounted to 12 thousand people.

As a result of the war, the USSR actually returned to its composition the territories previously lost by Russia (southern Sakhalin and, temporarily, Kwantung with Port Arthur and Dalny, subsequently transferred to China), as well as the Kuril Islands, the southern part of which is still disputed by Japan.

According to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced any claims to Sakhalin (Karafuto) and Kuril Islands (Chishima Ratto). But the treaty did not determine the ownership of the islands and the USSR did not sign it.
Negotiations on the southern part of the Kuril Islands continue to this day, and there are no prospects for a quick resolution of the issue so far.

World War II was an unprecedented disaster for the Soviet Union. During the war, which began in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and ended with the defeat of Japan in August 1945, more than 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians died.

The Soviet Union, busy and exhausted by the struggle for its existence unfolding along its western borders, played a relatively minor role in the Pacific theater of operations until the very end of the war. And, nevertheless, Moscow's timely intervention in the war against Japan allowed it to expand its influence in the Pacific region.

With the collapse of the anti-Hitler coalition, which soon marked the beginning of the Cold War, the successes achieved by the Soviet Union in Asia also led to confrontation and divisions, some of which still exist.

By the early 1930s, both the Stalinist Soviet Union and the Japanese Empire saw themselves as growing powers seeking to expand their territorial possessions. In addition to the strategic rivalry that had lasted since the 19th century, they now harbored a dislike for each other based on hostile ideologies generated, respectively, by the Bolshevik revolution and the ultra-conservative military, which had an increasing influence on Japanese politics. In 1935 (so in the text - approx. per.) Japan signed an anti-Comintern pact with Nazi Germany, which laid the foundations for the creation of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis (a year later, fascist Italy joined the pact).

In the late 1930s, the armies of both countries repeatedly entered into armed clashes near the borders between Soviet Siberia and Manchuria (Manchukuo), occupied by Japan. During the largest of the conflicts - in the war on Khalkhin Gol in the summer of 1939 - more than 17 thousand people died. And yet Moscow and Tokyo, alarmed by growing tensions in Europe and Southeast Asia, realized that their own plans for Manchuria were not worth the ever-increasing costs and soon focused their attention on other theaters of war.

Just two days after the German Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Moscow and Tokyo signed a non-aggression pact (so in the text - approx. per.)... Having got rid of the danger of fighting on two fronts, the Soviet Union was able to throw all its forces into containing the onslaught of Germany. Accordingly, the Red Army actually did not play any role in the operations that began soon in the Pacific theater of operations - at least until the last moment.

Realizing that Moscow - while its troops were deployed in Europe - did not have additional resources, US President Franklin Roosevelt nevertheless tried to enlist Soviet support in the war with Japan after the defeat of Germany. The leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, agreed to this, hoping to expand the Soviet borders in Asia. Stalin began to build up his military potential in the Far East as soon as a turning point occurred in the course of the war - after the Battle of Stalingrad.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan three months after Germany's defeat. According to the agreement signed in Yalta, Moscow received back South Sakhalin, lost in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, as well as the Kuril Islands, from which Russia refused the rights in 1875. In addition, Mongolia was recognized as an independent state (it was already a Soviet satellite). Also, the interests of the USSR in relation to the naval base in the Chinese port of Port Arthur (Dalian) and the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which until 1905 belonged to the Russian Empire, were to be observed.

Then, on August 8, 1945, Moscow declared war on Japan, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and one day before the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Western historiographers have long emphasized the role of nuclear bombing that forced Japan to surrender. However, the Japanese documents that have recently appeared in the public domain emphasize the significance of the fact that the USSR declared war on Japan and thereby accelerated the defeat of Japan.

The day after the Soviet Union declared war, a massive military invasion of Manchuria began. In addition, the Soviet army carried out an amphibious landing on the territory of the Japanese colonies: the Japanese Northern Territories, Sakhalin Island and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. As a result of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, armed detachments of the Chinese communists rushed there, who fought against both the Japanese and the Chiang Kai-shek nationalists, which ultimately led to the victory of the communists in 1948.

Washington and Moscow agreed in advance on joint administration of Korea with the aim of transforming this country, which has been under Japanese colonial rule since 1910, into an independent state. As in Europe, the USA and the USSR created their own occupation zones there, the dividing line between which ran along the 38th parallel. Unable to reach agreement on the formation of a government for both zones, the representatives of the United States and the USSR led the process of creating the governments of the two opposing parts of Korea - North (Pyongyang) and South (Seoul). This created the preconditions for the Korean War, which began in January 1950, when the North Korean army crossed the line of demarcation along the 38th parallel, where by that time the international border had already passed.

The landing of the Soviet amphibious assault on Sakhalin caused stubborn resistance from Japan, but gradually the Soviet Union managed to firmly gain a foothold throughout the island. Until 1945, Sakhalin was divided into two parts - the Russian zone in the north and the Japanese zone in the south. For more than a century Russia and Japan fought for this large sparsely populated island, and under the terms of the Shimoda Treaty signed in 1855, the Russians had the right to live in the northern part of the island, and the Japanese in the southern. In 1875, Japan renounced its rights to the island, but then captured it during the Russo-Japanese War, and only in 1925 returned the northern half of the island to Moscow again. Following the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which officially ended World War II, Japan renounced all of its claims to Sakhalin and handed the island over to the Soviet Union - even though Moscow refused to sign the treaty.

The Soviet Union's refusal to sign the peace treaty created even more problems for a group of small islands located northeast of Hokkaido and southwest of the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula - Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai. These islands were the subject of Russian-Japanese disputes back in the 19th century. Moscow considered these islands to be the southern tip of the Kuril ridge, which Japan abandoned in San Francisco. True, the agreement did not indicate which islands belong to the Kurils, and the rights to these four islands were not assigned to the USSR. Japan, supported by the United States, argued that these four islands did not belong to the Kuril Islands, and that the USSR had seized them illegally.

The dispute over these islands still serves as an obstacle to the signing of an agreement that formally ends the state of war between Japan and Russia (as the legal successor of the USSR). This issue is extremely painful for the nationalist groups in Moscow and Tokyo - despite the periodic efforts made by the diplomats of both countries to reach an agreement.

Both Russia and Japan are increasingly wary of Chinese power and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. However, the four remote, sparsely populated stretches of land on the very edge of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk remain in many ways the biggest obstacle to a renewed friendship between Moscow and Tokyo that could change the geopolitical situation in Asia.

In the meantime, the division of Korea has already provoked one major war, along with the incalculable suffering of the inhabitants of totalitarian North Korea. With 30,000 American troops still stationed in South Korea - in the demilitarized zone that separates the country from an increasingly paranoid and nuclear-armed North Korea - the Korean Peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous hotspots.

Stalin's entry into the war against Japan was somewhat belated, but even now, sixty years later, it still affects the security situation on the Asian continent.

The article describes the reasons for the Soviet-Japanese armed conflict, the preparation of the parties for war, the course of hostilities. The characteristics of international relations before the outbreak of World War II in the east are given.

Introduction

Active hostilities in the Far East and in the Pacific Ocean were the result of the contradictions created in the pre-war years between the USSR, Great Britain, the USA and China, on the one hand, and Japan, on the other. The Japanese government sought to seize new territories rich in natural resources and establish political hegemony in the Far East.

Since the end of the 19th century, Japan has waged many wars, as a result of which it acquired new colonies. It included the Kuril Islands, southern Sakhalin, Korea, Manchuria. In 1927, General Giichi Tanaka became the country's prime minister, whose government continued its aggressive policy. In the early 1930s, Japan increased the size of its army and created a powerful navy that was one of the most powerful in the world.

In 1940, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe developed a new foreign policy doctrine. The Japanese government planned to create a colossal empire stretching from Transbaikalia to Australia. Western countries pursued a dual policy towards Japan: on the one hand, they sought to limit the ambitions of the Japanese government, but on the other hand, they did not interfere with the intervention of northern China. To carry out their plans, the Japanese government entered into an alliance with Germany and Italy.

Relations between Japan and the Soviet Union deteriorated markedly in the pre-war period. In 1935 the Kwantung Army entered the border regions of Mongolia. Mongolia hastily concluded an agreement with the USSR, and Red Army units were brought into its territory. In 1938, Japanese troops crossed the USSR state border in the area of ​​Lake Khasan, but the invasion attempt was successfully repulsed by Soviet troops. Japanese sabotage groups were also repeatedly thrown into Soviet territory. The confrontation escalated even more in 1939, when Japan launched a war against Mongolia. The USSR, observing the agreement with the Mongolian Republic, intervened in the conflict.

After these events, Japan's policy towards the USSR changed: the Japanese government was afraid of a clash with a strong western neighbor and decided to temporarily abandon the seizure of territories in the north. Nevertheless, for Japan, the USSR was in fact the main enemy in the Far East.

Non-aggression pact with Japan

In the spring of 1941, the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Japan. In the event of an armed conflict of one of the states with any third countries, the second power pledged to maintain neutrality. But the Japanese foreign minister made it clear to the German ambassador in Moscow that the concluded pact of neutrality would not prevent Japan from fulfilling the terms of the Triple Pact during the war with the USSR.

Before the outbreak of World War II in the east, Japan negotiated with American leaders, seeking recognition of the annexation of Chinese territories and the conclusion of new trade agreements. The ruling elite of Japan could not decide against whom to direct a blow in a future war. Some politicians considered it necessary to support Germany, while others called for an attack on the Pacific colonies of Great Britain and the United States.

Already in 1941 it became obvious that Japan's actions would depend on the situation on the Soviet-German front. The Japanese government planned to attack the USSR from the east in the event of the success of Germany and Italy, after the capture of Moscow by German troops. Also of great importance was the fact that the country needed raw materials for its industry. The Japanese were interested in conquering areas rich in oil, tin, zinc, nickel and rubber. Therefore, on July 2, 1941, at the imperial conference, it was decided to start a war against the United States and Great Britain. But the Japanese government did not completely abandon plans to attack the USSR until the Battle of Kursk, when it became obvious that Germany would not win the Second World War. Along with this factor, the active hostilities of the allies in the Pacific Ocean forced Japan to repeatedly postpone and then completely abandon its aggressive intentions towards the USSR.

The situation in the Far East during the Second World War

Despite the fact that hostilities in the Far East did not begin, the USSR was forced throughout the war to keep a large military grouping in this region, the size of which varied in different periods. On the border until 1945 was the Kwantung Army, which consisted of up to 1 million servicemen. The local population also prepared for defense: men were mobilized into the army, women and teenagers studied air defense methods. Fortifications were built around strategically important facilities.

The Japanese leadership believed that the Germans would be able to capture Moscow before the end of 1941. In this regard, it was planned to launch an offensive against the Soviet Union in the winter. On December 3, the Japanese command issued an order to the troops in China to prepare for a transfer to the northern direction. The Japanese were going to invade the USSR in the Ussuri region, and then launch an offensive in the north. To implement the approved plan, it was required to strengthen the Kwantung Army. The troops released after the battles in the Pacific were sent to the Northern Front.

However, the Japanese government's hopes for a quick German victory did not materialize. The failure of the blitzkrieg tactics and the defeat of the Wehrmacht armies near Moscow testified to the fact that the Soviet Union was a strong enough enemy, the power of which should not be underestimated.

The threat of a Japanese invasion intensified in the fall of 1942. The troops of Nazi Germany were advancing on the Caucasus and the Volga. The Soviet command hastily deployed 14 rifle divisions and more than 1,500 guns from the Far East to the front. Just at this time, Japan was not actively fighting in the Pacific Ocean. However, the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief foresaw the possibility of an attack by the Japanese. Far Eastern troops received replenishment from local reserves. This fact became known to Japanese intelligence. The Japanese government again postponed entry into the war.

The Japanese attacked merchant ships in neutral waters, preventing the delivery of goods to Far Eastern ports, repeatedly violated state borders, committed sabotage on Soviet territory, and threw propaganda literature across the border. Japanese intelligence collected information about the movements of the Soviet troops and transmitted it to the headquarters of the Wehrmacht. Among the reasons for the entry of the USSR into the Japanese War in 1945 were not only obligations to the allies, but also concern for the security of its borders.

Already in the second half of 1943, when the turning point in the course of World War II ended, it became clear that after Italy had already withdrawn from the war, Germany and Japan would also be defeated. The Soviet command, anticipating a future war in the Far East, from that time almost did not use the Far Eastern troops on the Western Front. Gradually, these units of the Red Army were replenished with military equipment and manpower. In August 1943, the Primorskaya Group of Forces was created as part of the Far Eastern Front, which indicated preparations for a future war.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union confirmed that the agreement between Moscow and the Allies to participate in the war with Japan remained in effect. The Red Army was supposed to start military operations against Japan no later than 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. In return, J.V. Stalin demanded territorial concessions for the USSR: the transfer of the Kuril Islands to Russia and the part of Sakhalin Island assigned to Japan as a result of the 1905 war, transfer of the Chinese port of Port Arthur on lease to the Soviet naval base for the Soviet naval base (on modern maps - Lushun ). The commercial port Dalniy was to become an open port with the predominant observance of the interests of the USSR.

By this time, the Armed Forces of the United States and Great Britain inflicted a number of defeats on Japan. However, her resistance was not broken. The demand for unconditional surrender by the United States, China and Great Britain on July 26 was rejected by Japan. This decision was not unfounded. The United States and Great Britain did not have sufficient forces to carry out an amphibious operation in the Far East. According to the plans of American and British leaders, the final defeat of Japan was envisaged not earlier than 1946. The Soviet Union, having entered the war with Japan, significantly brought the end of World War II closer.

Forces and plans of the parties

The Soviet-Japanese War, or the Manchurian operation, began on August 9, 1945. The Red Army was faced with the task of crushing Japanese troops in China and North Korea.

Back in May 1945, the USSR began the transfer of troops to the Far East. 3 fronts were formed: 1st and 2nd Far Eastern and Transbaikal. The Soviet Union used border troops, the Amur military flotilla and ships of the Pacific Fleet in the offensive.

The Kwantung Army included 11 infantry and 2 tank brigades, more than 30 infantry divisions, cavalry and mechanized units, a suicide brigade, and the Sungaria River Naval Flotilla. The most significant forces were stationed in the eastern regions of Manchuria, bordering the Soviet Primorye. In the western regions, the Japanese deployed 6 infantry divisions and 1 brigade. The number of enemy soldiers exceeded 1 million people, but more than half of the fighters were conscripts of younger ages and limited fitness. Many Japanese units were understaffed. Also, the newly created units lacked weapons, ammunition, artillery and other military equipment. Outdated tanks and aircraft were used in Japanese units and formations.

On the side of Japan, the troops of Manchukuo, the army of Inner Mongolia and the Suiyuan army group fought. In the border areas, the enemy built 17 fortified areas. The command of the Kwantung Army was carried out by General Otsuzo Yamada.

The plan of the Soviet command provided for the delivery of two main strikes by the forces of the 1st Far Eastern and Trans-Baikal fronts, as a result of which the main enemy forces in the center of Manchuria would be taken in ticks, divided into parts and defeated. The troops of the 2nd Far Eastern Front, consisting of 11 rifle divisions, 4 rifle and 9 tank brigades, were to strike in the direction of Harbin in cooperation with the Amur Flotilla. Then the Red Army was to occupy large settlements - Shenyang, Harbin, Changchun. The fighting took place over an area of ​​over 2,500 km. on the map of the area.

The beginning of hostilities

Simultaneously with the beginning of the Soviet offensive, aviation carried out bombing raids on areas of large concentrations of troops, strategically important objects and communication centers. Ships of the Pacific Fleet struck at Japanese naval bases in North Korea. The offensive was led by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops in the Far East, A.M. Vasilevsky.

As a result of the hostilities of the troops of the Trans-Baikal Front, which crossed the Gobi Desert and the Khingan Mountains on the first day of the offensive, advanced 50 km, significant groups of enemy troops were defeated. The offensive was hampered by the natural conditions of the area. There was not enough fuel for the tanks, but the Red Army units used the experience of the Germans - the supply of fuel was organized by transport aircraft. On August 17, the 6th Guards Tank Army reached the approaches to the capital of Manchuria. Soviet troops isolated the Kwantung Army from Japanese units in North China and occupied important administrative centers.

The Soviet group of forces, advancing from the Primorye, broke through the strip of border fortifications. In the Mudanjiang area, the Japanese launched a series of counterattacks, which were repulsed. Soviet units occupied Jirin and Harbin, and with the assistance of the Pacific Fleet liberated the coast, capturing strategically important ports.

Then the Red Army liberated North Korea, and from mid-August, hostilities took place in China. On August 14, the Japanese command initiated surrender negotiations. On August 19, enemy troops began to surrender en masse. However, World War II hostilities continued until early September.

Simultaneously with the defeat of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, Soviet troops conducted the South Sakhalin offensive and landed troops on the Kuril Islands. During the operation on the Kuril Islands, on August 18-23, Soviet troops, with the support of the ships of the Peter and Paul Naval Base, captured the island of Samusyu and occupied all the islands of the Kuril ridge by September 1.

Outcomes

Due to the defeat of the Kwantung Army on the continent, Japan could no longer continue the war. The enemy lost important economic regions in Manchuria and Korea. The Americans carried out atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and captured the island of Okinawa. On September 2, the act of surrender was signed.

The USSR included the territories lost by the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century: South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. In 1956, the USSR restored relations with Japan and agreed to the transfer of the Habomai Islands and the Sikotan Island to Japan, subject to the conclusion of a Peace Treaty between the countries. But Japan has not resigned itself to territorial losses and negotiations on the ownership of the disputed regions are still ongoing.

For military merits more than 200 units received the titles "Amur", "Ussuriysk", "Khingansky", "Harbin" and so on. 92 servicemen became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

As a result of the operation, the losses of the belligerent countries amounted to:

• from the side of the USSR - about 36.5 thousand servicemen,
• from Japan - more than 1 million soldiers and officers.

Also, during the battles, all the ships of the Sungaria flotilla were sunk - more than 50 ships.

Medal "For the victory over Japan"