Historical Events
Japan · Events 4
The Civil War and Foreign Intervention
From 1918 to 1922 the Soviet republic fought for its survival, encircled by White generals and intervention forces from more than a dozen foreign powers. The Red Army that Trotsky organized grew to five million soldiers and defeated the armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, and Wrangel in turn, as the majority of workers and peasants preferred Soviet power to the return of the landlords and the old order. Yet victory came at a terrible price: millions died from war, famine, and epidemics, while the terror practiced by both sides and the emergency rule of wartime left deep marks on the character of the Soviet state that followed.
The Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Neutrality Pact
The Soviet-Japanese Border Wars were armed conflicts fought between the Soviet Union and Mongolia on one side and Japan and Manchukuo on the other, centred on the Battle of Lake Khasan (1938) and the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (1939). The trigger was a dispute over the demarcation of the Manchukuo-Mongolia border, but the deeper driver was the Kwantung Army's 'Strike North' faction testing Soviet military strength. At Lake Khasan, Japanese forces briefly occupied the disputed area but withdrew under Soviet counterattack. At Khalkhin Gol, Georgy Zhukov assembled 57,000 troops and over 500 tanks, and between 20 and 31 August 1939 destroyed the Japanese 23rd Division in a double envelopment. The defeat crushed the Strike North faction in Tokyo. On 13 April 1941, the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed. When Germany invaded the USSR that June, Japan honoured the pact and refused to join the attack, instead turning south: a decision that led to Pearl Harbor.
The Pacific War
The Pacific War was the 1941 to 1945 conflict that entered its full phase when Japan attacked American and British positions on 7 December 1941. Its background was the war in China since 1937 and Japan's drive for resources and empire. Facing sanctions on oil and strategic materials, Japanese leaders sought Southeast Asian resources and hoped to shock the United States into negotiation, but Pearl Harbor brought it into total war. Japan rapidly seized the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, yet Coral Sea and Midway exposed the limits of its offensive. From Guadalcanal in 1942, Allied offensives across the Southwest and Central Pacific gained ground. The recapture of the Philippines and seizure of the Marianas in 1944 brought Japan within bombing range. In 1945 blockade, bombing, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the atomic bombings, and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan converged. Japan announced surrender on 15 August and signed the Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay on 2 September.
The Soviet Entry into the War against Japan
The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, from 9 August to 2 September 1945, was the last major land campaign of World War II. At Yalta in February 1945, Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan within two to three months of Germany's surrender; a secret protocol awarded the USSR southern Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and a Port Arthur lease. The Soviets denounced the Neutrality Pact in April and moved over 400,000 troops and 2,000 tanks from Europe to the Far East. On 8 August, Molotov declared war; just after midnight, Vasilevsky's 1.5 million men attacked from the west, east, and north simultaneously. The Kwantung Army had over 700,000 troops but its best units had been transferred to the Pacific. Soviet armored superiority and operational skill destroyed organized resistance in ten days. Some 600,000 Japanese prisoners were sent to Siberian camps.