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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
There is a widely shared belief expressed in political literature that Japan is Russia's “traditional foe.” Japan's policy is very often pictured as a straight line of constant fighting against the “Russian bear” - much more so since that bear has been dyed red. Actually, however, the history of Russo-Japanese relations proves this assumption to be anything but correct.
1 This was a secret memorandum written in 1912. However, its contents were briefly reported in an article in the newspaper Novoye vremya (The new time) in Petersburg. Extensive quotations also appear in Pavlovich-Veltman, M., “Godovshchina Russko-Yaponskoy Voyny” (The anniversary of the Russo-Japanese War), Novyi Vostok (The new East), 7 (Moscow, 1925), 16Google Scholar ff. The story of the writing of the memorandum was told by Rosen, Baron F. F. himself, in his Forty years of diplomacy (London, 1920Google Scholar). About Rosen, Baron see also Yur. Soloviev, 25 let moyey diplomaticheskoy sluihby (25 years of my diplomatic service) (Moscow, 1928), 109Google Scholar ff.
2 Baron Rosen tried to play a large political role after the revolution as well. He was the initiator of a plan for a separate peace with Germany, which circulated in St. Petersburg's democratic circles in the autumn of 1917. He carried on persistent propaganda for his ideas and tried to contact prominent leaders of the Democratic and Socialist parties. In the circles of political leaders he was even regarded as a possible candidate for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in case a separate peace became unavoidable. (A verbal report received by the author from I. G. Tseretelli, who was the head of the Provisional Government in 1917.) In November 1917 Rosen offered his services to the Bolshevist Soviet of People's Commissars, which began negotiations with Germany. See Salkind, I., “Narodnyi Komissariat Inostrannych del v 1917 Godu” (The People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in 1917), Mezhdunarodnaya lhizn (International life), organ of the NKID (Moscow, Oct. 1927), 17Google Scholar.
3 Thus, for instance, the alliance with Germany was openly advocated in Japan in 1916-17 by the minister of war. Gen. Tanaka. See Pravda, Moscow, Nov. 22, 1918; A: Galperin (Comp.), Anglo-Yaponskiy soyuz(Anglo-Japanese alliance) (Moscow: Pacific Institute of the Academy of Science of the USSR, 1947), 320. This agitation crossed with the agitation for an alliance with Russia; see Morskoy sbornik (Maritime collection) (St. Petersburg, 1916), 3:75-83.
4 Neither the official minutes of the 7th Convention nor Lenin's works contain these remarks. My quotations are taken from Dingelstedt's article, “Iz vospominanyi agitator a Peter-burgskogo Komiteta” (From the memoirs of an agitator of the Petersburg Committee), Krasnaya letopis (The red annals), no. 1 (Leningrad, 1928), 67. He reports many details from notes he had taken down at the time of the convention.
5 Larin, Y., “U kolybeli, vospominania” (At the cradle; memoirs), Narodnoye khoziaystvo (The people's economy), November 1918, 20Google Scholar.
6 'Lenin's works (3rd Rus. ed.), 25: 502Google Scholar ft. The editor of Lenin's works describes Vanderlip as “Frank Arthur Vanderlip… American banker,” etc. This statement is erroneous. Actually, the negotiations with Lenin were conducted by Washington Vanderlip, B., engineer, who worked for a number of years in the gold fields of Siberia. The facts concerning his negotiations with Lenin were collected by Albert Parry in “Washington B. Vanderlip, the Khan of Kamchatka,” Pacific historical review, 17 (Aug. 1948), 311–30Google Scholar.
7 Chicherin's views are found in his articles in the Vestnik Narodnogo Komissariata Ino-strannych Del (Herald of-the. People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs). At first he wrote under his own name, later under the pseudonym “Postscriptum.” His article, “Rossiya i asiatskie narody” (Russia and the Asiatic peoples), published in this magazine on August 13, 1919, is particularly instructive. With unconcealed regrethe refers to the opportunities missed in the last years of Alexander Ill's life. At that time “Russian colonels seized the peaks of Hindu Kush and the valleys which gave access to the countries of the Hindustan geographical system” (p. 5). Yet, they were-unable to bring their plans to completion because the Prince of Wales had succeeded in “getting around” the young Nicholas II at the time of the funeral of Alexander III. “We were thrown back to the position we had held 30 years ago – the men of the Asiatic Department asserted.” In these words Chicherin revealed the genealogy of his Anglophobia. He brought it into the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs directly from the Asiatic Department where he had started his diplomatic career 25 years earlier. Other articles (particularly his “Reminiscences,” published in the 4–5 issue of Mezhdunarodnaya ihizn [International life] in 1925, under the pseudonym “Postscriptum”) give evidence that, in his opinion, the severance of the Russo-German alliance in 1890 had had a disastrous effect on Europe's history. In other words, Chicherin, the head of the Soviet diplomacy, adhered to the conception of foreign policy adopted by the Three Emperors' Alliance.
8 See Chicherin's address at the session of the Ail-Union Soviet Executive Committee, June 17, 1920 in Vestnik Narodnogo Komissariata Inostrannych Del (Herald of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs), 1920, vol. 4–5.
9 This treaty and the supplementary memorandum were published in the German radical left-wing press after the German revolution. They were reprinted in Izvestiya, Nov. 22 and 23, 1918.
10 See for instance the rather interesting pamphlet, Americanus: “Mexico-Deutschland-Japan” (Dresden: “Globus” – Verlag, 1919Google Scholar). There were even advocates of a German-Russian-Japanese alliance among socialist circles; thus, it was urged by Max Kohan and Ludw. Quessel in the Sozialistische monatshefte.
11 Haushofer, K., Japan und Japaner (Berlin, 1923), 121Google Scholar.
12 Lenin's Works, 25: 502.
13 “Novyy Vostok (The New East), 2(1925), 34Google Scholar.
14 Pravda, Sept. 27, 1922.
15 Milioukoff, P., La politique exttlrieure des Soviets (Paris, 1936), 229Google Scholar.
16 Lenin's works, 25: 506Google Scholar.
17 Chetvertyi Vsemirnyy Kongress Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala (The Fourth World Congress of the Communist International), November 5–December 3, 1922. Selection of reports, etc. (Moscow, 1923), 411–17Google Scholar.
18 Lenin said this in 1920 when he was interviewed by Katsuji Fuse, correspondent of the Japanese newspaper Nichi nichi. This interview is not reprinted in Lenin's works, although his words are quoted by Fuse in the questions which he posed to Stalin in 1925 (see note 43). The interview is reprinted in Russian in the pamphlet, Lenin i Vostok (Lenin and the East) (2nd ed., Moscow: Nauchnaya Assotsiatsya Vostokovedeniya SSSR [The Scientific Society for Oriental Studies of the USSR] 1925), 61-64.
19 Lenin's works, 25: 289 ff. It is significant that Lenin used this term in the “preliminary” outline of the theses on the colonial problem. In accordance with the traditional line of Russian Marxism, this term meant that there were objective limits which could be achieved by movements of this kind. In the Colonial Committee of the convention the term was changed into “movements of national liberation” – a term unrelated to any objective conditions or limitations.Google Scholar
20 Vtorey Kongress Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala (The Second Congress of the Communist International) (Petrograd, 1921), 601Google Scholar.
21 Semenov, B., “Yapono-Sovetskoye soglashenie” (The Japanese-Soviet agreement), Novyy Vostok, 7 (Moscow, 1925), 44Google Scholar. This article also mentions the comments of the foreign press concerning the treaty of January 20. Our quotations are taken from this article.
22 Besedovsky, G., Na putyach k Termidoru (On'the path to Thermidor) (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar, 2:6, 13 refers to such a supplement. It is also mentioned repeatedly by Haushofer, K. in Japans reichserneuerung (Leipzig, 1930), 20Google Scholar, etc. Milioukoff, op. cit., 235, asserts that a special secret protocol, signed at the same time as the agreement, on Jan. 20, 1925, confirmed “all accords and conventions based on the Portsmouth Treaty.”
23 Yolk, E. “Yaponskaya voenshchina v borbe za vlast” (Japanese militarists in their struggle for power), Tikhiy Okean (The Pacific Ocean), 2 (1936), 13.Google Scholar
24 The main facts reported here are taken from the book by Tanin, O. and Yohan, E., Voenno-fashistshoye dvizhenie v Yaponii (The military-fascist movement in Japan) (Moscow, 1933); Am. ed., Militarism and fascism in Japan (New York, 1934), 45, 91, 99-102, 259.Google Scholar
25 Kimaze, Seizo, Mitsura Toyama kampft für Grossasien (München-Wien: Zinnen-Verlag, 1941), 160Google Scholar. S. Kimaze, who was apparently close to M. Toyama, quotes the words which he asserts were spoken by Sun Yat-sen in 1898, in a talk with M. Toyama.
26 Haushofer repeatedly refers to the history of this letter. Zeitschrift für geopolitik (1924), 820; (1925), 86; (1928), 608, etc.
27 Zhukov, E., Istoriya Yaponii (History of Japan) (Moscow, 1939), 165.Google Scholar
28 Maiski, I. described Sun Yat-sen's attitude at that time in his article, “Borba v Kitaye” (The struggle in China), Pravda, July 28, 1922.Google Scholar
29 Baranovski, M. and Shvarsalon, S., Chto nuzhno zrat o Kiataye (What should be known about China), (Moscow, 1928), 200.Google Scholar
30 Khodorov, A., “Sun Yat-sen,” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn (International life), no. 2 (Moscow, 1925), 114.Google Scholar
31 Haushofer, Japans reichserneuerung, 19-20.
32 “IV Vsemimyy Kongress Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala (The IVth World Congress of the Communist International), (Moscow, 1923), 273.Google Scholar
33 Manabendra Nat Roy, Revolution und Konterrevolution in China (Berlin: Soziologische Verlagsanstalt, 1930). 288.Google Scholar
34 Zeitschrift für geopolitik (July 1924), 450.
35 Zeitschrift für geopolitik (Nov. 1924), 733.
36 Milioukoff, op. cit., 272.
37 Sun Yat-sen, China and Japan; natural friends - unnatural enemies. A Guide {or China's foreign policy. With a foreword by President Wang Ching-wei (Shanghai, 1941). We call par ticular attention to Sun Yat-sen's address on “Pan-Asiaticism,” delivered on November 28, 1924, at Kobe.
38 Zeitschrift für geopolitik (Dec. 1924), 820.
39 Rasshirennyi plenum Ispolkoma Kommunislicheskogo Internatsionala, 25 Marta-6 Aprelia, 1925 goda (The expanded plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, March 25-April 6, 1925). Records of Sessions (Leningrad: State Publishing Office, 1925), 40.
40 Stalin, J., Problemy Leninizma (Problems of Leninism) (3rd ed., Moscow, 1926), 213.Google Scholar
41 Puti mirovoy revolutsii; protokoly VII plenuma Ispolkoma Kominterna (The paths of world revolution: Records of the Vllth plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern) (Moscow, 1927), 1: 430.Google Scholar
42 Rasshirennyi plenum Ispolkoma Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala, 25 Marta-6 Aprelia, 1925 goda (The expanded plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, March 25-April 6, 1925) (Leningrad: State Publishing Office, 1925), p. 44.Google Scholar
43 Although he was not a Communist, Katsuji Fuse urged, in 1920-25, rapprochement with the USSR and its utilization in the interests of the pan-Asiatic movement. Later, while he remained a pan-Asiatic, he became a confirmed enemy of the USSR. See Radek, K., “Iskrenn-yaya beseda s gospodinom Fuse” (A sincere talk with Mr. Fuse), in the newspaper Izuestiya, March 30, 1934Google Scholar. Recalling his meeting with Stalin in 1925, Fuse wrote later that Stalin described himself as a faithful pupil of Lenin. In 1940 Fuse defined Stalin's foreign policy as a whole as a “provocative policy.” See K. Fuse, “Soviet policy in the East and West,” Contemporary Japan (Dec. 1940), 1546. The Russian text of Fuse's interview with Stalin was first published in Pravda, Moscow, July 4, 1925; it was recently reprinted in Stalin, J., Sobraniye sochinenyi (Collected works) (Moscow, 1948)Google Scholar, 7: 227–31. Nic/ii nichi, whose correspondent was granted this interview with Stalin, was one of Japan's leading newspapers. Its circulation reached about two million. Bolshaya Sovetskaya entsiklopediya (The large Soviet encyclopedia), 65:673 describes its political policy as follows: “It is the herald of the Osaka bourgeoisie which tolerates no extreme liberalism either in the domestic or in the foreign political field.”
44 In this respect, the position of Taraknath Das was very interesting. He was one of the prominent representatives of the national movement in India. At the time with which we are dealing, he led a systematic campaign in the press for the creation of a pan-Asiatic bloc under Japan's leadership and in close alliance with Germany. For instance, in an article “For Japan,” which he published in The people - the mouthpiece of the Swarai Party at Lahore - he wrote: “Japan alone could achieve the deliverance of Asia,” “Japan is Asia's sole hope,” “Japan must pay ever greater attention to Germany's policy and strive for friendship with Germany” (my quotations are taken from a reprint of this article in the Zeitschrift für geo-politik [Nov. 1925], 873). Taraknath Das had been a contributor to the Zeitschrift für geo-politik.
45 The following thesis of Takabatake is highly significant: “An advocate of state supremacy must also be a Socialist, and a believer in Socialism is inevitably an advocate of state supremacy” (Tanin and Yohan, op. cit., 72).
46 “Since I have quoted Tanin and Yohan, so often, it might be pertinent to make a few remarks concerning their fate. Both these authors wrote much in 19S2-34, specializing in the history of military-fascist groupings, their programs, and connections. In their work they assiduously collected materials on the statist tendencies of these groups, showing a degree of objectivity rather unusual under Soviet conditions. During the big “purge” of 193–38, they both disappeared, as did many other students of Japan and China. The experts on Japan who replaced them hewed close to Stalin's current political line and have been inclined to avoid mention of the statist moods of Japanese fascism.
47 Tanin and Yohan, op. tit., 74-75.
48 “Sowietrussische Aussenpolitik,” Zeitschrift für geopolitik, Jan. 1925.
49 Khayama, U., Rabocheye dvizhenie v Yaponii (The labor movement in Japan) (Moscow, 1937), 138Google Scholar. See also the same author's article, “Borba za generalnuyu liniyu v Yaponskoy Kom-partii” (The struggle for a general line in the Japanese Communist Party”), Sovremennaya Yaponiya (Contemporary Japan), 1 (Moscow, 1934), 107–108Google Scholar. This periodical was published by the Communist Academy.
50 Quoted by Korovin's, E. A.Yaponiya i mezhdunarodnoye pravo (Japan and international law) (Moscow, 1936), 193.Google Scholar
51 The material published by Avarine, V. in Imperializm i Man'chzhuriya (Imperialism and Manchuria) (Moscow, 1931), 144–50Google Scholar, shows that the conclusion of the 1916 agreement by Russia was not entirely an act of her own volition. See also Y. Kluchnikov and A. Sabanin, Mezhdun-arodnaya politika nashego vremeni (The international politics of our time). The treaty of July 3, 1916, originated under circumstances very reminiscent of those which led to the secret British-Japanese treaty of January 21, 1917, concerning Shantung.
52 von Biilow, H. in Zeitschrift für geopolitik (1927), 376.Google Scholar
53 See, for instance, his speech, printed in the newspaper Pravda, January 30, 1925.
54 I cannot deal with this problem in full detail here. Yet I cannot help pointing to the fact that Stalin's conceptions of foreign policy definitely veered away from Leninism to geopolitics of Haushofer's variety.
