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Quasi-War between Japan and the U.S.S.R., 1937–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Clark W. Tinch
Clark W. Tinch
Affiliation:
The School of Advanced International Studies and the Middle East Institute, Public Affairs Press, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

The scale and intensity of the fighting in Korea have been such as Americans have, before 1950, associated only with full-fledged war. How such a conflict could fail to develop into World War III they only dimly understand. They had assumed that in the twentieth century war, or at least wars involving great powers, had to be total.

To the extent that this assumption is incorporated in the expectations of the ruling elite of either of two or more contending powers, it is likely to be true; to the extent that war is made an end in itself, is conceptually divorced from the political ends it in fact seeks to achieve, the organized violence of warring great powers must be not only totally organized, but totally applied, while the consequences go hang. The weapons and techniques of the last war when handled non-politically produced, therefore, as might have been anticipated, conditions singularly unpropitious to the realization of what were professed to have been the aims for which the war was fought.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , January 1951 , pp. 174 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1951

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References

1 “Is War with Russia Inevitable?” Reader's Digest, LVI, No. 335 (March 1950), 1–9.

2 For a work typical of the Soviet reaction, see Tul'skii, C. and Fedorov, M., Man chzhuriia: platsdarm dlia napadeniia na S.S.S.R (Manchuria: Base for Attack on the U.S.S.R.), Moscow, 1934.Google Scholar A much more comprehensive study on this period and its background is Avarin, V., Imperializm v Manchzhurii (Imperialism in Manchuria), 2 vols., Moscow, 1934.Google Scholar A brief retrospective view may be found in Masslenikov, V., “The War Front and the Peace Front in the Far East,” Tikhii Okean (Pacific Ocean), March-April 1938.Google Scholar

3 For a review of the electrifying effect of the Japanese invasion upon the Soviet Far East, see Voiminskii, G., “Japanese Military Aggression in the Far East,” in Okupatsiia Manchzhurii i bor'ba kitaiskogo naroda (The Occupation of Manchuria and the Struggle of the Chinese People), ed. by Voiminskii, , Moscow, 1937.Google Scholar

4 From an editorial in Izvestiya, March 4, 1932.

5 For the most comprehensive coverage of these incidents through the battle of Changkufeng (Khasan), see Hidaka, Noburu, (ed.), Manchoukuo-Soviet Border Issues, 1938Google Scholar; also, “An Outline of the Soviet-Manehoukuo Border Controversy,” Contemporary Manchuria, July 1937.

6 A relatively complete account of border incidents and their causes as viewed by the Soviet press is provided by Moore, Harriet L., Soviet Far Eastern Policy, 1931–1945, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1945.Google Scholar

7 See the editorial “Provocations of Japan in China and on the Far Eastern Borders of the Soviet Union,” Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika (World Economics and World Politics), August 1937, p. 138. The editorial states that “after the Soviet Union on July 4 offered peacefully to settle the dispute and recommended that evacuation of troops of both countries from the islands be carried out, the Japanese renewed their attacks.” Hidaka (op. cit., pp. 88–94), on the other hand, records the above agreement as having occurred on July 2, and mentions neither the withdrawal of Japanese troops nor the subsequent attacks. The Japan-Manchoukuo Year Booh (Tokyo, 1937, p. 687) confuses the matter yet further by stating that Litvinov informed Japanese Ambassador Shigemitsu of his agreement to withdraw Soviet troops;that he did not do so precipitated the gunboat incident. Finally, according to the Year Book report, the Japanese secured a withdrawal agreement and withdrew their troops, leaving unsolved the problem of possession of the islands. Ambassador Davies, Joseph E. in Mission to Moscow (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1941, pp. 164–66)Google Scholar gives yet another unverified story in which, among other things, Japanese-Manchurian cutters, not Soviet, were sunk. Davies became so alarmed over what he believed to be the dangerous tension that he paid an unofficial visit to Shigemitsu in the hopes of averting war.The Ambassadorplainly was in unfamiliar surroundings. The world press, in general, displayed no less naïveté. Perhaps due to its obfuscation by propaganda, the incident was completely misinterpreted as a threat to peace, a matter for international concern, etc. The above accounts have been reviewed at such length simply to illustrate the difficulty of getting at the facts when in totalitarian hands facts are weapons.

8 Davies, , op. cit., p. 166.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 299.

10 For a description of guerrilla activities, see Glebov, N., “The Japanese Aggressors and the Manchurian Rear,” Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, July-August 1938.Google Scholar

11 It is still not clear whether the Changkufeng battle was set off purposefully by the Kwantung Army or whetherit simply grew out of increasingly severe fighting.Inasmuch as the Russians were not prepared for the engagement and the Japanese lost it, the clashes, from any standpoint, “got out of hand.”.

12 Stern, Gregori M., “The Sixth of August,” Pravda, Aug. 6, 1939.Google Scholar Author's italics.

13 Ibid. All the facts and interpretationsattributed to Stern are drawn from this same article in Pravda.

l4 “The Soviet Repulse of the Japanese War Instigators,” Bol'shevik, Aug. 15, 1938.

15 Hidata, , op. cit., p. 215.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 220.

17 Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, Sept. 1939, pp. 247 f. The reports on Nomonhan, like those onother border clashes, are open to question. If the Japanese were “beaten back” and “ejected from Soviet soil” almost before they set foot upon it (as the Soviet press invariably insisted), how then was it possible to mount a prolonged and successful counterattack of the kind just described without at the same time crossing over into enemy territory (which act the Soviet press invariably denied)?

18 Ibid.

19 New York Times, Sept. 4, 1939. Three books in Japanese are available at the Library of Congress, each describing a different phase of the engagement. For the non-user of Japanese, the works are nevertheless valuable for their collections of photographs, battle orders, maps, etc. The most comprehensive of these is Kwantung Army Headquarters, Nomonhan Bidauroku (A Record of the Nomonhan Incident), 1941. Valuable for its report on tank warfare is Kusaba, Sakae, NoroKochi (Hill Noro), Tokyo, 1941.Google Scholar For a personal narrative, see Tanaka, Eiji, Nomonhan Senki: Tokon (Nomonhan Battle Report: The Spirit of Battle), Tokyo, 1941.Google Scholar The foregoing documents were reviewed and highlighted for the author by Dr. Ardath Burks.

20 For excerpts from these treaties where they relate to the border question and a discussion of them as they affected the position, Japanese, see “An Outline of the Manchoukuo-Soviet Border Controversy,” Contemporary Manchuria, July 1937.Google Scholar A large map is included to show the disputed borders; also, a table of border-markers, their history and condition.

21 Ibid., p. 26.

22 For example, see Izvestiya, Aug. 6, 1939, for the Hunchun Treaty Map. This map was reproduced by the Soviet press to support Soviet claims in relation to the battle at Changkufeng (Lake Khasan) the previous year. For the map applied to the Nomonhan conflict, see Izvestiya, July 14, 1939. This map is a cartographical question mark. The scale is 1–2,500,000 and there are no co-ordinates whatsoever.

23 The Soviet government insistently maintained that the borders had been properly demarcated and made it clear that all attempts to revise the existing borders would continueto meet armed resistance.

24 For a detailed discussion, see Shindo, Shintaro, “Fishing in Soviet Waters,” Contemporary Japan, Sept. 1938.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 246. Shindo, like his government, pretended to believe that the Soviet government had refused to renegotiate the 1928 treaty “for no good reason.” Japanese authorities at this point had become highly sensitive to legal and verbal niceties. Since Moscow, equally concerned with form to the exclusion of content, had repeatedly insisted that the Comintern and the Soviet Union were connected by no more than the gossamer of mutual sympathy, the Japanese blandlymaintained that the Anti-Comintern Pact could in no way be construed as an anti-Soviet instrument.They concluded therefore that Soviet-Japanese relations should be in no way affected by theAxis alliance. Both powers appear to have been somewhat entranced by the resonance of their own sounding boards.

26 The Soviet attitude on fisheries during the latter thirties was expressed of ficially in the sharp reply of the Narkomindel to the Japanese request of early 1939. See Pravda, July 24, 1939, for text; also applicable portions of Iu. Davydov: “Economic Relations of Japan and the U.S.S.R.,” Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, Sept. 1938. Useful in describing Soviet views on the fisheries dispute in its wider context is Zhukov, E.: “The New Japanese Government and the Foreign Policy of Japan,” Tikhii Okean, Oct. 1939.Google Scholar Japan's case is available in the statement of the Foreign Office spokesman concerning the fisheries negotiations (March 15, 1939) and the statement of the Foreign Office Information Bureau concerning fisheries negotiations (April 4, 1939), in Contemporary Manchuria, May 1939, pp. 436–37.

27 Before the Third Session of the Supreme Soviet, May 31, 1939, Molotov remarked characteristically that the new extension (for one year) had “the greatest political significance.”

28 See Davydov, , loc. cit., pp. 60–62Google Scholar, for a full discussion of the concessions and alleged Japaneseanti-Soviet conduct. For the text of the governing treaty of 1925 and attached Protocol (B), see Moore, Harriet, op. cit., pp. 179–81.Google Scholar

29 Izvestiya declared emphatically that all fishery, oil, and coal concessionaires and workers continued to enjoy the full right to engage in their business without interference so long as they abided by the Soviet regulations and did not violate the concessions agreement. Davydov reiterated this claim (op. cit., p. 61).

30 New York Times, July 22, 1939.

31 The figures on total trade and trade turnover between Japan and the Soviet Union from 1931 through the first quarter of 1938 illustrate most clearly the inevitable subordination of economic considerations to political ones. See Davydov, , op. cit., pp. 53–55Google Scholar, for a summary of trade relations between the two countries.

32 124,000,000 yen, one-third of which was to be paid in cash and the remainder in goods.

33 Ziuzin, A, “The Situation in Manchuria,” Mirovoe Kkoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, No. 4–5, 1940, p. 171.Google Scholar Ziuzin's article presents perhaps thebest and most comprehensive Russian survey of Manchuria as of early 1940.

34 See Kravchenko, Victor, Chose Freedom, New York, Scribner, 1946, pp. 316–31Google Scholar for a personal account of the development of heavy industry in Siberia and the partplayed by the Japanese threat in expediting the process. For a general discussion of the Soviet Far East and its turbulent history, see Gubel'man, M., “Our Heroic Far East,” Tikhii Okean, March-April 1938.Google Scholar

35 According to Ziuzin, (loc. cit., p. 171)Google Scholar, railroad mileage in Manchoukuo almost doubled during the Japanese occupation. Ziuzin emphasizes that this development was directed against the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People'sRepublic as well as against the areas of partisan resistance. For a complementary study, see Gal'nerin, A., “The Military-Economic Preparation of the Manchurian Base,” Mirovoe Khoeiaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, September 1939.Google Scholar

36 For the text of the Treaty, see Izvestiya, April 15, 1941, with the appendaged Frontier Declaration which guaranteed the “territorial integrity and inviolability of Manchoukuo, and … the Mongolian People's Republic.”

37 As Nathaniel Weyl put it in Treason: The Story of Disloyalty and Betrayal in American History (Washington, Public Affairs Press, 1950, p. 474): “The Constitution was drafted in a comparatively simple era when nations, asa rule, either went to war or remained at peace.” The institutional means at the disposal of the government remain, despite the many ad hoc decisions of recent administrations, ill-designed to cope with the unique demands of quasi-war.

38 War and Peace in Soviet Diplomacy, New York, Macmillan, 1940, p. 295.

39 Salisbury, Harrison E., New York Times, International Edition Supplement, Dec. 17, 1950, p. 5.Google Scholar