About 640,000 of the Japanese servicemen taken prisoner, including 16,000 Chinese and 10,200 Koreans, were brought to the GUPVI camps on the Soviet territory and used for slave labor.54 This was a direct violation of the Potsdam Declaration of the western Allies, signed on July 26, 1945, the 9th point of which stated: ‘The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.’55 But the Soviets did not comply because Stalin did not sign this declaration. Japanese estimates reveal that approximately 250,000 Japanese POWs perished in the labor camps, while Russian officials claim that a much smaller number, 62,068 Japanese, died. It is possible that the real numbers of Japanese POWs held in Soviet captivity—and of related fatalities—will never be known.
Only on October 19, 1956, more than three years after Stalin’s death, did Japan and the Soviet Union sign the agreement ending the war. A peace agreement between the two countries has never been signed due to an unresolved dispute regarding the status of the southern Kuril Islands.
Notes
1. Details of negotiations and of the agreement in Boris Slavinsky, The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941–1945, translated by Geoffrey Jukes (New York: RoutledgeCurson, 2004), 32–60.
2. I. P. Makar, ‘Iz opyta planirovaniya strategicheskiogo razvertyvaniya Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR na sluchai voiny s Germaniei i neposredstennoi podgotovki k otrazheniyu agressii,’ VIZh, no. 6 (2006), 3–9 (in Russian).
3. GKO Decision No. 3407ss, ‘The NKVD Construction Site No. 500,’ dated May 21, 1943.
4. Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers. The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 147.
5. Vasilevsky was summoned to Stalin’s office on July 9, 26, 28, and 29. Na prieme u Stalina. Tetradi (zhurnaly) zapisei lits, pronyatykh I. V. Stalinym (1924–1953 gg.), edited by A. V. Korotkov, A. D. Chernev, and A. A. Chernobaev, 437–8 (Moscow: Novyi khronograf, 2008) (in Russian); A. M. Vasilevsky, Delo vsei zhizni (Moscow: Politizdat, 1978), 507 (in Russian).
6. SMERSH, Istoricheskie ocherki, 246.
7. 1283. The text of the protocol at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/yalta.asp, retrieved September 9, 2011.
8. Cited in Volkogonov, Stalin, 493.
9. Ibid., 419–20.
10. Abakumov’s report to Beria, dated June 30, 1945, in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 246.
11. Ibid., 246.
12. Takashi Nakayama, ‘Invasion of the Soviet forces,” Chapter 1 in The Japanese Internees and Forced Labor in the USSR after the Second WorldWar; The Excerpt Version, 1-49, http://www.heiwa.go.jp/en/pdf/10/chapter_01.pdf, retrieved September 9, 2011.
13. Beria’s report to Stalin, dated July 27, 1945. Document No. 85 in Stalinskie stroiki GULAGa 1930–1953, edited by A. I. Kokurin, and Yu. N. Morukov (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2005), 250 (in Russian).
14. Details, for instance, in David M. Glantz, The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: ‘August Storm’ (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003).
15. On the events in Tokyo see, for instance, Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996), 152–5.
16. Details in Tsuyoshi Heasegava, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005), 252–89.
17. Vladimir Vereshchagin and Nikolai Gordeev, ‘Voennaya kontrrazvedka Zabaikal’ya v razgrome Kvantungskoi armii i osvobozhdenie severo-vostoka Kitaya,’ Istoriko-ekonomicheskii zhurnal, no. 4 (1998) (in Russian), http://www.chekist.ru/print/1217, retrieved September 9, 2011; A. Doshlov, ‘Zabaikal’tsy za Khinganom,’ VIZh, no. 5 (2005), 24–25 (in Russian).
18. Report of Vadis to Babich, dated September 21, 1945, quoted in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 248.
19. Ibid., 249.
20. Cited in Yurii Tsurganov, ‘I na Tikhom okeane svoi zakonchili pokhod,’ Posev, n. 9 (2005), 34–39 (in Russian).
21. A photo of Abakumov’s report to Beria, dated August 28, 1945, in SMERSH, 248.
22. Details, for instance, in N. I. Dubinina and Yu. N. Tsipkin, ‘Ob osobennostyakh dal’nevostochnoi vetvi rossiiskoi emigratsii (na materialakh Harbinskogo komiteta pomoshchi russkim bezhentsam),’ Otechestvennaya istoriya, No. 1 (1996), 70–84 (in Russian); G. Melikhov, Belyi Harbin. Seredina 20-kh (Moscow: Russkii put’, 2003) (in Russian).
23. On the Russian fascist movement see John J. Stephan, The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925–1945 (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).
24. Cited in Anton Utkin, ‘Duche iz Blagoveshchenska,’ Sovershenno sekretno, No. 47 (2003) (in Russian).
25. K. Rodzaevsky, Zaveshchanie russkogo fashista (Moscow: FERI-V, 2001) (in Russian).
26. In June–August 1942, A. A. Vonsiatsky (1898–1965) and five of his co-defendants were convicted in a federal court in Connecticut (USA) on the charge of espionage for Germany. Vonsiatsky was sentenced to a five-year term in a federal penitentiary and assessed a fine of $5,000. Details at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/vonsiatsky-espionage, retrieved September 9, 2011.
27. S. Onegina, ‘Buro po delam rossiiskoi emigratsii v Manchzhurii,’ Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka, No. 5 (1996), 141–6 (in Russian).
28. Vadim Abramov, Abakumov—nachal’nik SMERSHa. Vzlet igibel’ lyubimtsa Stalina (Moscow: Yauza-ksmo, 2005), 150–1 (in Russian).
29. N. A. Ablova, Istoriya KVZhD i rossiiskoi emigratsii v Kitae (pervaya polovina XX veka) (Moscow: Russkaya panorama, 2004), Chapter 4 (in Russian), http://asiapacific.narod.ru/countries/china/n_e_ablova/4.4.htm, retrieved September 9, 2011.
30. Utkin, ‘Duche iz Blagoveshchenska.’
31. S. Onegina, ‘Pis’mo K. V. Rodzaevskogo I. V. Stalinu: Vstupitel’naya stat’ya,’ Otechestvennaya istoriya, No. 3 (1992), 92–96 (in Russian).
32. Chapter 4 in Ye. A. Gorbunov, Skhvatka s Chernym Drakonom. Tainaya voina na Dal’nem Vostoke (Moscow: Veche, 2002), http://militera.lib.ru/research/gorbunov_ea/index.html, retrieved September 9, 2011.