Debate continues to rage over whether the atomic bombs were necessary. One Japanese study plausibly suggests that Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been enough, because “the Japanese military would have still argued for the continuation of the war even after the dropping of a third bomb, and even a fourth bomb.”69 On the other hand, it is necessary to disentangle the specific effects of the two bombs and the Soviet attack.70 Stalin might have tipped the scales by ordering the Red Army into action, thereby destroying the hopes of the “peace party” in Japan that was trying to have him mediate a settlement short of unconditional surrender. The Soviet decision undermined the “war party” as well, because now the entire world was ranged against Japan.
What was Stalin attempting to gain in Asia? Opinions vary. A recent account suggests that he “was driven by geopolitical interests. Ideology or revolutionary zeal played little part in this campaign.”71 Although it was true that Stalin wanted to obtain territories lost in wars with Japan, it would be a mistake to underestimate the political and missionary aspects of the war in the Far East.
Of course it was never just “all Stalin.” Millions shared his ideas, above all in the Communist Party and in the Red Army. Marshal Vasilevsky, for example, who commanded these operations against Japan, reflected what many in his country thought. He wrote with pride that “the result of the defeat of Japan created favorable conditions for the people’s revolution in China, North Korea and Vietnam.” He added that in August 1945, Mao Zedong was correct to say that “the Red Army came to assist the Chinese people in expelling the aggressors. This invaluable event had no parallel in Chinese history.” Vasilevsky said the Soviet Red Army turned over huge stockpiles of Japanese arms to Communist Chinese forces and contributed to the coming of the revolution.72
Also illuminating are the views of Marshal Kirill Meretskov, commander of the First Far Eastern Army Group that invaded through Manchuria and went on to Korea. His remarks were representative of those who condemned the United States for starting the Cold War.73 According to Meretskov, the bomb was meant mainly to intimidate the Soviet Union “and the world,” and its use showed that “the U.S. elite was already considering the establishment of its world domination.”74
As Meretskov’s testimony suggests, the Red Army embodied Stalin’s view of the world and the ideology he propounded. In September, the Soviet dictator spoke in celebration of the great victory. He emphasized how they had put down Japan, another fascist-imperialist power that was comparable to Nazi Germany, spoke of righting past wrongs done by Japan, and looked to the future. As in all his messages and speeches at war’s end, he said nothing whatsoever about any political ambitions, much less about wanting to foster revolution or to spread the Communist faith, for such revelations would have been completely out of character. Even in a moment of glory, he guarded against disclosing his agenda to the world at large.75
Stalin weighed the risks that his policies might alarm the United States and Great Britain. Even though he wanted the Red Army to be part of the occupation of Japan, he deferred when such action seemed to be too upsetting to his allies. For the same reason, he signed a Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with the Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) on August 14, a step regarded by Communist Mao Zedong as a betrayal. The Chinese Communist Party had been founded in 1921 under the auspices of Moscow and the Comintern. Nevertheless, Stalin preferred to work with the KMT as a partner, considering it the major power, able to defeat the warlords, unify the country, and thereby “unintentionally” prepare China for Communism.76 While convinced that the Chinese Communists were not ready militarily or politically to enter the contest for power, Stalin by no means gave up his vision of their eventual revolution, which in fact would arrive far sooner than he anticipated.77
In the meantime the USSR exploited the labor of between 1.6 and 1.7 million Japanese prisoners of war. It put these men to work in factories and on construction sites until they were too sick to continue.78 Their repatriation was dragged out for years, and 300,000 are still unaccounted for. Prisoners were subjected to years of “re-education” and forced to learn Communist doctrine.79
The Red crusade in Asia was taken up by indigenous revolutionaries, many of whose leaders had spent time in Moscow and experienced Stalin’s influence at first hand. These political movements and the cultures in which they flourished were so diverse that they eluded control from a single center. They took their own bloody paths to realizing the dreams of the millennium, often helped along by funding and advice from Moscow.
Closer to home, Stalin’s immediate postwar agenda was to settle accounts with all those who had sided with the Hitlerite invaders or wavered in their loyalties. This retribution was not just revenge seeking but was deemed necessary to secure the home front of the motherland, as Soviet forces crossed the western border, heading for Berlin and carrying the Red cause with them as far as possible.
CHAPTER 10
Soviet Retribution and Postwar Trials
Soviet Communist leaders were convinced, more than ever after their great victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, that it would soon be possible to grow the Red Empire over the USSR’s prewar borders. To be sure, Stalin found it disconcerting that large numbers of his own troops had not shown staying power early in the war and had been taken prisoner. In addition, some civilians and whole ethnic groups had collaborated with the German occupation. As Soviet forces began chasing out the invaders and setting their sights on Berlin, the dictator was determined to settle accounts with all these “enemies within” as a necessary prerequisite to the Red Army’s campaign that would bring Communism deep into Europe. Soviet retribution became bloodier than anywhere else, and for millions of people it constituted a grim chapter in the coming Cold War, usually overlooked in studies of the East-West conflict.
As it happened, the Soviet decision to deal with collaborators and turncoats dovetailed with Western concerns, going back to 1942, about atrocities committed behind the lines by the German invaders and their allies. The exiled Polish and Czech governments had pressed the United States and Great Britain to warn the Germans of retribution in hopes of deterring further mayhem against the civilian population. As the evidence of Nazi mass crimes began to leak out, however, word also spread of Soviet misdeeds. Pressured by this flood of revelations, Stalin ultimately went along, and yet the political aims of Soviet retribution bore little resemblance to what Roosevelt and Churchill had in mind.
SOVIET AND ALLIED PROSECUTION OF WAR CRIMES
In June 1942, on a visit to Washington, Prime Minister Churchill had mentioned his desire to set up an Allied commission to deal with atrocities. Following up on these remarks, Harry Hopkins, under FDR’s direction, composed a memorandum that became the basis of Churchill’s proposal to the British War Cabinet on July 1 to create a United Nations (that is, an Allied) commission that would collect material on the crimes and the perpetrators. The British called for input from all the exiled governments in London. On July 30 representatives of these governments also went to FDR with a long list of German misdeeds. In response, on August 21 the president issued a vaguely worded warning to the Axis powers that he intended “to make appropriate use” of all evidence of the “barbaric crimes of the invaders, in Europe and Asia,” in “courts of law.” Great Britain did not, however, want a repeat of the failed efforts that had been made after the First World War to bring to court those who were accused of war crimes.