Stalin's War on Japan: The Red Army's 'Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation', 1945

The first full-length popular history of the Soviet Union’s decisive offensive against the Japanese in Manchuria and Korea at the end of the Second World War. Did Japan surrender in 1945 because of the death and devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or because of the crushing defeat inflicted on their armies by the Soviet Union in Manchukuo, the puppet state they set up in north-east China? Indeed, the Red Army’s rapid and total victory in Manchukuo has been relatively neglected by historians. Charles Stephenson, in this scholarly and highly readable new study, describes the political, diplomatic and military build-up to the Soviet offensive and its decisive outcome. He also considers to what extent Japan’s capitulation is attributable to the atomic bomb or the stunningly successful entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict. The military side of the story is explored in fascinating detail – the invasion of Manchukuo itself where the Soviet ‘Deep Battle’ concept was employed with shattering results, and secondary actions in Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. But equally absorbing is the account of the decision-making that gave rise to the offensive and the political and diplomatic background to it, and in particular the Yalta conference. There, Stalin allowed the Americans to persuade him to join the war in the east; a conflict he was determined on entering anyway. Charles Stephenson’s engrossing narrative throws new light on the last act of the Second World War. This WWII military study examines the critical yet overlooked Soviet offensive on Japan's puppet state and its influence on winning the Pacific War. Did Japan surrender in 1945 because the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or because of the crushing defeat inflicted by the Soviet Union in Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in north-east China? In Stalin's War on Japan, Charles Stephenson describes the Soviet offensive from the top-level decision-making and early planning stages to its decisive outcome on the ground. He also considers to what extent Japan's capitulation is attributable to the atomic bomb or the stunningly successful entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict. Stephenson combines a vividly detailed narrative of the invasion itself with an absorbing account of the political and diplomatic process that gave rise to the offensive—with particular focus on the Yalta conference. There, Stalin allowed the Americans to persuade him to join the war in the east; a conflict he was determined on entering anyway. Stalin's War on Japan sheds new light on the last act of the Second World War. Cover 1 Book Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Introduction 10 Chapter 1 ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’ 12 Chapter 2 Manchukuo: an Army with a State 22 Chapter 3 The Soviet (Deep) Battle Plan 40 Chapter 4 ‘. . . at the crossroads of destiny’ 54 Chapter 5 The Trans-Baikal Front:the ‘iron stream’ 60 Chapter 6. The First Far Eastern Front: Suvorov’s Tactics 94 Chapter 7. The Second Far Eastern Front: River Wars 114 Chapter 8. ‘The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage’ 126 Chapter 9. The Second Stage: Dissolution of an Army, its State and an Empire 136 Chapter 10. Unpinched: Finishing off‘ the fascist Beast of the East’ 168 Chapter 11 ‘The heart of China isin Communist hands’ 182 Notes 192 Bibliography 232 Index 254 Back cover 260