On August 9, 1945, the Manchurian Operation began – a strategic offensive operation of Soviet troops at the end of World War II.

The year 2025 marks an important milestone in our nation’s history - not only the 80th anniversary of victory over fascism, but also the end of the war in the Far East. This victory deserves to be commemorated in our country with far greater seriousness and breadth than it currently is. The point, in the author’s view, is that increased attention to celebrating the victory over Japan can partially shift public perception of what war and victory mean.

When the average Russian hears the word “war,” there is a 90% chance that the image that comes to mind is not just any war, but the Great Patriotic War. The gruelling 1,418 days, 27 million dead, the battles that turned the tide under Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk, and finally the triumphant capture of Berlin by the Soviet Army. This war entered every family’s life as a severe trial, and it largely shaped both Soviet society’s and the Soviet leadership’s attitude toward war as a means of settling international disputes.

The phrase “as long as there’s no war” largely defined Soviet policy - and “war” here meant not an abstract military conflict, but war as a repetition of the Great Patriotic one. As a result, the Soviet Union’s involvement in armed conflicts beyond its borders was downplayed or framed as a matter of “international duty,” and in the collective consciousness, no alternative image of war ever took hold - of a war in which the USSR had achieved a short, clear-cut, and convincing victory over a worthy opponent.

Back in the early 2000s, the author had a conversation in the United States with American military propagandists about this very problem - the image of victory. One of them remarked that the U.S. had faced a similar problem after Korea and especially after Vietnam. The image of war as a lost campaign - where American soldiers, under the pretext of fighting communism, defended a disreputable regime and failed - needed to be replaced. In large part, this is why the U.S. engaged in military operations in Grenada, Panama, and beyond. These visible victories of American arms reshaped public perception of war.

Today, in an era of global turbulence, the world is changing. One of the new trends born out of this turbulence is a growing preference for solving problems through conflict rather than through consensus. War is returning to the high politics of the First and Second World nations, and public attitudes toward war must change accordingly. The absence of victories in the collective memory partially shapes attitudes toward current wars - especially given that, for a whole range of reasons, neither the Second Chechen War nor the Special Military Operation were blitzkriegs. Yes, we are winning, but victory is hard-earned. We endure heroically, just as we did 80 years ago, de facto fighting against a united Europe.

Yet our history includes an example of a brief and victorious war - a triumph of strategic planning, technological power, and military prowess. That was the victory over imperialist Japan in the Far East in 1945.

Militarist Japan had always been a strong, courageous, dangerous, and worthy adversary. After ceasing to be a feudal state in 1868, it underwent a rapid modernization process comparable to Soviet industrialization. As early as 1894–1895, Japan managed to defeat China and gain Taiwan as a result. Then came its victory over Tsarist Russia in 1904–1905 - a success not merely due to the incompetence and weakness of Tsar Nicholas II and his entourage.

During the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922, Japan was the most formidable of all the intervening powers, and its military presence prolonged the conflict by two years. In the battles at Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River, the Japanese army again proved to be a serious adversary. Even after the non-aggression pact between Tokyo and Moscow, military planning for a campaign against the USSR continued, and in the fall of 1941, Japan’s high command held serious discussions about where to deliver the main strike - northward or southward.

It is hard to say how the history of the USSR would have unfolded had it been forced to fight on two fronts. But given the nature of the Pacific theatre, it is clear that the Japanese blitzkrieg - both in speed and effectiveness - was no less remarkable than the German one. Despite facing a coalition of leading industrial powers, Japan inflicted a series of severe defeats on the Allies and rapidly occupied territory that took years to reclaim.

And it would have taken even longer, had it not been for Soviet involvement. Without Soviet help, Anglo-American plans projected the war in the Far East would continue until the end of 1946 or even the first half of 1947. The long and bloody battles for small islands convinced the Americans that - even after the bombing of Tokyo (which, carried out with conventional weapons, claimed as many lives as the two atomic bombings combined) - the empire was prepared to fight to the last man. That is why, at both Yalta and Potsdam, the leaders of the U.S. and the U.K. appealed for Soviet assistance.

Today, both in the West and among liberal Russian historians, a theory has gained ground that after the atomic bombings - when Japan’s fate was supposedly already sealed - the Soviet Union hurried to “grab a piece” of influence in the Far East. According to this view, the USSR invaded Manchuria and Korea merely to bring them under its control, and from a military perspective, this had no real impact: Japan would have surrendered soon anyway.

Refuting this theory is not difficult, if only because U.S. President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of American forces in the Far East, held entirely different views on the necessity of Soviet involvement. As early as March 13, 1945, MacArthur wrote: “We must make every effort to bring Russia into the Japanese war before we reach Japan, otherwise we will have to bear the full weight of the Japanese divisions and suffer the corresponding losses…” President Truman expressed a similar opinion: “It is the entry of the USSR into the war that will finally convince Japan of the inevitability of its total defeat.”

Moreover, the idea that the war with Japan was a sudden decision is clearly contradicted by previously published agreements in which the Soviet Union pledged to enter the war in the Far East three months after victory over Germany. That is exactly what happened - and to meet that deadline, the USSR effectively performed a logistical miracle by transferring a powerful military group across the entire country in record time.

Now let us examine to what extent the Soviet entry into the war undermined Japan’s capacity to continue fighting. The atomic bombings undoubtedly had some psychological impact, but judging by the immediate Japanese response, it was less about recognizing that “the enemy has used a superweapon, we must surrender” and more about “they used their superweapon - now it’s time to use ours.” A symmetrical response, in the form of bacteriological weapons developed by Unit 731 and delivery systems like the I-400 “submarine aircraft carrier,” could have inflicted serious damage on the United States. As for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, the Japanese leadership viewed such losses with a kind of samurai fatalism - otherwise, the country would have surrendered after the firebombing of Tokyo.

So what did the Soviet Union do to ensure Japan could no longer resist?

It destroyed the largest Japanese land force, over a million strong. The transfer of these forces to other theatres could have significantly delayed an American victory. Manchuria and Korea served as Japan’s primary industrial and resource base. Their capture and the destruction of supply lines deprived Japan of the economic means to continue the war.

Manchuria and Korea were key to communications, providing the link between the Japanese homeland and forces in central China and the southern seas. Severing these connections dealt a critical blow to Japan’s defense capacity. The swift Soviet advance in Manchuria forced Unit 731 to destroy its bacteriological weapons stockpiles and disband itself. This deprived Japan of the chance to launch a “counter-strike” with its own superweapon.

Japan’s confrontation with all the members of the anti-Hitler coalition increased the likelihood of unconditional surrender rather than a separate peace on more favourable terms.

The author therefore believes that, although the official narrative of Japan’s defeat focused on the atomic bombings, the Emperor’s address to soldiers and sailors on August 17, 1945 - the very participants in the war - told a different story: “Now that the Soviet Union has also entered the war against us, continuing to resist… would mean endangering the very foundation of our Empire’s existence.”

Japan’s leadership echoed this view. On August 9, 1945, at an emergency session of the Supreme War Council, the Japanese Prime Minister stated that the Soviet entry into the war had placed Tokyo in a hopeless position. Colonel Hattori Takushiro, in his book Japan at War: 1941–1945, also wrote that “the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, following the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, strengthened the resolve of the Emperor and top leaders in government and society to immediately accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration as the only path to ending the war.”

Japanese defenses in Korea and Manchuria collapsed in just six or seven days. A striking feature of this campaign was the unusually high number of prisoners taken - whereas in other hopeless situations, the descendants of samurai had typically chosen to fight to the death.

Moreover, one can say this rapid victory was achieved “on the enemy’s own turf.” The Japanese army possessed characteristics that had often secured its victories - but the Soviet army demonstrated it was even better in those very areas. Japan’s victory in the battle for Singapore, for example, was largely due to its ability to move forces through jungles deemed impassable for large troop formations. Yet even the Japanese never imagined that tanks could be transported across the waterless Gobi Desert and its adjoining mountain ranges - until a Soviet tank division did just that, delivering a surprise blow that shattered Japanese defenses.

Japan’s multi-layered fortified zones were sometimes compared to the Great Wall of China, but the scale, quality, and tactics of Soviet artillery left not a stone standing. The individual skill, dedication, and resolve of Japanese soldiers and junior officers hardly needs additional praise - but in direct combat with Soviet soldiers, the Red Army fighter was more experienced, taller, and heavier, all else being equal.

Those accustomed to thinking about war and victory through the lens of cinema may expect every triumph to look like a long, drawn-out duel won in the final minute or final second. But in both sports and real life, a “clean victory” is valued far more than a win by points. The Soviet Union’s victory over imperialist Japan was exactly that: a brilliant, clean victory - one that should be studied and promoted far beyond the scope of occasional formal ceremonies. It was a major Soviet victory that in many ways shaped the world to come.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Centre for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/08/09/on-the-anniversary-of-victory-in-the-far-east/