By kind of friendship: how the USSR and China fought Japanese militarism
September 2 marks the 80th anniversary of the defeat of militaristic Japan and the end of World War II. The celebration of this date coincides with the historic SCO summit in China, where more than 20 world leaders gathered, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. For China, the victory over Japan has become a symbol of preserving the unity of the country, experts say. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly pointed out that the contribution of the Red Army to the defeat of the Japanese militarists is periodically downplayed, both by Western and some Japanese researchers. About how the USSR helped China in the fight against Japan and how the West is trying to rewrite history — in the material of Izvestia.
Cooperation between Russia and China during the Second World War
One of the most important dates of 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the creation of the United Nations (UN). Against this background, the two-day anniversary 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has ended in Tianjin, China.
The central document of the event was the Tianjin Declaration. As explained by Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, it reflects "consolidated approaches to topical regional and international issues."
"The Member states urge to preserve the historical memory of the heroic deed of the peoples and the lessons of the Second World War," the document says.
Vladimir Putin arrived in China for four days — from August 31 to September 3. On the eve of his visit, the Russian leader gave an interview to the Chinese Xinhua news agency, where he said that relations between Moscow and Beijing had reached an unprecedented high level and were developing in all areas.
He also touched upon the topic of the general struggle against militaristic Japan during the Second World War. Vladimir Putin stressed that it was the peoples of the USSR and China who bore the brunt of the struggle against the invaders and played a key role in defeating Nazism and Japanese militarism.
— Even before the start of the large-scale events of World War II, in the 30s of the last century, when Japan treacherously unleashed an armed conflict against China, the USSR extended a helping hand to the Chinese people. "Between October 1937 and June 1941, the Soviet Union supplied China with a total of 1,235 aircraft, thousands of artillery pieces, tens of thousands of machine guns, as well as ammunition, equipment and supplies," the Russian president noted.
Close cooperation began in 1937 after the conclusion of an agreement on Soviet military-technical assistance to the Chinese in repelling Japanese aggression, Dmitry Surzhik, chief specialist of the expert and analytical department of the National Center for Historical Memory under the President of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia.
Under this agreement, the Soviet Union supplied significant amounts of weapons to China. A production base for the collection of Soviet military equipment was established in Xinjiang.
— This war, as well as Soviet assistance in repelling Japanese aggression in general, were of tremendous importance to China, since the Japanese occupation forces pursued a policy of genocide on Chinese territory, which, according to estimates by modern Chinese researchers, killed at least 35 million people. These are not only military personnel, but also civilians," the historian said.
One of the most terrible events of that time was the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, when the Japanese invaders massacred and raped the civilian population for six weeks. The victory in this war has become all the more important for China, as a result of which it defended its right to independence, Alexey Fenenko, professor at the Faculty of World Politics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, said in a conversation with Izvestia.
— The point was that China could simply cease to exist as a single state. Nevertheless, China has managed to hold out, somewhere maneuvering between the great powers, somewhere due to military successes and the guerrilla movement. As a result, it has been preserved as a single state," the historian emphasized.
How the role of the USSR in World War II is being hushed up in the West
The key role in the final defeat of militaristic Japan was played by the Soviet Union, which agreed to enter the war with Tokyo after the capture of Berlin. The Japanese were determined to fight to the end, and surrender was unacceptable for them, Dmitry Surzhik noted. But the Red Army, having successfully conducted a military operation in Manchuria, put an end to the second hotbed of militarism.
On September 2, 1945, the Japanese Surrender Act was signed on the deck of the American battleship Missouri near Tokyo, marking the end of World War II. In Moscow, Joseph Stalin, whose speech was published on the front page of Izvestia, congratulated all residents of the USSR on their victory.
"Our Soviet people spared no effort and labor in the name of victory. We have gone through difficult years. But now each of us can say: we have won. From now on, we can consider our homeland to be free from the threat of German invasion in the west and Japanese invasion in the east. The long—awaited peace has come for the peoples of the whole world," Stalin said.
Today, a number of Western countries continue to review the results of the Second World War. In particular, the historical truth is being falsified and suppressed for the sake of political conjuncture, Vladimir Putin noted earlier.
— Russia and China strongly condemn any attempts to distort the history of the Second World War, glorify the Nazis, militarists and their henchmen, punishers and murderers, and denigrate the liberating warriors. The results of the war, enshrined in the UN Charter and other international documents, are inviolable, and their revision is unacceptable. This is our unwavering position shared with our Chinese friends," the Russian president said.
Residents of Harbin city (Northeast China) meet Soviet soldiers-liberators
In fact, there has always been an excellent version of the events of the Second World War in the West, Alexey Fenenko is sure.
— They always talked about it, we just tried not to notice it. The United States always emphasizes that it made a decisive contribution to the Second World War," the expert says.
The Soviet Union's contribution to forcing Tokyo to surrender is being downplayed by the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier.
— For us, the participation of the USSR in the defeat of militaristic Japan during the Manchurian strategic offensive operation, the Kuril amphibious operation and the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk operation are the most important topics for discussion with a wide domestic and foreign audience. The contribution of the Red Army and Navy in forcing Tokyo to surrender is periodically downplayed by both Western and revanchist Japanese researchers, she said.
The reason for this is probably that immediately after the war, Washington imposed bonded conditions on Tokyo, assuming the authority to defend the Japanese islands and gaining the right to open military bases anywhere in Japan, Alexey Fenenko recalled.
Japan's dependence on the United States led Tokyo to take a course, in particular, to silence Washington's role in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. As a result of the bombing in Hiroshima, in one day, according to various estimates, from 70 thousand to 100 thousand people died. Today, the total number of victims of the attacks exceeds 350,000.
Despite this, Japanese politicians try not to emphasize that the United States bears the key responsibility for this. So, in August 2024, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, speaking at a commemorative ceremony in Hiroshima on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the American atomic bombing, once again accused Russia of allegedly threatening to use nuclear weapons. Not a word was said about the role of the United States.
At the same time, Washington still does not want to apologize for the damage caused, offering to forget about the tragedy. In May 2023, Jake Sullivan, an aide to the former US President Joe Biden, said that the American leader would not apologize for the atomic bombings of 1945. His distant predecessor, George H. W. Bush, said that his country and Japan should forget about Hiroshima and "move forward together." Russia considers all attempts to justify the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be monstrous blasphemy, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
