The Soviet occupation of Manchuria took place after the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

puppet state of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese ...

in August 1945; the occupation would continue until Soviet forces withdrew in May 1946.

History

On 11 February 1945, the Big Three (

Roosevelt Roosevelt may refer to: *Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president * Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president Businesses and organisations * Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation) * Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank * Rooseve ...

Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

, and

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

) signed the

Yalta Agreement The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...

. Yalta obligated the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan within three months after

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

's surrender, in exchange for territorial concessions and Soviet influence in post-war Manchuria. Stalin would order the invasion of Manchukuo on 9 August 1945, according to conditions of

Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...

and inaugurated in one of the largest campaigns in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The massive Red Army steamrolled into Manchuria, brushing aside scattered Japanese resistance, and occupied

Mengjiang Mengjiang, also known as Mengkiang or the Mongol Border Land, and governed as the Mengjiang United Autonomous Government, was an autonomous area in Inner Mongolia, formed in 1939 as a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, then from 1940 being ...

(

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

), southern Sakhalin, and the northern half of the

Korean peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...

as well. The rapid defeat of the

Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...

in Manchuria, along with the recent

atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...

by the Americans, contributed significantly to the

Japanese surrender The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ( ...

on the 15th. Robert Butow, ''Japan's Decision to Surrender'', Stanford University Press, 1954 . Richard B. Frank, ''Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire'', Penguin, 2001 . Robert James Maddox, ''Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism'', University of Missouri Press, 2007 .Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
, ''Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan'', Belknap Press, 2006 . The invasion, along with the surrender, prompted the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

to jockey for position vis-a-vis the

Chinese Communists The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

in mainland China. The

signed the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with the Soviet Union on 14 August 1945, which affirmed Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria in exchange for Chinese recognition of the Soviet-aligned

Mongolian People's Republic The Mongolian People's Republic ( mn, Бүгд Найрамдах Монгол Ард Улс, БНМАУ; , ''BNMAU''; ) was a socialist state which existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia in East Asia. It w ...

. The Soviets began withdrawing from Manchuria within three weeks of Japan's surrender, although they would delay the process several times. The resumption of the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...

in early 1946 prompted the Red Army to finish the withdrawal, but not before secretly turning Manchuria over to the Chinese Communists in March in violation of the Agreement.

References

Note

Citations

{{Soviet occupation

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union Soviet military occupations China–Soviet Union relations

History

See also

References

Note

Citations