I’ve read that one of the reasons Truman dropped the a-bomb on Japan was to end the war fast, so Stalin would not invade Japan. I mean we wanted them to enter the war against Japan, but not to descend Iron Curtin East.
My question is, would -or- could the Soviets, after losing 20 million countrymen and pushing a weary army into the heart of Germany then, head east (while keeping a sizable force behind to occupy eastern Europe) and conduct a massive amphibious assault against a desperate defensive force. US experts were predicting 100,000’s of causalities of the better equipped US soldiers; The Russians could have faced even more losses.
So is this all;
Soviet propaganda: “We were powerful enough to take on the heart of the Japan Empire”
US propaganda: “We had to drop the A-bombs to keep the Reds out of Japan”
Um, are you aware that the Soviet Union did enter the war against Japan on August 8, 1945? And that Japan still had huge holdings on the Asian mainland, so that a “massive amphibious assault” was unnecessary? Rather, they attacked the Japanese army in Manchuria, and went on to occupy Manchuria, North Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands.
Also, dropping the Bombs to “keep the Reds out of Japan” was hardly “US propoganda”. The Truman administration would never have admitted to such a craven motive for using nuclear weapons; rather, the stated goal was to end the war, forestall an American invasion, and save American lives. Limiting Soviet involvement may well have been a subsidiary goal, but it could hardly have been a propaganda exercise if we wouldn’t admit it.
On the next day, August 9, 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops crashed across the Manchurian border to assault Japan’s Kwantung Army. The Red Army also invaded Korea to the 38th parallel. The Soviets could have occupied the entire Korean peninsula, but Stalin may have wanted to use his reticence as a bargaining chip with Truman to permit the Soviet Union to occupy the northern half of the northernmost major Japanese island, Hokkaido.
Not only did the Soviets take Manchuria and the Kuriles in August 1945, they’d already fought the Japanese in 1938 and 1939.
This site has some recollecitons from a Soviet admiral.
Here’s a site with more information on the Japanese defeat at Halhin Gol in August 1939, were Marshal Zhukov defeated a Japanese army.
So in answer to Sassafras_Kid’s question, yes the Soviets could have crushed the Japanese in mainland Asia. Any assault on the main islands would probably have required US support, as the Soviet fleet would probably have been insufficient to support the massive invasion that would be required.
I think Stalin had already promised that he would declare war on Japan three months after Germany had surrendered. Up to that time USSR and Japan had been neutral to each other.
The Soviets/Russians might have been wanting to get revenge for the destruction of their fleet at the Tsushima Strates four decades earlier. It took over six months for their fleet to travel from the Black Sea to Japan, and about a day and a half for the Japanese to wipe them out.
Also, there might have been some concern about Stalin’s designs on a post-war Japan. Maybe he was interested, maybe not. But I think Truman was more suspicious of him than FDR, and use of the A-bombs (another debate) did end the war quickly and take the Soviets out of reconstructing post-war Japan (although they did take (back?) the Kuril Islands).
The vast majority of Japanese materiel for desperate defense was located in the places where the Japanese had correctly deduced the Americans were planning on landing. I don’t believe there was much in the way of planes or regular foreces in the north and I think that availiable Japanese naval forces could best be quantified as “none”. I have read books which have, in describing the “benefits” of using the atomic bombs, included the fact that the rapid surrender that followed precluded a Soviet invasion of the northernmost island, which might possibly have lead to a partition a la Germany and Korea. (As it was the Soviets demanded a share in the occupation of Japan, which request was politely declined). Given that the 1945 Soviet attacks on Japanese turned into routs, and that Japanese communications were so poor that the high command never received word from the field after initially optimistic estimates, I don’t find it hard to believe that the Soviets might be able to pull off largely unopposed landings in the north without active discouragement from the Americans (assuming the war goes late into 1945/1946).