The Soviet Union saved the world from "a decisive battle in Japan"
After the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany, the flames of world war continued to rage in the Asia-Pacific region. The Japanese empire remained the last power of the already lost union, which unleashed a major war. Even having lost all its allies, Japan continued the war. However, having lost their European allies, the Japanese militarists found themselves in complete political and military isolation, and the economy could no longer withstand the growing burden of war. But the Japanese military-political elite did not intend to give up.
The war in the Far East could continue until 1946-1947. and take away millions of new lives. Tokyo was ready to continue the war, even at the cost of the death of the nation. Japanese leaders were ready to turn the Japanese islands into a scorched battlefield, using chemical and biological weapon against Western troops who were preparing for a landing operation. The most efficient troops, the government, scientific personnel planned to evacuate to the mainland, where the Japanese controlled a significant part of China, including the puppet state of Manchukuo.
Thus, the war could drag out and require great efforts and sacrifices from the Americans and their allies, and the Japanese nation could be brought to the brink of destruction. It is quite possible that Washington would again go on the atomic bombardment of the largest Japanese centers, staging nuclear terror.
Only the entry into the war of the Soviet Union and the magnificent Manchurian operation, called the “August Storm” in the west, led to the rapid surrender of the Japanese empire and saved the world from new terrible losses. The defeat of the Kwantung Army and the loss of the military-economic base in Northeast China and North Korea became one of the main factors that deprived Japan of real forces and opportunities to continue the war and forced her to sign the 2 September 1945 September surrender act, which led to the end of World War II of war.
Japan position
Despite the futility of the struggle, so that it was obvious to many representatives of the Japanese elite, in the second half of 1944, the Japanese decided to start preparing for a decisive battle in Japan. It was quite a samurai spirit. At the beginning of 1945, this idea was already embodied in the military-political plans of the Japanese leadership.
In Tokyo, they understood that after the defeat of Germany, the United States and Great Britain would concentrate all their forces in the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, the Japanese prudently took measures of a military, political and economic nature in order to prepare for the struggle for survival. It was a very complicated matter. By this time, the Japanese doctrine of “advancing, regardless of the victims” was completely untenable in the face of the complete military, economic and technical superiority of the United States and Great Britain. Even the United States alone was far superior to Japan in terms of military production and the quality of its products.
In the development of the military economy, the Japanese empire could not keep up with its powerful enemies, although the Japanese government spent enormous sums on defense. Military spending grew from year to year. So, while in Japan’s 1941 / 42 fiscal year, Japan’s public defense expenditures exceeded 17 billion yen, while in 1944 / 45 they were increased to more than 73 billion yen, and 1945 / 46 planned to spend more than 96,4 billion yen. Japan’s military spending rose to 2 / 3 national income.
The Japanese leadership, trying by all means to meet military needs, almost completely curtailed peaceful sectors of the economy, including the country's oldest and leading textile industry. Textile enterprises mainly switched to the production of chemicals and aircraft parts. By the middle, only about a third of the factories continued to produce textiles, more than 40% of enterprises switched to military needs, and the rest were idle. In the future, the production capacity of the textile industry continued to fall. By 1944, textile production accounted for just 7% of the year’s 1937 level.
All the attention of the authorities was focused on enterprises producing coal, oil, steel, aluminum, in shipbuilding and aircraft construction. These enterprises are called "priority". When the situation of the Japanese economy in 1944 deteriorated further, even the circle of “priority” enterprises was narrowed down, concentrating only on the production of aircraft, ships and aluminum.
According to American researchers, the main reasons for the degradation of the Japanese economy in 1945 were the naval blockade and the bombing of the US Air Force. It is obvious that the sea blockade and the bombing of Japanese cities harmed the Japanese economy. However, the damage from air strikes is clearly exaggerated by the Americans. The US Air Force in 1945 struck mainly at civilian targets, terrorizing civilians.
If in the 1944 year, the Americans tried to strike at objects related to the armed forces, in 1945, the situation changed. It is known that large American companies - Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil, before the war, ranked first among foreign companies for their investments in the Japanese economy. American companies were the largest investors in the oil refining, electrical engineering and automotive industries of the Japanese state. A similar situation was in Germany, where the Americans played a huge role in the revival of the military-economic power of the Third Reich. Americans looked forward to the future, to the world after the war. They hoped not only to recover their capital, but also to subdue the leading and largest sectors of the Japanese economy after the end of the war. The Japanese economy was supposed to be part of the American global system (“New World Order”).
The US military was part of the system, subject to financial and economic elites, so they dutifully began to solve not purely military, but economic and political tasks. As the end of the war was approaching, Americans increasingly avoided bombing Japanese military-industrial facilities. As a result of American raids aviation 9 million Japanese civilians lost their homes and property, hundreds of thousands of people died and were injured. Only in Tokyo alone were 4 million people homeless. In 1944-1945 about 22 million Japanese left their small homeland and sought refuge in the countryside or in other cities. 70% of the total damage caused to Japan during the war came from peaceful objects - residential buildings, schools, hospitals, etc. The damage done to the military industrial complex was less serious.
The main reason for the plight of the Japanese economy in 1945 was the disadvantage of the Japanese economy itself. Japan was originally a country that lacked basic resources. As a result, the armed forces could only count on a “quick war”. The total nature of the war doomed the Japanese Empire to defeat, since the United States and Britain had a much more powerful aggregate economy and resource base. By cutting Japan off oil supplies, the United States provoked a Japanese attack from Pearl Harbor.
It should be noted that it was England and the United States that initially “created” a hotbed of war in the Pacific - Japan. The Japanese empire lived quietly in self-isolation, but it was forcibly "uncovered" by the Americans. The Japanese energy accumulated in isolation was directed at external aggression. Japan set on China and Russia. The Japanese empire went the way of militarization and external aggression, the Japanese elite wanted to become the main force in the Pacific and in Asia. Instead of following the path of peaceful cooperation with neighboring countries. The United States encouraged Japan’s aggression against China and Russia in the 1930 years. Russia-USSR tried to put between two fires: Europe, led by Germany and Japan. However, the Japanese decided that it would be easier to seize land in the south. Then Washington provoked the Japanese attack, knowing that the military-economic potential of America and Britain is much more powerful than the Japanese and that Japan is doomed to defeat and American dictate.
The initial successes of the Japanese armed forces, when Japan was able to occupy vast territories, allowed Japan to prolong the war. The Japanese economy has gained access to resources. The war was financed by the cruel robbery of colonies and occupied lands. So, 27% of all Japanese Empire military spending in 1937-1945. covered by the so-called "loans" from the countries of Southeast Asia. Every year the Japanese increased the export of raw materials and food from the occupied countries. From Taiwan (Formosa) supplied rice, sugar, raw materials for the metallurgical and textile industries. Rice, metals, ferroalloys were exported from the Korean Peninsula. Export of iron ore from Korea increased from 235 thousand tons in 1943 to 610 thousand tons in 1944, that is, Korea’s share in Japanese imports of iron ore increased from 7 to 37%. Korean tungsten covered about 80% of Japan's needs.
Iron ore, coal and food were exported from Northeast China (Manchuria) to Japan. In Manchuria, 55% of the synthetic fuel production capacity that the Japanese Empire had was located. In Northeastern China, which Toki considered part of its empire, the Japanese created a new industrial base of the country. Coking coal, alumina, iron ore, cotton and salt were supplied to Japan from the North, Central and other regions of China. The Japanese exported tin, rubber, oil, bauxite, iron ore, etc., from Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The occupied countries and territories were an important source of labor for the Japanese economy. So, in 1945, Koreans, Chinese, and prisoners of war made up more than a third of all workers in Japanese enterprises. In the coal mines of Japan, 412 worked thousands of workers, of whom 136 thousand workers were Koreans.
In addition, the peculiarities of the development of the Japanese economy were remnants of semi-feudal relations in agriculture, which hampered the overall development of the country. About 50, thousands of large landowners, who made up less than 1% of the population of the village, owned 26% of the acreage. In the hands of all landowners - large, medium and small, was almost half of all cultivated land. The most valuable land belonged to the imperial family, temples and monasteries. More than 2 / 3 Japanese peasants were land-poor and landless. They rented land on enslaving conditions from the landlords. Landowners took from 50 to 60-70% of the total crop. The poverty of the peasantry impeded the development of the country, its domestic market.
Given the prevalence of manual labor in agriculture, the peasants could not provide industry with the necessary raw materials, and the population and the army with food (a very good example of the need for collectivization carried out in Soviet Russia during the prewar period). And when millions of peasants were drafted into the army, the situation in agriculture deteriorated further. The area of arable land, despite the great demand for agricultural raw materials, in 1940-1944. began to fall, rice collection fell significantly.
Due to a lack of working hands, the country's food situation has deteriorated sharply. In scanty quantities they began to give out not only rice, but also fish, although Japan has long been famous for its fishing. Before the war, Japanese fishing was one of the first places in the world. But due to the fact that many fishermen were mobilized into the navy, and a significant part of the fishing fleet It was requisitioned by the authorities to catch fish - one of the leading food products in Japan, plummeted. If before the war in Japan 5,5 million tons of fish were caught per year, then in 1945 the catch fell to 1,5 million tons. Especially sharply deteriorated the food supply in the cities, in the village the peasants still had more opportunities for food. So, from September 1, 1944, in Tokyo and Yokohama, the authorities allowed residents to sell fish only once every four days, and from February 1, 1945 - once every six days. The flow of fish to these cities fell from 270 tons per day in the fall of 1944 to 100 tons in early 1945. Instead of the country's traditional main dish, rice, the population began to receive substitutes for it, and even then not regularly. Sugar consumption in the country fell from 816 thousand tons in 1941 to 132 thousand tons in 1945.
Low labor productivity was observed in industry. Hundreds of thousands of workers worked practically under slave labor. The authorities widely practiced forced labor. At the industrial enterprises of Japan the present regime of a military prison reigned. Often there were cases when workers and workers in the factories and mines worked on 450 hours per month, that is, on 15 hours per day. Japanese workers were deprived of even the likeness of social legislation. But the attempts of businessmen to raise the production standards with the help of “bonuses” with vodka and police supervision did not produce much effect. Labor productivity in industry fell from year to year. Considering the mobilization in 1944-1945. on the military service of a large number of workers, she fell even more. Workers had to be replaced by students. By 1945, more than 3 million people, who had recently studied, worked in military production in Japan.
Thus, Japan was not a self-sufficient economy, it needed large volumes of external supplies. The war, which the Japanese militarists fought almost continuously from 1931, ate the resources necessary for the development of the country and the nation. Military production in the country absorbed the vast majority of labor, finance and materials. Thanks to the robbery of the colonies and the occupied territories, the continuous growth of the sphere of influence (especially at the expense of Korea and China), Japan until the end of the 1943 of the year could achieve growth in military production from year to year. But such growth could not be maintained indefinitely. Since 1944, the economy began to decline, which could not be stopped by any measures. All attempts to preserve and raise production through the system of state regulation failed. Government control agencies could not stop the struggle of the traditional Japanese large monopolies, raise labor productivity and solve the problem of lack of vital resources.
The Japanese authorities could not stop the decline in the production of strategic materials. Coal production from 55,5 m. Tons in 1943 year decreased to 49,3 m. Tons in 1944 year. Steel production from 8,2 m. Tons in 1943 year fell to 6,4 m. Tons in 1944 year. Significantly reduced the production of aluminum - the foundations of the aviation industry. While in 1943, 149,5 was produced in thous. Tons of aluminum, in 1944, in 118,3, in thous. Tons, in January-August, in 1945, only in 8,7, in thous. Tons. Huge problems were with the oil industry. The main sources of supply of Japan with oil were Indonesia, British Borneo and Burma. However, in 1945, the external supply was completely blocked. In Japan itself, only about 130 thousand tons of oil were mined, with the country's annual demand for 7,5-8 million tons.
It is clear that the decline in the production of strategic materials immediately affected the production of aircraft and ships. With tremendous exertion of forces, it was possible only more or less to replenish the military and commercial fleets bearing the enormous losses. For example, in 1941-1945. 383 warships were built, and the allies sank 412 ships. In the merchant navy, the situation was much worse: during the same period, the Japanese built 1546 merchant ships, and losses amounted to 3126 ships. Only by rolling out individual industries, the Japanese authorities managed to maintain the production of aircraft: in the 1943 year - 16,6 thousand vehicles, in the 1944 year - 28,1 thousand aircraft, in the first seven and a half months of the 1945 year - 11 thousand aircraft.
By all accounts, Japan was much inferior to the main opponents. Thus, in the USA, 1943 million tons were smelted in 80,9, 1944 million tons in 82, and Americans were going to produce about 1945 million tons of steel in 88. In 1944-1945 The United States produced approximately 96 thousand aircraft.
In the Japanese government, everyone understood this and relied on large human resources in an effort to prolong the war. According to the 1944 census, more than 72 million lived in Japan itself. The population of the colonies at the census 1940 of the year numbered about 31 million. Of these, 24,3 million people lived in Korea, about 6 million people lived in Taiwan, and 415 thousand people lived in South Sakhalin. The loss of the Mandate Islands (Marshall, Mariana and Caroline) did not affect the mobilization capabilities of Japan. So, for the first seven months of the 1945 war, military service was called up by 20% more Japanese than in the entire 1944 year.
Thus, in order to gain time and save their lives with an acceptable agreement with the United States, the Japanese ruling circles were ready to sacrifice millions of their citizens.
At the same time, the Japanese authorities, like their allies in Germany, completely controlled the masses until the moment of defeat. The concept in which the imperial power was considered divine, and the Japanese were superior to other nations and were called to rule the world, was unshakable. The Japanese authorities conducted active propaganda, the entire war greatly exaggerated the losses of the enemy and hid the truth that the Japanese Empire was defeated at the front.
The government supported the people false confidence in the ultimate victory of the empire. So, at the beginning of 1945, Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso, speaking on the radio, said: "The time has come for victory in the war." Foreign Minister Mamoru Sigemitsu declared 26 on January 1945 in Parliament: "We have absolutely no doubt of our final victory." The Kantaro Suzuki government, which replaced the Koiso government in April 1945, stubbornly continued its line on the “invincibility” of the Japanese empire.
The largest monopolistic unions of Japan - zaibatsu, fully supported the government, because they profited greatly from the war. Four monopolies — Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Yasuda — played a particularly important role. By the end of the war, their total assets exceeded 3 billion yen, although they had 1930 million yen in 875 year. The war was extremely beneficial to big capitalists and brought fabulous profits. Under the government, there even existed a kind of secret committee of zaibatsu representatives. This council consisting of seven major industrialists advised the head of government on major issues of domestic and foreign policy. Without the consent of the heads of monopolies, the government has not taken a single important step.
To be continued ...
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