Japanese Prisoners of War in the USSR: Facts, Versions, Questions

Abstract

The capture of servicemen of the Kwantung army by the Soviet troops in Manchuria in August 1945, their further detention in labor camps in the USSR, as well as their repatriation to Japan, which dragged on for nearly ten years, are among the most difficult and sensitive issues in relations between the USSR and Japan. They were not written about or discussed in the Soviet Union for many years until the early 1990s, when access to previously classified documents was opened. It was at that time that the issue became a matter for scholarly research by historians of the two countries and then put on the agenda of political negotiations at the head-of-state level. This first happened during the official visit to Japan of the first Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, in April 1991, and then this mission was taken over by the Government of the Russian Federation. However, there are still questions that absorb the attention of researchers and the public and that still need to be fully answered.

Keywords

• japan
• the soviet-japanese war
• the kwantung army
• prisoners of war
• internees
• the soviet-japanese joint declaration of 1956
• the potsdam declaration
• the state defense committee
• joseph stalin
• harry truman