Why wasn't USSR allowed to take part in the occupation of Japan?

Question

The USSR was part of the Allies, and they weren't informed of the atomic bombings in Japan in 1945.

What happened that the Allies did not allow the USSR to take part in the occupation of Japan?

Answer 1

When they agreed at Yalta to attack Japan 3 months after Germany surrendered, it was agreed that they would take back the territories that Japan had taken from them in 1905, which is all they ended up getting. They didn't get any territories that had been Japanese for more than 40 years, so I'm a little puzzled that Japan still has such a problem with that.



The reason they didn't get more is because Japan surrendered when they did. Had Japan not done so, the Red Army would have taken Hokkaido in September in what would have been a very short and very bloody (at least on the Japanese side) campaign. Had that happened, I think the Soviets would have kept it as a Soviet zone much like East Germany, and I think one of the major reasons for the timing of the use of the Atomic Bombs was to get the Japanese to surrender before that could happen. Since we knew the Soviets were joining the war on the 8th, and our own invasion of the home islands wasn't set to begin until November, I can't think of any other explanation of why both available bombs were used less than a month after the successul test explosion.

Answer 2

They were. The Kuril Islands and Sakhalin are still Russian territory.



Russia did take part in the war in the East - although not the war in the Pacific. They invaded Manchuria (Manchukuo) in 1945 (after the Hiroshima Bomb)

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm



Lomax, they were not officially told of the Atomic bomb attacks until after they happened. The Soviets had spys within the atomic bomb facility and they had informed Stalin of the detail beforehand.

Answer 3

Much of the reason is actually thanks to Douglas MacArthur. He was a great administrator and helped the Japanese rebound from the war very quickly. He was more or less ruler of Japan from 1945-1951. We also had a large occupation army on the ground, and it would have taken months for the Soviet Union to transport enough troops to threaten the United States' status in Japan (not to mention that the United States had the bomb). It was decided to carve up Japanese territories (Russia gets N. Korea, U.S. gets S. Korea, Okinawa and various islands, and China gets Taiwan).



As for the atomic bomb, the Russians knew. As a matter of fact, there are many rumors that Stalin knew of the successful test in New Mexico before Truman did (as they were both at the Potsdam conference), and they had enough spies in the United States that it is hard to imagine Stalin not knowing before we dropped the two bombs on Japan.

Answer 4

Who said the Soviets did not occupy Japan? The Soviets seized several of the Northern Japanese Islands and if the Soviets had not been busy swallowing Eastern Europe then they may have gone for the whole enchilada! The Soviets were well aware of the atomic bomb as well as for an answer that puts things in perspective, the Soviets were intent on World domination therefore allowing them to occupy Japan proper was not in the equation.



http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DC1F3CF933A05750C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

"""The islands at issue are called Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai group by the Japanese. The Soviet names for the first two are Iturup and Kunashir.



The Soviet Union seized them shortly after Japan surrendered to the United States on Aug. 15, 1945. Japan says that the act was illegal. """

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/glantz.html









Peace/////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Answer 5

MacAurthur kept them out simply because the USSR was, Reagan later named it, "the Evil Empire." Over a half million Japanese in China and Manchuria disappeared into Soviet gulags never to be heard from again.

There wasn't much to be done in eastern Europe, where the Soviets were already in place, and it was touch-and-go in Austria for a bit, but few in leadership positions at the time were foolish enough to think it was a good idea to let them go too far.

The contribution of the bombing of Japan to later US-USSR tensions was simply that the US had the bomb, and the B29 to deliver it, and the Soviets were vulnerable to its use. That does not mean those tensions were of necessity a bad thing.

Answer 6

They WERE informed of the atomic bombings of Japan. It didn't come as a great surprise to them, suggesting that their intelligence service was on the ball.



As for occupying Japanese territory; they still haven't handed back the Kuril (check that spelling) islands.

Answer 7

I'll be more blunt than everyone else. Nobody trusted Stalin and nobody wanted to see the Far East turn into the charade that we had in Europe with the Marshall Plan. Nobody wanted Stalin snooping around for plans to build an atomic bomb. Nobody wanted him insisting on participating in the planning so that he could gain an advantage in the outcome.



Roosevelt tried charming Stalin to keep him in check. Truman wasn't playing games. He walked into a mess and he had his job to do. Joe Stalin didn't need to be invited to the table, so he wasn't. China was our major ally in that theater. They needed to be involved because our planes were going to be landing in their fields, God willing. Australia and Britain were involved because they were protecting our planes on the way over. Beyond that, it was one of the best kept secrets out of Washington in the 20th Century.

Answer 8

well for a start they never took part in the pacific war, and secondly Japan and Russia had been enamies since before WWI, and Starlin could not be trusted, the British knew this before the postdam conferance, and allowed Japan to be occupied by USA, Australia and New Zealand, excluding themselves and Russia. It took the Americans a little longer to realise that Starlin was not to be trusted.