3 ms·

I think the "Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" is revisionist history. Japan knew that Russia had no effective way to project power onto th

I think the "Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" is revisionist history. Japan knew that Russia had no effective way to project power onto the Japanese home islands, the Russo-Japanese war had proven that and they were clearly exhausted from fighting the Nazis. Russia saw the writing on the wall and wanted to claim a piece of the pie before Japan's inevitable surrender. The only way it hastened the end of the war was in convincing the Japanese leadership to hurry up and sign the papers before any other countries declared war and made claims.

inglor_cz 4y ago
"Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" I didn't make that claim. But the USSR at the end of WWII was a force to reckon with anyway. They were certainly able to invade Sakhalin (and they indeed took the southern half of it) and destroy Japanese armies on the mainland. I don't know enough about contemporary Soviet naval ability in order to judge if they were able to "island hop" from Sakhalin to Hokkaido and Hokkaido to Honshu. The stretches of water between the islands aren't very challenging in summer, but Hokkaido was very undeveloped at that time, so it is possible that lack of roads would stop the advance more efficiently than the sea.