Russo-Japanese War over Mongolia, 1939 Russia in the Korean War






Spoils in the Far East



On August 6th 1945 the Enola Gay dropped the nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. On August 8th, the USSR declared war on Japan. Without encountering much resistance, Soviet troops occupied Manchuria, Korea north of the 38th parallel, the southern part of Sakhalin (jap. Karafuto) and the Kuril islands.
Already at the YALTA CONFERENCE (Feb. 1945) it had been decided that the USSR would declare war on Japan. The conference protocol also stated that those areas taken from Russia by Japan's treacherous attack of 1904, specifically SOUTHERN SAKHALIN and Russia's rights in Manchuria, would have to be returned to Russia.
At the POTSDAM CONFERENCE (August 1945) it was decided that Soviet troops would disarm the Japanese forces in Manchuria and on the Korean peninsula to the north of the 38th parallel, while US troops were to disarm the Japanese to the south of the aforementioned parallel. Japanese forces in Korea surrendered on August 15th, handing over government authority to Korean patriots. Soviet forces were in control of North Korea on August 15th.

Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt were aware that the borders drawn at the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam were more than lines separating the responsibility of disarming the defeating powers. Churchill brought up the idea of establishing zones of influence assigned to the respective victorious powers. Thus, the basis for the post-war world order was laid.





EXTERNAL
FILES
DOCUMENTS Japan defeated, from Eyewitness : A North Korean Remembers
REFERENCE


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

Click here to go Home
Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster
Click here to go to Statistics