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The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan's Decision to Surrender?
By Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
Professor of modern Russian and Soviet history, University of California, Santa Barbara, US
August 1, 2007
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Conclusions
The argument presented by Asada and Frank that the atomic bombs rather than Soviet entry into the war had a more decisive effect on Japan’s decision to surrender cannot be supported. The Hiroshima bomb, although it heightened the sense of urgency to seek the termination of the war, did not prompt the Japanese government to take any immediate action that repudiated the previous policy of seeking Moscow’s mediation. Contrary to the contention advanced by Asada and Frank, there is no evidence to show that the Hiroshima bomb led either Togo or the emperor to accept the Potsdam terms. On the contrary, Togo’s urgent telegram to Sato on August 7 indicates that, despite the Hiroshima bomb, they continued to stay the previous course. The effect of the Nagasaki bomb was negligible. It did not change the political alignment one way or the other. Even Anami’s fantastic suggestion that the United States had more than 100 atomic bombs and planned to bomb Tokyo next did not change the opinions of either the peace party or the war party at all.
Rather, what decisively changed the views of the Japanese ruling elite was the Soviet entry into the war. It catapulted the Japanese government into taking immediate action. For the first time, it forced the government squarely to confront the issue of whether it should accept the Potsdam terms. In the tortuous discussions from August 9 through August 14, the peace party, motivated by a profound sense of betrayal, fear of Soviet influence on occupation policy, and above all by a desperate desire to preserve the imperial house, finally staged a conspiracy to impose the “emperor’s sacred decision” and accept the Potsdam terms, believing that under the circumstances surrendering to the United States would best assure the preservation of the imperial house and save the emperor.
This is, of course, not to deny completely the effect of the atomic bomb on Japan’s policymakers. It certainly injected a sense of urgency in finding an acceptable end to the war. Kido stated that while the peace party and the war party had previously been equally balanced in the scale, the atomic bomb helped to tip the balance in favor of the peace party.[100] It would be more accurate to say that the Soviet entry into the war, adding to that tipped scale, then completely toppled the scale itself.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is professor of modern Russian and Soviet history, University of California, Santa Barbara and the author of Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan.
This is a slightly revised version of an essay published in From The End of the Pacific War, Reappraisals, edited by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa , (c) 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. All rights reserved. No further reproduction or distribution is allowed without the prior written permission of the publisher, www.sup.org. Posted at Japan Focus on August 17, 2007.
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