TRUTH AND FICTION ABOUT KHALKHIN GOL

E. KATASONOVA, Doctor of Historical Sciences

THE BLOODY CONFLICT IN THE FAR EAST: VIEW AND RATINGS 70 YEARS LATER

Very soon - in May 2009 - the 70th anniversary of the fighting events on the Mongolian Khalkhin-Gol River will be celebrated.

On May 11, 1939, units of the Japanese Kwantung Army launched an attack on Mongolian outposts located about 20 km east of the Khalkhin Gol River. The Government of the USSR, in agreement with the Mongolian People's Republic (MNR), provided immediate assistance to the Mongolian army. The fighting continued intermittently for several months. On August 20, Soviet and Mongolian troops launched an offensive along the entire front line. By the end of August, the Japanese-Manchu forces were surrounded and defeated. Japanese losses as a result of these battles amounted to about 55 thousand killed, wounded and captured. On September 15, in Moscow, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. Molotov and Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Togo Shigenori signed an agreement on the cessation of hostilities.

This conflict is one of those international events that for many years have attracted and continue to attract the attention of researchers not only in the countries directly involved in the armed conflict, but also in many other States. However, the final point in the assessment of the events of that time has not yet been put, and not so much for military reasons, but for political and ideological reasons.

During the bloody battles on the Mongol-Manchurian border, very little information was published in the press of the USSR and Japan about this. We have only brief reports from TASS. Not a single description of the battle, not a single correspondence from Mongolia appeared either in June, July, or August. Only on August 6, all central newspapers published a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarding the N-th tank Brigade the Order of Lenin and naming it after Kombrig M. P. Yakovlev. However, neither the number of the brigade was indicated, nor for any military achievements it was awarded the highest order of the country. The text contained only the general wording: "for exceptional services in the defense of the Motherland." Only later did it become known that there was the 11th tank Brigade, which was awarded for active participation in the battles on Mount Bain-Tsagan.

On August 30, central newspapers published for the first time decrees on awarding the title Hero of the Soviet Union to participants in the Khalkhin Gol military operations. Moreover, in the wording of the decrees, as usual, only general, streamlined expressions were used , such as: "for exemplary performance of combat missions" and "for outstanding heroism shown during combat missions", which made it difficult to understand what kind of battles were being discussed. It was only later that poems and songs were written about the battles on Khalkhin Gol, and films were made, poeticizing the image of the Soviet fighter in every possible way.

Writers were among the first to speak openly about the Khalkhin-Gol battles, praising the courage and heroism of Soviet soldiers. Immediately after the victory of the Soviet troops in Mongolia, the famous poet Konstantin Simonov, who visited the battlefields as a special ship of the Red Star, created the poem "Far in the East"under a strong impression of what he saw.

It took military experts about a year to assess these events. In 1940, the works of P. I. Drugov "From the experience of ABTV operations on the Khalkhin-Gol River", "Air combat operations in the Mongolian People's Republic", "Battles at Khalkhin-Gol", etc. were published. The General Staff of the Red Army published the monograph "Actions of the 1st Army Group in the Khalkhin-Gol operation" (May-September 1939). These books were followed by several dozen historical studies, memoirs of participants in battles, works of documentary prose, and other materials.

We reacted quite quickly to the events in Khalkhin Gol and abroad. In those years, several publications appeared in the foreign press, written hot on the heels of the events, but without using any documentary basis. It is no coincidence that most of them not only did not clarify the essence of the conflict, but also contained hastily made assessments.

So, according to one of the most common versions in the foreign press in those years, the conflict on the Khalkhin-Gol River provoked a raid by a Soviet-Mongolian cavalry detachment that violated the Man border.-

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Zhou-Guo in Nomon Khan Burd Obo district. According to this version, when the Japanese units pushed back the "violators", the Russians brought in large forces that were on alert in the Urals, and gave the Japanese a real "meat grinder".

With the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in September 1939, these events faded into the background for a long time, overshadowed by the Second World War. But after the defeat of Japan and the end of military operations in the Pacific, the desire of researchers to restore a reliable picture of the emergence and course of the armed conflict in the Khalkhin Gol river area was manifested with renewed vigor. It was further intensified after the conclusion of the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, which, contrary to expectations, did not clarify the explanation of the Khalkhin-Gol events.

At the tribunal sessions, the prosecution representatives focused mainly on exposing the Japanese plot against peace, approaching the conflict on Khalkhin Gol rather one-sidedly and limiting themselves mainly to the consideration of cartographic issues, i.e. justification for the drawing of the border line. Defense officials, for their part, countered this accusation by saying that the spring-summer clash of 1939 was simply an unprovoked border conflict, typical of most such incidents. Defenders argued that this was not aggression on the part of Japan, but a consequence of inaccurate border demarcation, since the armed conflict was eventually resolved on the basis of a bilateral agreement.¹ Thus, the materials of the Tokyo Tribunal did little to clarify the picture of these events.

FIRST STUDIES, FIRST CONCLUSIONS

After the surrender of Japan and the establishment of the occupation regime on the Japanese Islands, the American occupation authorities created special bodies at the headquarters of Commander-in-Chief D. MacArthur, which were supposed to generalize the experience of armed struggle in the Asia-Pacific region during the war and pre-war periods. Representatives of the Military Historical Service of the US Army decided to follow the example of how it was done in occupied Germany - to involve high-ranking generals and senior officers of the former Japanese army, as well as Japanese military historians. These generals and officers once worked in the headquarters, the general staffs of the army and Navy, the headquarters of the Kwantung and Korean armies.

The colossal work done by these people was completed in 1960. It was represented by 184 monographs on general problems and 13 special studies dealing only with Manchuria. These documentary materials were accompanied by maps and reference tables, name indexes, etc. The documentary materials were supplemented with numerous personal notes and memoirs. All of these detailed Japanese sources were turned over to General D. MacArthur's staff and are now archived at the Center for Military History in Washington.

In the late 70s, several dozen of the most important monographs were selected from these documents, and in 1980 a 15-volume edition of the War in Asia and the Pacific appeared in the United States. 1937-1949". The first 12 volumes of this work included 47 Japanese monographs and special studies translated into English.

But perhaps the most authoritative of the Western researchers of this problem is still considered to be Professor A. Cooks, who after the end of the war worked in the apparatus of the American occupation administration and had access to many Japanese documents. By 1956, under his leadership, 5 monographs were prepared and published. Materials related to the events on the Khalkhin Gol River occupied two volumes. These monographs, though not free from errors and inaccuracies, were recognized at that time as the most authoritative publications published in English.

And in 1985, the monograph of A. Kuks himself was published under the title "Nomonhan: Japan against Russia, 1939" in two volumes of about 1250 pages. Although some of the author's conclusions are by no means indisputable, nevertheless, the study of the American historian is undoubtedly one of the most in-depth, systematic and objective works on the history of this period. Along with his own conclusions and reflections, A. Kuks analyzed the role of the Kwantung Army in the events near the Khalkhin-Gol River on the basis of documents and assessed them as "...a turning point in Japanese history that ultimately brought the war against the Western powers in the Pacific closer."

In the USSR, by the way, the list of scientific studies devoted to these events also includes more than a dozen titles.² All of them more or less fully reveal the activities of the governing bodies of the USSR and Mongolia in preparing to repel aggression, the features, course and outcome of hostilities, and the mass heroism of Soviet and Mongolian soldiers.

However, the most controversial aspects of these events remained outside the scope of these studies, since propaganda goals often prevailed over historical accuracy: the heroic was overly extolled for many years, and the negative, and erroneous, which was much less, but it still was, was shamefully hushed up. Assessing these events from the perspective of today, it should be recognized that the unilateral approach to this problem, which was manifested in the past, unfortunately, did not always correspond to the historical truth.

Thus, almost all Soviet literature ignores the first, May-June stage of combat operations, which demonstrated poor training of ground units, and especially aviation of the 57th special corps of the Red Army. Archival documents show the confusion of the corps command, the loss of its ability to establish operational and clear management of troops in combat conditions. These circumstances are mainly responsible for the complete replacement of the corps command a month after the start of the conflict.

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WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THE FAILURES?

In July 1939, a new body of strategic leadership of the RKK was created in Chita - the front group of troops headed by Commander G. M. Stern. The military council and the headquarters of this group were entrusted with the unification and direction of actions of all armed forces in the Far East, both in peacetime and in wartime. However, the practice of fighting in the Khalkhin Gol River area has shown that the results of the search for the most rational forms of military leadership in the region have not fully justified themselves. The transformation of the 57th Special Corps into the 1st Army Group gave its command the right of direct access to the People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff. However, at the same time, this deprived the front-line group in Chita of the ability to effectively perform the tasks assigned to it.

In addition, it is impossible not to note the negative impact of unjustified repression among the command staff of both armies. In the MNR, for example, in 1937-1938, 80% of the top commanders were arrested. The Mongolian armed forces were essentially decapitated. And this is not all that we have been silent about for many years or tried to do with general words.

For many years, the "work" of Soviet aviation remained poorly understood, especially at the first stage of events. If in the middle and in the final stages of combat operations it revealed its capabilities quite impressively, then the study of its combat operations shows the presence of numerous failures in the May-June battles. Large, unjustified losses of Soviet air materiel and personnel at the initial stage of the conflict are also a proven, albeit bitter, result of the fighting in the Khalkhin Gol area.

Statistics on the results of these battles were also corrected by the Soviet official historiography. According to our statistics, the Soviet-Mongolian troops lost 2,413 killed, 1,020 wounded, and 216 prisoners.³ However, these figures are clearly underestimated. According to other sources, our losses amounted to 10 thousand, then they were raised to 18.5 thousand people. Based on the latest research by Russian military historians, Soviet troops suffered the following personnel losses during the battles on Khalkhin Gol: 7974 people, total sanitary losses - 15926 people.⁴

Japan officially announced that its losses in killed, wounded and sick amounted to 18 thousand out of 76 thousand people who participated in the fighting.⁵ According to the Japanese historian S. Hayashi, the total Japanese losses amounted to at least 73% of those involved in the conflict, that is, approximately 55 thousand people. 12 tanks and 23 armored vehicles, as well as 25 tractors, 100 motor vehicles, 190 guns, 40 mortars, 9 thousand rifles, 370 machine guns and a lot of ammunition fell into the hands of the Soviet troops as trophies.⁶

Soviet reports claimed that more than 600 Japanese planes were shot down in the battle of Khalkhin Gol. They say that when Voroshilov was informed that 450 planes were shot down, he laughed and said: "It's good if you hit at least half of that number!.."In fact, the Japanese lost only 164 aircraft, including 90 in combat and 74 as a result of disasters, destroyed on the ground, damaged to an unrecoverable state.⁷

A rich documentary base and modern times dictate the need to develop an objective assessment of known facts and events outside of ideological attitudes and political preferences. There are all conditions for this. Only in the Russian State Military Archive there are more than 700 items of storage about Khalkhin Gol. They can certainly help you get an idea of the causes of the conflict, its preparation on the part of the Japanese command, the course and stages of military operations of the Soviet-Mongolian troops, the actions of the Japanese army, etc.

WERE WE TESTED "FOR STRENGTH"?

Conservative Japanese historians, while denying the planned nature of the conflict, persist in calling the Khalkhin-Gol events "a random border incident of local significance", which is often blamed on the USSR. So, in the Japanese "Official History of the War in Greater East Asia" it is unsubstantiated that it is not Japan, but the Soviet Union ."..he was looking for a moment to strike at the Japanese army, to destroy its hopes of victory and focus all its attention on Europe... The USSR was well aware that the Japanese government, which was engaged in the war in China, was committed to preventing the expansion of border conflicts in any case."⁸

This assessment does not exclude the opinion of other Japanese historians, who call the events on Khalkhin Gol "the second Russo-Japanese War". Researchers in their works also refer to them as an "undeclared" or "local war" ⁹, since fierce battles were characterized by extreme tension and lasted almost six months - from May to mid-September 1939.

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In Soviet historiography, it was traditionally considered that this conflict was scrupulously prepared and approved by the top leaders of Japan as an important link in the strategic plan for the capture of the Mongolian People's Republic (Outer Mongolia) and Transbaikalia, set out in the Tanaka Memorandum. At the same time, Soviet sources sometimes claim that in the event of the defeat of our troops at Khalkhin Gol, the Japanese army was going to go almost as far as Chita and Vladivostok.

One of the goals of the planned conflict could be nothing more than checking the combat capability of the Red Army, a kind of "reconnaissance by battle", in order to verify in practice the effectiveness of the new version of the war plan against the USSR and check the combat readiness of the Red Army in the eastern direction. This was also driven by the Japanese desire to restore the authority of the Kwantung Army, which was undermined by the inability to end the war in China and the defeat at Lake Hassan.

In the fundamental historical work-the collective monograph "Japanese Militarism", it is noted that the provocations of Japanese troops in the area of Lake Khasan in August 1938 and the larger one in the summer of 1939 on the Khalkhin - Gol River were mainly connected "...with the plans for preparing the Kwantung Army (for war with the USSR.-E. K.) and checking the situation in the area of the her combat ability. " ¹⁰ Among the supporters of this approach, in particular, is the military historian E. A. Gorbunov, who describes it in detail in his books "August 20, 1939" and "The Collapse of the Otsu plans" ¹¹.

The question is, who was the initiator of the military conflict in the Khalkhin Gol River area - the political and military leadership of the country, or was it largely an independent action of the Kwantung Army generals and officers who allegedly left the General Staff, which is still insisted by a significant part of Japanese researchers, in particular K. Tanaka?

In general, the Japanese historical literature is dominated by the statement that the fighting in the area of the Khalkhin Gol river is difficult to explain by the aggressive plans of the Japanese leadership aimed at seizing Soviet territory. Focusing on the fact that Japan at that time was busy with the war in China and did not have the opportunity to wage a war on two fronts, some Japanese researchers (Ushijima) try to assign all responsibility for unleashing the conflict only to the command of the Kwantung Army, which allegedly acted independently and made such a decision not only not on the instructions of the General Staff, but and in spite of it. In particular, we are talking about the decisive role of several officers like Tsuji Masanobu in unleashing the war on the Khalkhin Gol River. This, in particular, is what Professor K insists on. Tanaka ¹².

In Soviet historical science, however, for almost five decades, despite the obvious "stretch marks", it was persistently argued that the really existing general aggressive plans of Tokyo towards the USSR and the MNR were directly related to specific events in the Khalkhin-Gol River area. As a documentary basis for this statement, the plan of Operation Otsu ("Number 8") was given. It provided for two scenarios. Option " A " provided for a simultaneous strike in the eastern and northern directions. After that, military operations began in the direction of the Soviet Transbaikalia. According to option " B " at the first stage of the war, the main attack was planned in the western direction in order to reach Lake Baikal and, cutting off Transbaikalia and the Far East from the central regions of the USSR, defeat the group of Soviet troops stationed here. Japan tried to implement these tasks during the military operations on Khalkhin Gol, first committing aggressive actions against Mongolia. At the same time, it was emphasized that this plan was developed and approved in the autumn of 1938 not by the command of the Kwantung Army, but by the General Staff of the Imperial Army.¹³

A number of Russian scientists hold a different assessment today. The Japanese history textbook, for example, notes: "As in the case of the conflict at Lake Khasan, in this case there was an unauthorized action by the command of the Kwantung Army. Without informing Tokyo, they developed a plan to capture part of the Mongolian and then Soviet territory with access to the Trans-Siberian railway. " ¹⁴

One of the first to oppose the one-sided interpretation of these events was the military historian V. Vartanov in his article " Khalkhin-Gol: what is under gilding?.."Like all other researchers, he does not express doubts about the aggressiveness and anti-Soviet orientation of the Japanese plans for our country in those years. However, an analysis of the situation in the region and the internal situation of Japan by mid-1939, in his opinion, shows that it was unprofitable for the Japanese ruling circles to get involved in an open large-scale armed conflict with the Soviet Union, and they did not specifically plan this. The Japanese regular army was firmly mired in the war in China, and for two years it had been engaged in protracted battles on two fronts-against Chiang Kai-shek's regular troops and a powerful guerrilla movement in the rear. Japan experienced an increasing depletion of raw materials, an increase in irretrievable losses of personnel, a surge of anti-war protests in the army itself and in the country, etc. How could one seriously count on the conquest of the MNR, the invasion of the USSR, the occupation of Transbaikalia with two infantry regiments and reinforcement units - a total of just over 10 thousand people. man, namely these Japanese units participated in the initial stage of the conflict?..¹⁵

THE BORDER IS NOT TO BLAME

"In our opinion," Vartanov says, " the fighting that broke out, as unexpected as it may sound, was random in nature and was caused by confusion in this area with the border line. For several years, consultations were held between the Mongolian and Manchu sides on this issue; however, a single point of view was never developed. " ¹⁶

V. P. Safronov takes the same position in his article "The USSR and the Japanese Aggression of 1937-1941" ¹⁷. The author believes that this conflict arose as a result of-

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another border incident due to the parties ' divergence in defining the border. He adds that this was facilitated by the presence of a large number of maps of the area, which were interpreted by each side in its favor, as well as the very nature of the area - deserted and sparsely populated, where border signs were sometimes very vague and separated from each other by many kilometers.

This gives grounds for a number of Russian scientists to argue that the Japanese claims at that time were justified, and the Mongolian authorities, who placed border posts on the disputed territory, were to blame for the conflict. The well-known Japanese military historian I. Hata, based on his own research, also came to the conclusion that "...from an objective point of view, the Soviet approach to the border seems more convincing"¹⁸.

By the way, the problem of border demarcation itself did not arise in 1939. It existed for quite a long time, and there was no consensus on where the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia passed. Mongolia, backed by the Soviet Union, declared its border near the small village of Nomon Khan Burd Obo, and Manchukuo, backed by Japan, drew its border along the Khalkhin Gol River. That is why in Japanese and Western historiography, subsequent events were called the "Nomonhan incident", and in Soviet and Russian historiography, the "Khalkhin Gol conflict".

Some researchers associate these military clashes with Japan's plans to build the Solun-Ganzhur railway near Mongolian territory, the terrain of which, according to the Mongolian side, was such that in case of war, the railway could be subjected to targeted fire from the dominant heights on the Mongolian border. By moving the borders to Khalkhin Gol, the Japanese command would eliminate this threat.

It was then that they remembered the maps of the XIX century. According to the descriptions of the disgraced General Pyotr Grigorenko, according to many atlases and testimonies of the late XIX century, this border ran along the Khalkhin-Gol River itself, without going into the territory of Manchukuo. On the Chinese maps of 1919, the border was exactly as it appeared to Mongolia. Similar maps from 1919, 1926, and 1934 were available to the Kwantung General Government and the Kwantung Army in 1937 and 1938.

But not only from the perspective of the upcoming construction of the railway, the Japanese military authorities chose to attack this particular projection of Mongolian territory in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River and Lake Buir Nur, and contrary to official maps that recorded the border line between the MNR and Manchukuo east of Khalkhin Gol, they began to insist on establishing a border along this river.

Everyone is well aware that it is not cartographic errors that lead to such tragic events. Of course, it was not just about a tiny piece of Mongolia's territory - the Japanese, of course, set a larger and more significant political and strategic task. Japan considered the USSR as a potential enemy, and-as is well known from history-long before 1939, they were preparing for war with the Soviet Union.

However, at the beginning of the conflict, both sides treated it as a normal incident. They exchanged several mutual protests , the first of which was addressed to the MNR government. But it is hardly correct to regard the confrontation as an accidental coincidence. It was also brewing because frequent and minor border incidents accumulated and created a favorable ground for confrontation.

It is difficult not to agree with the opinion of Russian researchers that the conflict on Khalkhin Gol, in addition to the military-military one, had a clear political and diplomatic dimension. By unleashing large-scale military operations, both the Soviet Union and Japan sought to extract maximum political benefits for themselves and, first of all, demonstrate their combat capability to potential allies, since in Europe and in the United States there were quite serious doubts about the ability of the USSR and Japan to act as reliable and combat-ready partners in the upcoming coalitions. which were not yet fully clarified at the time.

THE "GERMAN FACTOR" ENTERS THE POLITICAL GAME

It was during these months that Japanese diplomacy was fiercely haggling over the terms of cooperation with Germany and Britain.

On the other hand, Japan at that time was waging a heavy war of conquest in China, where it suffered significant losses in manpower and equipment. And, obviously, in such conditions, the Japanese, for all their aggressiveness, were not interested in inflating a parallel major war, distracting their forces from the main goal.

To isolate the main point, it should be said that the events at Khalkhin Gol were connected with Japanese diplomatic maneuvers aimed at pushing Germany to war against the USSR, forcing the Soviet Union to abandon military assistance to China or at least significantly weaken it, and inciting Britain, France and the United States to "Far Eastern Munich",

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that is, to the policy of" appeasing "Japan, to give Japan the" green light " for aggressive actions in the region, to keep the United States from applying economic sanctions against Japan.

In the summer of 1939, no less important negotiations with representatives of the military missions of Britain and France in Moscow were conducted by the military delegation of the USSR. The political situation around the Soviet Union was difficult at that time. In the autumn of 1938, the USSR was not even invited to the Munich conference, which decided the fate of Czechoslovakia, with which Moscow had a mutual assistance agreement. This meant only one thing-the fall of the Soviet Union's authority in Europe, where in the spring of 1939 Republican Spain, Moscow's last ally, fell. In the West, it was not without reason that the Red Army, weakened by numerous purges, was not capable of fighting. In addition, the USSR, which actively helped China with weapons and military specialists, was indirectly interested in dispersing Japanese forces.

In this situation, the position of the Soviet government towards Japan was most clearly indicated in Chiang Kai-shek's response to his proposal to conclude a peace treaty between the two countries - China and the Soviet Union. It was as follows:

- the isolated entry of the USSR into the war will do more harm than good: This will worsen China's position and improve Japan's;

- the government of the USSR considers it inappropriate for the USSR to act without the participation of the United States and England. This will serve as an additional reason for accusing the three aggressors of Bolshevizing China, giving them the opportunity to refer to the fact that the USSR has special interests in China and seeks to seize it;

- the Soviet intervention will involve Germany and Italy in the war, which will help Japan, and as a result, the situation will become more complicated;

- the Government of the USSR confirms that it will enter the war (against Japan) if one of the following conditions is met::

1) in the event of a Japanese attack on the USSR;

2) if the USSR is joined by England or America;

3) if the League of Nations issues a resolution requesting the Pacific Powers to apply military sanctions against Japan.¹⁹

Thus, the resulting conflict, which was formally four-sided-the MNR and the USSR versus Manchukuo and Japan-was actually a showdown between the Soviet Union and Japan. The conflict has become a great opportunity for any of the parties not only to secure the disputed territories, but also to significantly raise their military and political prestige in the international arena.

It is no accident that we pay such close attention to the causes of the conflict, because they are the key to highlighting the problem as a whole. Suffice it to say that the spontaneous, unexpected nature of the outbreak of hostilities put the Soviet-Mongolian troops in an extremely difficult situation. In this regard, we will try to answer two more questions: were the Japanese actions sudden or predictable enough for the Soviet leadership, and were the Soviet and Mongolian troops stationed in the Mongolian People's Republic ready to repel the Japanese offensive?

The answer to these questions is obvious: then, as they say, " the air smelled of war." However, the compass needle, which determines its geographical direction, constantly fluctuated from East to West and vice versa. Specifically, the strategic plans of the Japanese military leadership to seize Mongolian territory and use it as a springboard for a future war against the USSR were well known to Moscow. The border incidents provoked by the Japanese side, which sometimes teetered on the brink of war, as was the case during the Khasan events, and, finally, Tokyo's behind-the-scenes diplomatic game, which was largely based on playing the "Soviet card" - these seem to be strong enough arguments for the USSR to be fully prepared to repel an attack from Japan - whether it's local border battles, or real military battles.

SORGE HAD WARNED ME ABOUT EVERYTHING...

This raises the question of the reason for the practical inaction of the Soviet military leadership in these difficult days for our country. After all, a warning about a military provocation being prepared in the Khalkhin Gol area was sent to the Center by Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge a few weeks before these events.²⁰ His assistant B. Vukelich learned from a conversation with an employee of the British Embassy that the command of the Kwantung Army was pulling troops to the eastern borders of the Mongolian People's Republic. Based on this information, Sorge concluded that the Japanese were preparing a provocation using large forces, including tanks and aircraft.

Later, Sorge's intelligence network also played a major role in providing the Soviet leadership with information during the preparation and conduct of battles near the Khalkhin Gol River. The group's agent, Iotoku Miyagi, obtained information about new weapons and military equipment being transferred to the Japanese military. He also scouted the situation at Japanese military bases in Hailar, Qiqihar, Harbin, and Xingqing, and counted the number of aircraft at the Kunchulin supply base near Mukden. Particularly valuable information was obtained by Branko Vukelic, an official representative of the French press agency. He was among the journalists who were invited by the Japanese general Staff to visit the area of operations to observe the progress of the Japanese troops, where he was in the period from 3 to 15 July. From the trip, he brought important data about Japanese airfields, their equipment, the number and types of aircraft based on them, as well as military equipment depots.

As for Sorge himself, he was also among those invited by the Japanese to the area of operations. In conversations with him, the German military attache, Colonel Matzki, let it slip,

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that, according to him, in order to save troops, the Japanese general staff is forbidden to use the battle of the river to further expand aggression against the USSR. In early June 1939, Sorge sent a detailed report to Moscow with assessments and conclusions about the military and political situation in the Far East. Especially important was the following conclusion of our scout: "Japan, despite the impending aggression in the area of the Khalkhig-Gol River, is not ready to unleash a major war against the Soviet Union." ²¹

Most researchers believe that Sorge's group made an invaluable contribution to the success of the Soviet operation on Khalkhin Gol. Y. Mader calls Ramzai's information about the plans and timing of the Japanese attack on the MNR with a subsequent strike on the Soviet Far Eastern territories "the second strategically very important report" ²². But Sorge is not only credited with warning of Japanese plans against the MNR. The main thing is that he promptly conveyed to Moscow information that the Japanese cabinet had no plans to expand the conflict on Khalkhin Gol to the scale of a major war. At the same time, he focused on moving elite units from Japan to the battle area and found that tanks, heavy artillery, and large parts of other branches of the armed forces were not sent to Khalkhin Gol. It could only be a question of strengthening the grouping of Japanese troops at the expense of formations in Manchuria and Northern China. Sorge conveyed this fact to the center as confirmation of the local nature of the events on Khalkhin Gol ²³.

Even earlier, Sorge handed over to Moscow the interrogation protocols of the head of the NKVD Department for the Far Eastern Territory, Commissar of State Security of the 3rd rank, Major General Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov, who on June 13, 1938, crossed the Soviet border in the Posyetsky district of Primorsky Krai and surrendered into the hands of Japanese gendarmes. A special commission was set up to interrogate him, and the Japanese appreciated Lyushkov's testimony very highly. "It is not an exaggeration to say," wrote the famous Japanese historian and writer Hiyama Yoshiaki , " that on the basis of his testimony, the Japanese land army gained a complete understanding of the military power, organizational structure, weapons, deployment, and tactics of the Soviet army."²⁴

Lyushkov gave the Japanese maps with a plan of the Soviet border fortifications, the deployment of border detachments and Red Army units, provided data on the number of military personnel, on all Soviet intelligence officers in the consulate in Dalian. Lyushkov reported that Stalin intended to eliminate V. K. Blucher, since the marshal's opinion that "... the USSR should strike at Japan in the interests of helping the national liberation movement in China" was at odds with the foreign policy ideas and plans of the Soviet leader. The Japanese considered important information to be a message about the weakness of the Stalinist regime ("ordinary people live in fear for their lives, they are confused because of what is happening in the country, and Stalin honors only the collective farm peasantry"), about anti-Soviet sentiments in the party and army ("loyalty to the leader is declining"), that the USSR intends to wait the moment when Japan will exhaust its forces in the fight against China, and then attack it ²⁵. Lyushkov, based on an analysis of Soviet documents, argued that due to widespread discontent in the Red Army and the existence of strong opposition in Siberia and the Far East, the Soviet military machine in these regions would collapse in the event of a Japanese invasion. Giving out the location of the Red Army formations in the Far East, he said that their number was 25 divisions, and described in detail the weapons of each of them.

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He also informed the Japanese about the radio codes used by the military. He also spoke about the disinformation activities of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army.

TRAITORS AND THEIR BLACK DEEDS

By the way, a little earlier than Lyushkov, on May 29, 1938, the chief of artillery of the 36th Division stationed in Mongolia, Yarmar Frantsevich Front, deserted to Manchukuo, who gave the Japanese extensive information about political repression in the country. In August of the same year, Captain Bimbaa, head of the propaganda department of the 6th Division of the Mongolian People's Army, deserted from Tamtsik-Bulak. His detailed report on the political situation in the MNR was published in the Asahi newspaper. It reported the deaths of Premier Genden, Defense Minister Damid, Chief of Staff General Mardin, and several hundred military personnel who were killed by the "pro-Soviet" regime. This was followed by several more articles by the defector, which gave rise to the Japanese belief that it was necessary to "save" Mongolia from the Soviets.

But, of course, the greatest political and military value was the information received from Lyushkov. The Japanese handed over the minutes of Lyushkov's interrogation to the German Embassy in Tokyo. Based on them, a detailed report of 100 pages of typewritten text was compiled, which Sorge read. He immediately understood the importance of this information and sent it as a microfilm to Moscow at the earliest opportunity.²⁶

Already in our time, the electronic newspaper Duel published two other versions of these events. According to one of them, Sorge transmitted the main content of Lyushkov's testimony by radio as early as the end of the summer of 1938.Between the partners in the Anti-Comintern Pact, there was a special protocol on the exchange of intelligence information, according to which the Japanese could easily transmit this data to Germany through the military attache, which became Sorge's prey. The second version boils down to the fact that in October 1938, an Abwehr colonel arrived from Germany to interrogate Lyushkov. Sorge, who allegedly did not attach much importance to the incident with the defector, photographed only half of the colonel's report and only sent the film to Moscow at the request of the center in January 1939.

The source of this information himself considers this course of events very strange, since Lyushkov's testimony concerned the activities of NKVD agents in China and Japan, as well as Sorge himself. Lyushkov, allegedly, even informed the Japanese general staff about the work of a deeply secret group of military intelligence officers (it was Sorge's group). Fortunately, the traitor did not know his name, since Sorge worked in the GRU, not the NKVD, and thus did not allow the special services to arrest the Soviet intelligence officer. Although it was not very difficult for Japanese intelligence agents to conclude that the GRU agent was somehow connected with the German embassy, and in this way "calculate" Sorge ²⁷.

The most likely and logical explanation of Sorge's actions in connection with Lyushkov's escape is described in the book "Operation Ramzai "by V. Gavrilov and E. Gorbunov. The information with the testimony of the Soviet defector was immediately passed on by the Japanese to German Major Scholl, who showed it to Sorge. Lyushkov's revelations made a strong impression at the German Embassy in Tokyo, and Scholl even sent a telegram to Berlin requesting that a specialist on the Soviet Union be urgently sent to Tokyo to interrogate Lyushkov on matters of interest to Germany. At the same time, Sorge sent a series of radio messages to Moscow outlining the preliminary results of Lyushkov's testimony.

When Admiral Canaris ' special representative, Colonel Greling, arrived in Tokyo, Lyushkov's interrogations resumed. The result was a memorandum entitled " Report on the meeting between Lyushkov and the German Special Envoy and the resulting information." Scholl showed the document to Sorge, who immediately photographed most of it. After that, "Ramsay" sent Dona-

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return to Moscow. In it, in a rather harsh form, he asked for instructions on whether he should send the entire memorandum to Moscow. From the tone of the response message, it was possible to judge the significance that the Center attached to this event.

The telegram of September 5, 1938 stated: "Do your best and use all available means to obtain copies of documents received by the special envoy of Canaris from the Japanese army or copies of documents received personally by the envoy from Lyushkov, and the corresponding response that they could cause at the highest level." ²⁸

By the way, a few more words about Lyushkov. Perhaps only a narrow circle of specialists today knows that the Japanese special services intended to involve the defector Lyushkov in a terrorist act against Stalin. However, Tokyo subsequently rejected Lyushkov's candidacy as the perpetrator of a terrorist act against Stalin. Obviously because he was quite a well-known figure, and he would definitely be recognized by everyone.

From the data provided by Lyushkov, it followed that the Red Army was greatly weakened as a result of the extensive purges in the leadership that followed the trial of Marshal Tukhachevsky and other top officers. Therefore, there was a real threat that the governments of Japan and Germany, having received information about the size and disposition of military formations, might be tempted to launch military operations against the Soviet Union, which was allegedly "on the verge of collapse."

According to English researchers, F. According to Deakin and G. Story, Sorge's work in connection with the Lyushkov case "was one of the greatest services rendered by him to the 4th Directorate during the entire time of his Japanese mission."³⁰. Sorge himself did not exaggerate when he noted: "One of the consequences of Lyushkov's testimony was the danger of joint Japanese-German military operations against the Soviet Union." ³¹ Sorge's main task was to prevent this, as far as the capabilities of the intelligence mission allowed.

Sorge's own reaction to Lyushkov's action throws some light on the extraordinary firmness of his own convictions: "I believed that Lyushkov became a defector not only because he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the Soviet authorities or because of some resentment or insults he experienced in Siberia. The reason is that at that time the purges had already directly affected the NKVD, and he was afraid that he might be among the victims. I came to the conclusion that Lyushkov gave a political reason for his escape only because he had friends in opposition groups in the USSR. The statements of the traitor and his actions are always stereotyped, and therefore I was not very interested in Lyushkov himself. " ³²

At first, he was alarmed by the reaction of the Japanese, who apparently informed the German Embassy that "the Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse." Sorge immediately challenged the Japanese arguments, pointing out that " Lyushkov is an unreliable and secondary figure." "It is dangerous to judge the internal situation in Russia by the testimony of a man like Lyushkov," Sorge said. "His statements are the sort you might find in any anti-Nazi book written by German refugees. They often predict that the Nazi regime will inevitably collapse. " ³³

There is no direct evidence of how Japanese and German experts evaluated the materials received from Lyushkov, in particular, concerning the combat capability of the Red Army. However, immediately after Lyushkov's flight, events occurred on Lake Khasan and a year later-a major clash of Soviet and Japanese forces on the Manchurian-Mongolian border in the Khalkhin-Gol River area.

The reports of the lead prosecutor in the Sorge case, Yoshikawa Mitsusada, hint that there was a connection between the failure of this operation, based on information received from Lyushkov, and Sorge's transfer to Moscow of Japan's assessment of the Soviet armed forces. Describing the microfilm with Lyushkov's materials given to Sorge, this official remarked:: "And then the Nomonhan incident happened." ³⁴

Russian researcher Boris Slavinsky does not rule out that Sorge's information on the Lyushkov case could have a connection with the fate of Soviet Marshal Blucher and the mass extermination of the "opposition" in the ranks of the Far Eastern Army. After all, shortly after Lyushkov's escape, Blucher was recalled to Moscow, where he was arrested and died in prison on November 9, 1938. But this is only an assumption that needs further research.³⁵

The Japanese scientist K. Tanaka also testifies that the information received from Lyushkov was taken very seriously by the Japanese military leadership and used to prepare for the armed conflict on Khalkhin Gol. And only Sorge's prompt actions to send this data to Moscow, as well as his messages about the intentions of the Kwantung Army, led the Japanese side to a crushing defeat. Moscow promptly responded to Sorge's reports: within 10 months, according to K. Tanaka, the Red Army was rearmed and its weapons were improved ³⁶.

However, real events and archival documents, alas, indicate the opposite - that the Soviet and Mongolian troops are completely unprepared to repel the Japanese strike. As during the events on Lake Khasan, Sorge's warnings about the looming threat of a local action and detailed information about the combat strength and weapons of the Kwantung group transmitted to the Center were practically ignored...

FAR EASTERN PROLOGUE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The first months of the conflict showed the clear superiority of the Japanese armed forces. In the Soviet-Mongolian troops, however, confusion prevailed at first. The lack of military experience affected not only middle-level commanders, but also top-level ones. Khalkhin-Gol demonstrated the low level of military training of Soviet troops, ranging from the infantryman to the highest command staff, as well as a low level of possession of weapons, starting with the Mosin rifle.

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What does this mean? About distrust of Sorge's information? About the general moral, political and military-strategic situation in the country? These questions remain to be answered. Why Sorge's predictions (which were accurate to the smallest detail and almost always came true) they listened in Berlin, but did not listen in Moscow, and after the beginning of the repressions, when Sorge got into the cage of the "Berzin gang", they were generally perceived warily?

There is evidence of dissatisfaction on the part of the Sorge information center during the events on Khalkhin Gol. "The quality of your information on current military and political issues gradually became worse over the summer. During this period, Japan took a number of important steps in preparing an attack on the Soviet Union, but we have not received any significant information from you..."³⁷

Apparently, it is not only the ambiguous assessment of the Soviet leadership of the activities of the Soviet intelligence officer and his associates and the distrust of them that arose already in those years. It seems that the general atmosphere in the Red Army and the military-political leadership of the country, which was formed as a result of the repressions, had a greater impact here. It was in such an atmosphere, paradoxically, that fraud and irresponsibility flourished in full bloom, which later turned into huge human losses.

So, can it be considered true that the local military events on Khalkhin Gol that did not develop into a war had a serious impact on subsequent events in world politics? I think so.

1939 has forever gone down in history as the year of the beginning of the Second World War. The Nazi attack on Poland on September 1 was the watershed that interrupted the peaceful flow of time, dividing it into pre-war and military. However, this division was often formal, since military fires had long been burning in different parts of our planet, anticipating the fire wave of the world war.

The fighting on Khalkhin Gol began in May, a few months before the start of the war, and ended by mid-September, i.e. by the time the Polish people had actually fallen under the yoke of fascism. Although the epicenter of the events that unfolded after September 1, 1939, fell mainly in the West, the Far Eastern region was also of no small importance in the military confrontation. The fighting that unfolded there became a kind of catalyst, which, despite the huge distance from the main theater of military operations, certainly accelerated the start of a big war.

An interesting detail: on August 23, 1939, the entire Japanese group was surrounded, and thus the victory of the Soviet Union and Mongolia over the Japanese was won. And on the same day, August 23, Molotov and Ribbentrop signed a non-Aggression Pact between the USSR and Germany, which the Japanese could not have been unaware of. In this connection, the question arises: did the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact lead to the end of the conflict, or was this pact one of the reasons for the end of the" small war " in the Far East?

Of course, this event played a role. But the main events on Khalkhin Gol occurred a little earlier-on August 20, when the Japanese group was dealt a powerful blow, and it was actually, if not destroyed, then suffered very heavy losses. Thus, objectively, the pact hardly had any noticeable impact on the final outcome of the Far Eastern events. At the same time, it is impossible not to take into account that the Japanese, having learned about the Soviet-German pact, were in a state of shock, politically confused who was on whose side, because, preparing for war with the Soviet Union, they considered Germany their ally. The conclusion of the pact was quite disorganized and disoriented by the leadership of the Country of the Rising Sun. The Japanese government has resigned. And I must say that the military victory at Khalkhin Gol plus the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact cooled the ardor of the Japanese for quite a long time, and they have already completely switched to the "southern direction" - the war in the Pacific.

On the other hand, among the factors that prompted the USSR to make its choice in foreign policy in favor of an agreement with Hitler's Germany, rather than with the Anglo-French bloc, an important place was given to taking into account the security of the USSR in the Far East. And in this regard, the armed conflict on Khalkhin Gol may have become a strong argument in favor of Germany, since Stalin, convinced that the Soviet Union exists in an extremely hostile environment, made ensuring the country's national security his main goal.

During 1937-1938. The Soviet Union offered England,

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France and the United States should organize collective action against German expansion in Europe and Japanese aggression in China. But Western democracies flatly refused, and Moscow found itself in complete international isolation. Germany reacted differently when Molotov on August 15, 1939, during a conversation with the German Ambassador Schulenberg, asked him the question: "Is the German government ready to exert influence on Japan in order to improve Soviet-Japanese relations and resolve border conflicts?" The very next day, Ribbentrop reported to Moscow his answer: "Germany is ready to use the Soviet-Japanese relations in the future?" use their influence to strengthen Russian-Japanese relations " ³⁸.

On the night of August 23-24, when the Soviet-German negotiations were taking place, the Japanese issue was also discussed in detail. This was reflected in the recording of the conversation: "The Reich Foreign Minister stated that German-Japanese friendship is in no way directed against the Soviet Union. For example, because of our good relations with Japan, we are able to make an effective contribution to the settlement of differences between the Soviet Union and Japan. If Mr. Stalin and the Soviet government so desire, the Reich Foreign Minister is ready to work in this direction. He will use his influence with the Japanese government accordingly and will contact the Soviet representative in Berlin on this matter.

Mr. Stalin replied that the Soviet Union really wanted better relations with Japan, but that there were limits to its patience with Japanese provocations. If Japan wants war, it can have it. The Soviet Union is not afraid of this and is ready for it. If Japan wants peace, so much the better. Mr. Stalin considers German assistance in improving Soviet-Japanese relations useful, but the Soviet Union does not want the Japanese to get the impression that the initiative in this direction comes from the Soviet Union."³⁹

Thus, the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany clearly contributed to strengthening the security of the Soviet Union in terms of its confrontation with Japan. On the other hand, the signing of the Soviet-German Pact was a heavy blow for this country, since, as documents show, the Japanese leadership did not give up hope of drawing Germany into a war with the USSR during the entire conflict on Khalkhin Gol.

"It was precisely because of the failure of the Japanese-German negotiations that the German-Soviet non-aggression pact was concluded," Sorge argued.⁴⁰ That is why, in the months leading up to September 1939, for the Soviet leadership, the information sent by Sorge's group about the negotiations between Germany and Japan on the conclusion of a military alliance was of extremely important strategic importance.

Thus, summing up these facts, it should be concluded that the armed clash between Soviet and Japanese troops in the summer of 1939 prompted the Soviet government to conclude a non - aggression Pact with Germany in order to avoid the danger of involving our country in a war on two fronts-western and eastern. On the other hand, the defeat of the Japanese forces prompted the Japanese government to conclude a peace treaty with the USSR in April 1941. The Neutrality Pact. Although here another question arises about how effective these actions turned out to be, since in both cases, despite the official agreements reached, bloody wars followed, the outcome of which determined the entire post-war world order.

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¹ For more information, see: Raginsky M. Yu., Rozenblit S. Ya. International trial of the main Japanese war criminals, Moscow-L., 1950, pp. 250-258.

² Among the most notable of them are the works of G. N. Sevastyanov, The policy of the Great Powers in the Far East on the eve of the Second World War (Moscow, 1961; his. Military and diplomatic defeat in the period of events near the Khalkhin-Gol River / / Voprosy istorii, 1957, No. 8; Novikova M. V. Pobeda na Khalkhin-Gol (Moscow, 1957); Yaponskiy militarizm (Voenno-istoricheskoe issledovanie). Moscow, 1972; Efimova G. V. and Dudinsky A.M. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya na Dalnom In the East, book 2 (Moscow, 1973); Savina A. S. Japanese militarism during the Second World War (Moscow, 1979) and others.

³ TSGAR f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1207, l. 112.

⁴ The security label has been removed. Losses of the armed forces of the USSR in wars, military operations and military conflicts. Statistical research, Moscow, Voenizdat Publ., 1993, p. 79.

^{Coox Albin D.} 5 Nomonhan. Japan Against Russia, 1939. Stanford, California, 1985, vol. 2, p. 1123.

⁶ Cit. by: Slovinsky B. N. The USSR and Japan-on the way to war: diplomatic history of 1937-1945, Moscow, 1999, p. 177.

⁷ TSGARA f. 33987, op. 3...

⁸ Daitoa senso kokan sen si. Kantogun (Official History of the War in Great East Asia), Vol. 27. Kantogun (Kwantung Army), Part 1. Tokyo, 1993, p. 423.

⁹ Taiheye senso si (History of the Pacific War). Tokyo, 1983. Vol. 3, p. 241.

¹⁰ Japanese militarism (Military-historical research), Moscow, 1972, p. 165.

^{Gorbunov E. A.} 11-20 August 1939. Moscow, 1986; his. The collapse of Otsu's plans. Vladivostok, 1988.

¹² Khalkhin-Gol: fifty years Later, Moscow, 1990, p. 30.

^{Slovinsky B. N.} 13 Decree. soch., p. 169.

¹⁴ Istoriya Yapanii [History of Japan], Moscow, IV RAS, 1999, Part II, Moscow, p. 381.

¹⁵ Sovetskiy voin, 1989, No. 18, p. 74.

¹⁶ Soviet foreign policy. 1917 - 1945. Search for new Approaches, Moscow, 1992, pp. 251-287.

^{Coox A.} 17 Nomonhan. Op. cit, vol. 1, p. 146.

¹⁸ Cit. by: Slovinsky B. N. Decree of soch., p. 166.

¹⁹ http://rustrana.ru

²⁰ http://gagarin.cds.org.ru

^{Gavrilov V., Gorbunov E.} 21 Operation "Ramzai". Moscow, 2004, p. 211.

²² Sorge: a biographical sketch (in 2 parts). 2002, part 1, pp. 137-138.

^{Hiyama Yoshiaki.} 24 Japanese plans for an assassination attempt on Stalin / / Problems of the Far East. 1990, N 4, p. 131.

^{Slovinsky B. N.} 25 Edict. soch., p. 150.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ http://duel.ru

^{Gavrilov V., Gorbunov E.} 28 Decree. soch., p. 161.

²⁹ Russian archive. Soviet-Japanese War of 1945, pp. 156-157.

^{Deakin F. U., Story G. R.} 30 The Richard Sorge case. Translated from English by M., Terra. 1996, p. 212.

^{Gavrilov V., Gorbunov E.} 31 Decree. soch., p. 162.

³² http://nvo.ng.ru

³³ Russian archive. The Soviet-Japanese War of 1945, Moscow, pp. 156-157.

^{Deakin F. U., Story G. R.} 34 Edict. op., p. 214.

^{Slovinsky B. N.} 35 Edict. soch., p. 152.

³⁶ Khalkhin Goal: 50 years later. Materials of the "round table" of historians of the Soviet Union, Mongolia and Japan, August 1989, Moscow, Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense, 1990, p. 33.

^{Gavrilov V., Gorbunov E.} 37 Decree. soch., p. 162.

³⁸ 1939 - 1941. Soviet-Nazi relations. Documents. Paris, New York, Third Wave Publishing House. 1988, pp. 58, 63.

³⁹ Ibid.

^{Gavrilov V., Gorbunov E.} 40 Edict. soch., p. 162.