The Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan (1941)

The Neutrality Pact ( 日 ソ 立 中 н 条約 , nisso tu: ritsu jo: yaku ) was signed in Moscow on April 13, 1941 ^[1] . On the part of the USSR , Molotov signed the treaty, on the part of Japan - Foreign Minister Suke Matsuoka ( Japanese 松岡 洋 右 ) and Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Tatekawa. Ratified on April 25, 1941 . The contract was concluded for 5 years from the date of ratification: from April 25, 1941 to April 25, 1946 and was automatically renewed until 1951 . The declaration and exchange letters were attached to the pact.

The signing was preceded by a conversation between Matsuoka and Stalin on April 12, when agreement was reached on a number of controversial issues (for example, about Northern Sakhalin and Japanese concessions ). Japan refused the demand to sell North Sakhalin to it in exchange for a promise to supply 100 thousand tons of oil.

According to Article 2, “in the event that one of the contracting parties appears to be the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third powers, the other contracting party will remain neutral throughout the conflict.”

The declaration (which was an annex to the pact), which was signed on the same day by Molotov, Matsuoka and Yoshitsugu Tatekawa , contained an obligation to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of the MPR and Manzhou-th (de jure recognition of states). In exchange letters, Matsuoka promised to conclude a trade agreement and a fishing agreement, liquidate Japanese concessions in Northern Sakhalin and establish a commission of representatives of the USSR, Japan, Mongolia and Manzhou-go to resolve border issues.

The reaction in the world to the agreement was negative, both in the countries of the Hitlerite coalition and in England , France and the USA . The leadership of Germany and Italy negatively perceived this agreement as they lost an ally in the war they were preparing with the Soviet Union.

With extreme concern, the treaty was received in the United States and Great Britain. The governments of these countries were afraid that the treaty would untie Japan’s hands and allow it to expand its expansion to the south of East Asia. The United States reacted by introducing trade sanctions against the USSR, like the ones they imposed after concluding two years before the non-aggression pact with Germany . In the press, the Soviet-Japanese treaty was seen as a strong blow to American diplomacy.

In addition, the Americans feared for the fate of military assistance to the Chinese - at that time, the main support for China came from the USSR. In China itself, news about the treaty caused great disappointment, many perceived it as a betrayal. The Soviet government reassured Chiang Kai-shek that it was not going to reduce the assistance provided to his country, however, with the outbreak of war with Germany, military supplies to China ceased and the advisers were withdrawn. ^[2]

The pact allowed the USSR to secure its eastern borders in the event of a conflict with Germany . Japan , in turn, untied its hands in developing a plan for the War for Great East Asia against the United States , Holland and Great Britain .

S. A. Lozovsky (Molotov’s deputy, who was responsible for relations with Japan in the USSR People’s NKID) wrote in a secret note to Stalin on January 15, 1945 : “... in the first period of the Soviet-German war, we were more interested than the Japanese in maintaining the pact, and starting from Stalingrad, the Japanese are more interested than us in maintaining a neutrality pact ” ^[3] .

According to paragraph 3, “This Covenant enters into force from the date of its ratification by both contracting parties and remains valid for five years. If none of the contracting parties denounces the pact one year before the deadline, it will be deemed automatically extended for the next five years. ”On April 5, 1945, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov received Japan's Ambassador to the USSR, Naotake Sato, and made him a statement denouncing the pact about neutrality between the USSR and Japan. It was noted that after the signing of the pact, Germany attacked the USSR, and Japan, an ally of Germany, helps it in its war against the USSR. In addition, Japan is fighting with the United States and England, which are allies of the Soviet Union. In such a situation, the neutrality treaty “lost its meaning”. ^[four]

N. Sato recalled that the pact was valid until April 13, 1946 and expressed the hope that this condition would be fulfilled by the Soviet side. Molotov replied that "in fact, Soviet-Japanese relations will return to the position they were in before the conclusion of the pact." Sato noted that legally this means cancellation , not denunciation of the contract. Molotov agreed with N. Sato that, from the point of view of the neutrality pact itself, being only denounced (and not annulled), it can legally retain its force until April 25, 1946 ^[5]

On April 16, 1945, an article in Time magazine (USA) noted that although the pact remained formally valid until April 13, 1946, the tone of the Soviet Foreign Commissioner meant that, despite this, the USSR could soon start a war with Japan. ^[6] On August 9, 1945, the USSR launched a war with Japan , which de facto terminated the neutrality pact.

• Website of the Embassy of Japan in Russia
• The text of the Covenant along with the annexes