894.00/1091
Memorandum by Mr. William R. Langdon of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs97
Germany’s Attack on the Soviet Union: Japan’s Reaction
A press report from Tokyo yesterday said that the Cabinet had gone into extraordinary session to discuss the new situation created by Germany’s attack on Russia. We may assume, on the basis that Japanese policy has been predatory and opportunistic in recent years, that one of the questions occupying the mind of the Cabinet is what advantage might be taken of the new situation regardless of the recent Matsuoka–Stalin neutrality pact, specifically whether or not Japan should grab off Siberia east of Baikal.
It is believed that the military aspect of the situation will cause Japan to hesitate invading Siberia. An autonomous army, steadily strengthened and enlarged since 1931, is stationed in the Soviet Far East. We have heard for years that it has been laying up supplies of all kinds and we know that it has facilities at Habarovsk, Chita and other Far Eastern centers for maintenance and a certain degree of replenishment of war materials. For example, a traveler east of Baikal, as long ago as 1938, noted at least two large airdrome-plane repair plants from the train window. There is no doubt that this army has by now reached very large proportions, too large to be transported in time to the western front over the rickety trans-Siberian Railway system. Thus, the Soviet Far Eastern army must be left behind or moved west very slowly. It must also be remembered that there is a Soviet Maginot Line of sorts along the eastern and northern Manchurian frontier.
Were Japan’s full military force available for invasion, no doubt the Soviet Far Eastern army could be disposed of. But this is not the case, and the Japanese forces which might be free for a Siberian [Page 982] campaign are believed inadequate to overcome the Red army’s resistance. Moreover, the Japanese have acquired a wholesome respect of Russian artillery, tanks, and to a lesser degree planes from their 1938 Changkufeng and 1939 Nomonhan encounters with the Red army and are not likely to tackle them again with the shoe-string forces available.
In estimating Japan’s probable course we must not take it for granted that the Japanese people at the present moment are only and constantly thinking of war and bigger and better adventures. We must bear in mind the war weariness of the Japanese at home and their growing discomforts and shortages. The latter, in respect to war materials and facilities for reproducing them, especially mechanized equipment, can only become more acute with our own export controls and with the cutting off of transportation with Germany, and we can only expect from now on a deterioration of Japanese defense industries. Other deterrents to invasion of Siberia besides the initial resistance of the Red army, which the Japanese would expect to be at least as stiff as at Changkufeng and Nomonhan, would be the possibility of (1) a dreaded winter campaign in Siberia, (2) bombing of Japanese cities and Hsinking98 from Vladivostok and other points, (3) the organization and rearming of Chinese guerillas in Manchuria and possibly Korean malcontents, and (4), even if the initial campaign should be successful, repetitions of the Nikolaievsk “massacre” and Red “partisan” murders of Japanese of 1918–1922, still fresh in the minds of the Japanese people.