Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, greets Russian President Vladimir Putin after addressing the 5th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, on Sept. 5, 2019. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Aug. 9 marked the 75th anniversary of the start of the Soviet Union's invasion of Japan in the closing days of World War II.

Japan and Russia have widely different historical views about the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan. This has cast a dark shadow over the long-deadlocked bilateral negotiations for a peace treaty.

The Soviet Union launched attacks against Japan when the empire was on the brink of collapse after months of devastating air raids against major Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Japan was secretly hoping that Moscow would broker a peace deal with the United States and Britain. But the Soviet invasion blasted Japan's hopes and sealed its fate.

In recent years, Russia has been stressing this part of history as its contribution to the Allies powers' victory in the war.

While the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan was based on an agreement with Washington and London, however, it was clearly a violation of the Japanese-Soviet neutrality pact, which was still valid at that time.

The Soviet army continued its attacks against Japan even after Tokyo announced on Aug. 14 its intention to accept the Potsdam Declaration issued by the United States, Britain and China in late July, which called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces. The Soviet Union joined in signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on Sept. 2.

During the process, the Soviet Union seized and occupied southern parts of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and a group of four islands off Hokkaido, which were Japanese territories back then, planting seeds of a bitter territorial dispute between the two nations that has continued to this day.

Some 600,000 Japanese soldiers and residents who were in the former Manchuria and some other areas ruled by Japan were taken by Soviet forces to Siberia, where some 60,000 of them died due mainly to forced labor amid severe living conditions.

Even though the cruel fates of these Japanese prisoners of war were a consequence of Japan's reckless invasion and continued war against the Allies, the Soviet Union's moves to expand its territory and detaining soldiers after disarmament violated the principles of the Allied powers.

All these are historical tragedies masterminded by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Russia now claims all the actions of the Allies during the war were "sacred," as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, and shows no intention to discuss Japanese views about any related issues, including the territorial dispute over the four islands off Hokkaido, which Japan calls the Northern Territories.

But former Russian President Boris Yeltsin once admitted that the internment of Japanese prisoners of war in Siberia was an inhumane act and apologized. But the Kremlin appears to be oblivious to this fact.

Especially worrisome is that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been stepping up efforts to praise Stalin's leadership during the war.

In a thesis he published in June, Putin criticized Stalin's suppression of people in his own country but justified the dictator's move to sign a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany and invade Poland and annex the three Baltic states.

Putin is obviously trying to dredge up nationalist sentiment among the Russian people to solidify his power base by rewriting history to his convenience and staging a propaganda campaign to promote his version of history.

Many of Russia's neighbors are concerned about Putin's self-righteous interpretations of history. That's because they seem to echo Moscow's aggressive actions in recent years, including the 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of separatist forces in neighboring countries.

A country that refuses to learn lessons from its past, be it Russia or Japan, will make the same mistake. If Japan and Russia are to push forward their talks for a peace treaty for future generations, both countries need to confront dark chapters of their own histories.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 11

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