3mo ago

Was Stalin responsible for the Second Sino-Japanese War?

Anti-communist writers Jung Chang and Jon Halliday assert in their highly controversial 2006 book Mao: The Unknown Story that the Nationalist general Zhang Zhizhong was a Soviet agent who, following the Marco Polo Bridge incident in July 1937, had been tasked by Stalin with escalating the already tense situation with Japan into a full-scale, all-out war.

Stalin ordered this, Chang and Halliday maintain, because he (quite reasonably) feared Japanese aggression against his own country and wanted to draw China and Japan (both of which were hostile towards the USSR) into a costly war with one-another in order to weaken them both. This certainly was the approach he took towards Germany in 1939 after the failure of collective security, so it's not without precedent (or postedent?). In addition, Zhang himself was a strong communist sympathiser who would later defect to Mao's side during the Civil War and serve in his government.

According to Chang and Halliday, Zhang deliberately escalated the situation by orchestrating the Ōyama incident (the killing of two Japanese soldiers in Shanghai) and spreading misinformation to the media about the Japanese attacking the city. This was done in order to pressure Chiang into giving him the greenlight to attack the Japanese garrison there, as Chiang wasn't nearly as gung ho about the whole idea.

The ensuing battle, in which over 700,000 Chinese troops faced off against 300,000 Japanese, saw the decimation of Chiang's army. It resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives (including Chiang's most elite German-trained troops) and the capture of both Shanghai and eventually Nanking.

What do you think? Is this some crazy crackpot idea invented to demonise Stalin, Mao, and communism as a whole; or might it have some basis in reality?

16 comments

Absolute bullshit. The Japanese already had colonial holdings in China in 1911 before the USSR even existed. The national struggle against the japanese was already on the rise in Manchuria well before the Marco Polo Bridge incident. The KMT had all but declared war on the Japanese as part of the war for reunification.
Nobody was looking at China in the late 1930s like a eminent threat. Especially not the USSR who were supportive of the Chinese revolution. There was no risk of China going to war with Russia. They were in the middle of reunifying the country after a revolution against imperialism and there were clear signs of the coming civil war between the KMT and CPC.
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday are hacks. Even Kissinger thought they over demonized Mao.
- What about German and Japanese efforts to integrate China into the Anti-Comintern Pact? Don't you think the Soviets were worried about that?
  
  The Soviets were Historical Materialists. Why would they be worried that China's nationalists party and communist party would side with the nation colonizing them? There was never any chance that China would alienate Russians (Who had been a historical rival of japan) in order to make Japan and germany feel more comfortable.
  Only the idealistic hubris of a fascist could come up with plan to try and convince a nation to side with the people genociding them against the genocider's biggest and closest rival.
  Even if the Soviets and CPC didn't exist Chinese nationalists would have demanded the japanese leave China. The only way the Chinese would have sided against the USSR is if they were willing to be subjugated by Japan. The KMT were primarily an anti-colonialists movement (until the civil war) so they were never going to agree to anything less than the expulsion of all foreign powers. Imperial japan was economically and industrially dependant on the colonial exploitation of Manchuria. There's no room for compromise there.
  The only way any of this makes sense is if you completely discount China's will for self determination. You would have to believe that Chinese people are genetically predisposed to wanting a boot on their neck.

Even conquest wasn't this full of shit and he was on the cia payroll

wanted to draw China and Japan (both of which were hostile towards the USSR) into a costly war with one-another in order to weaken them both
I mean that alone is bullshit for the time period. sino-soviet relations didn't go south before prc was even established..

Not only that, the reason there were Japanese soldiers in mainland China in the first place is because Stalin moved them there with his giant spoon.
This is such a tremendously awful take. The Sino-Japanese war happened because the Japanese attacked, and they attacked because they were beligerant, expansionist fascists. Stalin did not make decisions for the Japanese, nor did Chiang Kai-Shek, nor did Zhang Zhizhong. The Chinese decision to retaliate against Japanese aggression was completely necessary, and if anything we should criticize the KMT for being too hesitant and patient about it. There is no alt-history where China rolls over and Japan stops at Manchuria in the same way that there is no alt-history where Hitler stops at Poland.

Japan had already invaded China once in 1931, and Zhang Zhizhong was a hero but was literally demanded to stand down and lost reputation in the eyes of the population temporarily for this. This accusation is so incredibly stupid that I could not articulate how insanely dumb it is. I want to tear my eyes out with every line of this I read as my abdominal organs twist themselves into a knot at the sheer cringe. These authors have less understanding of 1930s Chinese politics than a historytuber sourcing non-cited from wikipedia and I sincerely hope they never write a book about this topic ever, ever again.
- Which books should I read instead?
  
  There's an incredibly good history of the Chinese warlord era that leads up to this 1931-1937 period, Beiyang Junfa Shi, 'History of the Beiyang Warlords'. Was written by a guy who studied the archives for half a century. Idk if it's available in english though.
  edit: found it on Anna's but it's in Chinese. I'm sure there's plenty of translation software that might work, although it is quite a long read, so I wouldn't go too much into it unless you're really interested in this topic. https://annas-archive.org/md5/049b77615925905ac7790b909cbed0c2

I don't have to read a word of this claim to know that they had no geopolitical interest that would lead to this sort of thing, so no. Just your usual baseless accusations.
- You don't think it would have been in the Soviets' geopolitical interests to draw Japanese aggression away from the USSR and towards another country?
  
  Doing your enemies work for them, while alienating a potential ally, is not a winning move.

I would need primary source evidence for this, but if there aren't primary sources then it's obviously false.
However, if there are, I still disagree with the interpretation. I doubt it was some realpolitik scheme (entirely) to do this. It was more likely that if china did not engage the Japanese now, China would be conquered by the pen, rather than by the gun. Han Suyin (biographer of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai) talks in an interview about how Chiang was often very apprehensive about fighting japan. In all seriousness Chiang needed to be captured and have his head put to a chopping block for him to agree to the chinese united front. So, again assuming the basic information presented is true, it is more likely that Stalin encouraged the fight now. Also remember that the Japanese and Soviets were engaged in broader border skirmishes. Considering the value of the siberian (for some reason this said liberian, i hate auto correct) troops during the great patriotic war, Japan not being able to invade the previously take far Easterm areas was extremely important for the people of the world.

Let me get this straight, a Chinese general "forced" the japanese to invade China on orders of Stalin? 😂

Right after he ate all that ukranian grain, he yearned for some entertainment.

16 comments