Military operations at Lake Khasan (History of military operations and photos). Fighting on Lake Khasan (1938)

Conflict on Lake Khasan

The Japanese attacked us, fulfilling allied obligations to the Germans

Khasan events were and remain an important episode of the Soviet-Japanese confrontation. However, few people think about the reasons for the Japanese attack on the Far Eastern outposts, and hardly anyone asks themselves the question: was Japan really ready to get involved in a war with a powerful state because of a couple of hills, even if they dominated the area? However, the fact remains: at the end of July 1938, Japanese troops attacked many times superior Soviet forces, after which the conflict on Lake Khasan.

Sergey Shumakov,

military historian, candidate of historical sciences,

editor-in-chief of the portal

In 1931, China, suffering from political turmoil and torn by infighting among regional military leaders, fell victim to Japanese aggression. Using as a pretext the so-called Manchurian incident, when the Japanese lieutenant Suemori Komoto, on instructions from his own command, blew up the railway track at South Manchurian Railway , the Japanese occupied all of Manchuria from September 18, 1931 to February 27, 1932, and the troops of the military governor of Liaoning Province, 30-year-old General Zhang Zulin, retreated to Zhehe Province, but in 1933 the Japanese drove them out from there.
In the occupied territories, the Japanese proclaimed the state of Manchukuo on March 9, 1932, at the head of which they installed the former Chinese emperor Aisin Gyoro Pu Yi. However, the commander of the Kwantung Army was also the Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo and had the right to veto the decisions of the emperor. Having learned about the accession of the rightful emperor, most of the military personnel of Zhang Zuolin's army defected to the Japanese and enlisted in the army of the new state formation. Even earlier, on September 23, General Xi Qia, the governor of Jilin Province, went over to the Japanese side, diligently helping the enemy in conquering his native land.
Almost immediately after the occupation of Manchuria, the Japanese tried to probe the guards of our border with a bayonet. In February 1934, five Japanese soldiers crossed the border line. in a clash with a squad of border guards, one of the violators was mauled to death by a dog, and four were taken prisoner wounded. On March 22, 1934, while trying to conduct reconnaissance at the Emelyantsev outpost site, an officer and a soldier of the Japanese army were shot. In April 1934, Japanese soldiers attempted to capture the Lysaya heights in the area of the Grodekovsky border detachment; at the same time, the Poltavka outpost was attacked, but the border guards, with the support of an artillery company, repelled the attack and drove the enemy beyond the border line.

On January 30, 1936, two Japanese-Manchurian companies crossed the border at Meshcheryakovaya Pad and entered 1.5 km into USSR territory before being pushed back by border guards. Losses amounted to 31 Manchu soldiers and Japanese officers killed and 23 wounded, as well as 4 killed and several wounded Soviet border guards. On November 24, 1936, a cavalry and foot detachment of 60 Japanese crossed the border in the Grodekovo area, but came under machine gun fire and retreated, losing 18 soldiers killed and 7 wounded, 8 corpses remained on Soviet territory.
Subsequently, border violations occurred several times a year, but they did not lead to open hostilities.

Soldiers of the Manchukuo Army

However, in 1938 the situation in Europe sharply worsened. After the successful Anschluss of Austria, the Germans turned their attention to Czechoslovakia. France and the Soviet Union declare their support for Czechoslovakia. The fact is that back on May 16, 1935, a Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty was signed, according to which we pledged to stand up for Czechoslovakia in the event of an attack on it by any European country. Then, in 1935, this country meant Poland, which laid claim to Cieszyn Silesia. However, even in 1938, the USSR was not going to renounce its obligations, as was stated. True, France soon abandoned its support - the new Prime Minister of France, Edouard Daladier, who replaced Leon Blum in this post, moved away from the policy of collective security proclaimed by his predecessor.
On the eve of the elections held on May 22, 1938, the Sudeten German party started riots in the Sudetenland. The Wehrmacht is pulling troops to the border. At the German OKW headquarters, by May 20, a draft directive “Grun” was prepared - a plan for military operations against Czechoslovakia. In response to this, Czechoslovak President Benes sends troops into the Sudetenland. There is a mobilization of two ages of reservists. The Sudetenland crisis begins.
The Germans are still afraid of everyone. They do not yet know that the Czechs will surrender the country without firing a shot, that the British and French will not only not interfere with them, but will even help them. But most of all they are afraid that Budyonny’s cavalry, supported by large tank formations, will burst into the vastness of Europe.
The chief of staff of the ground forces, General Beck, dissuades the Fuhrer from a military invasion, but he himself receives his resignation. Halder, who replaced him, verbally agrees with the Fuhrer, but secretly prepares an assassination attempt on him. Of course, the Germans are reassured by the fact that Poland is going to declare war on the Russians if they help the Czechs, but the Germans understand that the Red Army is no longer the same as in 1920, and Poland will crumble from the very first Soviet blows. Moreover, the Germans understand that such a turn of events is very beneficial for the Russians - they will have a legitimate reason to deal with Poland and take revenge on it for the shame of 20.
And then the Germans, through the military attaché in Berlin, Baron Hiroshi Oshima, who later became the Japanese ambassador, turned to the Japanese with a request to create tension on the Soviet-Manchurian border. This, firstly, will force the Russians to draw their best troops to the Far East, and secondly, it will show them that if they get involved in a war in Europe, they will face a war on two fronts.

Ribbentrop, Hitler and the Japanese ambassador Saburo Kurusu conspire to act together.

Using the encryption machine 九七式印字機, better known under the American name Purple, on June 17, 1938, this request is transmitted to Tokyo, and already on the 21st, on the way from home to the embassy, the USSR Charge d'Affaires in Japan Konstantin Aleksandrovich Smetanin sees all the way on their way, posters with the inscription: “Be prepared for the inevitable Japanese-Soviet war!”
The impudence of the Japanese was not backed up by serious military force - because of the war in China, Japan could allocate only 9 divisions for the war with us. We, however, did not know about this, believing that the Japanese had much greater strength, but the Japanese could not have known about our superiority. The fact is that just at this time, on June 13, 1938, the NKVD Plenipotentiary Representative for the Far East, 3rd Rank State Security Commissioner Genrikh Samuilovich Lyushkov, ran over to the Japanese. From him they learned the exact number and condition of Soviet troops in the Far East. Based on the data received from Lyushkov, the fifth department of the General Staff came to the conclusion that the Soviet Union could use up to 28 rifle divisions against Japan under normal conditions, and if necessary, concentrate from 31 to 58 divisions, and instead of a large-scale conflict, they decided to limit themselves to a major provocation .
In all likelihood, the contents of Oshima’s encrypted telegram did not remain a secret to our intelligence, and on July 1, 1938, the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army, urgently replenished with 105,800 personnel, was transformed into the Red Banner Far Eastern Front.
July 3 to height of Zaozernaya, on which there was a border detachment of two Red Army soldiers, advanced near a company of Japanese infantrymen. Following an alarm signal, a group of border guards led by Lieutenant Pyotr Tereshkin arrived from the outpost.

The Japanese turned into a chain and, with rifles at the ready, as if in an attack, moved towards the height. Not reaching 50 meters to the top of Zaozernaya, along which the border line ran, the Japanese chain, on the orders of the officers who walked with naked sabers in their hands, stopped and lay down. Having failed to draw fire from the border guards, in the evening the company retreated to the Korean village of Homoku, on the outskirts of which the Japanese began to defiantly dig trenches. On July 10, the Soviet reserve border outpost secretly advances to the Zaozernaya height, and at its top the construction of trenches and wire fences begins.
On the evening of July 15, the head of the engineering service of the Posyet border detachment, Lieutenant Vasily Vinevitin, uses a rifle shot to kill the Japanese gendarme Shakuni Matsushima, who deliberately stepped one foot beyond the state border line.
A few days later, Vinevitin will be killed by our sentry, giving the wrong password.
On July 18, a massive violation of the border section of the Posyet border detachment began. The violators were unarmed Japanese postmen, each of whom had a letter to the Soviet authorities demanding to “cleanse” Manchurian territory, and on the 20th, the Japanese ambassador in Moscow Mamoru Shigemitsu, at a reception with People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov, on behalf of his government, presented an ultimatum territorial claims to the USSR. The object of the claims was the height Zaozernaya. On July 22, the Soviet government sent a note to the Japanese, in which these demands were rejected.
July 28 height Zaozernaya their machine guns were fired upon, and on July 29, the Japanese, with the help of a gendarmerie company, stormed the heights Nameless. The hill was defended by 11 border guards. Four of them, including the squad leader, were killed, but when a platoon from the nearby Pekshekori outpost arrived to help the defenders, the Japanese retreated.
On the evening of July 30, Japanese artillery shelled the tops of the hills Zaozernaya And Unnamed, trying to destroy the border guards' trenches and barbed wire barriers, and at about 2 a.m., under the cover of the darkness of the night, Japanese infantry with up to two regiments began an attack on these border heights.
The battle continued until the evening, and by the end of the day both hills were in the hands of the Japanese. Of the 94 border guards who defended the hills Zaozernaya And Unnamed, 13 people were killed and 70 wounded.

Political studies in the 40th Infantry Division
At the occupied heights, the Japanese began to dig trenches and install machine gun points. A hastily prepared counterattack with two battalions of the 119th Infantry Regiment was unsuccessful. We could have dealt with the presumptuous enemy much faster if we had violated the border and captured the trenches, bypassing them through Manchurian territory. But ours, following the orders of the command, acted only within their territory. Advancing uphill through open terrain without artillery support (the command was afraid that some shell would hit the adjacent territory), our troops suffered significant losses. In addition, during the battles it turned out that, unlike the well-trained border guards who were part of the NKVD system, the soldiers of the rifle units practically did not know how to shoot, and grenades RGD-33 turned out to be unused, since the fighters did not know how to handle them.
We had to bring up tanks and artillery. Aviation was also involved.
The Japanese also strengthened their positions. On August 5, defense on the hills Zaozernaya And Unnamed held, having in the immediate rear troops of the second echelon, the 19th Infantry Division, an infantry brigade, two artillery regiments and separate reinforcement units, including three machine-gun battalions, with a total number of up to 20 thousand people. I call these formations the troops of the Kwantung Army. In fact, they were not part of the Kwantung Army, but belonged to the contingent of Japanese troops in Korea.

Soviet air strike on Japanese positions

The Japanese are at the height of Zaozernaya

These days the first case of combat use occurred. At 16:00 on August 6, 180 bombers (60 and 120 SB) dropped 1,592 aerial bombs weighing a total of 122 tons on the enemy. The fighters covering the bombers fired 37,985 machine-gun rounds at Japanese positions. After an air raid on the heights and places of supposed concentration of Japanese reserves, a 45-minute artillery fire raid was carried out. At 16.55, a general attack began by the Zaozernaya and Nameless infantry, supported by the tank battalions of the 2nd mechanized brigade.

ABOUT At the same time as the start of aviation training, the 3rd tank battalion of the 2nd mechanized brigade, supporting the 95th and 96th rifle regiments, received a signal to attack. The battalion, which included 6 tanks, moved from its initial positions to the front line of the enemy’s defense BT-5 And BT-7, began quickly, in three columns, according to the number of crossings made by sappers across the stream southwest of Novoselka. However, due to the viscosity of the soil, the speed of the BTs dropped to 3 km/h, while they were subjected to heavy enemy artillery fire. The effectiveness of artillery and aviation preparations was low, and the Japanese artillery was not suppressed.

Of the 43 tanks that took part in the attack, only 10 reached the front line of the enemy’s defense. The rest were stuck at the crossings or were hit by enemy artillery fire. Having lost most of the tanks, the battalion was unable to ensure further advance of our infantry. So the attempt of the 32nd SD to master the altitude Nameless August 6 failed. With the onset of darkness, having lost 10 tanks only from artillery fire, the 3rd tank battalion of the 2nd mechanized brigade was withdrawn to the area of the northeastern slopes of the height located between height Unnamed And Lake Khasan.
On the left flank of the 39th IC, a tank company of the reconnaissance battalion of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade operated, which at 16.50 on August 6, 19 tanks BT-5 And BT-7 attacked the enemy. The company, using the high maneuverability of BT tanks, began the attack at high speed, but having reached the ravine between the heights of Machine Gun Hill and Zaozernaya, was forced to slow down the pace of the attack, and then stop altogether. Only two BT-5 managed to overcome the swampy ravine and break through to the heights Zaozernaya. The remaining tanks were simply stuck in the swamp.

At 16.55 the signal was given to the 2nd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade to attack. The battalion began its attack in three echelons. Having reached the front line of the enemy's defense, the battalion began to quickly move forward, destroying enemy infantry and anti-tank defenses. However, due to the large swampiness of the area, the pace of the attack decreased sharply. By 17.20, half of the tanks participating in the attack were stuck on the approaches to the height of Machine Gun Hill. Many of them were hit by anti-tank guns mounted on high ground. The BT tanks of the commander, commissar and chief of staff of the battalion, as well as the tanks of two company commanders, were among the first to be hit, since they had handrail antennas and stood out sharply from the total mass of tanks. The control of the battalion was disrupted, the surviving tanks stopped and began to fire from their spot along the height of Machine-Gun Hill. Battalion Commander Captain Menshov He sent some of the surviving tanks to this height with the task of destroying firing points that were hindering the advance of the 120th Infantry Regiment. 12 tanks, together with infantry of the 118th and 119th regiments, attacked the height Zaozernaya. The tanks attacking the Machine Gun Hill height were unable to overcome its steep rocky slopes. Height Attack Zaozernaya was more successful: 7 tanks reached its south-eastern slopes and by 22.00 on August 6, together with the infantry of the 118th and 119th regiments, captured the height Zaozernaya.
The Japanese not only defended themselves, but also launched fierce counterattacks. On August 7 alone, they counterattacked 13 times, and a 200-meter section of our territory in the Zaozernaya area was in Japanese hands until August 9.
Finally, the Japanese, defeated by Soviet troops, requested a truce on August 11. On the same day at 12.00 local time, hostilities ceased. Our territory has been completely cleared and the border has been restored.

On the 13th, an exchange of corpses took place. The Japanese General Staff report stated that the Japanese lost 526 killed and 913 wounded. They estimated our losses at 792 killed and 3,279 wounded. In the order of the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, based on the results Khasan events the figure was given as 408 killed and 2807 wounded.
From his failure in conflict on Lake Khasan The Japanese did not learn any lessons, and the next year, with exactly the same goals - to attract more Soviet troops on the eve of the upcoming Polish campaign - and exactly under the same pretext - a minor change in the existing border - the Japanese launched a larger-scale conflict on the river.

Aggressive neighborhood

In 1932, a new state appeared on the map of the Far East, called Manchukuo. It was the result of Japan's occupation of the northeastern territory of China, the creation of a puppet government there and the restoration of the Qing dynasty that had once ruled there. These events caused a sharp deterioration in the situation along the state border. Systematic provocations by the Japanese command followed.

Red Army intelligence repeatedly reported on the large-scale preparation of the enemy Kwantung Army for an invasion of the territory of the USSR. In this regard, the Soviet government presented notes of protest to the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Mamoru Shigemitsu, in which they pointed out the inadmissibility of such actions and their dangerous consequences. But diplomatic measures did not bring the desired result, especially since the governments of England and America, interested in escalating the conflict, did their best to fuel it.

Provocations at the border

Since 1934, systematic shelling of border units and nearby settlements has been carried out from Manchurian territory. In addition, both individual terrorists and spies and numerous armed detachments were sent. Taking advantage of the current situation, smugglers also intensified their activities.

Archival data indicate that during the period from 1929 to 1935, in just one area controlled by the Posyetsky border detachment, more than 18,520 attempts to violate the border were stopped, smuggled goods worth about 2.5 million rubles, 123,200 rubles in gold currency were seized and 75 kilograms of gold. General statistics for the period from 1927 to 1936 show very impressive figures: 130,000 violators were detained, of which 1,200 were spies who were exposed and admitted their guilt.

During these years, the famous border guard, tracker N.F. Karatsupa, became famous. He personally managed to detain 275 state border violators and prevent the transfer of contraband goods worth more than 610 thousand rubles. The whole country knew about this fearless man, and his name remained forever in the history of the border troops. Also famous were his comrades I.M. Drobanich and E. Serov, who detained more than a dozen border violators.

Border areas under military threat

For the entire period preceding the events, as a result of which Lake Khasan became the center of attention of the Soviet and world community, not a single shot was fired from our side into Manchurian territory. This is important to take into account, since this fact refutes any attempts to attribute actions of a provocative nature to Soviet troops.

As the military threat from Japan took on more and more tangible forms, the command of the Red Army took actions to strengthen the border detachments. For this purpose, units of the Far Eastern Army were sent to the area of possible conflict, and a scheme for interaction between border guards and fortified units was developed and agreed upon with the High Command. Work was also carried out with residents of border villages. Thanks to their help, in the period from 1933 to 1937, it was possible to stop 250 attempts by spies and saboteurs to enter the territory of our country.

Traitor-defector

The outbreak of hostilities was preceded by an unpleasant incident that occurred in 1937. In connection with the activation of a possible enemy, the state security agencies of the Far East were tasked with increasing the level of intelligence and counterintelligence activities. For this purpose, a new head of the NKVD, Security Commissioner 3rd Rank G.S. Lyushkov, was appointed. However, having taken over the affairs of his predecessor, he took actions aimed at weakening the services loyal to him, and on June 14, 1938, after crossing the border, he surrendered to the Japanese authorities and asked for political asylum. Subsequently, collaborating with the command of the Kwantung Army, he caused significant harm to the Soviet troops.

Imaginary and true causes of the conflict

The official pretext for the attack by Japan was claims regarding the territories surrounding Lake Khasan and adjacent to the Tumannaya River. But in reality, the reason was the assistance provided by the Soviet Union to China in its fight against the invaders. To repel the attack and protect the state border, on July 1, 1938, the army stationed in the Far East was transformed into the Red Banner Far Eastern Front under the command of Marshal V.K. Blucher.

By July 1938, events had become irreversible. The whole country was watching what was happening thousands of kilometers from the capital, where a previously little-known name - Khasan - was indicated on the map. The lake, the conflict around which threatened to escalate into a full-scale war, was the center of everyone's attention. And soon events began to develop rapidly.

Year 1938. Lake Khasan

Active hostilities began on July 29, when, having previously evicted the residents of border villages and placed artillery firing positions along the border, the Japanese began shelling our territory. For their invasion, the enemies chose the Posyetsky region, replete with lowlands and reservoirs, one of which was Lake Khasan. Located on a hill located 10 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean and 130 kilometers from Vladivostok, this territory was an important strategic site.

Four days after the start of the conflict, particularly fierce battles broke out on the Bezymyannaya hill. Here, eleven border guard heroes managed to resist an enemy infantry company and hold their positions until reinforcements arrived. Another place where the Japanese attack was directed was the Zaozernaya height. By order of the commander of the troops, Marshal Blucher, the Red Army units entrusted to him were sent here to repel the enemy. An important role in holding this strategically important area was played by the soldiers of the rifle company, supported by a platoon of T-26 tanks.

End of hostilities

Both of these heights, as well as the area surrounding Lake Khasan, came under heavy Japanese artillery fire. Despite the heroism of the Soviet soldiers and the losses they suffered, by the evening of July 30, the enemy managed to capture both hills and gain a foothold on them. Further, the events that history preserves (Lake Khasan and the battles on its shores) represent a continuous chain of military failures that resulted in unjustified human casualties.

Analyzing the course of hostilities, the Supreme Command of the USSR Armed Forces came to the conclusion that most of them were caused by the incorrect actions of Marshal Blucher. He was removed from command and subsequently arrested on charges of aiding the enemy and espionage.

Disadvantages identified during the battles

Through the efforts of units of the Far Eastern Front and border troops, the enemy was driven out of the country. Hostilities ended on August 11, 1938. They completed the main task assigned to the troops - the territory adjacent to the state border was completely cleared of invaders. But the victory came at an unreasonably high price. Among the Red Army personnel, there were 970 dead, 2,725 wounded and 96 missing. In general, this conflict showed the unpreparedness of the Soviet army to conduct large-scale military operations. Lake Khasan (1938) became a sad page in the history of the country’s armed forces.

Relations between the USSR and Japan in 1938 cannot be called friendly even with the greatest stretch.

As a result of the intervention against China, the pseudo-state of Manchukuo, controlled from Tokyo, was created on part of its territory, namely in Manchuria. Since January, Soviet military specialists have taken part in hostilities on the side of the Celestial Army. The latest equipment (tanks, airplanes, air defense artillery systems) was shipped to the ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai. This was not hidden.

By the time the conflict arose on Lake Khasan, Soviet pilots and the Chinese colleagues they trained had already destroyed dozens of Japanese aircraft in the air, carried out a number of bomb attacks on airfields, and they also sank the aircraft carrier Yamato in March.

A situation had matured in which the Japanese leadership, striving for expansion of the empire, was interested in testing the strength of the ground forces of the USSR. The Soviet government, confident in its capabilities, behaved no less decisively.

The conflict at Lake Khasan has its own background. On June 13, Genrikh Samuilovich Lyushkov, the plenipotentiary representative of the NKVD, who oversaw intelligence work in the Far East, secretly crossed the Manchurian border. Having gone over to the side of the Japanese, he revealed many secrets to them. He had something to talk about...

The conflict did not begin with the seemingly insignificant fact of reconnaissance of Japanese topographic units. Any officer knows that drawing up detailed maps precedes an offensive operation, and this is what special units of the potential enemy were doing on the two border hills of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, near which the lake is located. On July 12, a small detachment of Soviet border guards occupied the heights and dug in on them.

It is possible that these actions would not have entailed an armed conflict at Lake Khasan, but there is an assumption that it was the traitor Lyushkov who convinced the Japanese command of the weakness of the Soviet defense, otherwise it is difficult to explain the further actions of the aggressors.

On July 15, a Soviet officer shoots at a Japanese gendarme, who clearly provoked him to this act, and kills him. Then postmen begin to violate the border with letters demanding that they leave the high-rise buildings. These actions were not successful. Then, on July 20, 1938, the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow presented People's Minister Litvinov with an ultimatum, which had approximately the same effect as the aforementioned mailings.

On July 29, the conflict began on Lake Khasan. Japanese gendarmes went to storm the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights. There were few of them, just a company, but there were only eleven border guards, four of them died. A platoon of Soviet soldiers rushed to the rescue. The attack was repulsed.

Further - more, the conflict at Lake Khasan was gaining momentum. The Japanese used artillery, then captured the hills with the forces of two regiments. An attempt to knock them out immediately was unsuccessful. Moscow demanded that the heights be destroyed along with the aggressor's troops.

TB-3 heavy bombers were launched into the air and dropped more than 120 tons of bombs on enemy fortifications. The Soviet troops had such a noticeable technical advantage that the Japanese simply had no chance of success. The BT-5 and BT-7 tanks turned out to be not very effective on swampy ground, but the enemy did not have these either.

On August 6, the conflict on Lake Khasan ended with the complete victory of the Red Army. Stalin drew from it the conclusion about the weak organizational qualities of the OKDVA commander V.K. Blucher. For the latter it ended badly.

The Japanese command did not draw any conclusions, apparently believing that the reason for the defeat was only the quantitative superiority of the Red Army. Ahead was Khalkhin Gol.

A kind of preface to the coming Sino-Japanese War was a cascade of limited territorial seizures carried out by troops of the Imperial Japanese Army in northeast China. Formed in 1931 on the Kwantung Peninsula, the Kwantung Group of Forces (Kanto-gun) in September of the same year, having staged a provocation by blowing up a railway near Mukden, launched an attack on Manchuria. Japanese troops quickly rushed deep into Chinese territory, capturing one city after another: Mukden, Girin, and Qiqihar fell in succession.

Japanese soldiers pass by Chinese peasants.

By that time, the Chinese state had already existed for three decades in conditions of continuous chaos. The fall of the Manchu Qing Empire during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1912 opened a series of civil strife, coups and attempts by various non-Han territories to break away from the Middle Power. Tibet actually became independent; the separatist Uighur movement in Xinjiang did not stop, where the East Turkestan Islamic Republic even arose in the early 30s. Outer Mongolia and Tuva separated, where the Mongolian and Tuvan People's Republics were formed. And in other regions of China there was no political stability. As soon as the Qing dynasty was overthrown, a struggle for power began, punctuated by ethnic and regional conflicts. The South fought with the North, the Han carried out bloody reprisals against the Manchus. After the unsuccessful attempt of the first President of the Republic of China, the commander of the Beiyang Army, Yuan Shikai, to restore the monarchy with himself as emperor, the country was drawn into a whirlpool of infighting between various cliques of militarists.

Sun Yat-sen is the father of the nation.

In fact, the only force that really fought for the reunification and revival of China was the Zhongguo Kuomintang party (Chinese National People's Party), founded by the outstanding political theorist and revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. But the Kuomintang was decidedly lacking in strength to pacify all regional juntas. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, the position of the National People's Party was complicated by confrontation with the Soviet Union. Sun Yat-sen himself sought rapprochement with Soviet Russia, hoping with its help to overcome the fragmentation and foreign enslavement of China, and to achieve its rightful place in the world. On March 11, 1925, the day before his death, the founder of the Kuomintang wrote: “The time will come when the Soviet Union, as its best friend and ally, will welcome a mighty and free China, when in the great battle for the freedom of the oppressed nations of the world, both countries will go forward hand in hand and achieve victory.”.

Chiang Kai-shek.

But with the death of Sun Yat-sen the situation changed dramatically. Firstly, the Kuomintang itself, which essentially represented a coalition of politicians of various stripes, from nationalists to socialists, began to split into different factions without its founder; secondly, the Kuomintang military leader Chiang Kai-shek, who actually headed the Kuomintang after the death of Sun Yat-sen, soon began to fight against the communists, which could not but lead to a worsening of Soviet-Chinese relations and resulted in a series of border armed conflicts. True, Chiang Kai-shek was able, having carried out the Northern Expedition of 1926-1927, to at least unite most of China under the rule of the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, but the ephemeral nature of this unification was beyond doubt: Tibet remained uncontrollable, in Xinjiang centrifugal processes only grew, and the cliques of militarists in the north retained strength and influence, and their loyalty to the Nanjing government remained declarative at best.

Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang.

Under such conditions, it is not surprising that China, with its population of half a billion, could not provide a serious rebuff to Japan, which is poor in raw materials and has a population of 70 million. In addition, while Japan, after the Meiji Restoration, underwent modernization and had an outstanding industry by the standards of the Asia-Pacific region of that time, it was not possible to carry out industrialization in China, and the Republic of China was almost entirely dependent on foreign supplies to obtain modern equipment and weapons. As a result, a striking disparity in the technical equipment of the Japanese and Chinese troops was observed even at the lowest, most elementary level: while the Japanese infantryman was armed with an Arisaka repeating rifle, the infantrymen of the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang en masse had to fight with pistols and dadao blades, a technique the latter were often made in artisanal conditions. There is no need to even talk about the difference between the opponents in more complex types of equipment, as well as in organizational terms and military training.

Chinese soldiers with dadao.

In January 1932, the Japanese took the cities of Jinzhou and Shanhaiguan, approaching the eastern end of the Great Wall of China and capturing almost the entire territory of Manchuria. Having occupied Manchurian territory, the Japanese immediately ensured the seizure politically by organizing the All-Manchurian Assembly in March 1932, which declared the creation of the state of Manchukuo (Manchurian Power) and elected as ruler the last monarch of the Qing Empire, overthrown in 1912, Aisingyoro Pu Yi, from 1925 years under Japanese patronage. In 1934, Pu Yi was proclaimed emperor, and Manchukuo changed its name to Damanzhou Diguo (Great Manchu Empire).

Aisingyoro Pu I.

But no matter what names the “Great Manchu Empire” took, the essence of this fake state formation remained obvious: the loud name and the pretentious title of the monarch were nothing more than a translucent screen, behind which the Japanese occupation administration was quite clearly visible. The falsity of Damanzhou-Digo was visible in almost everything: for example, in the State Council, which was the center of political power in the country, each minister had a Japanese deputy, and in fact these Japanese deputies carried out the policy of Manchuria. The real supreme power of the country was the commander of the Kwantung Group of Forces, who simultaneously served as the Japanese Ambassador to Manchukuo. Also pro forma in Manchuria there was the Manchu Imperial Army, organized from the remnants of the Chinese Northeastern Army and largely staffed by Honghuzi, who often came to military service only to obtain funds for their usual craft, that is, banditry; Having acquired weapons and equipment, these newly minted “soldiers” deserted and joined the gangs. Those who did not desert or rebel usually fell into drunkenness and opium smoking, and many military units quickly turned into brothels. Naturally, the combat effectiveness of such “armed forces” tended to zero, and the Kwantung Group of Forces remained the real military force on the territory of Manchuria.

Soldiers of the Manchurian Imperial Army during exercises.

However, not the entire Manchu Imperial Army was a political decoration. In particular, it included formations recruited from Russian emigrants.
Here it is necessary to make a digression and again pay attention to the political system of Manchukuo. In this state formation, almost the entire internal political life was confined to the so-called “Concord Society of Manchukuo”, which by the end of the 30s was transformed by the Japanese into a typical anti-communist corporatist structure, but one political group, with the permission and encouragement of the Japanese, stood apart - these were the white emigrants. In the Russian diaspora in Manchuria, not just anti-communist, but fascist views have long been rooted. At the end of the 20s, Nikolai Ivanovich Nikiforov, a teacher at the Harbin Faculty of Law, formalized the Russian Fascist Organization, on the basis of which the Russian Fascist Party was established in 1931, whose general secretary was Konstantin Vladimirovich Rodzaevsky, a member of the Russian Federation. In 1934, in Yokohama, the RFP united with Anastasy Andreevich Vosnyatsky, formed in the USA, into the All-Russian Fascist Party. The Russian fascists in Manchuria counted the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire in 1906-1911, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, among their harbingers.
In 1934, the “Bureau for the Affairs of Russian Emigrants in the Manchurian Empire” (hereinafter BREM) was formed in Manchuria, the curator of which was the major of the Japanese Imperial Army, assistant to the head of the Japanese military mission in Harbin, Akikusa Xiong, who participated in the intervention in Soviet Russia during the Civil War; in 1936, Akikusa joined the Japanese General Staff. Using ARVs, the Japanese placed the White emigrants in Manchuria under the command of the Kwantung Group of Forces. Under Japanese control, the formation of paramilitary and sabotage detachments from among white emigrants began. In accordance with the proposal of Colonel Kawabe Torashiro, in 1936 the unification of the White emigrant detachments into one military unit began. In 1938, the formation of this unit, called the Asano detachment after the name of its commander, Major Asano Makoto, was completed.
The formation of units from Russian fascists clearly demonstrated anti-Soviet sentiments among the Japanese elite. And this is not surprising, given the nature of the state regime that had developed in Japan by that time, especially since the Soviet Union, despite all the contradictions and conflicts with the Kuomintang, began to take steps towards supporting the Republic of China in the fight against Japanese intervention. In particular, in December 1932, on the initiative of the Soviet leadership, diplomatic relations with the Republic of China were restored.
The separation of Manchuria from China became the prologue to the Second World War. The Japanese elite made it clear that they would not limit themselves to Manchuria alone, and their plans were an order of magnitude larger and more ambitious. In 1933, the Empire of Japan withdrew from the League of Nations.

Japanese soldiers in Shanghai, 1937.

In the summer of 1937, limited military conflicts finally escalated into a full-scale war between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly called on representatives of the Western powers to help China, argued that only by creating a united international front can Japanese aggression be contained, and recalled the Washington Treaty of 1922, which confirmed the integrity and independence of China. But all his calls found no answer. The Republic of China found itself in conditions close to isolation. ROC Foreign Minister Wang Chonghui gloomily summed up Chinese pre-war foreign policy: "We always hoped too much in England and America".

Japanese soldiers massacre Chinese prisoners of war.

Japanese troops rapidly advanced deep into Chinese territory, and already in December 1937, the capital of the republic, Nanjing, fell, where the Japanese committed an unprecedented massacre that ended the lives of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people. Massive looting, torture, rape and murder continued for several weeks. The march of Japanese troops across China was marked by countless savages. In Manchuria, meanwhile, the activities of Detachment No. 731 under Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, which was developing bacteriological weapons and conducting inhumane experiments on people, were in full swing.

Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, commander of Detachment 731.

The Japanese continued to split China, creating political objects in the occupied territories that were even less similar to states than Manchukuo. Thus, in Inner Mongolia in 1937, the Principality of Mengjiang was proclaimed, led by Prince De Wang Demchigdonrov.
In the summer of 1937, the Chinese government turned to the Soviet Union for help. The Soviet leadership agreed to the supply of weapons and equipment, as well as to the dispatch of specialists: pilots, artillerymen, engineers, tank crews, etc. On August 21, a non-aggression treaty was concluded between the USSR and the Republic of China.

Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army of China on the Yellow River. 1938

The fighting in China became increasingly large-scale. By the beginning of 1938, 800 thousand soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army fought on the fronts of the Sino-Japanese War. At the same time, the position of the Japanese armies became ambiguous. On the one hand, the subjects of the Mikado won victory after victory, inflicting colossal losses on the Kuomintang troops and the regional forces supporting the Chiang Kai-shek government; but on the other hand, there was no breakdown of the Chinese armed forces, and gradually the Japanese ground forces began to get bogged down in hostilities on the territory of the Middle Power. It became clear that the 500-million-strong China, even if lagging behind in industrial development, torn by strife and supported by almost no one, was too heavy an opponent for the 70-million-strong Japan with its meager resources; even the amorphous, inert, passive resistance of China and its people created too much tension for the Japanese forces. And military successes ceased to be continuous: in the Battle of Taierzhuang, which took place from March 24 to April 7, 1938, the troops of the National Revolutionary Army of China won their first major victory over the Japanese. According to available data, Japanese losses in this battle amounted to 2,369 killed, 719 captured and 9,615 wounded.

Chinese soldiers at the Battle of Taierzhuang.

In addition, Soviet military assistance became increasingly visible. Soviet pilots sent to China bombed Japanese communications and air bases and provided air cover for Chinese troops. One of the most effective actions of Soviet aviation was the raid of 28 SB bombers, led by Captain Fedor Petrovich Polynin, on the port of Hsinchu and the Japanese airfield in Taipei, located on the island, on February 23, 1938, on the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. Taiwan; Captain Polynin's bombers destroyed 40 Japanese planes on the ground, after which they returned safe and sound. This air raid shocked the Japanese, who had never expected enemy aircraft to appear over Taiwan. And Soviet assistance was not limited to aviation actions: samples of Soviet-made weapons and equipment were increasingly discovered in units and formations of the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang.
Of course, all of the above actions could not but arouse the wrath of the Japanese elite, and the views of the Japanese military leadership increasingly began to focus on the northern direction. The attention of the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army to the borders of the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic increased greatly. But still, the Japanese did not consider it possible for themselves to attack their northern neighbors without having a sufficient understanding of their strength, and first they decided to test the defense capability of the Soviet Union in the Far East. All that was needed was a reason, which the Japanese decided to create in a way known since ancient times - by making a territorial claim.

Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japanese Ambassador to Moscow.

On July 15, 1938, the Japanese charge d'affaires in the USSR showed up at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and officially demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border guards from the heights in the area of Lake Khasan and the transfer of territories adjacent to this lake to the Japanese. The Soviet side responded by presenting the documents of the Hunchun Agreement, signed in 1886 between the Russian and Qing empires, and the map attached to them, which exhaustively testified to the location of the heights of Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya on Russian territory. The Japanese diplomat left, but the Japanese did not calm down: on July 20, the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Shigemitsu Mamoru, repeated the demands of the Japanese government, and in the form of an ultimatum, threatening the use of force if Japanese demands were not met.

Japanese infantry unit on the march near Lake Khasan.

By that time, the Japanese command had already concentrated 3 infantry divisions, separate armored units, a cavalry regiment, 3 machine gun battalions, 3 armored trains and 70 aircraft near Khasan. The Japanese command assigned the main role in the coming conflict to the 20,000-strong 19th Infantry Division, which belonged to the Japanese occupation forces in Korea and reported directly to the imperial headquarters. A cruiser, 14 destroyers and 15 military boats approached the area of the mouth of the Tumen-Ola River to support Japanese ground units. On July 22, 1938, the plan to attack the Soviet border received approval at the level of the Showa tenno (Hirohito).

Patrol of Soviet border guards in the area of Lake Khasan.

The Japanese preparations for the attack did not go unnoticed by the Soviet border guards, who immediately began building defensive positions and reported to the commander of the Red Banner Far Eastern Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher. But the latter, without informing either the People's Commissariat of Defense or the government, on July 24 went to the Zaozernaya hill, where he ordered the border guards to fill up the dug trenches and move the installed wire fences away from the no-man's land. The border troops did not obey the army leadership, due to which Blucher’s actions can only be regarded as a gross violation of subordination. However, on the same day, the Military Council of the Far Eastern Front gave the order to put units of the 40th Infantry Division on combat readiness, one of the battalions of which, together with the border outpost, was transferred to Lake Khasan.

Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher.

On July 29, the Japanese, with the help of two companies, attacked a Soviet border post located on the Bezymyannaya hill with a garrison of 11 border guards and penetrated into Soviet territory; Japanese infantrymen occupied the heights, but with the arrival of reinforcements, border guards and Red Army soldiers pushed them back. On July 30, the hills came under Japanese artillery fire, and then, as soon as the gunfire died down, the Japanese infantry again rushed into the attack, but the Soviet soldiers were able to repel it.

People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov.

On July 31, People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov ordered the 1st Red Banner Army and the Pacific Fleet to be put on combat readiness. By that time, the Japanese, having concentrated two regiments of the 19th Infantry Division in the strike fist, captured the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills and advanced 4 kilometers deep into Soviet territory. Having good tactical training and considerable experience in combat operations in China, the Japanese soldiers immediately secured the captured lines by tearing off full-profile trenches and installing wire barriers in 3-4 rows. The counterattack of two battalions of the 40th Infantry Division failed, and the Red Army soldiers were forced to retreat to Zarechye and to height 194.0.

Japanese machine gunners in battles near Lake Khasan.

Meanwhile, the chief of staff of the front, commander Grigory Mikhailovich Stern, arrived at the site of hostilities on the instructions of Blucher (for unknown reasons, who did not go on his own, and also refused to use aviation to support ground troops, justifying his unwillingness to cause damage to the Korean civilian population), the chief of staff of the front, commander Grigory Mikhailovich Stern, accompanied by the deputy people's commissar of defense, army commissar Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis. Stern took command of the troops.

Komkor Grigory Mikhailovich Stern.

Army Commissar Lev Zakharovich Mehlis.

On August 1, units of the 40th Infantry Division converged on the lake. The concentration of forces was delayed, and in a telephone conversation between Blucher and the Main Military Council, Stalin directly asked Blucher: “Tell me, Comrade Blucher, honestly, do you have a desire to really fight the Japanese? If you don’t have such a desire, tell me directly, as befits a communist, and if you have a desire, I would think that you should go to place immediately".

Soviet machine gunners in the area of Lake Khasan.

On August 2, Blucher, after a conversation with Stalin, went to the combat area, ordered an attack on the Japanese without crossing the state border, and ordered the deployment of additional forces. The Red Army soldiers managed to overcome the wire fences with heavy losses and get close to the heights, but the Soviet riflemen did not have enough strength to take the heights themselves.

Soviet riflemen during the battles near Lake Khasan.

On August 3, Mehlis reported to Moscow about Blucher’s incompetence as a commander, after which he was removed from command of the troops. The task of launching a counterattack against the Japanese fell on the newly formed 39th Rifle Corps, which, in addition to the 40th Rifle Division, included the 32nd Rifle Division, the 2nd Separate Mechanized Brigade and a number of artillery units moving towards the battle area. In total, the corps numbered about 23 thousand people. It fell to Grigory Mikhailovich Stern to lead the operation.

The Soviet commander observes the battle in the area of Lake Khasan.

On August 4, the concentration of forces of the 39th Rifle Corps was completed, and Commander Stern gave the order for an offensive to regain control of the state border. At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 6, 1938, as soon as the fog cleared over the banks of Khasan, Soviet aviation with 216 aircraft carried out a double bombardment of Japanese positions, and artillery carried out a 45-minute artillery barrage. At five o'clock, units of the 39th Rifle Corps launched an attack on the Zaozernaya, Bezymyannaya and Machine Gun hills. Fierce battles ensued for the heights and the surrounding area - on August 7 alone, Japanese infantry carried out 12 counterattacks. The Japanese fought with merciless ferocity and rare tenacity; confrontation with them required extraordinary courage from the Red Army soldiers, who were inferior in tactical training and experience, and from the commanders - will, self-control and flexibility. Japanese officers punished the slightest signs of panic without any sentimentality; in particular, Japanese artillery sergeant Toshio Ogawa recalled that when some Japanese soldiers fled during the bombing carried out by red star planes, “three of them were immediately shot by the officers of our division headquarters, and Lieutenant Itagi cut off the head of one with a sword.”.

Japanese machine gunners on a hill near Lake Khasan.

On August 8, units of the 40th Infantry Division captured Zaozernaya and began an assault on Bogomolnaya Heights. The Japanese, meanwhile, tried to divert the attention of the Soviet command with attacks on other sections of the border, but the Soviet border guards were able to fight back on their own, thwarting the enemy’s plans.

Artillerymen of the 39th corps artillery regiment in the area of Lake Khasan.

On August 9, the 32nd Infantry Division knocked out Japanese units from Bezymyannaya, after which the final displacement of units of the Japanese 19th Infantry Division from Soviet territory began. In an attempt to hold back the Soviet onslaught with barrage artillery fire, the Japanese deployed several batteries on an island in the middle of the Tumen-Ola River, but the Mikado gunners lost the duel with the Soviet corps artillery.

A Red Army soldier watches the enemy.

On August 10, in Moscow, Shigemitsu visited the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Maksimovich Litvinov, with a proposal to begin peace negotiations. During these negotiations, the Japanese launched about a dozen more attacks, but all with unsuccessful results. The Soviet side agreed to a cessation of hostilities as of noon on August 11, leaving units in the positions they occupied at the end of August 10.

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Maksimovich Litvinov.

Red Army soldiers take pictures at the end of the Khasan battles.

At half past two in the afternoon on August 11, the fighting on the shores of Lake Khasan subsided. The parties concluded a truce. On August 12-13, meetings between Soviet and Japanese representatives took place, at which the disposition of troops was clarified and the bodies of the fallen were exchanged.
The irretrievable losses of the Red Army, according to the study “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century. Losses of the armed forces,” amounted to 960 people, sanitary losses were estimated at 2,752 people wounded and 527 sick. Of the military equipment, the Soviet troops irrevocably lost 5 tanks, 1 gun and 4 aircraft (another 29 aircraft were damaged). Japanese losses, according to Japanese data, amounted to 526 people killed and 914 wounded; there is also data on the destruction of 3 anti-aircraft installations and 1 Japanese armored train.

Red Army warrior at his best.

In general, the results of the battles on the banks of Khasan completely satisfied the Japanese. They conducted reconnaissance in force and found that the Red Army troops, despite being more numerous and generally more modern in comparison with the Japanese weapons and equipment, had extremely poor training and were practically unfamiliar with the tactics of modern combat. In order to defeat well-trained, seasoned Japanese soldiers in a local clash, the Soviet leadership had to concentrate an entire corps against one actually operating Japanese division, not counting the border units, and ensure absolute superiority in aviation, and even under such favorable conditions for the Soviet side, the Japanese suffered fewer losses. The Japanese came to the conclusion that it was possible to fight against the USSR and especially the MPR, because the armed forces of the Soviet Union were weak. That is why the following year there was a conflict near the Mongolian Khalkhin Gol River.
However, one should not think that the Soviet side failed to derive any benefit from the clash that took place in the Far East. The Red Army gained practical combat experience, which very quickly became the object of study in Soviet military educational institutions and military units. In addition, Blücher's unsatisfactory leadership of the Soviet armed forces in the Far East was revealed, which made it possible to carry out personnel changes and take organizational measures. Blucher himself, after being removed from his post, was arrested and died in prison. Finally, the battles at Khalkhin Gol clearly demonstrated that an army recruited on the basis of the territorial-militia principle cannot be strong with any weapons, which became an additional incentive for the Soviet leadership to accelerate the transition to recruiting the armed forces on the basis of universal conscription.
In addition, the Soviet leadership derived a positive information effect for the USSR from the Khasan battles. The fact that the Red Army defended the territory, and the valor displayed in great numbers by Soviet soldiers, increased the authority of the armed forces in the country and caused a rise in patriotic sentiments. Many songs were written about the battles on the banks of Hassan, newspapers reported on the exploits of the heroes of the workers' and peasants' state. State awards were given to 6,532 combat participants, among them 47 women - wives and sisters of border guards. 26 conscientious citizens in the Khasan events became Heroes of the Soviet Union. You can read about one of these heroes here: