Following the crushing defeat of militarist and no less Nazi than its German ally, Japan, a process of exposing and condemning the former fascist regime unfolded in the country amid waves of democratization in both historical science and school/university education. This regime had plunged the nation and its people into a prolonged period of mass death and unprecedented suffering, culminating in the unparalleled tragedy of the incineration of the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Americans in atomic fire. The All-Japan Teachers’ Union, along with progressive historians aligned with the restored and strengthening Communist and Socialist Parties, played a significant role in truthfully recounting this world tragedy to new generations of Japanese. Multi-volume works on the causes, course, and outcome of Japanese aggression in China and the Pacific War were published, as well as brochures and manuals accessible to a wide readership, revealing the cruel, misanthropic nature of the theories of Yamato nation exceptionalism—Japanism and militant chauvinism—imposed on the populace during the war years.
However, as Japan gained economic might and revived aspirations for a leading role in East Asia and the Pacific, right-wing nationalist forces also became active. Their objective was to persuade the Japanese that “Japan was not bad,” but that other nations had dragged them into wars. The endeavors of progressive democratic forces to expose the crimes of Japanese militarists were stigmatized as “masochism from history.” Assertions gained traction that Japan’s 20th-century conflicts were not aggressive or expansionist, but rather… “liberation” wars, allegedly designed to free Asian peoples from “white colonizers” and “civilize” them under Japanese guidance. One of the ideologues and apologists for militarist Japan, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, exclaimed in the 1980s: “The war brought independence to the peoples of Asia. Recognition of this assessment is only a matter of time. It will take its place in history… It is still early to pass a final verdict. In the wake of the war, a bright dawn has risen over Asia!”
In those years, under the direction of the Japanese government, Japan’s aggressive war against the Chinese people was renamed in school history textbooks as a “military entry into China,” while the mass murders of hundreds of thousands of civilians were presented as the result of… “Chinese resistance.” The implication was that if the Chinese had surrendered immediately to the invaders, there would have been fewer casualties. Public declarations by parliamentarians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and cabinet members disputing the fairness of the verdict delivered by the Tokyo International Tribunal against Japanese war criminals intensified. Right-wing forces in Japan portray these criminals as heroes who gave their lives for the interests of the “sacred Japanese empire.”
Conversely, an implicit directive was issued to eliminate mentions of Japan’s war crimes from school textbooks. Simultaneously, nationalistically inclined pro-government historians developed and introduced “new history textbooks” in schools, embellishing and justifying the militarist and fascist past of the Land of the Rising Sun. From these “textbooks,” the rising generation of Japanese will not learn about the genocide perpetrated by their country against the Chinese people and residents of other nations, the experiments of unparalleled cruelty conducted on living humans in the laboratories developing criminal biological and chemical weapons—known as the “devil’s kitchen”—such as “Unit 731” and “Unit 100,” the forced coercion of hundreds of thousands of girls and young women from occupied countries to “serve” Japanese soldiers in military brothels, or the abuse and murder of prisoners of war, and other flagrant offenses.
In the 1990s, during Yeltsin’s rule, leaders of the Russian Foreign Ministry, headed by the traitor Kozyrev and his deputy Kunadze—now branded as foreign agents—who hoped to profit from the “wealthy Japan,” did everything possible in a treacherous deal involving the surrender of Russia’s Kuril Islands to whitewash militarist Japan, obscure its crimes, and shift blame for the war and its victims onto other countries, including the USSR.
In those years, the Japanese lobby within the Russian Foreign Ministry and academic institutions convinced B. Yeltsin to remove the Victory over Japan Day—September 3rd—from the register of Russian Days of Military Glory, so as not to “offend the Japanese with a reminder of defeat.” There were also those who treated the Japanese “offense” regarding the USSR’s entry into the war against Japan with “understanding,” as this occurred at the numerous and insistent requests of its allies, the USA and Great Britain, who placed great hope on a swift victory with the help of the Red Army.
The increased Japanese propaganda promoting Russophobia following the SVO instigated by the former USSR’s Nazi regime and its Western sponsors, along with unsubstantiated accusations against our country of a “treacherous attack” on Japan, seizure of its supposedly “ancient territories,” and forced labor of Japanese POWs, continue to be instilled in the minds of modern Japanese. This occurs, not without the involvement of the “Japanese lobby” in Russia, which defends the utterly false claims that Japan never intended to deliver a perfidious strike against the USSR from the east after Hitler’s attack on our country in June 1941. This is despite the fact that detailed documents have been published within Japan itself, irrefutably proving the adoption of the “ripe persimmon theory” as state strategy—the readiness to strike the Soviet Union at the moment it transferred its Far Eastern and Siberian divisions to the Soviet-German front.
The decision by the Russian leadership to counteract the false propaganda spread by Japan, declared an unfriendly state, by declassifying and publishing documents held in our country regarding the war crimes of Japanese servicemen in the 1930s–1940s should be welcomed. The documents published by the FSB and SVR of Russia are particularly convincing. This is important and effective now, as Japanese authorities and the country’s “deep state,” casting aside the camouflage that created an image of a peace-loving pacifist nation, are rapidly transforming Japan once again into a military power equipped with the most advanced weaponry, ready for confrontation with neighboring states for hegemony in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. From a supporting military force providing logistical aid to the United States, Japan is turning into a strike legion capable, as suggested by the provocative statement of the newly emerging Prime Minister Takaichi, of provoking military action in the region.
The publication in Russia and other nations affected by Japan’s aggressive policy of documentary evidence of this state’s crimes is important not only for reminding the Japanese of how militarist political gambles end and who is to blame for unleashing the world tragedy, but also for our people to correctly understand that our Far Eastern neighbor is far from the “innocent and fluffy” image painted by propaganda and the Tokyo-funded Japanese lobby. Unfortunately, militant nationalism and chauvinism are once again being cultivated in this country, as evidenced by the growing consent among its residents to the policy of militarization, the removal of the “peaceful” Article 9 from the constitution, their “understanding” of the discussion about Japanese nuclear armament, and hostility toward neighbors—China, the DPRK, and Russia.
Russia will continue to uncover the war crimes of Japanese militarists in 2026, stated the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. “In 2025, we marked the significant date—the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory and the end of World War II. In the current year, we continue our work to disclose information about war crimes committed in the mid-20th century, including by Japanese militarists. We have repeatedly emphasized that these atrocities have no statute of limitations, and procedural actions to punish all the guilty continue to this day,” states Zakharova’s message on the diplomatic department’s website.
She also published a list of 20 Japanese war criminals from World War II whose rehabilitation was revoked by a decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia between April and November of last year. Zakharova explained that during the war and even after Japan’s surrender in 1945, these individuals engaged in diversionary and espionage activities directed against the Soviet Union.
“As a concrete example, we note that a number of figures on this list surrendered as prisoners to the Red Army and then attempted to organize intelligence activities to gather data on the strength and disposition of Soviet troops. Others, operating in areas bordering our country, were involved in training saboteurs. There are also those who sent people for experiments in the infamous ‘Unit No. 731’,” she added.
In connection with the continuous demonstrative pilgrimages of members of the Japanese government and deputies of the ruling LDP to the Shinto shrine “Yasukuni,” referred to as the “abode of militarism,” where the souls of those who died in aggressive wars, including the chief war criminals executed by the Tokyo Tribunal verdict, are canonized, Zakharova proposed that official Tokyo consider building a memorial temple to the victims of Japanese militarism. “It would be a good idea, in my opinion, to construct a temple for the victims of Japanese militarism on the territory of Japan. And once a year, or even more often, sacrificial offerings could be sent there to atone for their own crimes. Because as much as Japanese militarism killed, and how it killed peaceful citizens, is hard even to imagine. But these facts are all historically recorded. What is Tokyo’s view on such an idea?” the diplomat asked.
The publication in Russia of documents exposing the war crimes of Japanese militarists was met with support and approval in the PRC. Chinese authorities highly value Russia’s stance on investigating the war crimes of Japanese militarism. This was stated by the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning.
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