The Mongolian Road to Pearl Harbor by Jason Smith

Democracy and Class Struggle says Japanese Russian relations in the pre War period with Soviet Union do not get coverage in the West they deserve for obvious political reasons ,

Harbin  in Manchuria was full of Russian Fascists who collaborated with Japanese during this period and a top Soviet Intelligence Officer about to be purged by Stalin defected to Japan in 1938 and his debriefing exposed the absolute necessity of the military purge in the Far East to ensure Soviet Victory.

In fact Japanese archives provide a lot of information about anti Soviet counter revolutionary activity in Soviet Far East. 

On 13 June 1938, Lyushkov defected from the Soviet Union by crossing the border into Manchukuo with valuable secret documents about the Soviet military strength in the region, which was much greater than the Japanese had realised. 

He was the highest-ranking secret police official to defect; he also had the greatest inside knowledge about the purges within the Soviet Red Army because of his own participation in carrying them out.

His defection was initially kept a state secret by Japan, but the revelation of his defection was judged to have a high propaganda value,[8] so the decision was made to release the news to the world. A press conference was arranged at a Tokyo hotel on 13 July,[8] a month after Lyushkov had defected.

 He "categorically denied Moscow's allegation that he was an imposter"[8] but some news agencies, such as the New York Times wondered if he was telling the truth.

During subsequent interviews and interactions with Japanese military personnel, Lyushkov adopted an anti-Stalinist position.[9] However, his professed political views remained socialistic in nature according to the recollections of some Japanese intelligence officers, with Lyushkov calling himself a Trotskyite,[10] but some Japanese officers believed that he had later become a liberal communist.[11] 

Though Lyushkov was anti-Stalinist, he was resistant to the idea of creating a new regime led by Russian émigrés.[11] He was, however, willing to include them in a proposed plan for the assassination of Stalin.

A resistance group of Russian emigrants would travel across the Turkish-Soviet border when Stalin would travel south to a resort in Sochi, which he had visited previously to swim in the Matsesta River. Lyushkov's intimate knowledge of NKVD procedures and the way Stalin's guard detail would be organised encouraged the Japanese to support the plan. However, a Soviet agent had infiltrated the group of Russian exiles and foiled the plan, which was considered the only serious attempt to assassinate Stalin.[2]

Lyushkov was able to detail the strength of the Red Army in the Far East, Siberia and Ukraine, simultaneously providing Soviet military radio codes. He was considered highly intelligent and dedicated,[9] producing great volumes of written material,[10] but there was some uncertainty about his ability to provide useful information specific to military operations.[11]

As he spent more time in Japan, his hard work impressed the Japanese intelligence officers with whom he had been assigned to work. The staff of the Imperial Japanese Army had concerns, however, about his psychological state, especially pertaining to the status of his wife and daughter, about whom he had heard no news since his defection. 

After a failed search by Japanese intelligence agents for his family, a plan to both pacify and "domesticate"[10] Lyushkov was decided upon: he would be paired with a woman, both to distract him from the question of his family's status and to keep him rooted in Japan. An eventual match was found after Lyushkov refused several White émigré women.[10]

At some point, he began to make plans to travel to the United States and contacted an American publisher about a possible autobiography that he would write. He had concerns that he might be prevented from leaving Japan and went as far as to negotiate a written safe-conduct guarantee.[12]

Disappearance

After Germany's capitulation, Lyushkov was sent on 20 July 1945 to work for the Japanese Kwantung Army's Special Intelligence authorities in the puppet state of Manchukuo.[13] On 9 August 1945, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria commenced and Lyushkov vanished in the confusion of the assault, where he was reportedly last seen in a crowd at a Dairen train station.[13]


Other theories hold that he was captured by the Red Army or that he was killed on the orders of a Japanese Special Intelligence officer to prevent him from giving away Japanese military secrets to the Soviet Union.

10 Coox, Alvin D. (January 1968). "L'Affaire Lyushkov: Anatomy of a Defector". Soviet Studies. 19 (3): 405–20. doi:10.1080/09668136808410603. ISSN 0038-5859. JSTOR 149953.

SOURCE WIKIPEDIA

1.  Coox 1968, p. 407.
2. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g} Kuksin, Ilya (17 August 1999). ПОБЕГ СТОЛЕТИЯ[Flight of the Century]. Vestnik (in Russian). Vestnik Information Agency. 17 (224). Retrieved 12 February 2012.
3. ^ Alexander, Berkman (1989) [1925]. "Chapter 32: Odessa: Life and Vision". The Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920–1922). London: Pluto Press. ISBN 1-85305-032-6. OCLC 1144036. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Coox 1968, p. 408.
5. ^ Medvedev, Roy (1972) [1969]. К суду истории [Let History Judge: The Origin and Consequences of Stalinism] (in Russian). Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-44645-3. OCLC 251139.
6. ^ Coox 1968, p. 409.
7. ^ Coox 1968, p. 405.
8. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Coox 1968, p. 411.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b Coox 1968, p. 412.
10. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Coox 1968, p. 413.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Coox 1968, p. 414.
12. ^ Coox 1968, p. 417.
13. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Coox 1968, p. 418.
14. ^ ЛЮШКОВ ГЕНРИХ САМОЙЛОВИЧ [Lyushkov, Genrikh Samoilovich]. Memo.ru (in Russian). Memorial. Retrieved 12 February 2012.

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