Letter to K.E. Voroshilov, November 21, 1931

Letter to K.E. Voroshilov, November 21, 1931
Source: Tom 17

Greetings to Klim!

I received your letter. The situation with Japan is complicated and serious. Japan has planned to seize not only Manchuria but evidently Peking as well, together with the adjacent areas, through the Feng-Yan Xishan people, from whom it will then try to form a government of China (as a counterweight to the Nanking group). Moreover, it is possible, and even probable, that it will reach out toward our Far East and perhaps toward Mongolia, in order to flatter the self-esteem of its Chinese puppets by the accession of new territories and to compensate the Chinese for their losses at the expense of the USSR.

It is possible that this winter Japan will not try to touch the USSR. But next year it may make such an attempt. It is being pushed in this direction by the desire to entrench itself firmly in Manchuria. But it can entrench itself firmly in Manchuria only if it succeeds in sowing hatred between China and the USSR. And for this there is only one means: to help the Chinese feudalists seize the CER, seize Mongolia and the Far Eastern coastline, and install its own puppets in power, dependent in all things on Japan.

By carrying out this plan, the Japanese imperialists reckon to: a) protect Japan and Northern China from the "Bolshevik contagion"; b) make a rapprochement between the USSR and China impossible; c) create for themselves a broad economic and military base on the mainland; d) use this base as a springboard for a war against America. Without carrying out such a plan, the Japanese imperialists must feel themselves in a mousetrap -- between a militarizing America, a revolutionizing China, and a rapidly growing USSR pushing toward the ocean (the Japanese, it seems to me, believe that in two years' time, when the USSR has acquired everything it needs in the Far East, it will already be too late).

The execution of this imperialist plan depends on a number of conditions. I think that if: a) the other imperialist powers (and above all America) do not act against Japan (for which there is little hope at present); b) a serious upsurge of anti-Japanese sentiment and anti-Japanese military actions does not soon begin in China (for which there is also little hope at present); c) a powerful revolutionary movement does not break out in Japan (no signs of which are visible yet); and d) we do not immediately set about organizing a number of serious preventive measures of a military and non-military character -- then the Japanese will be able to carry out their plan.

The Japanese have made a show of being satisfied with Litvinov's statement and with our neutrality. They proposed that we sign the postal convention that had long been ready ("so that everyone can see that relations between us are not bad," as Hirota says). We agreed. They proposed beginning negotiations on fishing (for the same purpose). We agreed to this too. But it would be naive to believe in the sincerity of the Japanese imperialists' "friendship." All this is a mask, needed to lull us and at the same time to play the trump card of "friendship" with us before the "powers." Naturally, we too did not miss the chance to play the trump card of our "normal" relations with Japan before Poland. The other day we seized upon one of Patek's conversations with Litvinov and without further ado declared to Patek that we consider negotiations on a non-aggression pact to have begun. Patek squirmed and tried to wriggle out, but it did not help, since the next day we released a TASS statement to the press that negotiations had already begun. Patek had to reconcile himself to the fact. The negotiations are underway, although it is hard to say how they will end; but even the simple fact of negotiations with Poland gives us no small advantage in view of events in the Far East.

All this, of course, is not bad. But it is not the main thing now. The main thing now is preparation of defenses in the Far East. We have already begun to do something in this area. But it is not worth writing about. Let us leave it until you come. It is a pity you are not in Moscow now. When are you coming?

I shake your hand.
Yours,
Stalin

27/XI-31.

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Source: Soviet Leadership. Correspondence. 1928-1941, pp. 161-163.
RGASPI F. 74. Op. 2. D. 38. L. 48-51.