This article is published with the permission of the public account "Memory Islands Isles"
Author of this article
Huang Yong is a history columnist who specializes in modern history
When the name Richard Sorge is mentioned, friends familiar with the history of World War II will not be unfamiliar. The story of this famous spy king has long been widely praised. His contribution to the victory of the Soviet Union and even the world anti-fascist war was also recognized by the whole world. Out of admiration for him, people continue to elevate him, and many of his legends are constantly interpreted, gradually losing their original appearance.
Among them, the information that he passed to the Soviet high command during the Battle of Moscow that the Japanese army would not attack the Soviet Union also made him deified as the savior of Moscow and even the Soviet Union. But can a person really save a city or even a country on his own? Let's take a look at the ins and outs of this.
On June 22, 1941, fascist Germany brazenly tore up the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and dispatched millions of troops to raid the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-German War broke out. Due to the insufficient estimation of the Soviet invasion of the German army, the Corresponding Preparations were not made, and almost collapsed, and in just 3 months, a large number of important cities and large areas of land such as Minsk, Kiev, and Smolensk were lost, and millions of troops were lost.
In late September, the Germans concentrated millions of people to launch the Battle of Moscow, and in just one month, they surrounded and annihilated the main force of the Soviet Bryansk Front and the western and reserve fronts, captured 670,000 Soviet troops, and successively captured Bryansk, Vyazma, Oryol and other places, breaking through the first line of defense of the Soviet army. By mid-October, the famous Soviet general Zhukov, who was in danger of defending the capital, had only about 90,000 troops left to use in combat. If reinforcements were not sent, the Soviet capital would be lost.
At this time, since Leningrad and the Soviet army in the southwest were fiercely fighting the German troops in front of them, the Soviet high command could only hope for the troops of the Far Eastern Military District thousands of miles away. However, at this time, the Far Eastern Military Region was in a state of confrontation with japan's elite Kwantung Army. If the troops of the Far Eastern Military Region were dispatched to the west, would the Japanese troops on the opposite side of the Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers take advantage of the situation and seize Siberia? And at such a moment of surprise, Sorge sent information that the Japanese army would not attack the Soviet Union in the north. Many biographies and legends about Sorge agree that it was this intelligence that made the Soviet high command determined to transfer a large number of elite troops of the Soviet Army in the Far East to fight in the west and save Moscow. Does a piece of intelligence really have such a big effect?
The answer is clearly no. Friends with a little common sense in intelligence work probably know that no decision-maker will make a major decision just because of a piece of intelligence unless it is a last resort. At this time, the Soviet intelligence agencies had infiltrated Japan and its neighboring countries for many years, and it was impossible to have only Sorge as an intelligence channel. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Soviet high command could have made such a major decision based solely on Sorge's intelligence. What then prompted the Soviet Union to insist on transferring troops from the Far East despite the threat of its long-standing enemy? This has to start with the climatic conditions in Siberia and northeast China.
Soviet armored units at the Battle of Nomonhan
As the main battlefield of the war between Japan and the Soviet Union, Siberia and northeast China are located in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, with severe cold winters. The average temperature in January is below minus 20 degrees Celsius. The one-year freezing period of the Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers in the Sino-Soviet border is more than 5 months. Coastal ports in the Soviet Far East were also frozen for a long time. All these put forward high requirements for the logistical support of the Japanese army. However, judging from the performance of the Japanese army in the Chinese battlefield and the previous Battle of Nomenkan, the logistical support capability is their shortcoming, and the number of sick and dead remains high. To fight against such a powerful opponent as the Soviet Army under such circumstances, the Japanese army could not succeed.
Therefore, in the Kwantung Army's battle plan against the Soviet Union, the end of the operation was set for mid-October. That is to say, if by mid-October the main Soviet army in the Far East could not be annihilated or a decisive victory was achieved, the Japanese army could only retreat from Siberia. At this point, the problem arises again. Whether the Japanese decide to attack Siberia or not depends on the expectation of the progress of the war. So how did the Japanese army itself estimate it?
Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, and japan, which regarded the Soviet Union as a serious problem, was undoubtedly a good opportunity to take advantage of the fire and loot to destroy this long-cherished enemy. As soon as he heard this news, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshinori Matsuoka could not wait to jump out and demand that the "Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty" signed by his own hands two months ago be torn up on the grounds that Germany would soon defeat the Soviet Union, and unite with Germany to attack the Soviet Union.
However, as soon as this statement came out, it was immediately opposed by most strategists from the army and navy. Since the United States abrogated the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Commerce and Navigation in January 1940, the British, American, and Dutch East Indies colonial governments gradually tightened exports to Japan, exposing Japan's limited resource weaknesses. These people are worried that Japan has fallen into the great quagmire of the chinese battlefield, which is hugely depleting, and under this circumstance, if it starts a war against the Soviet Union, once it is caught in another protracted war, it will not only absorb all of Japan's resources in China and Southeast Asia, but may also be forced to go south to seize the resource-rich colonies of Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands in Southeast Asia due to the depletion of its own resources. In this way, Japan would have to fight at the same time as Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. For Japan, such a war is completely impossible to win. Therefore, it is better not to provoke the Soviet Union and concentrate on preparing for war against Britain and the United States. The two sides will not give in to each other on this issue.
To this end, from June 26 to July 2, Japan's top leadership held repeated consultations. Finally, at the Imperial Council on July 2, the Japanese base camp finally decided to implement a mobilization plan to prepare for war against the Soviet Union. According to this plan, the Japanese army mobilized 16 divisions and regiments in northeast China (plus various subordinate units, a total of about 850,000 people) to strengthen combat readiness for an imminent attack on the Soviet Union. However, the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in northeast China at that time was only 250,000 people, and it was not easy to increase the number of troops by 600,000 troops and prepare for the offensive, and it was expected to be completed by the end of August. Therefore, the expected attack time of the Japanese base camp is around September 1.
However, the lesson of the defeat in the previous year's Battle of Nomonhan also made the Japanese base camp extra cautious. At that time, the Japanese army judged that the Soviet army still had more than 600,000 regular troops in the Far East, and the strength of the troops was strong. If the Japanese army completes its combat readiness and attacks the Soviet army in the existing posture, it will be difficult to achieve the expected victory before the winter comes, and it may eventually eliminate a blank. Therefore, in mid-July, after the Japanese base camp issued the "Mainland Order No. 506" order to prepare for the Soviet Army against the Kwantung Army, its general staff headquarters worried that the offensive against the Soviet Union would not be realized until winter. In order to avoid such a situation, the Japanese General Staff Headquarters set that the Japanese army must be reduced by half, that is, 15 divisions, and two-thirds of the tanks and aircraft in the Far East to send troops. At the same time, they also actively expanded into the southern part of French Indochina and continued to prepare for a southward expansion.
The fears of the Japanese General Staff Soon became a reality. By the end of August, the Soviet army in the Far East had not been greatly reduced, and the Japanese army was no longer available. At this time, the United States took a tough attitude toward the Japanese army entering the southern part of French Indochina, united with Britain and the Netherlands, and adopted a de facto oil embargo against Japan. The risk of defeat in Japan's offensive against the Soviet Union was further increased. In order to avoid the unfavorable situation of a protracted war against the Soviet Union, the Japanese base camp had to abandon the plan to attack the Soviet Union and instead transfer troops to the south.
The Soviet intelligence agencies had long been aware of the Japanese attempt to advance south. On February 5, 1941, the landline of Major General Shumsheng Ōkaku, a major Cabinet Minister and Military Counsellor of the Japanese Government in Nanjing, major General Yanjiro Suga, crashed in Guangdong (it is said that it was shot down by the forces of the Third Guerrilla Zone of the Fourth Theater of Operations of China). All the important documents carried randomly were captured by the Third Guerrilla Zone and sent to Chongqing. The contents of these documents about the preparations of the Japanese army for the invasion of Southeast Asia were so valuable to the Chinese military and political authorities that they were immediately transferred to Lieutenant General Trikov, the Soviet military attaché in China and military general adviser.
When Trikov learned of this important information, he judged that the Japanese army was preparing to advance south by comparing it with the material provided by the French military attaché in China, Yon, and reported these conclusions to Moscow. Since then, Trikov has repeatedly received news from Chinese government diplomatic and intelligence officials that Germany is instigating Japan to attack Southeast Asia. Based on this intelligence, Trikov and the Soviet high command determined that "the Japanese were afraid of falling into a protracted war with the Soviet Union." At the same time, he was afraid of missing the opportunity to invade the colonies of the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands in the Pacific", and it was unlikely that he would attack the Soviet Union from the north.
On August 23, 1941, the Japanese High Command met in Tokyo and decided not to declare war on the Soviet Union this year unless "the russo-German war format developed to the point of a strong reaction in Siberia." Sorge reported to Moscow on the meeting in early September. Sorge's intelligence undoubtedly confirmed the Soviet Union's above judgment. Since then, Soviet intelligence and its military advisers in various theaters in China have confirmed from different sources that a large number of Japanese troops are being transferred south. Japan's intention to abandon the attack on the Soviet Union was already very obvious.
However, for the sake of prudence, the Soviet high command still did not draw troops on a large scale from the Far Eastern Military District. It was not until October, after receiving two important information from China from China that "Japan has sent more than 1,000 aircraft from the north to the south" and Sorge's "Japan-US relations are quite tense, and Japan cannot go to war with the Soviet Union in a few weeks", that the Soviet high command ordered the transfer of 11 divisions from the Far Eastern Military Region to reinforce the Western Front. At this time, winter was approaching, and it was no longer possible for the Japanese Kwantung Army to launch an offensive before the next spring blossomed. On December 7, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of the Pacific War, the elite troops of the Japanese Kwantung Army were subsequently transferred to the abyss of China and the southern battlefield, and their dream of attacking the Soviet Union was shattered.
In summary, the decision of the Soviet High Command to transfer the elite troops of the Far Eastern Military Region to the east was the result of the subjective and objective conditions at that time and the joint efforts of the Soviet intelligence and military diplomacy departments. The intelligence provided by Sorge simply provides decision-makers with information that corroborates with intelligence obtained through other sources. This incident proves once again that the development of history is the result of subjective and objective conditions and the joint action of all participants, and that the role of any individual, even a heroic figure of extraordinary ability, is limited and should not be exaggerated.