On the Question of the Polish-Japanese Military Alliance against the USSR in 1922-1939

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of the existence of a secret Polish-Japanese military agreement, which was allegedly concluded in 1931 and directed against the Soviet Union, which has long been debated in Russian historical science. The first message that Warsaw and Tokyo had concluded a secret military alliance was received by the Soviet military-political leadership through the foreign intelligence of state security agencies, citing a reliable source in March 1932. Information about this was received in Moscow for several more years, so the probability of a simultaneous attack against our country by Japan and Poland was laid by the Soviet General Staff in the plans for the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces up to 1939. However, an analysis of the surviving documents of the Polish and Japanese military authorities indicates that there were no agreements between Warsaw and Tokyo on conducting joint military operations against the Soviet Union. Poland, in the event of a conflict, hoped to rely on military assistance from France and Romania on the basis of interstate agreements of 1921. Japan in 1922-1939 had no allies in Europe, so its operational planning did not provide for the support of a third power, but was based on the principle of elastic defense in the north and west of Manchuria with simultaneous counterattack on the Soviet grouping of troops in the Ussuri Region. Nevertheless, in 1922-1939, the military departments of Warsaw and Tokyo carried out close cooperation in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence, thanks to which a powerful decryption service was created in Japan. In addition, Japanese officers were trained in the Polish army.