Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

Stalin’s perfidy in August 1945 was another chapter in a sequence of international betrayals, beginning with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Neutrality Pact of 1939, and the ruthless partition of Poland between the Nazis and Soviets. That insidious covenant had ended with Hitler’s surprise invasion of Russia in June 1941. In the same spirit, Moscow’s faithless pantomime of diplomacy with Tokyo between June and August 1945 provided cover for Stalin’s pending abrogation of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact. The Russian declaration of war, delivered to the Japanese precisely one hour before the planned attack in Manchuria, could be seen as an indirect repayment of the treachery embodied in Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which was likewise planned and prepared under cover of diplomatic talks.