At 10:40am on 30 April 1945 Mikhail Petrovich Minin scrambled to the top of the ruined Reichstag, and raised the Soviet flag. Unfortunately for him, though, the flag came off the next day during a desperate German counter attack.

So, ever mindful of the benefits of a nice bit of propaganda, two days later on 2 May the Soviets sent two different soldiers and a photographer up to the roof to do it properly.

The two men in the picture above are Meliton Kantaria (holding the red flag) and Mikhail Yegorov (less glamorously holding up Kantaria). Both were chosen for political reasons - Kantaria because he, like Stalin, was a Georgian, and Yegorov because he was a Russian, and represented the glorious motherland.

The now iconic photograph was taken by Yevgeny Khaldei, a Ukrainian war photographer who had been planning the shot he saw as his ‘Iwo Jima’ throughout the German advance on Berlin. In fact, he was so determined to get the perfect shot that, unable to find a good enough Soviet flag, he used a red tablecloth instead. The hammer and sickle was painstakingly sewn on by Khaldei and his uncle, back in Moscow.

Khaldei continued to work as a photographer for many years - mainly for Soviet news agency TASS - until anti-semitism forced him into retirement.

Khaldei died in 1997, aged 80. Despite taking one of the most famous pictures in world history, he never saw a penny in royalties.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this short video clip of various impressionists (to be charitable) of Russian and Soviet leaders.

Vladimir Putin looks quite chipper, I suppose, but V.I. Lenin looks terribly depressed to me.

In August 1939, just weeks before Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and Japan fought a massive tank battle on the Mongolian border - the largest the world had ever seen.

Under the then unknown Georgy Zhukov, the Soviets won a crushing victory at the batte of Khalkhin-Gol (known in Japan as the Nomonhan Incident). Defeat persuaded the Japanese to expand into the Pacific, where they saw the United States as a weaker opponent than the Soviet Union. If the Japanese had not lost at Khalkhin Gol, they may never have attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese decision to expand southwards also meant that the Soviet Eastern flank was secured for the duration of the war. Instead of having to fight on two fronts, the Soviets could mass their troops - under the newly promoted General Zhukov - against the threat of Nazi Germany in the West.

In terms of its strategic impact, the battle of Khalkhin Gol was one of the most decisive battles of the Second World War, but no-one has ever heard of it. Why?

Rising Tensions
It was perhaps not all that surprising that the Soviet Union and Japan, two expansionist powers who just happened to be close neighbours, butted heads in the Mongolian borderlands.

Tensions between the two had been high for decades, and had erupted into open conflict on a number of occasions. Japan had clearly had an edge over Russia during the early part of the 20th century - it had decisively defeated Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 (a conflict most memorable, perhaps, for the Russian Navy’s folly of sailing its entire Baltic fleet around the globe only to be promptly sunk by the Japanese Navy within days of its arrival), and had occupied Vladivostock for several years during the Russian civil war.

But, by the 1930s, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a resurgent power, and had become a major regional rival to the Japanese. The Japanese High Command were particularly concerned about the threat Soviet submarines posed to Japanese shipping, and the ease with which Soviet bombers, operating out of Vladivostok, would be able to reach Tokyo.

Flashpoint

By the late 1930s, both Mongolia and bordering Manchuria (Manchukuo) were Soviet and Japanese puppet states.

The border between the two was hotly disputed. Japanese backed Manchuria claimed that the border ran along the Khalkhin-Gol river, whereas the Mongolians argued that the border actually ran just east of Nomonhan village, some 10 miles east of the river.

Although the two countries had previously fought some minor skirmishes (most notably at Changkufeng/Lake Khasan in 1938, a battle which resulted in more than 2,500 casualties on both sides), the battle of Khalkin Gol was sparked when, on 11 May 1938, a small Mongolian cavalry united entered the disputed area in search of grazing for their horses. They were quickly given a bloody nose and expelled by a larger Manchurian unit but, within days, the Mongolians returned with greater support and forced the Manchurian forces to retreat.

The conflict slowly but gradually escalated until Soviet and Japanese forces were drawn into direct conflict. On 28 May Soviet forces surrounded and destroyed a Japanese reconnaisance unit. The Japanese unit, led by Lt Colonel Yaozo Azuma suffered 63% casualties in total, losing 8 officers and 97 men, plus suffering 34 wounded.

A month of relative quiet followed this battle. But, instead of using the time to consider a peace deal, both sides redoubled their efforts to build up their forces in the region.

Daring Japanese Air Raid

The quiet was shattered on 27 June by a daring Japanese air-raid on the Soviet air base at Tamsak-Bulak in Mongolia. The unprepared Soviets lost many planes on the ground although, once they got airborne they gave a good account of themselves. Their skill, however, could not prevent the Japanese pilots returning gloriously home, having destroyed twice as many Soviet planes as they had lost themselves.

However, their glory was short-lived. The Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters, based in Tokyo, had not been told of the attack in advance, and was not amused at the local commander’s initiative. When news of the raid reached Tokyo, furious Generals immediately ordered that no further air strikes would be launched - a decision for which Japanese foot-soldiers later paid a high price.

The Japanese ground attack

Despite their decision to withdraw air cover, Tokyo was happy to authorise a land-based operation to “expell the invaders.”

Lt. Gen. Michitaro Komatsubara, well schooled officer, planned a devastating two-pronged assault that would encircle and destroy the Soviet armies and bring him a glorious victory.

His Northern task force launched its first assalt on 1st July. After easily crossing the Khalkhin Gol river, Japanse soldiers drove the Soviet forces from Baintsagan Hill and quickly began to advance southwards. The following day his Southern task force followed them with another massive assault.

However, Komatsubara soldiers were ill-prepared, and not able to take advantage of their early success. Poor logistical planning meant that their supply line across the river consisted of just one pontoon bridge.

Seizing their opportunity, the Soviets under Zhukov quickly rallied 450 tanks for a daring counter-attack. Despite being entirely without infrantry support, they attacked the Japanese task force on three sides, and very nearly encircled them.

By 5 July, the battered Japanese Northern Taskforce had been forced back across the river.

The second Japanese attack

Following the failure of their first attack, the Japanese withdrew and planned their next move. Defeat was not an option for Komatsubara. After giving his soldiers a fortnight to recover, and restock their supplies, he conceived another assault plan - this one relying on brute force.

On 23 July, backed by a massive artillery bombardment, the Japanese threw two divisions of troops at the Soviet forces that had, by now, crossed the river and were defending the Kawatama bridge. wo days of fierce fighting resulted in some minor Japanse advances, but they were unable to break Soviet lines and reach the bridge. Despite thousands of casualties, the battle was effectively a stalemate.

Unable to progress further, and rapidly running out of artillery supplies, the Japanese decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and disengaged to plan a third assault.

The Soviet Counter-attack

Planning for a third Japanse assault went well, but the Soviets under Zhukov beat Lt Gen Komatsubara to the punch.

By August 20th, Zhukov had amassed a force of more than 50,000 men, 498 tanks and 250 planes. Matched against him was a similarly sized, but not well armoured Japanese force, that had no idea the Soviet counter-attack was coming.

A classic combined arms assault followed, as thousands of Soviet infantry attacked the Japanese centre, Soviet armour encircled the Japanese flanks, and the Soviet air-force and artillery pounded the Japanese from long-range.

By August 31st, the encircled Japanese force had been decimated and surrounded. A few Japanese units managed to break out of the encirclement, but those who remained followed Japanse martial tradition and refused to surrender.

Zhukov wiped them out with air and artillery attacks.

The conflict ends

Just one day later, half way across the world Hitler and Stalin invaded and carved up Poland.

Despite technically being an ally of Nazi Germany, it became prudent for Stalin to ensure that he Eastern flank was also secure. Rather than advancing to push home their tactical advantage and escalate the conflict, Zhukov’s armies were ordered not to press home their advantage. Instead, they were ordered to dig in and hold their position at Khalkhin Gol - the border they had previously claimed as theirs.

The total number of casualties suffered by each side is far from clear, particularly as neither Imperial Japan nor the Soviet Union were particularly ‘open’ societies.

Official statistics report just over 17,000 Japanese total casualties, compared with around 9,000 on the Soviet side. Some historians claim that Japan lost more than 45,000 men, while the victorious Soviet armies lost a ‘mere’ 17,000 men.

Most likely, as always, the true figure lies somewhere in the middle.

How Khalkhin-Gol changed the course of history

The battle of Khalkhin-Gol decisively showed the expansionist Japanese military that it was not a match for the Soviets - particularly while Japanese forces were still bogged down throughout China. The Soviets under combined their forces to stunning effect, while Japanese tactics remained stuck in a pre-modern mindset that valued honour and personal bravery more highly on the battlefield than massed forces and armour.

When Hitler finally invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 the Japanese, although tempted to join the attack, remembered the lessons of Khalkhin Gol and decided to remain on the sidelines, ensuring that the stretched Soviet military could focus its forces on just one front. This, in turn, meant that Nazi Germany was forced to fight a four year war on two fronts - against the Soviets in the East, and the British and Americans in the West.

Defeat at Khalkhin-Gol can also be seen as a major factor in the Japanese decision to expand into the Pacific. As expansion to the North-West was no longer an option, ill defended and scattered colonial territories made far easier targets. Even the United States was deemed a less formidable adversary than the Soviet Union and, if the Japanse had not lost at Khalkhin-Gol, they would surely have never attacked Pearl Harbour.

However, although the Japanese probably took the sensible strategic course after Khalkhin Gol of targetting a ‘weaker’ opponent, they didn’t learn the combat lessons dealt out by the Soviet army. Honour and bravery remained central to the Japanese military mentality and, once they had recovered from the initial onslaught, the United States and Britain were able to mass their forces and push the Japanese out of the Pacific and back to the Home Islands in one brutal battle after another.

Sometimes I wonder what inspires people to set up new blogs. Take Executed Today, for example, a brilliantly executed (sorry - couldn’t resist) blog about historical executions.

But, sometimes I think it’s just best to accept that what seems like the craziest idea at the time is actually just the most inspired idea, as Executed Today is an excellent blog that does exactly what it says on the tin.

As you’d guess, a fair few people have been executed in Russia / the Soviet Union over time - sometimes fairly, more often not - and there are two Russia-related entries on Executed Today this week alone.

On 5 November 1925, Sidney Reilley, thought by many to have been the inspiration for James Bond, was shot in a forest outside Moscow, accused of attempting to overthrow the Soviet government.

Reilly was lured back to the USSR in 1925 by the Soviet counterintelligence project Operation Trust. Intending to meet anti-Bolshevik agitators, he was instead arrested at the border and tortured at the infamous Lubyanka Prison, where he kept notes on cigarette papers about enemy interrogation techniques for the eventuality of an escape or release that never came.

And, 63 years ago, on the anniversary of the October Revolution, two of Stalin’s greatest spies were hanged in Japan - Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki:

The two, along with several other Japanese and foreign collaborators, produced a steady diet of top-shelf intelligence, including the (ignored) forecast of Operation Barbarossa. But the ring’s most important coup — arguably a decisive one in the history of the war as a whole — was to inform Moscow in September 1941 that Japan did not intend to attack the Russian Far East. Relieved of the nightmare prospect of a two-front war, Stalin transfered desperately needed Siberian divisions to help throw back the German advance on Moscow.

Executed Today is a fascinating blog - a historical trove, rather than a gory thrill seekers paradise - and is sure to become the authority blog in the executions niche…

What can I say? It’s the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, brought to you by sock puppets.

Brought to you by the Puppet Liberation Theatre. And some shifty looking guys behind a red blanket.

Actually, that’s a slightly misleading title.  Pretty much every country in the world has planted its flag somewhere to stake its claim to some piece of land or other.  But the Russians of old - well, they had a slightly different approach…

Professor Basil Dmytryshyn, in a letter to the Wall Street Joural, writes:

[In] June 21, 1787… Lt. Gen. Ivan V. Jakobi, the governor-general of Siberia, sent a secret instruction to two Russian merchant-explorers instructing them to bury at various points along the Alaska shore 10 iron plates proclaiming “This land belongs to the Russian Empire.” Russia did not give up her claim until she sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867.

Following the Alaska sale, Russian explorers also planted similar iron plates along the Western coast of North America, from Washington to Northern California.

As far as I know, none of these plates have yet been discovered.  Which leads one to wonder whether the Russian Empire’s approach of putting down invisible markers was actually all that effective.

That Mikhail Gorbachev’s come a long way hasn’t he?  From leader of the unfree, communist world, to a slave to capitalist fashion. 

Yep, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev has signed up with fashion label Louis Vuitton to model their latest bag. 

To my eye, it looks just like all their other bags.  But the picture of Gorby is stunning - he looks like he’s just about to exchange some priceless nuclear secret with James Bond. 

As Sean says - “Very Cold Warish.” 

Anyway, for interests sake, Gorbachev is joined in this latest Vuitton campaign by Catherine Deneue, Andrei Agassi and Steffi Graf.  Oh, and Gorbachev’s picture was taken by Annie Leibovitz.

Every now and then, someone pops up and says that, for Russia the end is nigh: the oil boom is unsustainable, the population is falling, the Chinese are coming, the vodka will run out – that sort of thing.

But, if Russia actually did collapse, how would it happen? John O’Sullivan has put his thinking cap on, and come up with a fascinating ‘future-history’ of the decline and fall of Russia.

At its most basic level, O’Sullivan’s future history of Russia goes something like this:

• Oil prices collapse, and Russia gets poorer
• China grows in influence, particularly in the Russian Far East
• China and Russia trade nuclear warning shots, but pull back from all out war
• Russia breaks up into lots of mini-states

Of course, it’s fantasy, and there’s plenty of detail to argue about, but it’s entertaining fantasy (well, if you’re not Russian…!).

It also contains some truly intriguing scenarios for Russia’s future.

Nuclear Warning Shots

I was particularly fascinated by the concept that two nuclear powers, unwilling to engage in conventional conflict, might trade ‘nuclear warning shots’:

On Aug. 14, 2022, Russia fired “a tactical nuclear missile” into an uninhabited region of the Taklimakan Desert as a “warning to all who might harbour aggressive intentions towards Mother Russia.” The following day China fired five tactical nuclear missiles into uninhabited Russian regions of the Arctic. […]Both China and Russia, terrified by their own use of nuclear weapons, were happy to co-operate; neither wished to back down.

I can imagine this kind of strategy being applied quite effectively by and against countries with sizeable uninhabited, or perhaps sparsely inhabited areas. Not sure how the UK or France would fare in such a conflict, though…

I looked briefly into the strategy (such as it is) of nuclear war back in my university days, but don’t recall ever seeing this type of conflict discussed. Does anyone know if any work has been done in this area?

Subsidised Chinese migration

Some people are already speculating that China has a policy of encouraging migration to strategic Russian regions, but O’Sullivan’s future history takes this concept a step further:

By 2020 much of the [Far East] was Russian in name only. Ethnic Russian provincial governors, appointed by Moscow, ruled over a heterogeneous population of which Chinese migrants were the largest single component.

China now took a cautious but fateful step. It adopted a state policy of subsidizing Chinese migration into eastern Russia with grants.

O’Sullivan speculates that the Russian government would be so weakened that it wouldn’t be able to do anything to oppose this policy. I’m not sure that this is particularly realistic, but I wonder if Chinese policy wonks are taking note of this idea as an innovative future strategy?

The Far East Republic

Are Siberia and the Russian Far East a drain on Russia’s resources, or are they the engine room of the Russian economy. What would happen if the region were to break away from Mother Russia?

The Commander of Russia’s Far East Military District… proclaimed the establishment of the Far East Republic (DVR) under a provisional military government in Vladivostock, with independent internal and foreign policies.

China welcomed the division of Russia, calculating that the creation of a weak buffer state that would surely accept its fate as an obedient suzerain of the Middle Kingdom.

Alas, China’s ambitions were thwarted by a canny DVR government…

After “restoring order” at home, the DVR pursued the independent foreign policy it had announced, starting with the return of the Kurile Islands to Japan. Japan responded with diplomatic relations and a treaty of economic co-operation, and her lead was soon followed by the U.S., India and the West. Investment followed. Within a decade of the war’s end, the DVR was closer to the West and far more prosperous than it had been as a region within Russia. It was also a haven for Chinese democrats as well as migrant workers. China disliked all this. But since the DVR enjoyed the benefits of both the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its own stock of nuclear weapons inherited from Russia, there was little Beijing could do about it.

Again, somewhat optimistic, I think, especially as the collapse in oil prices was given as the primary reason for Russia’s collapse in the first place. But the decision to surrender the Kurile Islands to Japan is a great idea – guaranteed to win a powerful ally for this newly independent state.

There’s plenty more in O’Sullivan’s original article. Whether any of it will actually come to pass is very debateable, but it was certainly a fun read.

Here a Tsar, there a Tsar, everywhere a Tsar-Tsar.

The Economist this week posts an impassioned plea for everyone to stop calling government officials Tsars:

Newish title-holders include Canada’s copyright tsar, New Orleans’s recovery tsar, Singapore’s baby tsar, Tony Blair’s respect tsar, Thailand’s condom tsar and America’s nipple tsar (Michael Powell, whose job as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was to prevent a repetition of Janet Jackson’s televised bosom exposure). They join an ever-swelling band of AIDS tsars, counter-terrorism tsars, cyber-security tsars, economy tsars, food-safety tsars, learning-disability tsars, piracy tsars, water tsars and even mental-health-service-user tsars.

[…]And the Russians—yes, of all people, the Russians—have succumbed to an advertising tsar. A haemophilia tsar cannot be far away.

Enough. Please.

Apparently, the Mongols weren’t who we thought they were, and the wusses couldn’t even conquer Russia:

The reason is simple - the actual “Mongol conquerors of Russia” never existed. The yoke theory was created by the German court historians of the new Russian dynasty - the Romanovs. It has served the end of justifying the Romanovs’ claims for the throne and demonising their longtime adversaries - the Horde, or the professional Russian army, which remained fiercely loyal to the old Russian dynasty.

Want proof? Watch the video (and then buy the book by Anatoly Fomenko). Not only will you get to learn about real Russian history, but it will “change your entire perception of history forever.”

Oh, and you’ll learn that Jesus was a medieval man.

(Thanks to Reluctant Muscovite for forwarding on the video).

Apparently Tsar Alexander II was a bit of a ladies man. At the age of 47 he embarked on a passionate affair with the 18 year old Katia, an affair that was to last 14 years.

Throughout their affiar, Katia and Alexander wrote epic erotic letters to each other - sometimes several in a single day. And now they are available for the world to read, thanks to an auction in Paris.

Alexander II and Katia frequently embarked on what they referred to as “bingerle” - an activity that led Katia to bear the Tsar four children.

The letters were in French. But some sexual references were jotted down in Russian.

In 1871 Katia writes: “I saw in your eyes that you wanted to throw yourself at me to forget everything and enjoy our bingerle.”

In another 28-page missive she reminds the Tsar that she is pregnant and urges him: “not to dare have any bad ideas and to remain untainted … for I know you are capable in one moment when you want to make it (bingerle), to forget that you desire only me, and to go and make it (bingerle) with another woman.”

Here’s a short video clip of Moscow and the Kremlin in 1913, the last years of the Romanov era.

Mosnews has an interview with the first man in the Soviet Union to be diagnosed with HIV:

Nikolay Panchenko was the first man in the Soviet Union to be diagnosed with HIV. He had to quit his job for being homosexual, then he spent four years in jail for being HIV positive, but today, at 53, he is head of the Community of People Living with HIV/AIDS in St. Petersburg and a picture of health and energy.

Was it a hard time, being HIV-positive and in prison?

Well the authorities actually hoped I would get terminated by the fellow prisoners. I was sent to the penal colony where the authorities expected other prisoners to soak me in gasoline and burn me alive. But it did not work out, I had tea with criminals and we chatted peacefully. So the authorities moved me to a solitary cell.

Wow.

Good to see that in modern, democratic Russia, statue-makers are still doing a roaring trade:

A statue of Lenin has been unveiled in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, Interfax reported Monday. About 500 local people came to see the three-meter monument in the centre of Ust Kut town.

The monument was ordered back in 1987 by the local culture department and the Communist Party’s municipal department.

It’s especially pleasing to see that Irkutsk, my favourite region in Russia, is doing its very best to keep with the times.

Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you thought blogging was a modern phenomenon. How foolish can you be? A Russian thought up the concept of blogging way back in 1837.

Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, a science fiction writer, philosopher, composer and all around good guy is the man we have to thank, reports Mosnews. In a book about life in the year 4338, he wrote:

“Houses are connected by means of magnetic telegraphs that allow people who live far from each other to communicate,” Odoevsky wrote.

Even more interestingly, Odoevsky suggested every household would publish a kind of daily journal or newsletter and distribute it among selected acquaintances, a habit which Russian bloggers immediately recognized as blogging.

“We received a household journal from the local prime minister, which among other things invited us to his place for a reception,” one of Odoevsky’s characters tells a friend.

“The thing is that many households here publish such journals that replace common correspondence. Such journals usually provide information about the hosts’ good or bad health, family news, different thoughts and comments, small inventions, invitations to receptions.”

However, with all due respect to Prince Odoevsky’s genius, he was slightly off the mark when he predicted that blogs would be written by the family butler. Interesting idea, though…