December 31, 1951

To the Chief Editor of the Kyodo Agency, Mr. Kiishi Iwamoto

Dear Mr. Iwamoto! I have received your request to send the Japanese people a message for New Year.

It is not a tradition of Soviet statesmen to send greetings to the people of another state. But the great sympathy that the people of the Soviet Union have for the Japanese people, who have suffered misery through foreign occupation, leads me to make an exception to the rule and to accede to your request.

I ask you to convey to the Japanese people my wishes for their freedom and happiness, as well as success in their courageous struggle for the independence of their homeland.

The people of the Soviet Union have in the past, learnt to know themselves, the terror of foreign occupation, in which the Japanese imperialists took part. Therefore, they fully understand the sorrow of the Japanese people, have great sympathy for them and believe that the rebirth and independence of their homeland will be achieved, even as it was by the people of the Soviet Union.

I wish the Japanese workers liberation from unemployment, from poor wages, the abolition of high prices for consumer goods and success in the struggle for keeping peace.

I wish the Japanese peasants liberation from landlessness and poverty, the abolition of high taxes and success in the struggle for keeping peace.

I wish the entire Japanese people and their intelligentsia, complete victory of the democratic forces of Japan, the revival and prosperity of the economic life of the country, a blossoming of national culture, knowledge and art as well as success in the struggle for keeping peace.

J. Stalin

("New Germany," Berlin Ed., No. 2, 3 January, 1952)