Stalin's Address to the People

September 2, 1945

Comrades! Fellow countrymen and countrywomen!

Today, September 2, political and military representatives of Japan signed an act of unconditional surrender. Utterly defeated on sea and land, and completely surrounded by the armed forces of the United Nations, Japan has admitted defeat and has laid down her arms.

Two hotbeds of world fascism and world aggression had been formed on the eve of the present World War: Germany in the West and Japan in the East. It was they who unleashed the Second World War. It was they who brought mankind and civilization to the brink of doom. The hotbed of world aggression in the West was destroyed four months ago and, as a result, Germany was forced to capitulate. Four months later the hotbed of aggression in the East was destroyed and as a result, Japan, Germany's principal ally, was also compelled to sign an act of capitulation.

This signifies the end of the Second World War.

Now we can say that the conditions necessary for peace all over the world have been gained.

It must be observed that the Japanese aggressors inflicted damage not only on our Allies - China, the U.S.A. and Great Britain. They also inflicted extremely grave damage on our country. That is why we have a separate account to settle with Japan.

Japan commenced her aggression against our country as far back as 1904, during the Russo -Japanese War. As we know, in February 1904, when negotiations between Japan and Russia were still proceeding, Japan, taking advantage of the weakness of the tsarist government, suddenly and perfidiously, without declaring war, fell upon our country and attacked the Russian fleet in the region of Port Arthur with the object of putting a number of Russian warships out of action and thereby creating an advantageous position for her fleet. She did, indeed, put out of action three Russian first-class warships. It is characteristic that 37 years later Japan played exactly the same perfidious trick against the United States when, in 1941, she attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbour and put a number of American battleships out of action. As we know, in the war against Japan, Russia was defeated. Japan took advantage of the defeat of tsarist Russia to seize from Russia the southern part of Sakhalin and establish herself on the Kuril Islands, thereby putting the lock on all our country's outlets to the ocean in the East, which meant also all outlets to the ports of Soviet Kamchatka and Soviet Chukotka. It was obvious that Japan was aiming to deprive Russia of the whole of her Far East.

But this does not exhaust the list of Japan's aggressive operations against our country. In 1918, after the Soviet system was established in our country, Japan, taking advantage of the hostility then displayed towards the Land of the Soviets by Great Britain, France and the United States, and leaning upon them, again attacked our country, occupied the Far East and for four years tormented our people and looted the Soviet Far East.

Nor is this all. In 1938 Japan attacked our country again, in the region of Lake Hasan, near Vladivostok, with the object of surrounding Vladivostok; and in the following year Japan repeated her attack in another place, in the region of the Mongolian People's Republic, near Khalkin-gol, with the object of breaking into Soviet territory, severing our Siberian Railway and cutting off the Far East from Russia.

True, Japan's attacks in the regions of Hasan and Khalkin-gol were liquidated by the Soviet troops, to the extreme humiliation of the Japanese. Japanese military intervention in 1918-1922 was liquidated with equal success and Japanese invaders were expelled from our Far Eastern regions. But the defeat of the Russian troops in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War left bitter memories in the minds of our people. It lay like a black stain on our country. Our people believed in and waited for the day when Japan would be defeated and the stain would be wiped out. We of the older generation waited for this day for forty years, and now this day has arrived. Today Japan admitted defeat and signed an act of unconditional surrender.

This means that the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands revert to the Soviet Union and henceforth will serve not as a barrier between the Soviet Union and the ocean and as a base for Japanese attack upon our Far East but as a direct means of communication between the Soviet Union and the ocean and a base for the defence of our country against Japanese aggression.

Our Soviet people spared neither strength nor labour for the sake of victory. We experienced extremely hard years. But now everyone of us can say: We have won. Henceforth we can regard our country as being free from the menace of German invasion in the West and of Japanese invasion in the East. The long awaited peace for the peoples of all the world has come.

I congratulate you, my dear fellow countrymen and country-women, on this great victory, on the successful termination of the war, and on the ushering in of peace all over the world!

Glory to the armed forces of the Soviet Union, the United States of America, China and Great Britain which achieved victory over Japan!

Glory to our Far Eastern troops and our Pacific Fleet, which upheld the honour and dignity of our country!

Glory to our great people, the victorious people!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell fighting for the honour and victory of our country! May our country flourish and prosper!

("Soviet Calendar 1917 - 1947")