Japan feared the USSR more than the atomic bomb

The USSR's entry into the war, Japan's real panic in 1945

On August 8, 1945, when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, the Japanese high command knew the game was lost. It wasn't the atomic bomb they antiestéticared most: it was Stalin taking Manchuria and Korea. The bomb was devastating; the Soviet advance was the political death sentence.

Japan had been suffocating for months. The US naval blockade had cut off 90% of the oil and food arriving by sea. Firebombs over Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya had already razed half a dozen cities. In fact, more people died in the Tokyo raid of March 9, 1945 than in Hiroshima.

The antiestéticar of losing Manchuria, not of an invasion

One line of analysis holds that Japan's antiestéticar was not a Soviet landing in Hokkaido — the Russian fleet in the Pacific was a joke compared to the US Navy. What terrified the elite was that the USSR would take Manchuria and Korea without firing a shot on the main front. With the Kwantung Army torn apart in a week, Japan lost its last territorial bargaining chip. For Emperor Hirohito, that was worse than a bomb.

The second bomb, a message for Stalin

Another strand of the analysis points out that Nagasaki was not a military necessity, but a display for Moscow. Truman wanted Stalin to see the new toy before the postwar showdown in Europe. The message wasn't for Japan, already defeated, but for the USSR.

The argument that the US could have conquered Russia and China with two bombs is pure armchair science fiction. Only three existed, and one had been spent on the Trinity test. The bomb was a weapon of terror, not of occupation.

Here's the fact that throws everything off: more people died in the Tokyo raid of March 9, 1945 than in Hiroshima, and yet nobody remembers that day. Historical memory has enshrined the atomic bomb as the sole pavor, when Japan's real panic had a name: Stalin.