Suchergebnisse

Stalin was a master of deception, disinformation, and camouflage, by means of which he gained supremacy over China and defeated imperialism on Chinese soil. This book examines Stalin's covert operations in his hunt for supremacy.

By the late 1920s Britain had ceded place to Japan as Stalin's main enemy in Asia. By seducing Japan deeply into China, Stalin successfully turned Japan's aggression into a weapon of its own destruction. The book examines Stalin's covert operations from the murder of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928 and the publication of the forged "Tanaka Memorial" in 1929, to Stalin's hidden role in Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the outbreak of all-out war between China and Japan in 1937, and Japan's defeat in 1945. In the shadow of these and other events we find Stalin and his secret operatives, including many Chinese and Japanese collaborators, most notably Zhang Xueliang and Kōmoto Daisaku, the self-professed assassin of Zhang Zuolin. The book challenges accounts of the turbulent history of inter-war East Asia that have ignored or minimized Stalin's presence and instead exposes and analyzes Stalin's secret modus operandi, modernized as "hybrid war" in today's Russia.

The book is essential for students and specialists of Stalin, China, the Soviet Union, Japan, and East Asia.

Jerzy Niezbrzycki (born 1901/2 – died 1968) was a key figure in Polish intelligence during the Polish Second Republic. After WWII, he lived abroad where he engaged widely in the analysis of Soviet affairs and published under the pen name of Ryszard Wraga. His unfinished memoirs written in English not only illuminate the battle between Polish and Soviet intelligence before WWII but also suggest that even the most experienced foreign intelligence operatives like Niezbrzycki were misled by elaborate Soviet disinformation.

Does the Donbas represent the stronghold of Russian separatism? Since Russia's military intervention in the Donbas (following its occupation of the Crimea), this view of the Donbas as un-Ukrainian or anti-Ukrainian has gained wide circulation in and outside Ukraine. Yet it is patently wrong. In the Donbas, there have never been ethnic, linguistic, or religious (sectarian) conflicts to speak of, nor did its population consistently manifest strong pro-Russian or pro-Union sentiments. True, such sentiments existed in the Donbas, like elsewhere in much of Dnieper Ukraine, but they never dominated the political scene of the Donbas. Instead, until the twenty-first century this region always tended to be anti-imperialist and anti-metropolitan. What is remarkable is that in 1991 the Donbas overwhelmingly supported the independence of Ukraine. What followed in the wake of Ukraine's independence was an attempt by the Donbas power holders, in particular Viktor Yanukovych, to take over all of Ukraine. Moscow helped this attempt, which failed ultimately. The "free steppe" of the Donbas undeniably attracted, among others, radical Russian nationalists from outside and provided them with space for action. It is this historical characteristic of the Donbas as the "free steppe" that has colored the popular view of this region as a stronghold of Russian separatism. In the rest of Ukraine, a strong prejudice against the Donbas as a culturally dark region has only helped to boost this popular misconception.

Mongolian Journal of International Affairs Vol.19 2014: 49-55