Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II

by Stuart D. Goldman

  On July 23 Molotov made the highly unusual demand, undoubtedly on Stalin’s instruction, that plans for coordinated military action by the three powers in the event of war against Germany be worked out in detail and a military agreement signed before conclusion of a political pact. The British and French accepted the Soviet terms on most of the important political issues, and an Anglo-French military mission finally arrived—by slow boat and train—in Moscow on August 11. The chief British military negotiator was the magnificently named Admiral Sir Reginald Plunket-Ernle-Erle-Drax. Though this sounded like a character from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Drax was a highly intelligent and capable naval officer who would distinguish himself in the coming war. But he was sent only to conduct staff talks and not authorized by London to conclude or sign a military agreement. In talks with the Soviet military team headed by Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov, Drax appeared second rate. His French counterpart, General Joseph Doumenc, at least was authorized to conclude an agreement on behalf of his government—but not to sign it.10

  By the time the Anglo-French military mission arrived, it was probably too late. Hitler had already set August 26 as the deadline for war with Poland.11 With the growing prospect of having to fight Britain and France as well, Hitler, belatedly, was eager to secure Soviet neutrality—or better yet, cooperation—in the coming war. In the quickening but highly secret Soviet-German negotiations in July and August, it was the Germans who pressed for a speedy conclusion and made almost all the concessions. Still, it served Stalin’s interests to keep the British and French in play. This strengthened Stalin’s hand in dealing with Hitler. It also provided an insurance policy in case the German-Soviet talks failed. Stalin’s fallback position would be an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance, assuring himself of allies in the event of war.

  To prolong the talks with the Anglo-French military mission but forestall resolution, there was the Polish problem. The USSR had no common border with Germany. To come to grips with the Wehrmacht in defense of Poland, Voroshilov demanded that the Red Army be allowed to operate on and through Polish territory. This Moscow knew the Polish government would not allow.12 And if somehow London and Paris succeeded in pressuring Warsaw into allowing the Red Army to enter Poland (which they were never able to do),13 Moscow had a further demand that was politically and militarily preposterous. On August 15 Voroshilov informed Drax and Doumenc that in the event of war, the British and French fleets would be expected to enter the Baltic Sea and occupy islands and ports belonging to Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.14 In the era of the U-boat and the Luftwaffe, such an operation could only have been suicidal. Furthermore, the Baltic states on whose behalf this operation presumably was intended would have protested, and one of them, Finland, would have fought to resist it.15 Such a proposal can scarcely have been meant seriously by the Soviet side, but it was introduced at what would have been a crucial stage in the negotiations, if Stalin meant for them to succeed. And so the talks dragged on. For Stalin too, the negotiations were necessary. For Stalin too, at least the appearance of progress toward an Anglo-Soviet alliance was indispensable. In all likelihood, Chamberlain and Stalin both conducted these negotiations primarily with an eye toward their effect in Berlin. And in Berlin, in late July, their effect finally was felt.

  It was the British decision to send a military mission to Moscow, which finally aroused Hitler to action. The Germans had what they believed to be a very reliable and highly placed informant in the British Foreign Office who had been keeping them informed on the progress of the Anglo-Soviet talks. The informant, John Herbert King of the Foreign Office Communications Center, was actually a Soviet NKVD agent who provided Moscow with detailed information on the evolving British negotiating position. He also fed selected information, and disinformation, to Berlin, designed to exaggerate British enthusiasm for an alliance with Russia and to play down any eagerness on Moscow’s part for such a pact.16

  When the British government abandoned its reluctance and decided to send a military mission to the USSR, Ribbentrop, armed with this information, convinced Hitler, who until then had insisted on dealing cautiously with the Russians, that they must make a dramatic demarche in Moscow. Ribbentrop instructed Ambassador Schulenburg to “pick up the threads” of the German-Soviet talks that had been allowed to fall to the ground the previous month.17 Hitler finally took the bait that Stalin had been dangling before him for months.

  The German-Soviet talks progressed so swiftly that on July 27 Astakhov cabled Molotov that “I have no doubt that if we wanted to, we could involve the Germans in far-reaching negotiations and get from them assurances about the problems that interest us.”18 Two days later, Molotov instructed Astakhov on how to respond to the German overtures. “If the Germans … really want to improve relations with the USSR they are obliged to state what this improvement represents in concrete terms.”19 At a crucial meeting on August 2, Ribbentrop dropped all pretenses and told Astakhov that their countries could come to terms on all territorial issues from the Baltic to the Black Sea. “Danzig will be ours,” he said, and soon. The conquest of Poland would take a week to ten days. But before going further, Ribbentrop said, he had to know whether the Soviet government was prepared to enter into such talks.20 Indeed it was. On August 11 Stalin convened a Politburo meeting, which authorized talks with Germany on the issues raised by Ribbentrop.21

  At last Stalin’s patience was rewarded. Britain and Germany had both come a’ courting in Moscow, vying with one another for a Soviet alliance. Stalin could choose between them, and he chose alliance with Hitler. More than a nonaggression pact, the treaty and its secret protocols signed in Moscow on August 23 was, in fact, a military alliance. It provided for the USSR to invade Poland from the east and for the partners to divide Poland between them. It also divided the Baltic region between the predators, with Estonia, Latvia, and Finland consigned to the Soviet sphere and Lithuania reserved for Germany. Their respective spheres in the Balkans were more vague. Moscow agreed to provide Germany with vital raw materials, negating the naval blockade that Britain would be expected to clamp on Germany. (On June 21, 1941, the last Soviet trainload of supplies rolled west across the border into German-occupied Poland. The next morning, the German army roared across the border in the opposite direction.)

  Scholars have adduced a variety of explanations for Stalin’s choice of alliance with Hitler. Yet, in the voluminous Western literature on this subject, one factor is consistently overlooked or underrated: the East Asian component.22 If Stalin was in a position to choose between an Anglo-French alliance and one with Germany, clearly one of the factors that inclined Stalin toward the pact with Hitler was the Nomonhan incident. Logic dictates that if Stalin had opted for an antifascist alliance with the Western democracies, he would have run a high risk of war against Germany. Even if a major Soviet-German war did not erupt, the Red Army would have to be concentrated in the West. That would have driven Germany into an alliance with Japan and might have encouraged the Japanese to press home an attack against the vulnerable Soviet eastern flank. The danger of a two-front war had to be avoided. Conversely, Stalin’s option of the nonaggression pact with Germany allowed him to stand aside from the coming war in Europe and to deal forcefully with Japan at Nomonhan, after having cut the Japanese off from their nominal European ally, Germany. When viewed in its global context, the Soviet decision in August 1939 seems rather obvious.

  If this contention that the conflict at Nomonhan influenced Stalin’s decision for the pact with Hitler were based solely on circumstantial evidence and speculation, it still would be noteworthy. However, the documentary record shows clearly that the Nomonhan conflict was a factor, and not an unimportant factor, in Soviet calculations in the summer of 1939. In a speech before the Supreme Soviet on May 31, Molotov stressed the resolve of the Soviet Union to defend the borders of the MPR as its own. Without referring specifically to the recent battle, he mildly admonished the Japanese that “it would, therefore, be best for them [Japan] t
o drop, in good time, the constantly recurring provocative violations of the USSR and the MPR by Japanese-Manchurian military units.”23 The Soviet press played down the Nomonhan fighting to such an extent that the first official references to the incident did not appear until June 26, one and one-half months after the initial clash. Thereafter, the few battle reports were written in a relatively restrained tone and were relegated to the inside and back pages of Soviet newspapers. According to the editor of the First Army Group’s newspaper, Stalin personally forbade detailed reporting about the battle.24

  It would seem that the Kremlin was embarrassed by the Nomonhan incident. A really serious conflict with Japan might jeopardize the negotiations with Japan’s nominal ally, Germany. It might also increase doubts in Anglo-French minds about the ability of the Red Army to assist in operations against Germany. Stalin sought to neutralize the German threat by joining it. If an agreement with Hitler materialized, the Japanese threat probably would dissipate.

  The evidence indicates that Stalin was not merely embarrassed by the Nomonhan incident, but was alarmed as well. Although he knew through Richard Sorge that the Japanese army was not yet prepared for a large-scale war with the USSR, and that the leaders in Tokyo were striving to avoid such an occurrence, he could not be certain that Kwantung Army would act rationally or obey the instructions from Tokyo. Had not Japanese field armies taken the bit in their mouths in 1931 and 1937 and launched military campaigns with far-reaching consequences? After a seemingly interminable period of diplomatic sparring, in which the Germans and Soviets attempted to ascertain one another’s “sincerity,” Molotov finally got around to discussing specific outstanding issues between the two nations. One of the first issues he raised was that of German “encouragement and support” of Japanese aggression against the USSR. When the German ambassador, Schulenburg, attempted to turn this charge aside, Molotov insisted that Berlin must prove its good faith not only with words, but with deeds.25

  In describing this interview in more detail to Weizsacker a few days later, Schulenburg summarized Molotov’s sentiments as follows: “Finally—and this seems to me the most important point—M. Molotov demanded that we cease to support Japanese ‘aggression’.”26 On August 12 Astakhov reminded Molotov—as if it were necessary—“By the way, the prospect of drawing Japan into the German-Italian alliance remains a reserve option for Berlin in the event of our agreement with England and France.”27 When Molotov learned a few days later that Ribbentrop was anxious to fly immediately to Moscow to lay the foundations for a final settlement of German-Soviet relations, he asked forthwith “how the German Government were disposed toward the idea of concluding a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, and further, whether the German Government were prepared to influence Japan for the purpose of improving Soviet-Japanese relations and eliminating border conflicts.”28

  Upon receipt of this momentous news on August 16, Ribbentrop immediately instructed Schulenburg to inform Molotov and Stalin that Germany was prepared both to conclude a nonaggression pact and “to exercise influence for an improvement and consolidation of Russian-Japanese relations.”29 Molotov reacted favorably to this statement, which Schulenburg reported to Berlin. Ribbentrop then ordered Schulenburg immediately to arrange another meeting with Molotov at which he was to explain the extreme urgency of the Polish situation and the need for quick action. Schulenburg was instructed to tell Molotov that “we are in complete agreement with the idea of a nonaggression pact, a guarantee of the Baltic states, and Germany exercising influence on Japan.”30

  With this exchange of messages, Hitler and Stalin knew that there was no obstacle to the conclusion of their pact. Two days later, Georgy Zhukov launched his general offensive across the Halha River. In another three days, Ribbentrop was in Moscow, drinking toasts with Stalin and Molotov to the nonaggression pact and the “new era” in German-Soviet relations.

  During the fateful night of August 23–24, while the nonaggression pact was being drafted and the Japanese Sixth Army was being smashed, Stalin, Molotov, and Ribbentrop discussed a wide variety of issues affecting German-Soviet relations. An official on Ribbentrop’s staff preserved the substance of this conversation in a detailed memorandum. Seven broad topics were discussed. The first was the question of Soviet-Japanese relations. Ribbentrop repeated his readiness to use his influence to affect favorably the strained relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. At that moment the events in Moscow and on the battlefield both pointed toward a satisfactory resolution of the Nomonhan incident—from the Soviet point of view—and this is reflected in Stalin’s reply.

  M. Stalin replied that the Soviet Union indeed desired an improvement in its relations with Japan, but that there were limits to its patience with regard to Japanese provocations. If Japan desired war she could have it. The Soviet Union was not afraid of it and was prepared for it. If Japan desired peace—so much the better! M. Stalin considered the assistance of Germany in bringing about an improvement in Soviet-Japanese relations as useful, but he did not want the Japanese to get the impression that the initiative in this direction had been taken by the Soviet Union (italics added).31

  The assertion that the Soviet Union was prepared for and unafraid of a war with Japan was a bit of an overstatement, although Stalin certainly had cause for optimism in the battlefield situation and the larger East Asian strategic balance. It is interesting to note, however, that in spite of the immediate diplomatic and military victories the USSR then was achieving over Japan, Stalin was still anxious to conceal from Tokyo that any peace initiative had originated in Moscow. That might be interpreted in Tokyo or Hsinking as a sign of Soviet weakness or lack of confidence. The Japanese danger, it would seem, was not completely erased from Stalin’s mind.

  Even at the moment of his stunning diplomatic coup, Stalin was determined to burn no bridges prematurely. On August 21, while Stalin was inviting Hitler to send Ribbentrop to Moscow, he still did not break off the talks with Britain and France. Instead, Voroshilov asked for a temporary postponement of the talks on the grounds that his colleagues in the Soviet delegation were high-ranking officers whose presence was required at the autumn army maneuvers. Not until August 25, after Britain had reiterated its determination to stand by Poland despite the German-Soviet pact, did Stalin send the Anglo-French military mission home.32 Fortified by the nonaggression pact, which he hoped would frighten Britain and France into inaction, Hitler unleashed his army on Poland on September 1. Two days later, while Zhukov’s First Army Group was finishing its mopping-up operations at Nomonhan, Hitler suffered a setback as Britain and France declared war. He had hoped to destroy Poland in 1939 and not have to fight Britain and France until 1940. The Second World War had begun.

  The Soviet-Japanese conflict at Nomonhan was not the exclusive, nor even the principal, factor that led Stalin to conclude the alliance with Hitler. Standing aside from a war in Europe in which the principal capitalist powers might tear themselves apart could well have been reason enough. However, the Soviet-Japanese conflict was also on Stalin’s mind and was a factor in his calculations that has received little attention in standard historical accounts of the outbreak of the war. This analysis, focusing on those East Asian events, is an attempt to clarify the record. This is not a revolutionary reinterpretation of Soviet foreign policy. Rather, it puts an important piece into place that previously has been overlooked or misplaced in the jigsaw puzzle called “the origins of the Second World War.” In so doing, it makes that puzzle less confusing.

  One final episode illustrates the correlation between Soviet European and Far Eastern policy in connection with the outbreak of the war. The agreement between Germany and the USSR provided for the Soviet Union to occupy the eastern half of Poland soon after Germany attacked. As early as September 3, forty-eight hours after the German invasion, and the day that Britain and France declared war, Ribbentrop urged Moscow to invade Poland from the east.33 But for two more weeks Poland’s eastern frontier remained inviolate. Sovi
et divisions were poised at the border. There were few Polish army units capable of offering effective resistance, because the main strength of the Polish army was fighting for its life against Germany. As the days passed, the Germans repeatedly inquired as to when the Soviet invasion would begin, but still the Red Army did not move. This inactivity generally has been attributed to Stalin’s well-known caution and suspicion, but that caution and suspicion was not restricted, as is generally assumed, to events in Europe. Throughout the first two weeks of September, sporadic ground and air combat continued in the Nomonhan area. Elements of Kwantung Army’s 2nd Division conducted offensive operations September 8–9. Large-scale aerial combat occurred September 1–2, 4–5, and 14–15.34 Not until September 15 was the Molotov-Togo agreement concluded, arranging for a cease-fire to go into effect at Nomonhan on September 16. The very next morning, September 17, the Red Army was sent crashing across the Polish frontier into a country that had lain virtually prostrate at its feet for days. It would seem that Stalin, among other things, wanted to be sure that the fighting on his eastern flank definitely had ended before committing himself to battle in the West. Through such policies as this, Stalin assiduously avoided the two-front war that would have spelled disaster for him and for the Soviet Union.

  Each of the principals in the complex diplomatic maneuvers of 1939 had its own primary and secondary objectives. The British sought an arrangement with the USSR that would deter Hitler from attacking Poland, and if he were not deterred, would bind Russia to the Anglo-French alliance. Hitler ultimately sought an alliance with the USSR that would deter Britain and France from going to Poland’s assistance, and if they did honor their commitment to Poland, would guarantee Soviet neutrality in the ensuing struggle. Japan sought a military alliance with Germany directed against the USSR, and failing that, a general strengthening of the Anti-Comintern Pact. Stalin sought an outcome in which Germany would fight the Western democracies, leaving him a free hand in the West and East, and failing that, military reassurance from Britain and France in case he had to fight Germany. Of the four, only Stalin achieved his primary objective. Hitler obtained his secondary goal; the British and Japanese got neither.35