SAKHALIN AND THE KURILS IN THE USSR Sakhalin and the Kurils were once again the subject of dispute between the USSR and Japan in the years 1940-41. During negotiations for concluding the SovietJapanese Neutrality Pact of 1941, the Soviet side raised the question of revising the Treaty of Portsmouth and returning southern Sakhalin and the Kurils to the USSR. Japan in turn suggested purchasing northern Sakhalin from the USSR.
The signing of the SovietJapanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, and Japan's inauguration of the War in the Pacific prompted both sides to lay aside their territorial claims for a time. However, the turning of the tide, heralded by a series of major reversals for Hitler's forces on the Eastern front, and the urgent desire of the U.S. and Britain to bring the USSR into the war againstJapan, allowed the Soviet government to once again bring up the idea of settling old Soviet (and Russian) scores with the Japanese.
The leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition (U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and head of the USSR Soviet of People's Commissars Joseph Stalin) met in Teheran from 28 November to 1 December 1943. Already on the first day of the conference the Soviet leader announced bis agreement in principle with the idea of the USSR entering the war againstJapan after the capitulation of Germany. Later (toward the end of 1944), Stalin informed the Allies of the political conditions for the USSR's entry into the war in the Far East: the return of southern Sakhalin to the USSR and transfer of the Kuril Islands. These conditions were enunciated at the Yalta conference and signed on 11 February 1945 by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.
On 8 August 1945 the USSR declared war against Japan. This was in violation of the SovietJapanese Neutrality Pact, which was not set to expire until 13 April 1946. The primary theater of war (as with the RussoJapanese War of 1904-05) was northeast China. The overland invasion of southern Sakhalin and amphibious operations in the Kurils were of a more or less tactical nature, to the point that some doubts have even been raised as to their military necessity. After all, it was the mere fact that the USSR had entered the war againstJapan, coupled with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced the Japanese government to surrender to the Allies. Though the governments of all belligerent powers were informed of this decision on 14 August 1945, combat continued between the Soviet and Japanese forces. Clearly the Soviet government was concerned not so much with the military situation, as with improving its position in the post-war world.
The battle for southern Sakhalin ended only in late August. The 79th Infantry Division stormed border fortifications from 11-18 August, and amphibious assaults were mounted against ???? (Shakhtyorsk), Esutoro (Uglegorsk), and Maoka (Kholmsk) from the 16th to the 20th. On 25 August, a detachment was landed at the port of Otomari (Korsakov). That day Soviet forces entered the administrative capital of Karafuto, Toy-ohara (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk).
Amphibious operations against the Kurils were begun four days after the announcement ofJapanese capitulation. There was a desperate battle for the island of Shumshu from 18-22 August. The remaining Kuril islands were occupied without resistance by the beginning of September 1945. The land, mineral resources, timber and waters around southern Sakhalin and the Kurils were declared the property of the Soviet Union by decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on 2 February 1946. At that time the territory of southern Sakhalin and the Kurils was organized into the South Sakhalin Region. The new Region was incorporated into Khabarovsk Kray, and a separate Regional Administration for Southern Sakhalin Civic Affairs organized. Then on 2 January 1947 this new region was reorganized and incorporated into the newly-formed Sakhalin Region, a distinct administrative region independent of Khabarovsk Kray.
The Soviet government demonstrated by these decisions that it already considered Sakhalin and the Kurils to be a part of the USSR. However, from the point of view of international law, this by itself was clearly not enough. After all, Japan had never acknowledged the Yalta agreement to be legally binding. On the other hand, the U.S. and Britain, who had at first so cavalierly agreed to give away territory not belonging to them in exchange for the USSR entering the war against Japan, now sharply changed their position with the advent of the "Cold War."
Thus the Soviet delegation to the San Francisco Peace Conference (September 1951) demanded inclusion of an article in the text of the peace treaty with Japan acknowledging the sovereignty of the USSR over southern Sakhalin and the Kurils. The Soviet government's demand went unheeded. The text of the San Francisco treaty says only that Japan "renounces its rights, privileges and claims to the Kurils and to that part of the island of Sakhalin and its adjoining islands over which Japan obtained sovereignty by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth," without ever stating to whom Japan transfer its rights. What is meant by the term "Kuril Islands" is also never defined in the document. As a result, the Soviet delegation refused to sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and this allowed the Japanese delegation even in the closing days of the San Francisco conference to raise the question of the return of the islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shiko-tan and the Habomai group to Japan.
A SovietJapanese Joint Declaration was signed in Moscow on 19 October 1956. By its terms, the state of war between the USSR and Japan is terminated from the date of ratification of the Declaration. Article 9 further stipulates that talks should continue regarding conclusion of a peace treaty between the USSR and Japan, and that following the signing of such a treaty, the USSR would transfer to Japan the islands of Habomai and Shikotan.
What in fact happened is that four years later the Soviet government unilaterally refused to perform the obligations it had taken upon itself in Article 9 of the Moscow Declaration. From the point of view of international as well as Soviet law, the legality of this action by the government of the USSR would seem to be quite doubtful. After all, the government clearly exceeded its authority in denouncing the Moscow Declaration, ratified as it was by the highest organ of state power in the USSR (as the Supreme Soviet is described in the Constitution). Instead, the Soviet government declared repeatedly that there were no territorial disputes of any kind between the USSR and Japan, and that all questions about boundaries had been settled once and for all at Yalta and San Francisco. After 1960, the Japanese government likewise denounced the Moscow Declaration and began to forcefully demand the return of Kunashir and Iturup as well as Shikotan and the Habomai group.
A significant qualitative shift in the Soviet (and later Russian) position on territorial issues was introduced by the political and economic crises in the USSR leading up to its collapse in 1991. In the sharp clashes for pow'er taking place at this time, the territorial issue between Russia and Japan ceased to be a purely foreign policy problem. Factions in the leadership of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and later in the Russian Federation, have attempted and are still attempting to solve the country's economic and political problems at a stroke by resorting to massive foreign aid. Their hopes are pinned upon Japan, now one of the richest countries in the world. However, whenever discussing the po; sibility of future cooperation with Russia, Japan never fails to make it contingent (in one form or another) upon resolution of the territorial question. For this reason a number of CIS and Russian leaders have come out in favor of the return of the southern Kurils to Japan.
A political and economic system on the USSR model was introduced in southern Sakhalin and the Kurils in the first years after World War n, and by 194547 those party and governmental structures which existed elsewhere in the country were formed here as well. The economy of the newly-obtained territory was nationalized and became the sole property of the State.
There was a drive to "Russify" the islands in the period immediately following the war. In fact, it was only then that the notion of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands as "innately and inherently Russian lands" was bom and gained currency. By a series of decrees in the late 1940's, Japanese place-names were stricken from the map and replaced with Russian names. This happened as well to an overwhelming majority of the old Ainu place-names.
The entire Japanese population of southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands was repatriated in 1946-1948. The Sakhalin and Kuril Ainu were also banished from their lands and sent to Hokkaido at this time, and a part of the Nivkhi and Uilta population with them. However, the overwhelming majority of Koreans transported to southern Sakhalin in 1920-45 were never allowed to return home because the USSR had no diplomatic relations whatsoever with South Korea until the late 1980's.
In repatriating the Japanese and indigenous populations, the Soviet government also organized massive set-dement of Soviet peoples on Sakhalin to take their place. There were already more than 700,000 people in Sakhalin Region by the early 1950's. This figure fluctuated somewhat, dipping to 615,700 in 1970 and increasing again to 710,000 in 1989. The overwhelming majority (81.6 percent) of these inhabitants were Russian, followed by Ukrainians (6.5 percent), and Koreans (5 percent). The percentage of indigenous inhabitants (Nivkhi and Uilta) in the population was in total 0.35 percent
After 1945, as in the previous two centuries under Russia and Japan, Sakhalin continued to be little more than a "resource appendage" to the center. Over the decades, the Soviet government followed the same colonialist policy as the Japanese. The industries based on exploitation of biological resources (fish and seafood, marine mammals, timber, furs) and mineral resources (oil, gas, coal) continued to play the leading role in the economic life of Sakhalin and the Kurils in the postwar period. The principle of simultaneous intensive development of resources was taken to the point of absurdity. By the 1970's the islands were on the brink of ecological ruin.
Only the fishing industry developed in a consistent and dynamic manner during the post-war period. The catch of fish and seafood rose from 111 thousand tons in 1946 to 1 million tons in 1990, while production of canned seafood in this period rose from 5.5 to 310 million units.
The other industries developed in extremely irregular fashion. Timber production reached a peak in the mid-1970's and thereafter began a decline which continues to the present day: 3.9 million cubic meters of round wood was felled in 1975, and by 1990 this had dropped to 2.9 million. Paper production fell from 216 thousand to 204 thousand tons during this period, as did cellulose (325 thousand to 277 thousand tons) and cardboard (from 91 thousand to 84 thousand tons).
The oil industry on Sakhalin rose from 0.6 million tons of oil in 1950 to 2.4 million tons in 1965, then leveled off, with 2.6 million tons of oil produced in 1986. By 1990, this figure had fallen to 1.9 million tons.
Coal production on Sakhalin also experienced its ups (2.3 million tons of coal in 1950 to 5.8 million tons in 1979) and downs (5 million tons in 1990).
Gas production plays a critical role in the fuel and energy infrastructure of Sakhalin. Thus while coal and oil production has tended to decline, gas production has increased in recent years.
The political and economic systems created in the late 1920's in northern Sakhalin and in the late 1940's in southern Sakhalin survived practically unchanged right up to the late 1980's and early 1990's. Only in the late 1980's did life on Sakhalin and the Kurils begin to make a qualitative shift. The first cracks in the foundation of the Soviet political system on the island appeared on 21 May 1988, when residents of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk took to the streets to demand the ouster of the heads of the Sakhalin Regional Committee of the Communist Party. This spontaneous (or, what is equally likely, very artfully organized) outburst by Sakhalin residents, the first ever recorded in the history of Soviet Sakhalin, was officially blessed after the fact by CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The Communist authorities of Sakhalin Region were forced to back down, and local Party leader Pyotr Tretya-kov was sent into retirement.
The Party's regional organization fared poorly in the subsequent elections of delegates to the USSR and Russian Soviets of People's Deputies (in 1989 and 1990, respectively), as well as elections to Regional and local Soviets (also in 1990). Following the failure of the August 1991 Moscow coup the activities of the Communist Party were at first suspended, then entirely outlawed on the territory of the Russian Federation, signaling a total collapse of the old order.
However, the collapse of the totalitarian system does not ipso facto signify a transition to democracy. Authoritarian regimes are arising in the Newly Independent States now forming amidst the ruins of the immense Soviet empire. Russia in the fall of 1991 veered toward a regime under strong presidential authority. Officials who once were elected by their local Soviets to wield executive power in Regions and Krays throughout the Russian Federation were replaced with administrators appointed by the Russian President
The economy of Sakhalin and the Kurils is experiencing broad structural changes in the early 1990's associated with the establishment of free market economic relations. To study and analyze the new processes at work now is a task for the next generation of historians.