The Anti-Comintern Pact Ë 149
America.”⁸⁶Japan was a force that represented the “national” instead of the “interna-
tional.” Japan’s historical mission was to liberate itself and Asia from European im-
perialism. The enslaved nationalities under Soviet Communism could see no danger
from Japan or Germany. In fact, Japan was the “fortress of peace and order” in Asia,
and Japan and Germany represented the forces against the Third International in the
world.⁸⁷
The Caucasus group, however, either underestimated or ignored Japan’s imperial
ambitions. While defending Japan in world public opinion, it vastly overestimated
its military capability and believed, after Japan’s military actions developed into full-
edged war in 1937, that eventually it would place China under control. China, ac-
cording to the group, was in semianarchy and not a state, and its existence was sup-
ported by the Soviet Union. The Sino-Japanese war was thus in fact a war for the lib-
eration of Asia from Russian imperialism.⁸⁸Nothing was said of the atrocities Japan
committed in China (the Nanjing massacre in 1937, for example). The group believed,
or hoped, that Germany and Britain would draw together against the Soviet Union,
praising Adolf Hitler as a “genius-leader [genial’nyu vozhd’].”⁸⁹It was, however, silent
on the imperialist nature of Nazism or its blatant racism or the Kristallnacht pogrom
of 1938. Yet there is no indication that it subscribed to the political ideology of Nazism
or Japanese militarism. In all likelihood, like statesmen all over the world, the Cauca-
sus group thought and acted merely or mainly in the interests of its particular politi-
cal goals. Japan and Germany supported the group out of their own strategic interests.
The Caucasus group did unequivocally declare, however, that no external force should
dictate its will in the Caucasus.⁹⁰
This does not mean that there was no dissent within the Caucasus group. Vakhtang
Tsitsishvili, a Francophile, for example, left the group in 1937 in opposition to its pro-Axis orientation.⁹¹
6.4 The Anti-Comintern Pact
The so-called Anti-Comintern Pact signed by Japan and Germany in November 1936
decisively set the course of events leading to World War II. Neither Japan nor Germany
was united in this new step toward recon gurating the international order. In conclud-86 Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz,”, 147.
87 Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz,”, 145–56, 154–55, 179–81,
and 73.
88 Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz,”, 348 andKavkaz, 1937,
no. 8, 1-3, 1938, no. 5, 21, and 1938, no. 10, 6–7.
89 Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz,”, 287, 412–13.
90 Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz,”391.
91 Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 252–53.