The Eurasian Triangle. Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945

The Renewal of Japan’s Interests in the Caucasus Ë 123

further from there to Persia, Afghanistan, India, and even to Central Asia.⁶⁰Masatane

Kanda, a Russian specialist working in Japan’s military mission (Special Intelligence

Agency) in Harbin, emphasized the Caucasus’s signicance in his report “Materials on

Military Operations against the Soviet Union” (1928). His goals included: “To organize

anti-Communist organizations in Southern Manchuria, Korea, and Sakhalin, and, re-

sponding to opportunity, to advance them into Northern Manchuria and Russian ter-

ritory, thereby restraining the action of Russian military maneuvers; to establish an

anti-Communist government in Russia depending on the situation of military devel-

opments, and to plan the overthrow of the Communist government in coordination

with Siberia and theCaucasus.”⁶¹

The importance of the Caucasus was not lost to another Russian specialist working

in Turkey. Major Kingoro Hashimoto, Japan’s military attaché in Istanbul from 1927 to ̄

1930, became an ardent admirer of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the dynamic leader of mod-

ern Turkey, with whom he was said to have been personally acquainted.⁶²In November

1929, Hashimoto submitted to Tokyo a memorandum, “The Situation in the Caucasus

Region and Its Use for Diversion.”⁶³Hashimoto prefaced his memorandum:

The Caucasus is geographically far from the center of the Soviet Union, and its nationalities and

religions are diverse. It is an important point in the strategy against the Soviet Union in view of

the fact, among others, that Russian culture is relatively limited there. The various nationalities

in the Caucasus are, however, in conict with one another and are not in a position to coordinate

and carry out a mission. One has to say that it is very dicult to mobilize the entire Caucasus as

a group against the Soviet Union, unless one occupies it militarily and forces it.⁶⁴

Even though the Anglo-Japanese Alliance ceased in 1923, Hashimoto still believed that

Britain would be a useful partner in Japan’s strategy against the Communist regime.

He noted:

It is not impossible for Japan and Britain to work together and stimulate the territorial desire of

Turkey and Persia and to use the two countries in order to mobilize the Caucasian Muslim states.

60 AVP, f. 0146, op. 11, papka 23, d. 2, l. 53, 110, 120.
61 National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), College Park, Maryland, USA,
RG331, Doc. 2460A, 5–6 (emphasis added). As discussed in chapter 6 (see p. 140), Kanda later became
Japan’s military attaché in Turkey and played an important role in involving the Caucasians in Japan’s
strategy against the Soviet Union.
62 Subsequently Hashimoto became involved in radical military coup attempts in Japan. After their
failures, he was dismissed to the reserve units. After World War II, the Occupation Forces regarded
Hashimoto’s involvement in coup attempts as having set the tone for Japan’s subsequent military ex-
pansion and tried him as a war criminal. He was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.
63 NARA RG331, Doc. 1989. This document fell into Soviet hands and is available only as a document
submitted by Moscow as evidence of Tokyo’s war crimes. See below p. 134 for the likely cause of the
Soviet capture of this document.
64 NARA RG331, Doc. 1989, 2.