8 Conclusion
At rst glance the Caucasus and Japan, separated by the vast Eurasian continent, were
unlikely political partners. Yet it was no simple coincidence that brought them to-
gether. Just as Poland and Japan came together against their perceived common foe
(initially the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union),¹the Caucasus and Japan found
in each other allies in the common aim of dismembering rst Russia and then the So-
viet Union. Having fallen far short of their goal, their long-lasting relations are now
almost completely forgotten. The secrecy of their collaboration has meant that many
relevant documents have been lost. This history of Eurasian collaboration, however,
should not be dismissed merely as a curious historical episode.
Caucasian national aspirations, like those of many other nations under Western
colonial rule, were greatly stimulated by Japan’s challenge to the Russian Empire.
Japan’s support for them contributed in one way or another to its victory over Russia in- The victory of a small Asian constitutional state over the biggest autocratic em-
pire in the world opened a new chapter in world history. In the Caucasus as elsewhere,
numerous small nations now believed that liberation from their imperial masters was
possible. World War I led to the collapse of the four empires in Central and Eastern Eu-
rope and the independence of many national groups, those in the Caucasus included.
But the independence of the Caucasians proved short-lived, as they were then con-
quered by Moscow and incorporated as constituents into a reestablished empire in the
form of the Soviet Union. The Caucasians repeatedly challenged Soviet power in the
1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Their challenge was supported from abroad by émigrés, who
were in turn assisted by countries whose interests coincided with those of the Cau-
casians: Poland and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, and Germany during World War II.
Japan’s role in this history of the Caucasian struggle for liberation is the least known.
Yet its strategy was probably the most extensive, encompassing bases from the Far
East to the Middle East to Western Europe: it was, literally, a Eurasian operation.
The ve-year plan of subversion in the Soviet Caucasus that Japan and Germany
jointly devised in 1937 was the most signi cant of its kind. A number of operations,
including clandestine missions into the Caucasus, were carried out. Yet ultimately the
practical di culties proved overwhelming. Germany and Japan distrusted each other,
and political discord, commonplace among the émigré groups, made it di cult to act
in unison. Moreover, sponsoring their subversion had to be done clandestinely, be-
cause, if revealed, it would have caused diplomatic crises. Communication and co-
ordination on a Eurasian scale presented special di culties of their own. Links with
the Soviet Caucasus were hard to establish, and dangerous because Soviet provoca-
tion and counterespionage were ubiquitous. It is safe to assume that nearly all Cau-
1 See Hiroaki Kuromiya and Andrzej Pepłoński,Między Warszawą a Tokio: Polsko-Japońska współ-
praca wywiadowcza 1904–1944(Toruń: Adam Marszałek, 2009).©2016 Hiroaki Kuromiya and Georges Mamoulia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.