Conclusion Ë 197
really mattered: once the war was over, Japan’s interest in the Caucasus temporarily
waned. (Akashi himself did not abandon his Caucasian friends, and theSiriusoper-
ation proved much more successful than the famousJohn Graftonaair.) And even
though Japan was the strongest supporter of Caucasian interests against the Soviet
Union in the 1930s, it did, and could do, little to nothing for the Caucasus during World
War II. Poland was a more consistent supporter of the Caucasians’ anti-Soviet inter-
ests. Yet Poland alone was too weak to protect them on its own, and indeed it was
destroyed by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. By contrast, it was Germany that
rendered critical support to the Caucasians during World Wars I and II. In both in-
stances, however, Germany was defeated. In the latter war, the position of Caucasian
émigrés was much more precarious because of the racist policy of Nazi Germany and
its denial of the aspirations of Caucasians for political independence. People like Bam-
mat harbored no illusions about German political goals. But they did retain illusions
about Japan’s “good will.” Many Caucasians nevertheless worked with the Germans
in hopes they would prevail in the end. Their hopes proved delusive.
There is no evidence that those who collaborated with Nazi Germany shared
Nazi ideology. Many did share elements of fascist ideology (nationalism, skepticism
of laissez-faire capitalism, and opposition to the Versailles settlement in the wake
of World War I). They initially believed that Hitler was a “genius leader,” and they
greeted Japan as a liberator even as Japan was trying to destroy China. (One should
add that at the beginning, even the liberally minded Prometheans also welcomed
Japan’s aggression in China, which they considered an empire.) Yet there is no evi-
dence to suggest that Bammat and others shared the racist and anti-Semitic ideology
of Nazism. In German-occupied Paris, Mikheil Kedia, who worked with the Germans,
even took trouble to protect Jews and Social Democrats. One simply does not know
how much they knew about the Nazi destruction of the European Jewry. It is possi-
ble they knew very little or knew but did little about it. In any event, there is much
evidence that their collaboration was purely tactical, although this does not absolve
them from having been party to the German war eort (if not necessarily Nazi war
crimes).
Ideologically, Japan’s emphasis on liberating oppressed nations was far more dan-
gerous to Moscow than was Nazism or fascism. It had strong appeal for those living
under colonial power (including the Soviet Empire and China).²Among the Inner Mon-
golians, for example, who feared China’s imperial domination, Japan’s conquest of
Manchuria meant autonomy for Mongolians. Owen Lattimore, an American specialist
of Mongolia and no friend of Japan, even stated in 1934 that
2 That was why Moscow fabricated (or was at least a party to the fabrication and spreading of) the
infamous “Tanaka Memorial,” purportedly laying out Japan’s imperial conquest of Asia. See p. 68 of
the present book.