Eighty years ago Second World War ends amidst auguries of the Cold War

 

 The US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. It is estimated to have killed one fifth of the population of 195,000, a smaller percentage than the bomb on Hiroshima.   Nagasaki's topography with lines of terrain relief dispersed the blast and the bomb fell in the outskirts and not plumb centre as at Hiroshima.

The Soviet Union launched an attack on Japanese occupied territory, just meeting the commitment made at Yalta to begin war on Japan within three months of Germany's surrender. The Soviet Union was able to reverse Japanese gains made in the war of 1905 and retook South Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. It also seized Korea north of the 38th parallel. These have remained in Russian or communist hands since.  Port Arthur became a Soviet navy base albeit under notional Chinese sovereignty.

Japan bowed to allied demands and surrendered  unconditionally, albeit with a rider that the position of the emperor should remain sacrosanct. When Hirohito broadcast to the nation to announce the surrender it was the first time the vast majority of the population had heard his voice. It is still actively debated how much the decision was due to the atomic bombing and how much to Soviet intervention. The collapse of Japanese power in Manchuria was certainly rapid but did not compromise what could have been done to resist invasion of the home islands.

Marshal Petain was sentenced to death with a recommendation for clemency. He was convicted of treason and collaboration with the  German occupiers but there was no specific mention of the Vichy regime's crimes against the French population or its suppport for the Holocaust. De Gaulle, as he had always intended to, commuted the death sentence to one of imprisonment for life.

In his first speech as Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin made plain that the Labour government was willing to take a firm line towards the Soviet Union. He stated that British policy was to prevent one form of totalitarianism being replaced by another, a clear indication that he would not mask the nature of the Stalin's regime. Britain would not recognize the puppet governments established in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, but Bevin dodged a clear statement on the future of Poland.

George Orwell's novel Animal Farm was finally published by Secker & Warburg having been rejected by a number of houses including his long-term publisher Victor Gollancz.   It was held to be excessively anti-Soviet in an atmosphere still imbued with genuine admiration for the Russian fight against Nazism, mixed with a desire to appease Stalin. The Ministry of Information, probably in the person of a Soviet mole, had advised against publication.

This blog is switching to covering events in the week following the date of appearance so the current number spans a fortnight. The next will look at events of the week 23-30 August 1945