page_title: Kantokuen
section_title: 1937 and beyond
hierarchical_section_title: Kantokuen / Background / 1937 and beyond
caption_attribution_description: Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov, Officer of NKVD
context_page_description: KANTOKUEN was an operational plan created by the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army for an invasion and occupation of the far eastern region of the Soviet Union, capitalizing on the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in June 1941. Involving seven Japanese armies as well as a major portion of the empire's naval and air forces, it would have been the largest single combined arms operation in Japanese history, and one of the largest of all time.
  The plan was approved in part by Emperor Hirohito on July 7 and involved a three-step readiness phase followed by a three-phase offensive to isolate and destroy the Soviet defenders in no more than six months. It envisioned heavy use of chemical and biological weapons. After growing conflict with simultaneous preparations for an offensive in Southeast Asia, together with the demands of the Second Sino-Japanese War and dimming prospects for a swift German victory in Europe, Kantokuen began to fall out of favor at Imperial General Headquarters and was eventually abandoned following increased sanctions by the United States and its allies in late July and early August 1941.
context_section_description: Before the outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937, Soviet-Japanese relations began to deteriorate rapidly. The Kwantung Army responsible for governing Manchuria, previously elevated from a minor garrison command to the level of a general headquarters, became increasingly bellicose towards its northerly neighbor. The army began to act as a "self-contained, autonomous" entity almost entirely independent from the central government in Tokyo. With this conduct came a corresponding rise in Soviet-Japanese border conflicts, culminating in the Kanchatzu Island Incident in which a Soviet river gunboat was sunk by Japanese shore batteries, killing 37 personnel. This, other episodes, and the reciprocal political and military subversion by both sides (the Japanese recruiting White Russian agents and the Soviets sending material support to China, before and during the war with Japan) led figures on both sides to conclude that a future war was likely, even, where some in the Kwantung Army were concerned, inevitable.
  After war began between China and Japan in July 1937, Japanese options for Manchuria became very limited. The Soviets capitalized on this vulnerability by signing a non-aggression pact with China and supplying them with arms and equipment. Pravda's publication of February 13, 1938, noted that
  ...the Japanese Army, which possesses a strength of about 1,200,000 men, 2,000 planes, 1,800 tanks, and 4,500 heavy artillery pieces, committed about 1,000,000 troops and a greater part of its arms in China.
  — Pravda
  The Japanese predicament did not prevent them from continuing to formulate war plans against the USSR; their operational plan of 1937, though crude and deficient from a logistical perspective, provided the basis for all subsequent developments through 1944. The plan (and most others after it) called for a sudden initial onslaught against the Soviet 'Maritime Province' facing the Pacific Ocean (also referred to as "Primorye"), coupled with holding actions in the north and west. Should the first phase meet with success, the other fronts would likewise transition to the offensive after the arrival of reinforcements.
  In 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began the Great Purge of opposition including the Red Army officer corps, killing or incarcerating tens of thousands of high-ranking figures, often on trumped up or fictitious charges. The Red Army's fighting power was severely weakened, an observation seemingly confirmed by its relatively poor showings at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and the Winter War against Finland in 1940. Fear led people to defect or flee abroad; on June 13, 1938, Genrikh Lyushkov, Chief of the Far Eastern Department of the NKVD (Soviet secret police), crossed the border into Manchuria and turned himself in to the IJA, bringing with him a wealth of secret documents on Soviet military strengths and dispositions in the region. Lyushkov's treason was a major intelligence coup for Japan, and he continued to work against his country up until his disappearance amidst the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945.
caption: Commissar 3rd Class Lyushkov, photographed prior to 1939
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