After the Khabarovsk Trials of 1949: the USSR, US and the Attempt to Organize a New Tribunal at the Far East during the Cold War
Keywords:
The Khabarovsk Trials, bacteriological weapon, Unit 731, Ishii Shiro, Hirohito, Japanese war criminals, Cold War,Soviet-American relations, international relationsAbstract
After the Khabarovsk Trials of 1949 over the Japanese war criminals, who were involved in the bacteriological program and human experimentation, the USSR initiated a new trial. The Soviet leadership was willing to attract public attention and bring to court not only the key figures of Japan’s bacteriological program but also emperor Hirohito as a war criminal. That was a direct threat to the US policy in occupied Japan, and thus caused a confrontation between Moscow and Washington.
his issue brought the two superpowers to heated debates, but the Soviet attempts to accumulate a wide public support on global arena failed. The discussions were doomed to deadlock in the atmosphere of Cold War, particularly after the outbreak of the Korean War. Nevertheless, this is the problem of significant importance for understanding a complicated character of the USSR-US relations, Soviet policy toward Japan, as well as the general structure of international relations at the Far East during the Cold War.
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