The entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan and the victorious operations of Soviet troops in the Far East in a short time decided the fate of Japanese militarism and led to the end of World War II.

At the Moscow meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and Great Britain, held in December 1945, it was decided that the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Powers in Japan would carry out all measures necessary to implement the conditions of "surrender, occupation, and control of Japan." China also joined this decision.

As a result of diplomatic negotiations between the interested States-the USSR, the United States, Great Britain, China, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands - an agreement was reached that the main Japanese war criminals would be tried by an International military Tribunal consisting of representatives of the nine named States. India and the Philippines later joined the agreement.

Thus, the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo consisted of 11 judges. The Tribunal was created on the basis of the order "On the organization of an International Military Tribunal for the Far East", signed on January 19, 1946 by the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Powers in the Far East, American General D. MacArthur. He also approved the statute of the tribunal.

According to this order, the Chief prosecutor was appointed, who was responsible for investigating cases and maintaining the prosecution.

It is important to note that the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo began its work two months after Churchill on March 5, 1946, in the presence of US President George W. Bush. Truman made a strongly anti-Soviet speech in Fulton (USA), in which he proposed to form an Anglo-American military alliance "to fight communism." In this speech, Churchill, in fact, set out the program of the "cold war" unleashed by the West against the USSR. Its beginning definitely affected the work of the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo.

Nikolaev Alexander Nikolaevich, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Doctor of Law, participant of the Great Patriotic War.

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The Tokyo Tribunal was appointed by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Powers, consisting of the following eleven judges: V. Pel (India); B. Volling (Holland); S. McDougall (Canada); W. Patrick (Great Britain); M. Kramer (USA); W. Webb (Australia); D. May (China); I. M. Zaryanov (USSR); A. Beriar (France); E. Northcroft (New Zealand); D. Jaranilla (Philippines). Australian Judge W. Webb was appointed President of the Tribunal.

It is interesting to note that the Chairman of the Webb with special respect treated the member of the tribunal from the USSR-Major General of Justice I. M. Zaryanov, who with his experience, knowledge, tactful behavior aroused the sympathy of others.

The main prosecutor at the Tokyo trial was a representative of the United States-J. R. R. Tolkien. Keenan, who was recalled to the United States some time after his appointment and did not return to Tokyo until August 1947. After consultations in Washington, he significantly changed his position from the one he held at the beginning of the Tokyo trial. His behavior at the tribunal was undoubtedly influenced by the new, sharply anti-Soviet, foreign policy program of the US government, set out on March 12, 1947 by President Truman ("the Truman doctrine"). The policy of the Cold War was elevated to the rank of the official foreign policy of the United States. Upon arriving in Tokyo, Keenan recommended that General MacArthur release 23 Japanese prisoners accused of war crimes from Sugamo Prison. Among them were representatives of the large monopoly capital of Japan. MacArthur, by order of August 1947, released these individuals.

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At a tribunal hearing on September 25, 1947, Keenan, under cross-examination by Admiral Okada, made every effort to show that Emperor Hirohito of Japan did not want to start a war, and in support of this, stated: "... I, as the chief prosecutor appointed according to the Statute, respectfully draw the attention of the tribunal to the fact that the persons currently on board in the dock, we hold those responsible for unleashing this war. If other people were also responsible, they would also be in the dock."*

The chief prosecutor's statement suggested that the Emperor of Japan, as the supreme commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, was not guilty of starting the war, since he was not in the dock.

The defense of the main Japanese war criminals was carried out by American and Japanese lawyers, and each defendant had his own personal lawyer. American defense lawyers have repeatedly stressed that they arrived at the International Military Tribunal on the appointment of the US Secretary of War and speak on behalf of the American people. The main American defender was Major Blakeney.

The Japanese Defense Team was formed from leading lawyers in Japan. The main Japanese advocate was Doctor of Law Uzawa, a member of the upper house of the Japanese Parliament.

In the dock of the Tokyo military Tribunal were 28 major Japanese war criminals, each of whom had a very long track record. So, in career X. Tojo * * listed 120 official positions that he held at various times, 23 honorary titles and 77 awards. Of the 28 Japanese figures tried by the International Military Tribunal, 18 were professional military personnel.

The main war criminal on trial at the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo was General X. Tojo, who was essentially the political and military leader of Japan. He took a leading role in the implementation of the Japanese military's plans to establish dominance not only in East Asia, but also in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. At court sessions, he was dressed in a Japanese military uniform, but without the general's shoulder straps. Sitting in the dock, among his former subordinate ministers and military leaders, Tojo tried to maintain the Prime Minister's aplomb. But he knew what sentence awaited him, and even before the trial, he tried to commit suicide, but failed. He was held in a military hospital for a month before being incarcerated in Sughama Prison. While already in prison, he tried to commit suicide again, but the prison policeman prevented this.

What were the main Japanese war criminals tried for? According to the Indictment drawn up on behalf of the eleven United Nations and submitted to the International Military Tribunal on 29 April 1946, 28 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in the statutes of the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

* Transcript of the Tokyo trial, September 25, 1947.

** X. Tojo-Full General, Minister of War in 1940-1941; from December 1941 to July 1944-Prime Minister and at the same time Minister of War.

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The opening part of the Indictment contained a general political description of the criminal activities of the ruling circles of Japan. In particular, it was pointed out that for many years "the domestic and foreign policy of Japan was led and directed by a criminal militaristic clique, and this policy was the cause of serious world upheavals that threatened the interests of the peoples of the world and the people of Japan themselves."

The indictment consisted of 55 counts, containing general charges against all the defendants, indicating the guilt of each individual, and was signed by the chief prosecutor on behalf of the United States and ten accusers from other countries, including the USSR.

In paragraph 1 of the Indictment, it was charged with the preparation or execution of a conspiracy of a general plan aimed at establishing Japan's military, political and economic dominance over East Asia, the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

This charge exposed the idea put forward by Tojo, Togo, Hashimoto, Minami, and other Japanese leaders to create a" Great Eastern Co-flourishing Sphere " under the leadership of the Japanese nation, which would include Japan proper, Manchuria, China, the Philippines, Australia, the Dutch East Indies, the Aleutian Islands, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, and New Guinea and some other countries, as well as the eastern part of the Soviet Union.

The first open session of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East began on May 3, 1946 in Tokyo in the building of the former Ministry of War.

In a brief opening speech, Tribunal President Webb stated::

"We will conduct our hearing as quickly as possible, without violating the fairness of the accused." After that, the indictment was announced and the defendants were interviewed. All of them pleaded not guilty to all charges in the indictment.

On June 4, 1946, the prosecution phase began. Chief Prosecutor Keenan made a big speech at the trial, which, in particular, said:: "This is not an ordinary process, as it is part of the battle that civilization is waging to save the entire world from total destruction. This threat of annihilation does not come from the forces of nature, but from the pre-planned deliberate actions of both individuals and members of various groups who want to bring the world to a premature end in their mad quest for domination."

After Keenan's speech, the prosecution began presenting evidence. The Tribunal accepted 2,485 documents and 561 written witness statements from the prosecution as evidence, and questioned 109 witnesses in court. The transcript of this stage of the trial totaled 16,259 pages.

October 8-21, 1946, the Soviet prosecution presented evidence under the section of the indictment "Japanese aggression against the USSR". The prosecutor from the USSR, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. A. Golunsky, made a vivid speech.

At the end of the nine-month prosecution phase, on February 24, 1947, the defense phase began, which lasted almost 10 months. American and Japanese lawyers launched a head-on attack against the tribunal and the prosecution. They first challenged President Webb of the Tribunal, then Jaranilla, a member of the Tribunal from the Philippines. They then made a number of petitions, the main meaning of which was that the tribunal was a non-governmental organization.-

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all the defendants are innocent and should therefore be released from custody. Having considered all these petitions and heard the arguments of the defense and prosecution, the tribunal found the petitions unfounded and rejected them.

After the judicial investigation was completed, the final speech of the prosecution was read out. Unlike the Nuremberg trials, where each of the four main accusers spoke independently, the Tokyo trial had only one closing speech from the prosecution. The opening section was delivered by the Chief Prosecutor, and the remaining sections were delivered by additional prosecutors and their assistants. It took 14 days of the tribunal's work to read out the entire prosecution speech. Its volume was 3126 pages of the transcript of the trial.

The prosecution's speech summed up the two-year trial, revealed its political significance, presented an analysis and evaluation of the evidence put forward by the prosecution, exposed and criticized the defense's maneuvers, showed the inferiority of the evidence presented by it, the groundlessness of its conclusions and conclusions, considered legal issues related to the trial, gave a detailed analysis of crimes committed by all the defendants and each of them separately concluded that the defendants committed the gravest crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity and should be severely punished.

In the opening part of the prosecution's speech, in particular, it said:"...The evidence shows that the ruling clique of Japan pursued an aggressive policy against the USSR, committed acts of aggression, and for a number of years prepared a large-scale war against the Soviet Union."

The Soviet prosecutor, reading out the section of his final speech concerning Japan's aggression against the USSR, noted that the purpose of the tribunal's verdict was "to condemn Japanese aggression against peace-loving peoples, to severely punish the main Japanese war criminals and thereby help Japan's transformation into a peaceful democratic state, to protect the world from new aggression, and to warn those who, blinded by the the idea of seizing foreign lands and subjugating peoples, would want to do something similar to what Hitler's Japanese associates developed their criminal activities for."

On November 4, 1948, the text of the verdict, which took up 1,214 pages, was prepared and agreed upon. It is noteworthy that the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg was 340 pages.

The verdict consisted of three main parts: Part I (A) set out general issues related to the judicial process; in particular, Part II (B) described specific criminal acts and facts established during the judicial investigation; part III (C) formulated the conclusions of the tribunal on individual counts of the Indictment, established guilt each defendant's sentence was determined for each of them.

A significant place in the verdict was given to Japanese aggression against the USSR. In particular, it was written:: "The Tribunal considers that the aggressive war against the USSR was planned and planned by Japan during the period under review (1928-1945), that it was one of the main elements of Japanese national policy and that its purpose was to seize the territory of the USSR in the Far East."

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The verdict contained facts proving that immediately after the capture of Manchuria, Japan began planning a war of conquest against the USSR in order to " advance at least as far as Lake Baikal."

"In 1942," it said, " the Japanese general Staff and the Kwantung Army headquarters developed new plans for an aggressive war against the USSR, which remained in force for 1943. According to these plans, the war against the USSR was to begin after the concentration of about 30 divisions in Manchuria. These plans, as well as those drawn up earlier, were not implemented. At that time, the military prospects of the Axis countries - Germany, Italy, and Japan - began to deteriorate. They were forced to turn to strategic defense, and such an adventure as Japan's planned attack on the USSR became less and less realistic... The Tribunal found that, in any case, until 1943, Japan not only planned an aggressive war against the USSR, but also actively continued to prepare for such a war."

The verdict stated that the so-called "Anti-Comintern Pact" concluded between Japan and Germany on November 25, 1936, which Italy joined a year later, as well as the pact on the union of Germany, Japan and Italy of September 27, 1940, were primarily directed against the USSR.

As for the neutrality pact concluded by the Soviet Union and Japan on April 13, 1941 in Moscow, the verdict noted that Japan was not sincere in concluding this pact and used it as a screen for providing assistance to Germany and for preparing an attack on the USSR.

The tribunal in its verdict recognized that Japan waged a war of aggression against China and unleashed a war in the Pacific, committing aggression against the United States, Great Britain, Holland, France and other countries.

The verdict described in detail the war crimes of the Japanese military, which are condemned by international conventions, including the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War of 1929. It contained numerous facts of mass murder, torture, and torture of prisoners of war and civilians.

As noted above, there were 28 people in the dock at the beginning of the Tokyo trial. Defendants Matsuoka and Nagamo died during the trial, and the case against them was dismissed. Defendant Okawa turned out to be mentally ill, was declared insane,and the case against him was suspended.

Thus, by the end of the trial, 25 people remained in the dock, of which 7 people were sentenced to death by hanging; 16 people - to life imprisonment; one - to 20 and one - to 7 years of imprisonment.

In violation of all norms of international law, the US Supreme Court accepted for its consideration the appeals of convicts against the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. Only under the pressure of international public opinion did the US Government oppose the intervention of the Supreme Court of its country in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. The Supreme Court of the United States was forced to dismiss the appeals of the convicts, and the sentence of death by hanging against seven convicts was carried out on the night of December 22-23, 1948, between 0 hours and 0 hours 30 minutes in the courtyard of Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.

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The trial of the main Japanese war criminals in Tokyo, as well as the trial of the main German war criminals in Nuremberg, played an important historical role.

The International Court of Justice has condemned the war of Aggression as the gravest crime against humanity and severely punished those who planned, prepared and unleashed wars in order to establish domination over other countries.

The court in Tokyo revealed the political, economic, ideological and military mechanism of Japan's preparation for aggressive wars, the nature and goals of Japanese militarism, its plans to enslave other peoples, its criminal wars of conquest, as a result of which the Japanese people themselves, as well as the peoples of other countries, suffered countless human victims and huge material losses.

The Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals, through their verdicts, created a fundamental international legal framework for the trial of war criminals, regardless of their rank and official position.

It should be noted that at the Tokyo trial, Japanese lawyers did not raise the issue of the Kuril Islands and did not question the legality of their transfer to the Soviet Union following the decision taken at the Crimean Conference of the leaders of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain in 1945. Moreover, the defense's closing argument stated: "If any action of the Japanese Government was illegal under international law or was declared illegal under an international treaty that Japan agreed to abide by, or if Japan was defeated in a war, the entire nation must bear the consequences of it. It must, depending on its obligations, pay reparations, or compensate for damage, or it must be deprived of its territory."

As noted in the verdict of the Tokyo Tribunal, Japan, in violation of international law and international treaties, planned, unleashed and waged aggressive wars against China, the USSR, the United States, Great Britain and other countries and was defeated in them. On September 2, 1945, she signed the Act of Surrender. Consequently, Japan's loss of the Kuril Islands as a result of World War II is well-founded and legitimate, and Tokyo's current claims to these islands seem groundless.

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