Japanese occupation of northern Sakhalin

Occupation of northern Sakhalin
1920-1925
Japanese map of Sakhalin above the 50th parallel
Japanese map of Sakhalin above the 50th parallel
StatusMilitary occupation
History 
12 March 1920
• Japanese advance across 50th parallel
April 21 1920
25 January 1925
• Japanese withdrawal
21 May 1925

The Japanese occupation of northern Sakhalin was a military occupation by the Japanese Empire of the northern half of Sakhalin island during the Japanese intervention in Siberia. The occupation lasted from April 21, 1920[1] to May 21, 1925. The occupation was spurred by the Nikolayevsk Incident and ended with the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention in 1925.

Background

In 1905, the Russo-Japanese War ended with Treaty of Portsmouth dividing Sakhalin on the 50th parallel north. The southern half would be annexed to Japan and become Karafuto Prefecture, while the northern half would remain with the Russian Empire. In the North Sakhalin Plain, petroleum deposits had been known to exist since 1894. The southern half was devoid of such deposits.[2]

Russian Civil War

In 1917, the Russian Civil War began. White Russia remained in control of the country's Far East, and permit geological surveys conducted by the Japanese in late 1918 and early 1919. The results were encouraging enough that on May 1 1919, the Hokushinkai (北辰会, lit. 'North-Star Association') was formed in order to exploit north Sakhalin's oil deposits. This syndicate included the Mitsubishi Corporation's mining company, Nippon Oil, and the Okura Zaibatsu, among other Japanese firms.[3]

Concurrently, the White Army was unable to halt the Red Army's advance eastward. During the new year celebrations of 1920 (January 14 in the new style), a Bolshevik coup in Vladivostok against the White forces of Sergey Rozanov transpired. On Sakhalin, a Revkom helmed by Alexander Tsapko was established. By January 31, the newly-established Zemstvo of Maritime Territory claimed Sakhalin under its jurisdiction.[4]

Nikolayevsk Incident

Pretext for the occupation came in March of 1920, with the Nikolayevsk incident, in which thousands of the city's Russian and Japanese residents were killed by troops led by Yakov Tryapitsyn.[5] Triapitsyn assuming power in Nikolayevsk gave him the means to exercise power over northern Sakhalin. On the island itself, this authority would be delegated to his subordinate A. Krivulin. This resulted in the dissolution of the regional council and establishment of Soviet power in northern Sahaklin.[6] Japan claimed occupation was necessary to protect Japanese residents of the Russian Far East from the sort of massacres which had occurred in Nikolayevsk.

Occupation

On April 21, 1920, the Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser Mishima docked 2,000 troops in Alexandrovsk without any resistance from the Red Army. In July, the Sakhalin Province Expeditionary Army was be established to carry out the occupation. By December 1924, the occupation was maintained by 1,900 Japanese soldiers, of whom 1,200 were stationed in Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky. The other 700 were scattered throughout other settlements in the island's northern half.[7]

With the expectation that northern Sakhalin would be annexed to Japan, streets were renamed, the Emperor's Birthday became a holiday, and Japanese laws were enforced. Some remaining Bolsheviks such as Alexander Tsapko were subject to summary execution. The thousands of settlers, merchants, and soldiers which arrived strained northern Sakhalin's preexisting population.[8] Though the Russian population was not excluded outright from participating in the economy, in spite of the massive influx of foreign labor and businesses.[9] During the occupation, 11 new schools opened in northern Sakhalin. While many of these taught their lessons in the Japanese language, Russian teachers and textbooks were still employed. Before 1923, the occupation government ordered 2,365 Russian textbooks from Vladivostok while Japan's expeditionary forces still occupied the city.[10]

Diplomacy and negotiations

By April 1920, the northern half of Sakhalin fell under the jurisdiction of the Far Eastern Republic. Due to his actions during the occupation of Nikolayevsk and continued noncompliance with directives from Soviet leadership, Yakov Tryapitsyn was executed by the Red Army on July 9 1920.[11]

On July 16 1920, United States Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby expressed reservations about the occupation in a private note to the Japanese.[12] In response, they justified the occupation with Nikolayevsk's incorporation into Russian Sakhalin's administrative region in 1914. As well as the Nikolayevsk incident making occupation of northern Sakhalin "unavoidable in the present circumstances where there is no other means for securing redress for the injuries so painfully received."[13] Colby's successor, Charles Evans Hughes, asserted that the United States "cannot agree to the Japanese government taking any measures that would violate Russia’s territorial integrity."[14]

From August to November 1921, talks between Japanese and the Far Eastern Republic would occur in Dairen (now Dalian). Among other conditions, Japan proposed to the Republic that northern Sakhalin be leased to Japan for 80 years, which the Republic refused. With an agreement unable to be reached, the occupation continued.[15]

Japanese Withdrawal

Negotiations continued following the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, with Lev Karakhan acting as the USSR's delegate. For the Soviets, an end to the occupation was a prerequisite for any agreement between the two countries. After fostering competition between the American firm Sinclair Oil and the Hokushinkai for Sakhalin's oil, the USSR granted Japanese firms exclusive rights.[16] This was to the exclusion of Sinclair, which had previously been granted drilling and surveying rights by the Far Eastern Republic.[17] Sinclair protested to the US government. Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes responded, stating an intervention in Sinclair's favor would be "impossible" on account of the US not having recognized the USSR.[18]

On January 25, 1925, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a treaty establishing diplomatic and consular relations between the two countries. Protocol “A” of the convention stipulated a Japanese withdrawal from Northern Sakhalin by May 15, 1925. Following the withdrawal, the territory would immediately come under the sovereignty of the USSR. While northern Sakhalin would return to Soviet administration, Japanese oil and coal concessions would persist for the next two decades, notably with the North Sakhalin Oil Company.

Population

Demographic chart of northern Sakhalin, February 1923[19]
  1. Russian 6,800 (37.9%)
  2. Japanese 5,017 (28.0%)
  3. Native 2,738 (15.3%)
  4. Chinese 1,836 (10.2%)
  5. Korean 1,535 (8.56%)

During the occupation, thousands of Japanese settlers would move to northern Sakhalin, followed by over a thousand Korean and Chinese people.[20] The Mitsubishi corporation would hire Koreans to work in northern Sakhalin's coal mines.[8]

The population during the occupation would peak at 17,926 in February of 1923 and lower to 13,215 in 1925. This decline was mainly driven by the withdrawal of Japanese settlers.[19] At the conclusion of the occupation in May 1925, 2,548 people in northern Sakhalin repatriated to Japan.[21] In 1926, 757 Chinese, 487 Korean, and 244 Japanese people remained in northern Sakhalin.[20]

Repatriates from northern Sakhalin by destination and ethnicity, 1925[21]
Destination Ethnicity
Japanese Korean Russian Total
Naichi 980 183 35 1298
Karafuto 760 330 40 1130
Korea 0 220 0 220
Total 1740 733 75 2548

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Действия Японии в Приморском крае. Владивосток, 1921, стр. 63; Рейхберг, указ. соч., стр. 142,145". Archived from the original on 2013-10-23. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
  2. ↑ Sakhalin. London: British Foreign Office. 1920. p. 35.
  3. ↑ Stephan, John J. (1971). Sakhalin: a history. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198215509.
  4. ↑ Высоков, М. С.; Василевский, А. А.; Костанов, А. И.; Ищенко, М. И. (2008). История Сахалина и Курильских островов с древнейших времен до начала XXI столетия. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Сахалинское книжное издательство. pp. 382–406.
  5. ↑ Linkhoeva, Tatiana (2018). "The Russian Revolution and the Emergence of Japanese Anticommunism". Revolutionary Russia. 31 (2): 268~269. doi:10.1080/09546545.2019.1539461 – via .tandfonline.
  6. ↑ Vysokov 2008, p. 392.
  7. ↑ "Русско-японские отношения на Северном Сахалине в период японской оккупации". Archived from the original on 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
  8. 1 2 Stephan 1971, p. 104.
  9. ↑ 竹野, 学 (21 February 2013). "保障占領下北樺太における日本人の活動 (1920-1925)". 經濟學研究. 62 (3). Retrieved 29 July 2026.
  10. ↑ Pajčadze, Svetlana Sergeevna (2022). Identity, Language and Education of Sakhalin Japanese and Koreans: Continual Diaspora (1st ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. ISBN 978-3-031-13797-6.
  11. ↑ Тепляков, Алексей Георгиевич (2013). "Партизанские Социальные Чистки На Востоке России В 1919-1920 ГГ.: Роговщина и Тряпицынщина". Проблемы Истории Массовых Политических Репрессий В СССР. 1953-2013: 60 Лет Без Сталина. Осмысление Прошлого Советского Государства: 135–142 – via Russian Science Citation Index.
  12. ↑ Stephan 1971, p. 100.
  13. ↑ "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1920, Volume III". history.state.gov. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of State. 13 August 1920. p. 522-525. Retrieved 29 July 2026.
  14. ↑ "О японской нефтяной концессии на Северном Сахалине - Добыча нефти - История нефтяной промышленности - Каталог статей - НефтеПро". Archived from the original on 2020-02-20. Retrieved 2017-01-18.
  15. ↑ Японский план «умиротворения» российского Дальнего Востока («Предварительный протокол реформ, подлежащих введению на территории бывшей Российской империи, ныне именуемой Дальневосточная республика»). Публикация Ширяевой В. С., Чумаковой Н. С. // Военно-исторический журнал. — 2009. — № 4. — С.17-22.
  16. ↑ "Oil of Russia : oilru.com : No. 1, 2004 / THE SAKHALIN ANOMALY". oilru.com.
  17. ↑ Stephan 1971, p. 103.
  18. ↑ "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923, Volume II". history.state.gov. 17 March 1923. pp. 804–805. Retrieved 22 August 2026.
  19. 1 2 Takeno 2013, p. 35.
  20. 1 2 Pajčadze 2022.
  21. 1 2 Takeno 2013, p. 46.
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