Did Truman know Hiroshima was a city?

[Sheilbh]

Sometimes discussions of these issues seem to miss some basic political facts.

For example, the United States was an electoral democracy.  Its current President - Truman - was perceived as a lightweight and political hack suddenly thrust into a great position of responsibility following the death of the most popular President in American history.  These facts were all known and yet somehow obvious conclusions that follow are missed.

FDR had publicly announced the unconditional surrender policy and repeated the formula for years.  The idea that Harry Truman, after less than 4 months in office, would consider breaking with that policy and offer terms to Japan is bonkers. It would be more rational for a Japanese statesman to bank on an alien invasion taking out the USA than to place their hopes on a change in that policy.  To the extent there were Japanese statesman acting or talking as though such a thing was a viable option, that says more about the dysfunction of Japan's political regime at the moment in time.

I totally agree - but I think if you're trying to understand Japanese decision makers in the 30s and 40s through "rationality" then you'll get nowhere. It'll just be baffled incomprehension.

And I think it is interesting to see Sato from the semi-safe distance of Moscow confronting the leadership with exactly this.

As for the A-Bomb, the American public was going to learn about it sometime before Congressional elections in Nov 46 and the next Presidential elections in Nov 48.  If the bomb had not been used in August 45 and the war had continued for months after that, what would the reaction of the US people be when they learned that this powerful weapon was left unused?  What would the families and friends of the soldiers who died in the interim say and think and do?   It is inconceivable that the weapon would not have been used.

I don't disagree with any of this. If I was saying it shouldn't have been used or wouldn't have been - that's what I'd be seeing. But I don't think that's very interesting. It happened.

What I find more interesting is Wellerstein's point about the importance of Truman to the nuclear taboo - and what caused that shift. And I don't think it was the bomb alone that caused the Japanese to surrender. After Nagasaki there are documents in their General Headquarters that basically it's like fire bombing, as people have pointed out here, and, because it relies on radioactive material, the Americans will probably take a while to get new ones. I think it's the double shock that changes the perspective that they can basically defend the Home Islands and prepare for the inevitable Soviet invasion in autumn, possibly, or spring. I also think a Soviet/communist threat involves Hirohito far, far more. But it's a nexus of factors and I think the idea that it's clear, obvious and monocausal is wrong.

I think a lot of the angst on this comes from what we understand about nuclear weapons NOW.

I think this is linked to Wellerstein's point that actually attitudes to the bomb shift incredibly quickly - with Truman. So the day after Nagasaki (which he didn't have advance notice of) he issues an order stopping the use the use of nukes (according to Wallace, Truman did frame that in moral terms). After that he sets up rules that clarify that it is under the control of the President as C-in-C, not the military and use of the bomb needs him to sign off.  And, after that, Wellerstein argues Truman is very important in establishing a taboo around nuclear weapons - that they are not normal weapons of war to be used casually. As has been pointed out - that's in the context of a war were cities were destroyed and I don't think every firebombing target list went to Truman for sign off.

So I think that shift is really interesting and as I say it may simpl be Truman seeing the extent of the damage from one bomb and basically that it was different from firebombing and needed to be brought under the White House. Wellerstein's case is possibly that he didn't know (by mistake) the target would be a city, so when he then gets the briefing and the US papers are running stories of 60% of the population were killed (which is wrong) - he behaves exactly like you'd expect the "the buck stops here" guy to behave. He takes responsibility and puts things in place to ensure that doesn't happen again.

The Japanese *government* was not putting out peace feelers.  A faction in the government was.  And keep in mind the hawks in the cabinet, without whom the government could not make decisions, were in favor of continuing the fight *after* the bombs were dropped.  It took the totally unprecedented intervention of the emperor to break the deadlock.

Which is exactly Sato's point. He was being asked to help orchestrate peace talks but was not able to even explain what Japanese terms would be because that wasn't even being thought of far less agreed. As he wrote to Togo: "If the Japanese empire is really faced with the necessity of terminating the war, we must first of all make up our minds to terminate the war." But all he got back was "pretty little phrases", which caused him to say the only option is surrender.

And I don't know if it is just divisions in the government or as I say an inability to confront the position they were in because that would lead to concluding the only way out was surrender. As I say I almost wonder if the peace overtures were a displacement activity to avoid confronting reality (including reality about the USSR and Stalin).

But all of this just debates which of the two shocks was greater.  None of it supports he argument that "it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan's surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack" as Gareth Cook of The Boston Globe argues (presumably, the moral meaning of the Soviet violation of their treaty with Japan is not important).

Sure but I don't agree with his argument - my point is it was the combination of shocks and I'm not sure that either on their own was sufficient.

[grumbler]

I'm pretty confident from my readings that Japan would have surrendered at the same point without the Soviet DoW.  Japan had already withdrawn most of the Kwantung Army to defend japan (it was the appearance of those troops in Kyushu that caused the Allies to call off Operation Olympic) and it was cut off from Manchuria by Operation Starvation.  The Japanese knew that the Soviets lacked the amphibious capability to invade japan itself before the next spring (and even then, that the Soviets were FAR more vulnerable to kamikaze attacks than the USN was).

It is true that the Soviet entry into the war eliminated the Soviets as possible intermediaries for peace talks, but since the Japanese had no intention of engaging in peace talks before defeating an Allied invasion, that loss was purely nominal.   The Soviet DoW would embolden the secret communist cells in Japan, but the Japanese leadership was far more concerned with a general breakdown of social order than of a communist uprising.  That breakdown was going to come from the extreme privation that the Japanese people would have to endure in their blockaded and non-self-sufficient islands.

The Soviet DoW may have shocked the Japanese leadership in terms of its timing, but several of them noted that this had been inevitable since the Soviet renunciation of the non-aggression treaty.  That argues against the idea that the Soviet attack somehow unnerved them so much that they gave up.  In my view, it was mere icing on the cake; it changed nothing in the short term, and surrender came about as a result of events that DID change things in the short term:  the events that showed that there would be no Allied invasion and thus no glorious victory to give the Japanese some bargaining room.  Those events occurred in Hiroshima (showing that the US had an atomic bomb) and Nagasaki (showing that the US had multiple atomic bombs and that the Japanese couldn't just absorb the blow of Hiroshima and continue with their strategy of waiting until they'd defeated an invasion).

[Josquius]

If you're going to make the bold claim that the US invasion of Japan was not going to happen, if might be nice to back that up with some sourcing.  Troops were being shipped from Europe to Asia.  There was a massive build up underway in Okinawa of troops and landing craft.  That's a lot of trouble to go to for an invasion that wasn't going to happen.

These are more reasons why it wasn't going to happen than proof it was. Threatening somebody into doing something demands you actually work towards carrying out your threat.
As I said the timelines just don't add up for it ever going ahead:
- The invasion was scheduled to begin in November.
- The Soviets were planning to invade Hokkaido in August.
- The Japanese were already waking up to the fact they were defeated and putting out peace feelers.
If the atomic bombs didn't exist I just can't see the war going on till November.

Similarly with the expected casualties.  Incidentally I've read 500,000 dead and 3 million total casualties.  If you claim this was ex post propaganda a source would be nice.

You realise you're asking me to prove a negative here?
People today after the war definitely toss around the million dead figure, that is proven.
What isn't proven is that this comes from during the war.

The Japanese *government* was not putting out peace feelers.  A faction in the government was.  And keep in mind the hawks in the cabinet, without whom the government could not make decisions, were in favor of continuing the fight *after* the bombs were dropped.  It took the totally unprecedented intervention of the emperor to break the deadlock.

That's not a government that was ready to surrender without the bombs.

You might as well say any time any government does anything its not the government but a faction within it.
There were disagreements in the Japanese government for sure. One group even tried to launch a coup to stop the surrender. But the safety of the emperor was paramount...and communists on the mainland are not a very good combination with this priority.

The Soviet invasion was the key factor that got them into position to want to end the war, the bombs merely sped up how quickly to get that done.
Its important not to consider the Soviets as merely another military threat. The Japanese establishment was absolutely terrified of communism and the threat of a people's uprising against them. And not necessarily unjustly either, there was a lot of simmering dissent and communism had quite a bit of popularity in Japan well into the 20th century.
The bombs however presented an excellent bit of propaganda for both sides - the Americans got to claim their wonder weapon had won the war in two shots, and the Japanese got brush aside all their earlier rhetoric of fighting to the death and the fear of revolution and instead claim it was the bomb that did it.

And you say you're not talking about morality, but what is your claim that the US purposely nuked two cities to jockey for post war advantage?  Morally neutral?

Yes.

[grumbler]

A Soviet planned invasion of Hokkaido in August is ridiculous.  Not even the Soviets could think that the war would last that long.  March or April as a planning target is believable.  Even then, it would raise doubts that the war would last long enough to get their amphibious equipment produced, deployed, and the troops trained in their use.

The person putting out peace feelers for Japan was their ambassador in Moscow, Sato, who wrote about how frustrating it was that no one in his government would even consider what terms he should bring up with the Soviets.  You can't make the argument that "Japan was putting out peace feelers" when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are forbidding anyone from approaching any outside agencies on the topic.

[Admiral Yi]

You realise you're asking me to prove a negative here?

I'm asking you to provide the evidence you used to come to the conclusion the casualty estimates, such as the one I mentioned, were post war propaganda and not in fact contemporaneous good faith estimates.

You might as well say any time any government does anything its not the government but a faction within it.

No I might not.  The hawks in the cabinet had the ability to dissolve the government at any time by resigning, thus preventing the government from making a decision.  And by law the military positions had to be serving members.  This is not a common pattern in world governments.  The Secretary of such and such or the Director of this and that can resign in a huff but it doesn't cause the immediate dissolution of the government.

[Sheilbh]

The person putting out peace feelers for Japan was their ambassador in Moscow, Sato, who wrote about how frustrating it was that no one in his government would even consider what terms he should bring up with the Soviets.  You can't make the argument that "Japan was putting out peace feelers" when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are forbidding anyone from approaching any outside agencies on the topic.

But in that link he was writing that in his cables to Togo who was telling him to work with the Soviets to act as mediators.

Also in a government system like Japan's in the war I imagine plausible deniability was quite important - same with Stalinist Russia. And looking back - especially as we know the Japanese destroyed or doctored records - there's probably a fair amount of reading between the lines (similar again with the USSR).

[grumbler]

But in that link he was writing that in his cables to Togo who was telling him to work with the Soviets to act as mediators.

Also in a government system like Japan's in the war I imagine plausible deniability was quite important - same with Stalinist Russia. And looking back - especially as we know the Japanese destroyed or doctored records - there's probably a fair amount of reading between the lines (similar again with the USSR).

Sato says that Togo never gave him any directions on what to talk to the Soviets about, never gave him an indication of what Japan wanted out of any mediation efforts, and never authorized him to actually negotiate anything.   There never was any meeting with the Soviets to discuss mediating in any peace process.  There was just Togo's hope that the Soviets would read his mind from thousands of miles away and ride to the rescue, without the Japanese having to do anything (in large part, of course, because the Japanese government couldn't do anything given the multiple vetoes held by different factions in the Big Six). 

Togo was willing to allow Sato to think that he was important, and certainly didn't want to cut off diplomatic relations with the USSR, but Sato was never given permission to approach the Soviets to mediate a Japanese surrender, or even indicate that the Japanese were willing to consider surrender.  That's not how "peace feelers" are sent. 

[Berkut]

I don't doubt that Japan would have been ecstatic to have the USSR negotiate a peace deal.

There is zero evidence that they wanted the USSR to negotiate their unconditional surrender. And of course, they don't need the USSR to do that - all they have to do is just announce it....just like they did.

[Razgovory]

I wonder why the US didn't test other weapons on Japan, what with them dehumanized and the war was going to end anyway.  The US captured German nerve gas and German rockets.  Surely the US would like a chance to test those on civilians too.

[Berkut]

This entire thing about the Commies starting a Communist revolt being the thing that REALLY scared the powers that be is so fucking nonsensical.

I mean...the Americans were literally incernating the country, city by city. The Americans had landed on island after island, and actually invaded a took over an island the Japanese considered a home island.

There were all indications that they intended to invade the rest of the Japanese home islands, and remove the government by actual physical occupation. This wasn't theoretical - it was actually in the process of happening.

But apparently, they were not worried about that - no, they were *terrified* that in maybe another year, some Communists were going to land somewhere, and apparently THAT would be the thing that would cause "the people" to rise up and revolt against the government. And THAT was what the government was afraid of - being thrown out of power by "the people", not by some American soldiers physically occupying their country, or some American plane just catching them in the ongoing bombing raids. Or the people revolting from starvation, or simply being tired of being bombed. The last four years of unremitting war? Pah, its a bother, but as long as we don't have a communist revolt triggered by communist troops landing, we can live with the rest!

And the key to this, of course, relies on the Commies actually LANDING, right? I mean - these supposed Japanese communists all desperate to rise up and overthrow the military government of Japan, the only thing stopping them is that there are not any actual Soviet troops on Japanese soil. THAT is the thing that will make all the difference, such that concerns about the naval blockade, starvation, imminent invasion by the Americans, incendiary bombings and fucking nuclear weapons - none of THAT is of concern, gosh no! The Japanese government can deal with any of those things, just as long as no Soviet troops land on Japan!

Note there isn't any actual evidence of this, of course. There is little or no actual evidence that there was any kind of significant communist organized efforts to overthrow the Japanese government. There wasn't then, nor has there been ever. There is no evidence that this fear motivated anyone to do anything - this is basically completely made up, a "just so" story created to add to the idea that it was the Soviet DOW that REALLY made the difference. There is no historical record of any kind of meaningful Japanese communist movement ready to fight the government. There isn't any transcripts of government planning meetings where they are all talking about how hard they are working to make sure the incipent revolt by the masses is kept down (Oh, and maybe we can give a couple minutes at the end of the meeting to talk about that secondary problem we have of the American kicking our asses back across the Pacific, you know, if we can find the time while dealing with the REAL crisis of 1942-45!)

[The Brain]

I've never been a huge fan of alt-hist.

[Josquius]

I'm asking you to provide the evidence you used to come to the conclusion the casualty estimates, such as the one I mentioned, were post war propaganda and not in fact contemporaneous good faith estimates.

It has been proven. We can see for sure that this figure is commonly used today (post-war). The only way to disprove that would be to provide evidence of it during the war. You can't really produce anything to prove it didn't exist during the war.

No I might not.  The hawks in the cabinet had the ability to dissolve the government at any time by resigning, thus preventing the government from making a decision.  And by law the military positions had to be serving members.  This is not a common pattern in world governments.  The Secretary of such and such or the Director of this and that can resign in a huff but it doesn't cause the immediate dissolution of the government.

The extent to which the emperor had agency is a massive topic of debate. Regardless what is certain is that legally at least the government served at his discretion. He was the law.
Regardless even before going down this nuclear avenue (damnit...) already pre-postdam the split was more in terms of those who just wanted to surrender at all costs and those who wanted to surrender with reservations. With postdam clearly spelling out the only path, the situation looking ever more hopeless at home and the Soviets at the gate it was likely to swing even more in a pro-peace direction.

I don't doubt that Japan would have been ecstatic to have the USSR negotiate a peace deal.

There is zero evidence that they wanted the USSR to negotiate their unconditional surrender. And of course, they don't need the USSR to do that - all they have to do is just announce it....just like they did.

The famous radio broadcast announcing the surrender came after they'd passed notice to the allies via the Swedish (or was it Swiss, can't recall) embassy that they accepted the terms of surrender.
I have no idea whether the broadcast would have been accepted on its own merits, though I'm somewhat doubtful, I think there would need to be some official confirmation via neutral embassies (which the USSR was when they tried going through them).

This entire thing about the Commies starting a Communist revolt being the thing that REALLY scared the powers that be is so fucking nonsensical.

I mean...the Americans were literally incernating the country, city by city. The Americans had landed on island after island, and actually invaded a took over an island the Japanese considered a home island.

Thats the thing about evil dictatorships. They tend not to be too bothered about the welfare of their own people. Half of the country could burn as far as they were concerned if it meant they got out of it. Hell, even if they knew there was no way out spite tends to come into play with such people ala Hitler's last days.

As to home islands...Okinawa I guess  you mean? Generally that's not counted as one of the home islands. It was more Japanese than Korea for certain, but still a bit foreign. Not one of the mainland big 4 islands.
The American invasion of Okinawa was a concern for sure. It was an invasion of Japan-proper afterall. But it wasn't anywhere near as big an issue as a landing on the mainland would be.

There were all indications that they intended to invade the rest of the Japanese home islands, and remove the government by actual physical occupation. This wasn't theoretical - it was actually in the process of happening.

But apparently, they were not worried about that - no, they were *terrified* that in maybe another year, some Communists were going to land somewhere, and apparently THAT would be the thing that would cause "the people" to rise up and revolt against the government. And THAT was what the government was afraid of - being thrown out of power by "the people", not by some American soldiers physically occupying their country, or some American plane just catching them in the ongoing bombing raids. Or the people revolting from starvation, or simply being tired of being bombed. The last four years of unremitting war? Pah, its a bother, but as long as we don't have a communist revolt triggered by communist troops landing, we can live with the rest!

Of course they were worried about an American invasion. Who said they weren't?
If they hadn't been concerned about this then that would change things quite significantly.
Most of their military strength was turned southwards against the oncoming American invasion.

Why do you think the Soviets weren't going to invade for another year? Where are you getting this from? It flies against all evidence.

As to the Japanese fear of revolution... I suspect you don't know too much about Showa era Japan here. It is a problem that this is a story too often told almost entirely from the American perspective.
As said it was a huge factor in Japanese thinking in the mid-20th century. The big thing delaying their surrender was not that they thought they could win but that they wanted to guarantee the survival of the imperial system. Unrest was brewing in Japan and to quote Fumimaro Konoe...

Thus, if it were only a matter of defeat, I think it would not be necessary to be concerned about
the imperial system. More than defeat itself, what we must be most concerned about from the standpoint of preserving the imperial system is the communist revolution which may accompany defeat

After careful deliberation, it is my belief that at the present time events both within and outside the country are moving rapidly toward a communist revolution

The extent to which the unrest over food shortages and general deprivation would have led to a communist revolt is up for debate. But the fear was very real.

And the key to this, of course, relies on the Commies actually LANDING, right? I mean - these supposed Japanese communists all desperate to rise up and overthrow the military government of Japan, the only thing stopping them is that there are not any actual Soviet troops on Japanese soil. THAT is the thing that will make all the difference, such that concerns about the naval blockade, starvation, imminent invasion by the Americans, incendiary bombings and fucking nuclear weapons - none of THAT is of concern, gosh no! The Japanese government can deal with any of those things, just as long as no Soviet troops land on Japan!

So the French resistance didn't exist because they waited until the allied landings to really spring into action on a large scale?

For revolt in Japan there was this factor of lack of outside support for sure. But there was also the factor that the situation was becoming worse day on day. Starvation was rampant. It could be at any moment that the trigger to overcome the imperial programming and set off an uprising would come.

Note there isn't any actual evidence of this, of course.

Well. Apart from surviving first hand sources from within and around the Japanese leadership.

There is little or no actual evidence that there was any kind of significant communist organized efforts to overthrow the Japanese government

There's no evidence of this in post-war America either.
Didn't stop the commies under the bed paranoia.

[Berkut]

Ahh, so you are claiming now that the Communist revolters in Japan were similar to the French Resistance. Excellent, now we are getting somewhere!

So I can point to literally thousands of documents talking about the actions of the French resistance long before D-Day. They did all kinds of shit, in fact. Certainly a lot more AFTER D-Day of course, but one would not be surprised that there was a French Resistance on June 5th, for example. In fact, the Allies were in communication and coordination with them, and there are ample source documents showing just that.

Show me all the source documents of the activities of the Japanese Communist Resistance in Japan. They were probably blowing up bridges, maybe killing (or trying to kill) Japanese officials, or doing whatever it is contemporaneous with French Resistance prior to the actual landings in France. Heck, they were probably even in communication with the Soviets! Radio transcripts, carrier pigeon? Gotta be some good stuff here!


I'll wait.

[Admiral Yi]

It has been proven. We can see for sure that this figure is commonly used today (post-war). The only way to disprove that would be to provide evidence of it during the war. You can't really produce anything to prove it didn't exist during the war.

Of course you can.  You could provide a contemporaneous estimate that is markedly lower than the quote unquote post war propaganda estimate.  You could provide a date stamp on the quote unquote propaganda estimate.

The extent to which the emperor had agency is a massive topic of debate. Regardless what is certain is that legally at least the government served at his discretion. He was the law.
Regardless even before going down this nuclear avenue (damnit...) already pre-postdam the split was more in terms of those who just wanted to surrender at all costs and those who wanted to surrender with reservations. With postdam clearly spelling out the only path, the situation looking ever more hopeless at home and the Soviets at the gate it was likely to swing even more in a pro-peace direction.

And, as I and several others have mentioned several times, in order to come to this conclusion you have to ignore the fact that even after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped the hawkish faction wanted to continue the fight.  And this was of course after the Soviet Union had entered the war.

[Sheilbh]

Sato says that Togo never gave him any directions on what to talk to the Soviets about, never gave him an indication of what Japan wanted out of any mediation efforts, and never authorized him to actually negotiate anything.   There never was any meeting with the Soviets to discuss mediating in any peace process.  There was just Togo's hope that the Soviets would read his mind from thousands of miles away and ride to the rescue, without the Japanese having to do anything (in large part, of course, because the Japanese government couldn't do anything given the multiple vetoes held by different factions in the Big Six). 

Togo didn't - the Japanese leadership were incredibly vague in their idea of what they should offer for peace. It was contentious internally - and Sato criticised it quite bluntly. But the "peace feelers" were authorised by the Imperial Household as well as Togo (and the US was aware of it all). There were discussions around the appropriate concessions to the USSR (the North Kurils, North Manchuria, while Japan itself kept or through puppet regimes managed South Manchuria and Korea). These are, of course, less than what Stalin expected from joining the war.

Were they sincere attempts to negotiate a peace - I'm not sure. I think they were utterly detached from the reality/perspective of the allies (including Stalin). But I don't know how much of that is a failure of the Japanese leadership to fully appreciate their situation (and perhaps be a little bit delusional), if it was just an attempt to buy time or a failure to understand the seriousness of the allies. I think they were vague probably counterproductive and in no way a serious effort to end the war - but factually they did exist and I think the why they were so weak is helpful in understanding/explaining the Japanese leadership at that point. As I say I'm genuinely unsure if it was an attempt to postpone doom, an attempt to buy time or just delusional.

And because the Americans had actually broken the cipher was probably influential in stiffening I imagine, already very strong American resolve. But again the leadership was very wrong on this - I can't remember who but there was one Japanese minister I think who was noting in late July that "Churchill has fallen, America grows isolated" and this meant if Japan could just hold on they could negotiate a favourable peace. Utterly wrong-headed (and particularly vulnerable to the shock from a Soviet invasion).

I swear someone on here asked a while ago about what the various plotters against Hitler really thought they could do - did they really think they could negotiate a peace other than surrender. I think the last months of Japan are actually the example of that

Togo was willing to allow Sato to think that he was important, and certainly didn't want to cut off diplomatic relations with the USSR, but Sato was never given permission to approach the Soviets to mediate a Japanese surrender, or even indicate that the Japanese were willing to consider surrender.  That's not how "peace feelers" are sent.

But the Japanese leadership at that point hadn't reached the conclusion that they needed to surrender.

The Japanese *government* was not putting out peace feelers.  A faction in the government was.  And keep in mind the hawks in the cabinet, without whom the government could not make decisions, were in favor of continuing the fight *after* the bombs were dropped.  It took the totally unprecedented intervention of the emperor to break the deadlock.

[A little bit later...]

No I might not.  The hawks in the cabinet had the ability to dissolve the government at any time by resigning, thus preventing the government from making a decision.  And by law the military positions had to be serving members.  This is not a common pattern in world governments.  The Secretary of such and such or the Director of this and that can resign in a huff but it doesn't cause the immediate dissolution of the government.

I would strongly disagree on the "totally unprecedented" intervention of the emperor. This is disputed and on this point the fact that Japanese officials destroyed or fabricated documents is particularly important, but I think the emperor's interventions was characteristic of his pre-1945 role and behaviour.

And your point around the structure of their government - isn't that exactly why the government acted as factions. If there's that strong ability to provoke crisis in a formal cabinet decision-making, doesn't that mean the way you get anything done is by free-lancing and presenting the cabinet with a fait accompli (which the hawks also did). The structure seems designed with the idea that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

It's difficult to see how the Japanese government could back out of the peace negotiation if the Soviets had accepted it and Prince Konoe - from the imperial household - had travelled as the Japanese mediator to Moscow. However much the hawks opposed it in advance.

This entire thing about the Commies starting a Communist revolt being the thing that REALLY scared the powers that be is so fucking nonsensical.

I mean...the Americans were literally incernating the country, city by city. The Americans had landed on island after island, and actually invaded a took over an island the Japanese considered a home island.

There were all indications that they intended to invade the rest of the Japanese home islands, and remove the government by actual physical occupation. This wasn't theoretical - it was actually in the process of happening.

So my point is not the "powers that be" but specifically the emperor and the imperial household who were I think almost entirely focused on saving the position of the emperor and imperial household. I think it begins to clarify (and there are discussions on this - including through the Swiss to protect the position of the emperor) that the imperial structure in Japan has a better chance of negotiating with the Americans. I think the risk of either revolt or a surrender involving Stalin (i.e. not on Potsdam which was vague on the emperor and exploited for that) was too great. That became an obsession for Hirohito in early August - preserving the imperial objects etc and his own role.

Again I can't remember who but there were ministers who say that actually the bombs and the Soviet invasion were shocks, but the biggest driver to surrender for them was the domestic situation. There were growing reports from every governor that people were turning not just against the government but against the emperor and the imperial household.

Similarly Japan wasn't an occupied country or going through an invasion - so there's no equivalence with the French resistance or the Italian or Greek or Yugoslav partisans. But there is evidence of resistance within Japan - I don't think there's much available in English that I know of, but for example about 10% of planes and other war materials coming out of Japanese factories had been sabotaged by organised workers which, I think, is important.

I think that because it does seem to have been organised workers probably suggests that communists were involved - but it is difficult because they are a bit like the German communists. Germany's communists were the dominant communist party in Europe, I think until the PRC the Japanese had the dominant communist party in Asia. They were both banned, they were both very badly hit by Stalin's purges and they both struggled in the post-war. Unlike the German communists there is no Nazi-Soviet alliance so Comintern's policies stay sort of opposed to the government/popular front-ish - and my understanding is that the communists were perceived in the early post-war as the only party that had consistently opposed militarism. Of course this mainly reflects the fact that for most of the 30s right up until 1941, Stalin was far more pre-occupied with the risk from Japan than from Germany.