On military-political cooperation between Poland and Japan against the Soviet Union (1931-1935)

The purpose of this article is to investigate the secret military and political cooperation between Poland and Japan against the Soviet Union during 1931-1935, including the use of Soviet intelligence documents from the so-called Personal Archive of I.V. Stalin. Among other, the article includes an overview of the Polish historiography in which this problem is suppressed or one-sided. The center of the Polish-Japanese cooperation was Russia. The cherished goal of Marshal Pilsudski, his hidden dream, was to restore the "former greatness of Poland" and to construct the so-called Great Poland. Its core was to be the borders of Poland in 1772, that is including Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania, around which a federation from the Baltic states, Finland, Caucasian and North Caucasian peoples was to form, and Russia had to revert to the Urals. After the Locarno conference, Marshal Pilsudski realized that the Western powers, relying heavily on Germany in their calculations against the USSR, did not consider Poland as an equal partner and were not inclined to take it into account, but were rather ready to sacrifice Polish interests for their selfish calculations. In May 1926, Pilsudski made a military coup, seizing positions that allowed him to individually determine the Polish foreign policy. He hoped to play his own game against the Soviet Union, where room might be found for the Polish-Japanese political and military cooperation. Soviet intelligence documents from the Personal Archive of I.V. Stalin show that the secret Polish-Japanese military and political cooperation against the Soviet Union was carried out in three stages. The first was the fall of 1931, when an agreement was signed between the Japanese General Staff and the General Staff of the Polish Army, it alleged the diversion of the Red Army forces by the Polish troops in case of the Japanese attack on the Soviet Far East. The second was the summer of 1934, when Pilsudski received a letter from the former Minister of War S. Araki that confirmed the readiness to attack the Soviet Union at any time, if Berlin and Warsaw promised to join the aggression on the western border the next day. Finally, the third stage was the winter of 1934 - the spring of 1935, when there was some distancing between the Polish and Japanese military in Pilsudski's attempt to postpone the Polish troops invasion.

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