American North Sakhalin and Kamchatka-Chukotka

Lenin had considered granting the Americans a 50-year lease on Kamchatka (part need for revenue, part to play the US and Japan against one another) and in 1921 the Far Eastern Republic had discussions with Sinclair oil about developing North Sakhalin (again, also wanting to play the US and Japan against each other).

Instead the US plans never went through and the Japanese got a 45-year agreement for Sakhalin in 1923.

What if the US was granted two 50 year leases in the early 20s on Kamchatka-Chukotka (let's say Siberie East of the 160th Meridian) and North Sakhalin?


The Soviets will have more $$$ here and the US and Japan will bump up more - now the Japanese have the Americans to the North, South, and East. How will this affect Japanese militarism and the Japanese military? Maybe IJN gets more money out necessity (imagine how a US naval base in North Sakhalin or Kamchatka goes over), but with a US land border the IJA might benefit as well.




And of course, what happens after the 50 years? The establishment of an independent and neutral confederation perhaps? The US agreeing to pay the Soviets a lot more to keep the place?
 
I would not take the Kamchatka incident too seriously. There's a good description of it in Adam Ulam's *The Bolsheviks* (pp. 484-5):

"Washington B. Vanderlip, Jr. who reached Soviet Russia in the fall of 1920, was of the species by now all too familiar. They appear...in such places as Indonesia and the Congo, congratulating the new rulers on the overthrow of despotism, offering them their American 'know-how" (for a price), and intimating a considerable influence in the official circles in Washington. In 1920, the type was still a novelty, and one can forgive Lenin for thinking that Vanderlip was an answer to his prayers. The American entrepreneur...was willing to 'rent' Kamchatka. This was really too good to be true. As Lenin enthusiastically explained to the Eighth All Russian Congress of Soviets, in December 1920, renting Kamchatka to the American would kill two birds with one stone: it would bring those clever capitalists to Russian soil where they could be observed and their methods learned, and in the second place it would pit the Americans against the Japanese, who had their own designs on the Far Eastern peninsula. He was ready to give the U.S.A. a naval base on Kamchatka, and in the manner of the Shakespearean villain's loud aside to the audience, he let them in on a secret: Kamchatka 'in fact is not ours at all, because there are Japanese troops there. To fight Japan now is beyond our resources...we drag American imperialism into a fight against the Japanese.'"

To be sure, there were problems. Was Mr. Vanderlip really a "billionaire" and did he really have the Republican Party in his pocket, as he claimed? President-elect Harding had claimed he didn't know any Vanderlip, but Lenin explained that obviously Harding *had* to say that during the election campaign, since for Harding to acknowledge that he favored rapprochement with Soviet Russia would cost him votes. Still, said Lenin, the doubt remained: "inasmuch as the counterintelligence of the Cheka, excellent as it is, has not yet penetrated the U.S., we have not checked on those Vanderlips." As Ulam continues:

"The mirage of Mr. Vanderlip renting Kamchatka and huge tracts of land and paying the Russian workers in scrip, which they could then reclaim in the company stores, stayed with Lenin for a long time. So did his touching belief in Warren Harding as a strenuous proponent of Soviet-American understanding. One of the charges he threw against the Workers' Opposition in 1921 was exactly that they were undermining this understanding (!) The Republicans were just installed in power...they were dying to give Russia billions of dollars and technical help, but obviously they shied away, seeing the Kronstadt rebellion and all the mischief that Shylapnikov and Kollontay were up to.

"Gradually, Mr. Vanderlip and that unwitting hero of Soviet-American friendship, Warren Gamaliel Harding, faded away. Sad to say, Mr. Vanderlip was not a 'billionaire', only a namesake of one (wasn't there a single *Who's Who* in Moscow?) and America did not 'rent' Kamchatka, nor go to war [yet] with Japan."

So much for one of the few instances where the adjective "ridiculous" can be applied to Lenin. (The actual "billionaire" was Frank Vanderlip of the National City Bank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_A._Vanderlip)
 
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Thanks. I had actually been looking for that recollection, but I couldn't recall it.

Though, @David T would I be wrong to say that Lenin certainly was interested in leasing, but there was simply no one interested in purchasing at the time? Considering existing familiarity between the Chukotkans (Anglo names were common because of interaction with the US and British sailors), combined with further Japanese intransigence in the Far East, could it become US policy (averting the postwar recession would be necessary, but likely impossible).

Might a better solution be some Far East Republic in Vladivostok retaining nominal independence (worse civil war) and then they themselves rent the territory due to Japanese encroachment into the Republic, and needing some other agent to counterbalance? Just thinking out loud right here.
 
Hmm, well the prospect of a Russia/Soviet cession of North Sakhalin is OTL (and included an American interested) and it seems that at the very least the Soviets were interested in the idea of handing off Kamchatka.

If the US leases North Sakhalin, which (again) had a real American buyer interested, there'd be the open issue of actually defending the place. The Japanese Kurils are in the way - having Kamchatka secures things. Plus there's mineral wealth to be found in Kamchatka and American whalers tended to frequent Chukotka.


AND, Harry Sinclair (the American interested in Sakhalin) was certainly close enough with the Harding administration to have been involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal, so he could be the proponent that "Vanderlip" certainly wasn't.
 
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For reference.
 
@Jackson Lennock

I will quote the relevant passage from here (page 119 in this book)

Harry Sinclair signed a deal with the Far Eastern Republic, later subsumed by the Russian Soviet Federated Soviet Republic, for reserves in the area of Russia then occupied by Japan but claimed by Russia. Unliked Vanderlip, Sinclair did have close ties to the Harding Administration, but he got no help from the State Department in his attempts to press the Japanese to permit him to operate on the island of Sakhalin. Hughes was more interested in maintaining cordial relationships with Japan than in recognizing the legitimacy of Soviet Sakhalin, where Sinclair's concessions lay.

Emphasis is mine.

I will also note that, according to TIME, Japan wanted to buy the region (northern Sakhalin) for 75 million, but the Soviets demanded 500 million outright to consider it.

So, in the end, we have a difficult circle to square. Individual attempts were made, some legitimate (Sinclair) some less so (Vanderlip) to secure economic, not territorial, concessions to the territory at hand. Japan occupied parts of Sakhalin and Kamchatka at the time during the drawdown of the Russian Revolution. As the US did not wish to antagonize the Japanese even more (This is during the Washington Treaty Negotiations to limit Naval Construction), they are not going to go establishing a land border with their main rival.

As such, to achieve your objective, you need a few criteria.

1. A US with terrible relations with Japan which are seen as less important than relations with whatever state nominally controls the leased areas.
2. A US with a more aggressive foreign policy that is willing to confront Japan directly in their backyard.
3. A US willing to flex its economical muscle and spend tax money to support the state that nominally controls the leased areas.

The important thing might be for the Far Eastern Republic to be more successful (less successful revolution, infighting going over in Russia proper) that is allowed to thrive. The US would hate to see this state become a Japanese puppet, if it's going to exist in the long term, so it potentially consider actively subverting the Japanese by replacing them as the #1 supporter of the region. I feel like that'd be your first step to make this have a decent chance of occurring.
 
@Jackson Lennock

As such, to achieve your objective, you need a few criteria.

1. A US with terrible relations with Japan which are seen as less important than relations with whatever state nominally controls the leased areas.
2. A US with a more aggressive foreign policy that is willing to confront Japan directly in their backyard.
3. A US willing to flex its economical muscle and spend tax money to support the state that nominally controls the leased areas.

The important thing might be for the Far Eastern Republic to be more successful (less successful revolution, infighting going over in Russia proper) that is allowed to thrive. The US would hate to see this state become a Japanese puppet, if it's going to exist in the long term, so it potentially consider actively subverting the Japanese by replacing them as the #1 supporter of the region. I feel like that'd be your first step to make this have a decent chance of occurring.

Wasn't the Far Eastern Republic always just a Soviet buffer/proxy state?

Looking at the history of the Republic, the 1921 White Russia coup in Vladivostok might be a better opportunity. Have Japan not totally withdraw from Siberia and instead just withdraw to behind the Amur River. The "Provisional Priamurye Government" was anti-Democracy historically, so that might give the US more ideological cover to oppose it (and thus oppose Japan).
 
Wasn't the Far Eastern Republic always just a Soviet buffer/proxy state?

Looking at the history of the Republic, the 1921 White Russia coup in Vladivostok might be a better opportunity. Have Japan not totally withdraw from Siberia and instead just withdraw to behind the Amur River. The "Provisional Priamurye Government" was anti-Democracy historically, so that might give the US more ideological cover to oppose it (and thus oppose Japan).

Individually, yes, it pretty much was Soviet historically. Not that an alternate couldn't arise (think Green Ukraine uniting with others to form an anti-Soviet/European Russia Domination front).

And the problem with this Primoyre state is that it is not completely threatening US interests in the Bering Strait or the Sea of Okhotsk, as the US did whale/fish in both of those regions. So it's not particularly threatening to American interests in the region. It might cause a little bit of antagonism between Japan/US, but I don't believe it'd be enough to force the US to move into action.
 
Individually, yes, it pretty much was Soviet historically. Not that an alternate couldn't arise (think Green Ukraine uniting with others to form an anti-Soviet/European Russia Domination front).

And the problem with this Primoyre state is that it is not completely threatening US interests in the Bering Strait or the Sea of Okhotsk, as the US did whale/fish in both of those regions. So it's not particularly threatening to American interests in the region. It might cause a little bit of antagonism between Japan/US, but I don't believe it'd be enough to force the US to move into action.

Even if the Primorye state nominally claimed authority over North Sakhalin and Kamchaka on the grounds that Japan "recognized it as the proper owner of such territories"?
 
Even if the Primorye state nominally claimed authority over North Sakhalin and Kamchaka on the grounds that Japan "recognized it as the proper owner of such territories"?

Such claims would only last a year or two, and the RSFSR, and later the Soviet Union, would be able to make better efforts to control that territory... And I don't think Japan would be willing to permanently occupy the lands as well and risk war from a strong USSR.

The only way I could see this is if the USSR had utterly collapsed into squabbling factions, but when we get to that point, we get back to wondering why the Primorye state hasn't expanded inland to Buryat and similar locations, as well as claiming more de facto authority around the Gulf of Okhotsk... which takes us back to square one.
 
Such claims would only last a year or two, and the RSFSR, and later the Soviet Union, would be able to make better efforts to control that territory... And I don't think Japan would be willing to permanently occupy the lands as well and risk war from a strong USSR.

The only way I could see this is if the USSR had utterly collapsed into squabbling factions, but when we get to that point, we get back to wondering why the Primorye state hasn't expanded inland to Buryat and similar locations, as well as claiming more de facto authority around the Gulf of Okhotsk... which takes us back to square one.

Well, by the time Primorye established itself the FER already controlled Transbaikal (its two capitals having been Ulan-Ude and Chita after all). I could perhaps see them trying for a Lena-Aldan boundary considering how the whites of the Yakut Revolt (who had occupied Alan and Okhotsk) were aided by the Primorye State. Keep Japan backing Primorye and a Lena-Aldan boundary could work. However, if that happens the Soviets may not even have the opportunity to have over North Sakhalin and Kamchatka.



Alternatively, Primorye claiming ownership of just North Sakhalin and the lands east of the Amur could work. There's clear maritime boundaries that could be defended, more or less.
 
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