Scenario Check: Red Hokkaido

Let's assume here the Soviets manage to occupy Hokkaido before Japan's surrender. What are they likely to do with it? What happens if they:

1. Set up a communist puppet state named PR of Japan/Ezo (most obvious)
2. Annex it as another SSR

Let's have some discussion, folks.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
I can't see them annexing it as an SSR unless they ethnically cleanse it first, which they might do, but their simply wouldn't be enough foundations of integration into the USSR to make it work all that well.

My guess is a Communist Puppet state.
 
Let's assume here the Soviets manage to occupy Hokkaido before Japan's surrender. What are they likely to do with it? What happens if they:

1. Set up a communist puppet state named PR of Japan/Ezo (most obvious)
2. Annex it as another SSR

Let's have some discussion, folks.

I feel like having Hokkaido under direct control under Moscow would have a lot of US generals shitting themselves and calling for a more hostile confrontation against the USSR. At least North Korea looks independent from Soviet control.

So, on what a Red Hokkaido would look like: I imagine there will be US naval training in the general region, possibly US-Japan coordinated amphibious attacks near the northern coasts of Honshu. Every time there's a diplomatic conflict the US may or may not send aircraft carriers near the island like the Taiwan Straits crises, as the island would be very dependent on the USSR for food supplies. There would also be Soviet naval bases on the island.

On domestic politics, there will be a perpetual call for becoming an SSR or ASSR, as did Tuva and Mongolia. It's a small population so reaching model country status would be quite swift; they may even serve as an "Asian" model for implementing Nordic economic systems, depending on how much independence they get from Moscow - and whether Moscow wants to play around with the idea and needs a "testing ground".

The Pacific may become more important to the Soviets since they have multiple coasts in the region, as well as more possible naval bases; Alaska would become all the more important to the US.

Just a portion of what I had in mind and most of what was clearly in words.
 
What we would end up with is something called the People's Democratic Republic of Japan. Whether it turned into Mongolia, Cuba or North Korea is pretty much up to the people Moscow designated as 'friends to the proletariat.' The wider result is that the Tsugaru Strait would be militarized like crazy until the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the present day, we'd either have an ideological nuthouse and economic basket-case OR Japan would end up with a new holiday: "National Reunification Day."
 
What happens to the underground communist Japanese? Will they attempt to escape from Honshu to their promised land?

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OTL How many "underground communists" lived in Japan during 1945?
 
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OTL How many "underground communists" lived in Japan during 1945?

Quite a few, they survived as the "Socialist Party of Japan" I think. Later died off from a rogue teen slashing the leader with a katana sword, amongst other things.
 
I'm surprised (okay, maybe I shouldn't be, if this winds up being wildly implausible) that nobody's suggested a third option: leaving it to North Korea as a protectorate. That would situate it firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence while also largely taking care of its sustainability issues, wouldn't it?
 
It's about as likely as a democratic Poland or Czechoslovakia. And in reality, Stalin showed a reasonable amount of respect for the various post war agreements. He stayed out of Greece acknowledging it was part of the British sphere of influence thereby condemning the Greek communists to defeat. And the US isnt going to stand for a Russian occupied Japan after Pearl, Iwo, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, etc.
 
I'm surprised (okay, maybe I shouldn't be, if this winds up being wildly implausible) that nobody's suggested a third option: leaving it to North Korea as a protectorate. That would situate it firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence while also largely taking care of its sustainability issues, wouldn't it?

That would be a TL to read.
 
I can't see the USA going for this. Furthermore, the Soviets would have a hard time doing this before the weather in that area got too bad for a major amphibious assault. Yes, the Japanese did not have much left in Hokkaido, but the Russian ability to stage and support a significant force was almost nil - they had a hard enough time taking such Kuriles as they did. The supply line to the Soviet fart east was pretty thin, and the effort was being put in to getting Manchuria and Korea as well as taking the rest of Sakhalin and the the Kuriles. Under the best of circumstances not much left for Hokkaido.

OTL the Soviets asked for some occupation rights in Japan, and this was shot down immediately. At most they briefly had some liaison folks in Tokyo, but the US allowing much occupation of Hokkaido beyond something temporary is just not happening.
 
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