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Ok, imagine for a minute that the Soviets take Hokkaido in '45 like they took S. Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuriles. I'll not go into whether or not the Soviets could have taken Hokkaido; I've read arguments both for and against.

No, what I'm asking is: what would the Soviets have done with an occupied Hokkaido? Would they have turned it into a communist "North Japan" satellite state? Or would they have annexed it like they did with Sakhalin and the Kuriles? Presumably outright annexation would involve mass expulsions of the Japanese population.

What made me think about this question was a scenario in which the Soviets launch their attack against the Japanese forces in Asia about eight months or so earlier than OTL due to an earlier ending to the war in Europe. If it was in December 1944 then the Americans would likely still be in the Philippines because their advance in the Pacific, from what I've read, was as fast as could be considering the constraints at the time (Europe-first strategy, demanding logistics and so on). Most importantly, the atom bombs would still be some time away so there wouldn't be that factor yet.
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