Sarah Paine

And in the very final weeks, in this August storm, when the Russians deploy like 1.5 million soldiers, it's one of the largest military operations of World War II.

And then they rapidly take Manchuria.

And they also do some, that would be the normal thing, but here's the Abbey normal thing.

They also take away Manchuria's industrial base.

That would not normally be what you do to someone.

They take 83% of the electrical power equipment, take it home to Russia, not turning lights on in Manchuria.

86% of mining, 82% of cement making, 80% of metalworking equipment.

Plus they take 640,000 Japanese people

POWs to be slave labor for decades if they ever get home at all.

And they also take the northern islands, which are still under dispute to today.

But if you think about it, if you're going to do indemnities or reparations or whatever this is, China had been fighting Japan in one form or another for 15 long years.

Russia comes in at the cameo performance at the very end.

So if there are indemnities to be paid for whatever Japan did in this war, surely China, not Russia, should have been the recipient for all this stuff.

In addition, another example, so not only does Stalin walk away with the industrial base, but he walks away with Mongolia as well.

How does that work?

The Yalta Agreement also stipulates that the status quo shall be maintained in Mongolia.

So then you have to look at, well, what was the status quo?

It was called Russian sphere of influence in the north, Chinese continuing control in the south.

that Mongolia, which had always been both those places, had been part of the Qing Empire, never been part of the Russian Empire.

And moreover, Stalin had already taken Tanatuvai in 1944, and it looks small on this map, but it's bigger than England, had lots of gold, which the Soviets had monetized long ago.