Mikhail Falkov. That night the samurai decided...

That night the samurai decided...
Intelligence services as a guarantor of Japanese interests

Mikhail Falkov

Publication date: January 11, 2003

The visit of the leader of the Land of the Rising Sun to Moscow, which began on January 9, is an extremely important event for Russian-Japanese relations. Since the middle of the last century, these relations have been viewed by both sides primarily in the context of territorial disagreements related to the Kuril Islands. In the last decade, attention to the economic component of relationships has noticeably increased. However, the development of ties in this area is traditionally conditioned by the resolution of the same territorial contradictions, which clearly does not contribute to achieving progress. This is very eloquently evidenced by the level of trade turnover between the two countries, which is significantly inferior to the volume, for example, of Russian-Polish trade. To an even lesser extent, Moscow and Tokyo use the geopolitical potential of bilateral relations. Until recently, their contacts were limited mainly to North Korean issues. Certain shifts emerged only in the second half of 2001, which was publicly demonstrated in January last year during negotiations between the special representative of the head of the Japanese government for Afghanistan (former prime minister) Yoshiro Mori and Vladimir Putin. They widely discussed a whole range of issues relating to the situation in Central and South Asia, as well as cooperation in the fight against terrorism. However, the true potential of Russian-Japanese relations in the geopolitical dimension still remains unrealized. Moscow, paying increasing attention to the southern vector of foreign policy (which, according to Sergei Ivanov, covers the Transcaucasus, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and partly the countries of North Africa), often does not adequately take into account the Japanese factor in this direction. Meanwhile, along with Beijing (its traditional rival), Tokyo occupies a strong position in Iran and the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf, intensively expanding its presence in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as in Azerbaijan and Georgia. Here, the Land of the Rising Sun outwardly pursues exclusively economic goals. However, in a broad perspective, the actions of the Japanese clearly demonstrate a long-term concept aimed at ensuring Tokyo’s geostrategic interests relating to the PRC, Russia and the USA, as well as Islamic civilization. In accordance with the foreign policy traditions of Japan, it appears that the conductor of its interests in Eurasia are the leading financial and industrial groups, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government departments. In fact, Tokyo assigns the key role in the “Great Game” for Central Asia and the Caucasus to its intelligence services. This is partly explained by the historically formed symbiosis of official Japanese diplomacy and the secret of all-encompassing intelligence activities. Of no small importance is the rich practical experience that the intelligence services of the Land of the Rising Sun acquired in the 20th century.

British heritage

The history of Japanese intelligence activities in Central Asia begins with the first two decades of the last century. Thanks to the modernization of the state system, socio-political institutions and the army carried out by Emperor Meiji from the 60s of the 19th century, at the turn of the 20th century. Japan was already a major regional power. Having gained enough strength, it moved on to rapid military expansion, and having conquered Korea and Taiwan, it directly collided with the Russian Empire. As tsarist military intelligence officer Alexei Ignatiev testifies, in St. Petersburg at that time they had a very vague idea of ​​​​this distant and exotic country. The General Staff openly laughed at how “the island natives had the audacity to challenge the father-emperor himself.” However, unlike the tsarist generals, the Japanese command, having entangled the Russian Far Eastern possessions with a continuous network of agents, turned out to be excellently prepared for the clash. Thus, according to tsarist counterintelligence data, by the beginning of 1904, more than 500 Japanese agents were operating in Russia. As a result, the Romanov Empire suffered a shameful defeat, which undoubtedly accelerated its tragic collapse. And although until 1917 both states officially maintained good neighborly and even allied relations, Japan did not stop perceiving Russia as one of its main strategic opponents.

First of all, the Japanese undertook a thorough study of British-Russian rivalry in Central Asia. Analysts from the II Department of the Imperial General Staff (intelligence) paid special attention to the British’s use of connections between the Sufi orders of Afghanistan and Central Asia to organize anti-Russian uprisings. Moreover, having collected information about the Kokand unrest of 1873-76, finding out who controlled them and what religious sects the conspirators belonged to, the Japanese established a connection between these events and the protests of Muslims in the Kazan province, which began a year and a half later. Thus, it became obvious that the Muslim factor is a powerful weapon in competition with Russia, allowing it to fetter its forces for a long time.

Practical experience

Already in 1917-18. Tokyo began to apply the valuable experience of the British Crown. In 1918-22. part of the Far East and Siberia was occupied by the troops of Emperor Taisho. Using these areas as a springboard and relying on Czechoslovak colleagues and White Guard leaders, employees of the II Department attempted to establish connections with the leadership of the Tatar and Bashkir Muslims. It is curious that for the first time in the pre-revolutionary period, Japanese intelligence was engaged in such activities in... the Caucasus, as eloquently evidenced by documents found on two Japanese citizens arrested here on suspicion of espionage in August 1907.

Now, the efforts of the II Department were initially limited only to contacts with Muslim leaders in Chita. However, in the summer of 1918, with the assistance of Ataman Dutov, the Japanese managed to reach one of the leaders of the Bashkir movement - Akhmet-Zaki Validov. In the spring of next year, emissaries of the 2nd Department will try to establish a communication channel with a number of activists of the largest Islamic party in Russia, the Union of Muslims (Ittifaq-al-Muslimin). Particular attention was paid to members of the leadership of the self-proclaimed autonomy of the Muslim peoples of Inner Russia and Siberia in the fall of 1917, who were then forced to hide from Bolshevik persecution. Japanese intelligence attached no less importance to the spiritual leaders of the Sufi orders of Siberia and the Urals. In some cases, contact with them was carried out through representatives of Ittifak-al-Muslimin, since many of them were also members of large Sufi brotherhoods. A member of the party's Central Committee, Tatar Mufti Galimjan Barudi was even one of the highest leaders of the influential Naqshbandiya-Khalidiya tariqat, being also an ardent supporter of Muslim autonomy. At the request of the 2nd Department, in the spring of 1919, the Chelyabinsk Muslim leader Kurbangaliev, known for his ancient and noble pedigree, held a series of meetings with him in Ufa. By the way, he later fled from the Bolsheviks to Japan, where for many years he acted as an intelligence expert on the Islamic factor in the USSR.

At the same time, through Chinese Turkestan, Japanese intelligence launched active activities on Afghan territory. From here, connections were established with the Islamic opposition of Soviet Central Asia. Of particular interest to the employees of the 2nd Department were the leaders of the pan-Islamic party "Ulema Jamiyati" ("Council of Ulema"), as well as the leaders of the Kokand Autonomy, liquidated by the Bolsheviks in February 1918. The closest ties were established by the Japanese with the former deputy chairman of the autonomous government, Shah-Islam Shagiakhmetov, who settled in Vladivostok in 1921.

Meanwhile, in Japan itself in the 20s, under the auspices of the special services, all kinds of religious and political organizations were intensively created, uniting people from the Muslim regions of the USSR. They specialized in anti-Soviet activities in Central Asia, Bashkiria and the Urals, widely using the ideas of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism. The oldest of them was the “Society for the Awakening of Greater Asia,” founded in 1908 and having branches in Afghanistan, Turkey and Persia. In the 1920s, it launched extremely active activities, primarily in the Central Asian direction. No less famous was the White Wolf society, founded in 1924 and closely associated with the Turkish organization Gray Wolves (Bozkurt), as well as the Budapest Panturan Society and Azerbaijani nationalists. In 1933, the Great Turan organization was also founded, whose representatives actively recruited Muslim emigrants from the USSR into the Japanese intelligence service. All of the above and many other structures of this kind were aimed at overthrowing Soviet power in Central Asia and creating a pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic state there. From the mid-20s. a significant part of their activities in the Soviet direction was carried out from the territory of Afghanistan.

Afghan bridgehead

After the withdrawal of Japanese troops from most of Russian territory in the fall of 1922, Section II began to provide support to the armed Islamic opposition in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At the same time, Japanese intelligence activities are intensifying in neighboring Afghanistan. Since the late 20s - early 30s, the territory of this country has become the main springboard for Tokyo intelligence services in the Central Asian region. From here, intensive collection of information is carried out about the situation in the Central Asian republics, and here the Japanese are preparing sabotage and subversive actions against the Soviet regime. During this period, the agents of the 2nd Department established close ties with the Uzbek leader of the Islamic opposition of Turkestan Ibrahim-bek Chakabaev. At that time, he still had noticeable military-political influence in the northern regions of Afghanistan, and also had very numerous supporters in Tajikistan and, to a lesser extent, in Uzbekistan. Japanese intelligence carried out all main contacts with him through his closest assistant Utan-bek. However, after the defeat of the armed forces of Ibrahim Beg in Central Asia in the summer of 1931, the activity of Japanese intelligence narrowed to the limits of Afghanistan exclusively. Despite this, the anti-Soviet activities of the II Department continued. From the mid-30s, for almost a whole decade, Japanese intelligence (along with German and English) was considered by the Soviet intelligence services as one of the main opponents in the region. In 1935, a high-ranking Japanese intelligence official, Kitadda, secretly visited the northern regions of Afghanistan. During his negotiations, an agreement was reached to continue cooperation between the anti-Soviet opposition and Tokyo. In addition to supporting the leaders of the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen emigration, the II Department provoked tension in Soviet-British relations in the Afghan direction. Operations of this kind acquired particular importance during the Second World War. Since 1937, Japanese intelligence officers worked here in close cooperation with their German colleagues. Together they also significantly expanded their influence on the Islamic movement in neighboring Xinjiang, and here they competed with the intelligence services of the USSR. Thanks to all this, in the first half of the 20th century, Japanese intelligence acquired very valuable experience in intelligence activities in the Muslim regions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This concerned both the very extensive information she collected and numerous intelligence sources. Based on British experience, Japanese intelligence services paid special attention to separatist and pan-Islamic figures in the local Muslim community.

After Japan's defeat in World War II, such a rich legacy of imperial intelligence services did not disappear without a trace. In the second half of the 40s, on the initiative of General McCarthur’s assistant Charles Willoughbee (Adolph Weidenbach), this heritage was actively studied by American intelligence. At the same time, many high-ranking officers of the imperial intelligence services, in particular the chief of the II department, Lieutenant General Arisue Seizo, his operational assistant Hattori Takushiro and a number of other experienced employees of this structure, were recruited to cooperate with the Americans. As a result, the United States received extremely valuable sources of information, as well as extensive files on Afghanistan, as well as Central Asia and some Muslim areas of the Urals and Siberia. In return, Washington contributed in every possible way to the creation of the special services of post-war Japan.

The ending follows...