Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition
- Thread starter Blackstar
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I don't really care whether the super heavy launcher is part of a system, and I think reducing it's capabilities to make it part of one goes against it's purpose. IMO the entire reason for the super heavy launcher to exist is to be a massive persnickety rocket launched very rarely with too much payload mass to be efficient for anything but the most overkill of missions, and then likely fades away from lack of need afterwards.
Keeping it around as the part of our launcher family that carries the large diameter payloads is a bad idea that's going to run into the same issues we were having with the RLA: having a lot of payload capacity left unused and wasted per launch. Just because a payload is wide doesn't mean it's massive enough to need 120+ tons of lift. If we wanted to make a good entire rocket system capable of handling wide payloads, we probably should have gone for the New Heavy Launcher instead last turn, since that would have been working on 6m cores capable of carrying 9m fairings and would have lasted us a good while. The -8H is just as likely as the nuclear rocket to shrivel up and die ignominiously after this space race is over. And same with whatever super heavy variant would come out of NGLVs too really, because there just isn't very much at all that actually needs 100+ tons to orbit besides landing a man on the Moon or orbiting Mars or whatever things we're very unlikely to be doing after this.
We've already got our ordinary rocket system capable of handling our ordinary space missions rather decently still, and have ideas for the next generation ordinary rocket systems just waiting in the wings for when we decide we need to switch over. The super heavies right now are extra-ordinary rockets for the rare extra-ordinary missions, like getting slapped in the face by ForPol and now we've got government demands forcing us into a race against the Americans to show off in space for national prestige and security. Since a super heavy launcher was always going to be a not-that-useful in the broader scale money pyre, by Lenin I want to make it the biggest damn torch we can and hurl enough into the heavens that we can do our own crazy cool projects in this short period before the political will fueling this all finishes burning out.
And who knows, maybe if we can deliver them a flashy enough success that the politicans can wave to go rah rah and rally round the flag against the capitalists they might not gut our space budget as badly once this is all over.
So by your argument we definitely should choose the Conservative -8H, as it won't impact the rest of the space programs we actually care about then. It gives a relatively quickly and not to expensive solution for a temporary requirement, it will cause no problems, introduce no risks and one won't feel particularly bad on it passing away afterwards. And as a side benefit, it in the mean time helps further develop hydrogen fuel/engine technology and helps train up a new generation of engineers in this technology, which might come in useful for an eventual replacement of the RLA.
At least, that's kind of what seems to be the logical choice from your argument I guess?
- Location
- The United States
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- She/Her
Alright, to start replying in order.
Shadow shield will provide protection for the entire payload bay for both stages, letting you use the full diameter theoretically.
650kg is just the first stage, second stage though will be far smaller and sub 100kg.
US was pushing far slower into rocketry and using solids far far heavier, they do have a bigger rocket but along the lines of a series of titan 3 boosters paired with a stretched/wider core and an upper stage expander cycle engine that can loft approx 35-40 tons that's being used for heavier launches and a shuttle ish program underway, though more a large central core stage with a carry-on capability for long and irregularly shaped payloads. Its in development, but your unsure of how far they have gotten, somewhat close to American Energia with a hydrogen core and four lengthened SRBs meant to be a modular payload vehicle.
- Location
- The United States
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- She/Her
And its not an open denial of the environmental movement, only the western one in that its taking a more explicit mastery of nature angle more so then a direct repudiation of ecology. And yes, third world is a term that wouldn't be used but its not like there is a significantly more fitting one that can be used in an English language context. Further, its at this point 50 years post PoD and the development of the Union has fundamentally shifted towards much more of a capitalist context with a market based economy and similar political pressures inherent to it.
It's also the least capable of the options (excepting the Energia-Adjacent which is the product of a program focus more on militarizing the orbits than going for the moon) when we've got political pressure bearing down on us to match the Americans. I expect the -8H would have been fine if things had continued on as they were before, and we could have started exploring options for some basic manned landings in a few years without cutting probe programs. Unfortunately we're in the timeline where President Moonbeam publicly announced and committed funding to an actual damn lunar base among a bunch of other programs, so now we've got big expectations placed on us, and the conservative rocket design feels like it will cause the most issues and jank when trying to fulfill them. I would really prefer to not have to run this new space race with anything less than whatever new and better super heavy would come out of the next generation vehicles. The probe programs are just falling victim to politics and the Cold War sticking their fingers into space in a way I wish we could avoid, but don't think we can without also handicapping our ability to accomplish what we're being told to do.
@7th Hex Sure, that would be nice, the next generation launcher seems like it would be better long term. Though I guess it would take longer to develop and it would cancel a fair few of our running programs, which is less great. But that could still be resolved over time, as such projects could eventually be reinstated after all, or alternate science missions in space.
Still overall if it did lead to a new generation of better launchers, that could be an acceptable trade off over the long term I guess. Even if anything big might see little use after the Moon race thing comes to an end.
So that one might have worked out I guess, though we'd have had to see which proposals there were exactly before we'd know for sure.
Still overall if it did lead to a new generation of better launchers, that could be an acceptable trade off over the long term I guess. Even if anything big might see little use after the Moon race thing comes to an end.
So that one might have worked out I guess, though we'd have had to see which proposals there were exactly before we'd know for sure.
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
I doubt the next gen launcher will be a more reliable way of creating an RLA successor than actually doing the new heavy launcher action or something of the sort. More to the point, I don't wanna tie the moon race to developing an RLA successor in short order - gotta give it time to marinate.
We won't have the money or the dice to create a direct successor to RLA for quite a while yet, however, between getting less money and having to develop the landing module, lunar suits/buggies and perhaps something impressive like a lunar space station to contest the goal of permanent lunar base.
Well at least for all its failures, our space station program should have given us more experience with people in space. We even did inflatable habitat experiments. So there certainly is some ability to do some interesting things hardware wise for this Moon mission if the engineers wanted to try, we now know a fair bit more after all.
- Location
- The great frozen north
Anyways, short term non-rocketry plans: Given the discussion about how political capital has a short shelf life and that Balakirev wants to make himself dangerous to secure power, "safe" non-controversial reforms like the Housing Sector should be saved for the 1979 turn, so they'll be close enough to the election to actually contribute to Balakirev having influence over how the 1980 plan goes. 1978 (next turn) is when we should get our hands dirty conspiring with Vorotnikov and other fun things behind Ryzz's back.
[X]Advance Conservative Solutions
Next gen would be better long-term... If there's enough demand, of which I'm not sure.
RLA-8H is sufficient to contest the lunar base, and if it turns out that there's significant long-term demand for it, we can always do RLA 2.0 later - this time with superheavy launcher planned from get-go.
Next gen would be better long-term... If there's enough demand, of which I'm not sure.
RLA-8H is sufficient to contest the lunar base, and if it turns out that there's significant long-term demand for it, we can always do RLA 2.0 later - this time with superheavy launcher planned from get-go.
Just to confirm, when you say Energia-type vehicle, I imagine a wide hydrolox core stage with strap on boosters of some kind that can loft 80-100 tonnes to LEO. Is that what you mean?
Or do you more mean something that carries its payload on the side, rather than on top of the stack?
In any case, the Americans have certainly improved their capabilities since the 60s. Sounds like they might be a little bit ahead of us in developing a superheavy too, though not by a huge amount.
Thankyou, that's reassuring at least.
Yeah, I am not really seeing the upside of Balakirev over Ryzhkov or Vorotnikov right now.
(EDIT: the upside of Balakirev overthrowing one or both to become GenSec I mean. Vorotnikov is OK currently and I would be reasonably enthused to back Ryzhkov to replace him if we had more change at the top.)
Regards,
fasquardon
Last edited:
- Location
- UK, Cardiff
[X]Advance Conservative Solutions
[X]Next Generation Launch Vehicles
[X]Next Generation Launch Vehicles
- Location
- Ireland
Not sure why people think the oil crisis is a fixed timeline event. They didn't embargo the US for the fun of it, it was a response to US support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War where they were losing and threatened use of their nukes. There's no Isreal here as you can see. Lack of Isreal also means general relations with the US should be better going forward so it's not like any little spat will result in an embargo.
Regarding US space investments, I wonder how much the lack of investment in NASA has impacted the US overall. So many technologies or even research discovers resulted from random NASA research that it's hard to know what the world would have or not have.
[X]Advance Conservative Solutions
[X]Next Generation Launch Vehicles
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
We have longstanding notice of an upcoming era of instability and war in the middle east where people start burning each-other's wells trying to capture more oilfield. Saddam is our man in the game when that happens.
- Location
- Ireland
War in the ME is not in the same stratosphere as an embargo from OPEC
A small crisis a few turns ago was enough to send shock waves through our economy. War in the ME means oil wells are getting burnt and shipments are getting disrupted. Even if the events plotvitalnpc laid out don't happen, there's another problem. We will consume more oil than can economically be produced in the late 80s to 90s. Y'know after our domestic reserves have been drained dry. The problem of a more prosperous USSR, China, India, etc.
Yeah, if the war in the Middle East doesn't happen, that'll be quite a bit worse, because then the oil crisis happens a decade from now when the whole world suddenly discovers that OPEC was lying about conventional reserves and can't sustain the worldwide 100 million barrels per day consumption. Instead of a shock, that means the economy just fucking hard crashes, with food prices quadrupling before considering anything else.
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
What's the Russian translation of "Mad Max"?
Cannon Omake: Kabuki, Economic Growth and Mangas: the economic-cultural relations of Japan and the Soviet Union from the Civil War to the 1970s
New
Terminator57
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
After some worries and a writing breakdown, here is a new omake nammed "Kabuki, Economic Growth and Mangas: the economic-cultural relations of Japan and the Soviet Union from the Civil War to the 1970s" as a Christmas present and to start the year off right. I hope you will enjoy it as it was complicated for me to write it.
What's more, this artistic initiative is also encountering difficulties on the Soviet side. Indeed, the potentially staggering costs of this initiative were a reason for Soviet reluctance to implement the project, since the Soviet side, as the inviting power, would bear all the expenses associated with the tour, and these were considerable according to the organizers.
Nevertheless, Japanese public opinion and strategy of influence eventually brought the theatrical tour project to fruition. Indeed, as the question of a kabuki tour of the Soviet Union became more and more widely publicized in the press, and as the Japanese public became more interested in the issue, the project became not just an artistic issue, but a national one: for the government and its citizens, it was a question of defending Japan's image, which had become a major preoccupation for the Japanese authorities, as well as defending the country's reputation and its culture. For the Soviet authorities, the unhoped-for opportunity to take a step towards Japanese progressive circles and thus gain influence in Japan, but also to ease tensions, will soon silence all reservations about this project, all the more so as, according to the Soviet authorities, the failure of this project would cause a huge scandal that would distance the Soviet Union from Japanese progressive circles and seriously damage it on a political level.
And so, after this obstacle course, the tour came to fruition: the troupe played for two weeks (August 1 to 17) at Moscow's Art Theater No. 2, then spent a week in Leningrad, where they presented the same program at the Little State Opera.
It's worth noting that the Soviets made a real effort to educate the Soviet public: illustrated brochures with synopses of the plays were printed in Russian in Tokyo and delivered in June. In addition, a presentation of the plays before curtain-up was organized, two booklets on kabuki (a small volume of around 30 pages and a collection) were distributed, and numerous articles in Soviet periodicals were published to educate the Soviet public about this Japanese art form. This educational effort was also evident in the plays themselves, which were designed to appeal to the audience: works with lots of action, pantomime, dance and little dialogue were given pride of place, and performances were shortened to three hours.
Despite the loss-making nature of these shows - as Troyanovsky said of the tour, "It made us lose a lot of money, we made a loss, whereas the tour could have resulted in no or minimal financial loss" - the success of the tour was immense: the shows filled theatres, fascinated artists and theatre-goers alike, and inspired Eisenstein to make some famous reflections.
This cultural encounter marked only a brief lull in Japanese-Soviet relations, for with the invasion of Manchuria by the Empire of Japan in 1931, diplomatic relations deteriorated once again, only to pick up again after the Second World War and Japan's transformation from a militaristic expansionist power to one under American influence.
In the post-war years, and particularly with the death of Stalin in 1947 and the change in the soviet leadership allowed by this event, diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union were resumed, with the signing of a joint declaration on October 19, 1956, providing for the restoration of diplomatic relations and putting an end to the war.
The two sides also agreed to continue negotiations on a peace treaty, including territorial issues. In addition, the Soviet Union pledges its support for Japan's membership of the UN, and renounces all claims for reparations from the Second World War. The joint declaration was accompanied by a trade protocol granting reciprocal treatment on a most-favored-nation basis and providing for the development of trade.
The resumption of diplomatic relations is also reflected in a resumption of commercial and cultural relations. In the former case, the signing in 1950 of an agreement on fishing zones marked the beginning of an improvement in USSR-Japan relations. As for cultural relations, these took the form of cultural exchanges "from above", with cultural diplomacy carried out by individuals with strong cultural capital or state structures.
Nevertheless, a "bottom-up" dimension to these cultural exchanges would gradually emerge and develop in parallel with the growth in economic exchanges, following the establishment in 1962 of a Bilateral Economic Committee tasked with facilitating these economic exchanges, and then in 1968 with the first joint infrastructure projects passed through the committee, culminating in the signing in 1974 of the Agreement on the Development of the Nakhodka Bay Ports establishing the foundation for the gateway of a new generation of USSR-Japan trade.
Indeed, despite the ideological divisions of the Cold War, this economic rapprochement once again enabled the two countries to bridge the respective gaps in their economies: a lack of raw materials for the Land of the Rising Sun, and industrial and technological underdevelopment for the Land of the Soviets.
However, compared to the previous motivations, a new one was added in the case of Japan: a desire to redirect Japanese outlets from the United States to the Soviet Union, following the introduction of tariffs on Japanese products by the American government in the 1970s, on the grounds of unfair competitive practices on the part of the Japanese government and companies: this enabled American producers to win market share from Japanese producers who had become less competitive in relation to their competitors, thus reducing Japanese exports to the United States in terms of both value and volume.
This reorientation towards the Soviet Union was all the more appealing to Japanese business circles given that, compared to the early post-war years, the Soviet population had grown considerably richer, and represented consumers with high purchasing power likely to buy large quantities of these goods.
Japanese industry's search for raw materials took the form of massive capital injections and managerial exports - rather than technology transfers, as the Soviets would have preferred, in order not to upset the American government - to Siberian raw materials extraction and processing companies. This strategy also enabled Japanese industries to gain a competitive edge over their Western rivals, as they benefited from the lower cost of Soviet raw materials, as well as a workforce educated and disciplined - but also cheaper than Japanese workers - by decades of Soviet-style management. Economic cooperation developed rapidly in the 1960s, despite unresolved territorial issues (the northern territories illegally militarily occupied by the Soviet Union, according to Japan). In fact, as we saw earlier, the two economies were complementary: the Soviet Union needed Japan's capital and technology, while Japan needed Soviet natural resources such as oil, gas, coal, iron ore and timber. The importance of these bilateral economic exchanges can be seen in the fact that in 1977, total trade reached $14.4 billion a year, making Japan, after the United States and Great Britain, the Soviet Union's most important non-socialist trading partner.
However, it would be wrong to believe that Japanese exports to the Soviet Union consisted solely of industrial products, since the emigration of Japanese managers and the liberalization of trade in cultural goods from the 1970s onwards also saw the emergence of modern Japanese culture (by which we mean Japanese culture that emerged after the Second World War) in Siberian cities, and its appropriation by Soviet youth. This was reflected in the gradual spread from Vladivostock and along the East-West communications routes of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the western cities of the Soviet Union of numerous Japanese mangas such as Ashita no Joe and Goldorak, by pioneers of Japanese publishing in the Soviet Union like Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Kawabata Yasunari, aided by Soviet publishing greats such as Aleksandr Tvardovskiy and Vsevolod Ovchinnikov.
From a cultural point of view, what can be described as a subculture within the Soviet Union is still today a niche culture, existing and spreading only through the intermediary of Soviet fans or specialized meeting places organized by these same fans in cities such as Khabarovsk or Krasnoyarsk.
However, it would be wrong to believe that the adoption of Japanese culture "from below" is limited to new literature that has recently arrived, since a broader Soviet enthusiasm for Japanese arts was already evident in the late 1960s. Indeed, from the 1970s onwards, we can see the emergence of a more general Japanophilia through the dissemination of classics of Japanese culture and works that projected a flattering image of Japanese culture - although with a certain orientalist vision of Japanese culture - such as The Branch of Sakura: The Story of What Kind of People the Japanese are, Japan's Artistic Tradition, The Japanese, and The Fifteenth Stone of the Ryoan-ji Garden by a number of renowned journalists, reporters and academics such as academician Lidija Ginzburg or international reporter Vladislav Listiev or journalist Anna Mazepa. These texts varied in terms of style, factual accuracy, and level of sophistication, but all were devoted to depicting Japan's unique culture and national character.
This popularization of Japanese culture among the Soviet population resulted in a progressive fascination with Japanese traditional arts such as ikebana (flower arrangement), martial arts and literature, which swept the Soviet Union. Additionally, Informal clubs and groups devoted to studying and practicing Japanese traditional arts emerged in various towns and cities throughout the Soviet Union. Particularly Japanese martial arts proved to be popular. Karate for example, at its peak had over six million followers across the USSR. A final element showing this interest in Japanese culture in the Soviet Union may be the fact that Translations of Japanese classics as well as modern authors were published in large print-runs of around 100,000 copies throughout the 1970s–1980s and were sold out in a matter of days.
This cultural evolution was all the more viewed with a benevolent eye by the Soviet authorities - despite the opposition of the neo-Stalinists present in the Supreme Soviet - because it allowed the Soviet government to present their country as a country that was Japanese-loving and open to other cultures: thus facilitating all the more the arrival of Japanese investments in the Soviet Union as it flattered Japanese financiers to see their culture held in such high esteem by the population and reassured them concerning the security of their investments - no risk of anti-Japanese protests.
Despite the cultural liberalization policies undertaken by the Soviet government in recent years, like kabuki in its time, this craze of Soviet youth for Japanese book culture must be taken with caution because this line is always, like kabuki in its time, likely to evolve according to the decisions of the top of the state apparatus and the international context: thus leaving the question of the hybridization between Soviet and Japanese culture in suspense - uncertainty also linked to the youth of this Japanese cultural penetration.
Thus, over the decades, we see that Siberia has continued to play this role of economic and cultural frontier between the Soviet Union and Japan and that this will continue to be the case in the years or even decades to come in the best case scenario in all likelihood.
Excerpts from "The Katana and the Sickle: Japanese-Soviet Relations from the Russian Civil War to the 1970s" (1980) by the argentinian historian of international relations Hans Gruder (1926-2014)
Over the course of the 20th century, relations between Japan and Russia fluctuated considerably: initially cordial, they deteriorated as the Far East became a territory of rivalry between these two powers seeking to extend their zone of influence at the expense of China and Korea.
Relations between these imperial powers reached a low point with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, before rising again during the First World War, when the two empires became allies. An example of this renewed cordiality in relations was the plan to deploy Japanese troops on the Russian front against the Austro-Hungarians and Germans.
The collapse of the Russian Empire and the ensuing civil war reconfigured Russian-Japanese relations, severely damaging them for the eventual victors of the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks.
In fact, in order to curb or even destroy the young Bolshevik regime, Japan intervened in Eastern Siberia and Transbaikalia in the service of Kolchak's White armies. At the end of 1918, the Consul General Sat in charge of the Japanese troops stationed in Siberia proposed to Kolchak's government the opening of Japanese bank branches in Irkutsk and Novonikolayevsk.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to reduce Russian-Japanese relations to those of a purely diplomatic nature, since they also influenced population movements and the economic development of Siberia.
During the period of good Russian-Japanese relations prior to 1904, for example, the number of Japanese in Siberia rose to over five thousand. They came as representatives of culture and entertainment, small traders and spies. Generally speaking, this can be closely linked to the increase in Japanese emigration to Russia at the end of the 19th century.
Nevertheless, this Japanese immigration did not take place without the approval of the two powers concerned, as the legal foundations for the development of the Japanese community in Russia were laid down in a bilateral agreement signed in 1895, covering trade and shipping between the two countries.
Subsequently, with the civil war and the withdrawal of Japanese troops following the Gongota Agreement, and under intense diplomatic pressure from the Americans (who suspected them of wanting to annex Siberia and the Russian Far East) and the British, as well as mounting domestic public opposition concerned about the growing human and economic cost, virtually all Japanese left Siberia. An example of this exodus is the fact that almost all members of Irkutsk's large Japanese community were evacuated at the same time as the Japanese troops stationed in Siberia. Nevertheless, the fear of the remaining Japanese that the Bolsheviks would dispossess them of their possessions and send them to a labor camp in Siberia was quickly dispelled, as the new authorities made an exception for Japanese merchants in their policy of expropriating exploiters. Indeed, the Soviets had no interest in the complete disappearance of this foreign presence in the region, nor did they wish to see complications arise in their relations with Tokyo.
Despite this deterioration in diplomatic relations between the two Asian powers, it was not until a few years later that relations were revived, following Japan's official recognition of the Soviet Union on January 20, 1925, with the signing of the Peking Convention. Thereafter, it was not until 1928 that the two states made a concrete effort to improve their relations, rather than merely acknowledging the existence of their two countries.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to believe that this desire to improve bilateral relations was simply the result of a passionate desire to bring two different peoples and cultures closer together, since this convergence of will was explained by strategic imperatives on both sides, especially since neither Tokyo nor Moscow had any illusions about their new-found friendship proclaimed to the international community.
For Tokyo, it's a question of responding to economic considerations by widening outlets for its products and meeting its need for raw materials, which the archipelago is sorely lacking, while seeking to diversify its economic partners and secure its western flank in the context of latent rivalry with the United States. Moscow, for its part, wanted to re-establish good-neighborly relations with its eastern neighbor, to reduce the risk of war, so that it could concentrate on industrializing the country and benefit from Japanese technology transfers to "catch up with and overtake" the capitalist countries.
As mentioned above, this new friendship did not prevent the two countries from pursuing their respective obsessions. In Japan, this took the form of the "Peace Protection Law", designed to combat "dangerous thinking" and passed in the wake of the Peking Convention, which gradually placed the Japanese Communists in a worrying position. The Soviet Union, which had pledged not to engage in any propaganda in the archipelago, nevertheless wished to continue extending its influence over the Japanese proletarian parties, albeit with little room for manoeuvre.
Under these conditions, "cultural relations are one of the few ways of improving our relationship with Japan", as Alexander Troyanovsky lucidly put it in June 1928. Kabuki thus quickly came to the minds of the state apparatuses of both countries, as well as local artistic circles - such as the famous actress Okada Yoshiko or Japanese theater directors like Osanai Kaoru, Senda Korenari and Hijikata Yoshi - a leading figure in shingeki ("new theater"), who called for the abandonment of kabuki in favour of realistic theater, and whose future Japanese theater would emerge from the combination of Western and Eastern traditions, and kabuki in particular, in a fruitful emulation of these theatrical traditions - as a means of improving relations. Indeed, by the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese theater was already arousing a veritable craze in Russia and the rest of Europe.
With this desire to smooth relations and win over progressive Japanese circles, the Soviet Union translated this into the implementation of a veritable cultural offensive towards Japan, intending to win over Japanese opinion on the very basis of its declared ability to welcome the culture of this prestigious country.
This can also be seen in the role given to Japanese artists by the Soviet authorities. In fact, the Bolshevik leaders considered that artists in Japan were generally held in high esteem and enjoyed great popularity, and that famous artists like Sadanji Ichikawa were national heroes, and therefore of great importance in influencing the Japanese population to promote a positive image of the Soviet Union, both culturally and politically. To carry out its cultural offensive, the Soviet Union set up the Pan-Soviet Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) in 1925, following its Russian acronym, and made full use of it by offering Japanese artists the opportunity to tour the Soviet Union as part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution.
This was done in 1927, thanks to the wish expressed in the press on both sides of the Sea of Japan by the above-mentioned well-known artists - and then taken up by their respective governments - to organize a theatrical tour of the Soviet Union.
However, obstacles soon arose to prevent the event from taking place. The extreme right reacted violently against the initiative, fearing that Bolshevism would contaminate the national theater, and did not hesitate to launch press campaigns against the Japanese participants, threatening them with the worst punishments to dissuade them from taking part in the tour. In addition, Shochiku (the kabuki theater and film production company founded in 1895 and employing the artists to be mobilized for this Soviet tour) points to the financial loss incurred by the long absence of the troupe's best actors from Japan, and is therefore reluctant to commit to the show. She also added that the Soviet demand for authentic kabuki required a special and, of course, costly stage set (ten sets designed in Tokyo had to be transported by ship and then by train, and the stages of Moscow's Art Theater No. 2 and Leningrad's Little State Opera, where the kabuki would take place, had to be transformed): on the order of a hundred thousand rubles.
Relations between these imperial powers reached a low point with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, before rising again during the First World War, when the two empires became allies. An example of this renewed cordiality in relations was the plan to deploy Japanese troops on the Russian front against the Austro-Hungarians and Germans.
The collapse of the Russian Empire and the ensuing civil war reconfigured Russian-Japanese relations, severely damaging them for the eventual victors of the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks.
In fact, in order to curb or even destroy the young Bolshevik regime, Japan intervened in Eastern Siberia and Transbaikalia in the service of Kolchak's White armies. At the end of 1918, the Consul General Sat in charge of the Japanese troops stationed in Siberia proposed to Kolchak's government the opening of Japanese bank branches in Irkutsk and Novonikolayevsk.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to reduce Russian-Japanese relations to those of a purely diplomatic nature, since they also influenced population movements and the economic development of Siberia.
During the period of good Russian-Japanese relations prior to 1904, for example, the number of Japanese in Siberia rose to over five thousand. They came as representatives of culture and entertainment, small traders and spies. Generally speaking, this can be closely linked to the increase in Japanese emigration to Russia at the end of the 19th century.
Nevertheless, this Japanese immigration did not take place without the approval of the two powers concerned, as the legal foundations for the development of the Japanese community in Russia were laid down in a bilateral agreement signed in 1895, covering trade and shipping between the two countries.
Subsequently, with the civil war and the withdrawal of Japanese troops following the Gongota Agreement, and under intense diplomatic pressure from the Americans (who suspected them of wanting to annex Siberia and the Russian Far East) and the British, as well as mounting domestic public opposition concerned about the growing human and economic cost, virtually all Japanese left Siberia. An example of this exodus is the fact that almost all members of Irkutsk's large Japanese community were evacuated at the same time as the Japanese troops stationed in Siberia. Nevertheless, the fear of the remaining Japanese that the Bolsheviks would dispossess them of their possessions and send them to a labor camp in Siberia was quickly dispelled, as the new authorities made an exception for Japanese merchants in their policy of expropriating exploiters. Indeed, the Soviets had no interest in the complete disappearance of this foreign presence in the region, nor did they wish to see complications arise in their relations with Tokyo.
Despite this deterioration in diplomatic relations between the two Asian powers, it was not until a few years later that relations were revived, following Japan's official recognition of the Soviet Union on January 20, 1925, with the signing of the Peking Convention. Thereafter, it was not until 1928 that the two states made a concrete effort to improve their relations, rather than merely acknowledging the existence of their two countries.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to believe that this desire to improve bilateral relations was simply the result of a passionate desire to bring two different peoples and cultures closer together, since this convergence of will was explained by strategic imperatives on both sides, especially since neither Tokyo nor Moscow had any illusions about their new-found friendship proclaimed to the international community.
For Tokyo, it's a question of responding to economic considerations by widening outlets for its products and meeting its need for raw materials, which the archipelago is sorely lacking, while seeking to diversify its economic partners and secure its western flank in the context of latent rivalry with the United States. Moscow, for its part, wanted to re-establish good-neighborly relations with its eastern neighbor, to reduce the risk of war, so that it could concentrate on industrializing the country and benefit from Japanese technology transfers to "catch up with and overtake" the capitalist countries.
As mentioned above, this new friendship did not prevent the two countries from pursuing their respective obsessions. In Japan, this took the form of the "Peace Protection Law", designed to combat "dangerous thinking" and passed in the wake of the Peking Convention, which gradually placed the Japanese Communists in a worrying position. The Soviet Union, which had pledged not to engage in any propaganda in the archipelago, nevertheless wished to continue extending its influence over the Japanese proletarian parties, albeit with little room for manoeuvre.
Under these conditions, "cultural relations are one of the few ways of improving our relationship with Japan", as Alexander Troyanovsky lucidly put it in June 1928. Kabuki thus quickly came to the minds of the state apparatuses of both countries, as well as local artistic circles - such as the famous actress Okada Yoshiko or Japanese theater directors like Osanai Kaoru, Senda Korenari and Hijikata Yoshi - a leading figure in shingeki ("new theater"), who called for the abandonment of kabuki in favour of realistic theater, and whose future Japanese theater would emerge from the combination of Western and Eastern traditions, and kabuki in particular, in a fruitful emulation of these theatrical traditions - as a means of improving relations. Indeed, by the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese theater was already arousing a veritable craze in Russia and the rest of Europe.
With this desire to smooth relations and win over progressive Japanese circles, the Soviet Union translated this into the implementation of a veritable cultural offensive towards Japan, intending to win over Japanese opinion on the very basis of its declared ability to welcome the culture of this prestigious country.
This can also be seen in the role given to Japanese artists by the Soviet authorities. In fact, the Bolshevik leaders considered that artists in Japan were generally held in high esteem and enjoyed great popularity, and that famous artists like Sadanji Ichikawa were national heroes, and therefore of great importance in influencing the Japanese population to promote a positive image of the Soviet Union, both culturally and politically. To carry out its cultural offensive, the Soviet Union set up the Pan-Soviet Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) in 1925, following its Russian acronym, and made full use of it by offering Japanese artists the opportunity to tour the Soviet Union as part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution.
This was done in 1927, thanks to the wish expressed in the press on both sides of the Sea of Japan by the above-mentioned well-known artists - and then taken up by their respective governments - to organize a theatrical tour of the Soviet Union.
However, obstacles soon arose to prevent the event from taking place. The extreme right reacted violently against the initiative, fearing that Bolshevism would contaminate the national theater, and did not hesitate to launch press campaigns against the Japanese participants, threatening them with the worst punishments to dissuade them from taking part in the tour. In addition, Shochiku (the kabuki theater and film production company founded in 1895 and employing the artists to be mobilized for this Soviet tour) points to the financial loss incurred by the long absence of the troupe's best actors from Japan, and is therefore reluctant to commit to the show. She also added that the Soviet demand for authentic kabuki required a special and, of course, costly stage set (ten sets designed in Tokyo had to be transported by ship and then by train, and the stages of Moscow's Art Theater No. 2 and Leningrad's Little State Opera, where the kabuki would take place, had to be transformed): on the order of a hundred thousand rubles.
What's more, this artistic initiative is also encountering difficulties on the Soviet side. Indeed, the potentially staggering costs of this initiative were a reason for Soviet reluctance to implement the project, since the Soviet side, as the inviting power, would bear all the expenses associated with the tour, and these were considerable according to the organizers.
Nevertheless, Japanese public opinion and strategy of influence eventually brought the theatrical tour project to fruition. Indeed, as the question of a kabuki tour of the Soviet Union became more and more widely publicized in the press, and as the Japanese public became more interested in the issue, the project became not just an artistic issue, but a national one: for the government and its citizens, it was a question of defending Japan's image, which had become a major preoccupation for the Japanese authorities, as well as defending the country's reputation and its culture. For the Soviet authorities, the unhoped-for opportunity to take a step towards Japanese progressive circles and thus gain influence in Japan, but also to ease tensions, will soon silence all reservations about this project, all the more so as, according to the Soviet authorities, the failure of this project would cause a huge scandal that would distance the Soviet Union from Japanese progressive circles and seriously damage it on a political level.
And so, after this obstacle course, the tour came to fruition: the troupe played for two weeks (August 1 to 17) at Moscow's Art Theater No. 2, then spent a week in Leningrad, where they presented the same program at the Little State Opera.
It's worth noting that the Soviets made a real effort to educate the Soviet public: illustrated brochures with synopses of the plays were printed in Russian in Tokyo and delivered in June. In addition, a presentation of the plays before curtain-up was organized, two booklets on kabuki (a small volume of around 30 pages and a collection) were distributed, and numerous articles in Soviet periodicals were published to educate the Soviet public about this Japanese art form. This educational effort was also evident in the plays themselves, which were designed to appeal to the audience: works with lots of action, pantomime, dance and little dialogue were given pride of place, and performances were shortened to three hours.
Despite the loss-making nature of these shows - as Troyanovsky said of the tour, "It made us lose a lot of money, we made a loss, whereas the tour could have resulted in no or minimal financial loss" - the success of the tour was immense: the shows filled theatres, fascinated artists and theatre-goers alike, and inspired Eisenstein to make some famous reflections.
This cultural encounter marked only a brief lull in Japanese-Soviet relations, for with the invasion of Manchuria by the Empire of Japan in 1931, diplomatic relations deteriorated once again, only to pick up again after the Second World War and Japan's transformation from a militaristic expansionist power to one under American influence.
In the post-war years, and particularly with the death of Stalin in 1947 and the change in the soviet leadership allowed by this event, diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union were resumed, with the signing of a joint declaration on October 19, 1956, providing for the restoration of diplomatic relations and putting an end to the war.
The two sides also agreed to continue negotiations on a peace treaty, including territorial issues. In addition, the Soviet Union pledges its support for Japan's membership of the UN, and renounces all claims for reparations from the Second World War. The joint declaration was accompanied by a trade protocol granting reciprocal treatment on a most-favored-nation basis and providing for the development of trade.
The resumption of diplomatic relations is also reflected in a resumption of commercial and cultural relations. In the former case, the signing in 1950 of an agreement on fishing zones marked the beginning of an improvement in USSR-Japan relations. As for cultural relations, these took the form of cultural exchanges "from above", with cultural diplomacy carried out by individuals with strong cultural capital or state structures.
Nevertheless, a "bottom-up" dimension to these cultural exchanges would gradually emerge and develop in parallel with the growth in economic exchanges, following the establishment in 1962 of a Bilateral Economic Committee tasked with facilitating these economic exchanges, and then in 1968 with the first joint infrastructure projects passed through the committee, culminating in the signing in 1974 of the Agreement on the Development of the Nakhodka Bay Ports establishing the foundation for the gateway of a new generation of USSR-Japan trade.
Indeed, despite the ideological divisions of the Cold War, this economic rapprochement once again enabled the two countries to bridge the respective gaps in their economies: a lack of raw materials for the Land of the Rising Sun, and industrial and technological underdevelopment for the Land of the Soviets.
However, compared to the previous motivations, a new one was added in the case of Japan: a desire to redirect Japanese outlets from the United States to the Soviet Union, following the introduction of tariffs on Japanese products by the American government in the 1970s, on the grounds of unfair competitive practices on the part of the Japanese government and companies: this enabled American producers to win market share from Japanese producers who had become less competitive in relation to their competitors, thus reducing Japanese exports to the United States in terms of both value and volume.
This reorientation towards the Soviet Union was all the more appealing to Japanese business circles given that, compared to the early post-war years, the Soviet population had grown considerably richer, and represented consumers with high purchasing power likely to buy large quantities of these goods.
Japanese industry's search for raw materials took the form of massive capital injections and managerial exports - rather than technology transfers, as the Soviets would have preferred, in order not to upset the American government - to Siberian raw materials extraction and processing companies. This strategy also enabled Japanese industries to gain a competitive edge over their Western rivals, as they benefited from the lower cost of Soviet raw materials, as well as a workforce educated and disciplined - but also cheaper than Japanese workers - by decades of Soviet-style management. Economic cooperation developed rapidly in the 1960s, despite unresolved territorial issues (the northern territories illegally militarily occupied by the Soviet Union, according to Japan). In fact, as we saw earlier, the two economies were complementary: the Soviet Union needed Japan's capital and technology, while Japan needed Soviet natural resources such as oil, gas, coal, iron ore and timber. The importance of these bilateral economic exchanges can be seen in the fact that in 1977, total trade reached $14.4 billion a year, making Japan, after the United States and Great Britain, the Soviet Union's most important non-socialist trading partner.
However, it would be wrong to believe that Japanese exports to the Soviet Union consisted solely of industrial products, since the emigration of Japanese managers and the liberalization of trade in cultural goods from the 1970s onwards also saw the emergence of modern Japanese culture (by which we mean Japanese culture that emerged after the Second World War) in Siberian cities, and its appropriation by Soviet youth. This was reflected in the gradual spread from Vladivostock and along the East-West communications routes of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the western cities of the Soviet Union of numerous Japanese mangas such as Ashita no Joe and Goldorak, by pioneers of Japanese publishing in the Soviet Union like Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Kawabata Yasunari, aided by Soviet publishing greats such as Aleksandr Tvardovskiy and Vsevolod Ovchinnikov.
From a cultural point of view, what can be described as a subculture within the Soviet Union is still today a niche culture, existing and spreading only through the intermediary of Soviet fans or specialized meeting places organized by these same fans in cities such as Khabarovsk or Krasnoyarsk.
However, it would be wrong to believe that the adoption of Japanese culture "from below" is limited to new literature that has recently arrived, since a broader Soviet enthusiasm for Japanese arts was already evident in the late 1960s. Indeed, from the 1970s onwards, we can see the emergence of a more general Japanophilia through the dissemination of classics of Japanese culture and works that projected a flattering image of Japanese culture - although with a certain orientalist vision of Japanese culture - such as The Branch of Sakura: The Story of What Kind of People the Japanese are, Japan's Artistic Tradition, The Japanese, and The Fifteenth Stone of the Ryoan-ji Garden by a number of renowned journalists, reporters and academics such as academician Lidija Ginzburg or international reporter Vladislav Listiev or journalist Anna Mazepa. These texts varied in terms of style, factual accuracy, and level of sophistication, but all were devoted to depicting Japan's unique culture and national character.
This popularization of Japanese culture among the Soviet population resulted in a progressive fascination with Japanese traditional arts such as ikebana (flower arrangement), martial arts and literature, which swept the Soviet Union. Additionally, Informal clubs and groups devoted to studying and practicing Japanese traditional arts emerged in various towns and cities throughout the Soviet Union. Particularly Japanese martial arts proved to be popular. Karate for example, at its peak had over six million followers across the USSR. A final element showing this interest in Japanese culture in the Soviet Union may be the fact that Translations of Japanese classics as well as modern authors were published in large print-runs of around 100,000 copies throughout the 1970s–1980s and were sold out in a matter of days.
This cultural evolution was all the more viewed with a benevolent eye by the Soviet authorities - despite the opposition of the neo-Stalinists present in the Supreme Soviet - because it allowed the Soviet government to present their country as a country that was Japanese-loving and open to other cultures: thus facilitating all the more the arrival of Japanese investments in the Soviet Union as it flattered Japanese financiers to see their culture held in such high esteem by the population and reassured them concerning the security of their investments - no risk of anti-Japanese protests.
Despite the cultural liberalization policies undertaken by the Soviet government in recent years, like kabuki in its time, this craze of Soviet youth for Japanese book culture must be taken with caution because this line is always, like kabuki in its time, likely to evolve according to the decisions of the top of the state apparatus and the international context: thus leaving the question of the hybridization between Soviet and Japanese culture in suspense - uncertainty also linked to the youth of this Japanese cultural penetration.
Thus, over the decades, we see that Siberia has continued to play this role of economic and cultural frontier between the Soviet Union and Japan and that this will continue to be the case in the years or even decades to come in the best case scenario in all likelihood.
Excerpts from "The Katana and the Sickle: Japanese-Soviet Relations from the Russian Civil War to the 1970s" (1980) by the argentinian historian of international relations Hans Gruder (1926-2014)
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Can you write one on india and soviet relationship?
