The Russian vector of Japanese intelligence activities (1874–1945)

The article is devoted to the activities of the Japanese intelligence community in 1874– 1945. The main work, first, against the Russian Empire, and later against the Soviet Union, was carried out by the army and navy intelligence agencies of the empire. In some cases, diplomatic missions and military gendarmerie were also engaged in secret intelligence against our country following the instructions of the supreme command of the Japanese army and navy. The beginning of Japan’s intelligence activities in Russia dates back to 1874–1875, when residents from the army and navy were sent to Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok. Before the start of the 1904–1905 campaign, Japanese intelligence managed to organize channels for obtaining reliable information about the state of the Tsarist navy and army, which largely ensured the success of its armed forces in this war. After the “Course of the National Defense of the Empire” was adopted in 1907, Japanese army intelligence focused on intelligence work against Russia, while naval intelligence began to collect information mainly focusing on the United States and Great Britain. In the 1920s, the interest of the army intelligence agencies also switched to the armed forces and military industry of Western Europe and the United States, but, after the occupation of Manchuria in 1931–1932, army intelligence focused on the Soviet direction again. Due to the tightening of the administrative, counterintelligence, and border protection regimes in the USSR in the second half of the 1930s, the collection of information by means of radio intelligence and cryptoanalysis received significant development in the activities of the Japanese intelligence community. Largely due to information from army and naval intelligence, the Japanese leadership abandoned its plans to attack the USSR in the autumn of 1941 and was informed in the spring and summer of 1945 about the upcoming war with the Soviet Union. Despite Japan’s defeat in World War II, in the mid-1950s, it resumed the activities of its intelligence community.

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