ABSTRACT
In the final stages of the war in Asia, Britain was pushed aside and condemned as an imperialist power while the Soviet Union was guaranteed the Kuriles, South Sakhalin and the nearby islands along with a lease of Port Arthur as a naval base. The future of Asia was to be decided largely by the United States and the Soviet Union, and Britain's role as a dominant power in the Pacific had ended. The Japanese dictatorship which crushed the last vestiges of democracy and which controlled all aspects of public life was a quite distinct form of rule from that of the fascist Governments of Germany and Italy. Togo, like Hitler, counted on the Allies falling out and concentrated on negotiations with the Soviet Union on the assumption that the Soviets had no desire to see Japan dominated by the Americans.
