ABSTRACT
The best scenario for Moscow was to keep Japan both from allying with China and swallowing it up by awakening Chinese nationalism, while at the same time weakening the imperialist powers by encouraging them to attack one another. This highly complex strategy was exactly what Stalin pursued. The Chinese did not fail to see Moscow’s influence behind the Shanghai uprising. Just before the Shanghai Coup, Zhang Zuolin had raided the Soviet embassy in Beijing, several months after he had set himself up in Beijing as China’s ruler in December 1926. There is no evidence that after Tanaka’s ascension to power in Japan, Stalin feared Japan’s military intervention against Soviet political maneuvers in China. Obviously, when Tanaka deployed military forces to Shandong in May 1927, Stalin must have discussed and assessed such an important event. Goto was known to be pro-Soviet, and his reception in Moscow was exceptionally cordial.
