Keys on the Typewriter

Japanese propaganda from the Siberian Intervention (1918-1922), c. 1919. English text at the bottom reads: “Our Army Attacks From Sky, Water And Shore, And Repulsed Enemy Of Siberia”

Following the overthrow of both the Russian Empire and the Provisional Government under Kerensky in 1917 and the rise of Soviet Russia, the Allied powers attempted a military intervention to support the anti-Bolshevik White Army. 

During the intervention, Japan attempted not only to help put down the Communist forces but to ultimately secure Siberian territory as a buffer zone against future Russian aggression. The two powers suffered significant hostility toward one another as their respective imperialist ambitions came into conflict over Manchuria and Korea, which had manifested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

While initially successful, Japan’s intervention was an expensive undertaking and Japan came under increasing pressure to withdraw after the other Allied powers departed in 1920 (especially from the United States, which feared Japan’s rival ambitions in East Asia and the Pacific). This pressure, combined with increasing war weariness at home, led to Japan withdrawing its forces from Siberia in 1922.