Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan

After World War II, the Soviet Union captured 600,000 Japanese soldiers and sent them to labor camps in Siberia and the Far East. They were used as a workforce for the rebuilding Soviets and were subjected to "reeducation" that glorified the Soviet system. About 60,000 Japanese soldiers did not survive Siberia, and the rest were sent home in waves. Returnees faced the final shock and alienation of an unrecognizable homeland, transformed after the demise of the imperial state. Eleven Winters of Discontent by Sherzod Muminov reveals the real people underneath facile tropes of the prisoner of war and expands our understanding of the Cold War front.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 28 January 2022
Publisher: Harvard University Press

In August 1945, the Soviet Union took control of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and the colony of Southern Sakhalin, resulting in the capture of over 600,000 Japanese soldiers. These soldiers were transported to labor camps across the Soviet Union, with a significant concentration in Siberia and the Far East. The prisoners, who believed they were being sent home, were shocked to find themselves imprisoned.

The Japanese prisoners served as a workforce for the rebuilding Soviets, as well as being used as pawns in the Cold War. They performed arduous tasks such as mining, logging, agriculture, and construction. They were subjected to "reeducation" programs that aimed to glorify the Soviet system and promote the newly legalized Japanese Communist Party. Approximately 60,000 Japanese soldiers did not survive their time in Siberia. The remaining prisoners were sent home in waves, with the last group lingering in the camps until 1956.

Upon their return to postwar Japan, the returnees faced a final shock and alienation as their homeland had undergone significant changes after the demise of the imperial state. The book, Eleven Winters of Discontent, by Sherzod Muminov, draws on extensive Japanese, Russian, and English archives, including memoirs and survivor interviews, to provide a comprehensive portrait of life in Siberia and in Japan afterward.

Eleven Winters of Discontent challenges the simplistic tropes of the prisoner of war and expands our understanding of the Cold War front. The book reveals the real people behind the facades and sheds light on the human experiences of those caught in the geopolitical struggles of the era. The superpower confrontation played out in the Siberian camps as fiercely as it did in Berlin or the Bay of Pigs.

Weight: 740g
Dimension: 165 x 245 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780674986435