The Japanese themselves have said that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was at least as big a factor in the surrender as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They knew they could hold off the Americans and Commonwealth forces on Honshu and Kyushu for a while, with thousands of kamikazes and millions of suicidal troops and civilian militia waiting. But they had stripped the north to do it. The prospect of hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops landing on Hokkaido with very little to stop them was one that truly scared them.
The use of the A-bombs was a necessary one, and it definitely helped convince Hirohito to end the war. But so did the thought of the Red Army raping and pillaging their way across northern Japan. They had no doubt heard what had happened on the road to Berlin.
}:-)4
What did the Japs strip the north of?