1. Even though the atomic bombs did not play a role in Japan's surrender, they did provide the Japanese imperialists with a way to surrender while saving face, and they allow the imperialists to significantly downplay China and the USSR's role in Japan's defeat.

2. Even before Comrade Stalin declared war on Japan, the Japanese imperialists knew they were fucked and that they had to surrender, but they planned on taking advantage of the contradictions between the Soviet Union and the US to negotiate more favorable terms of surrender.

3. The Soviets signed a neutrality pact after Soviet intelligence had enough evidence that Japan wasn't going to launch an attack on the Soviet Union. This was so that the Soviet Union could focus on fighting the Nazis.

4. In 1945, however, the Soviet Union scrapped the agreement, pointing out that the agreement was made before the Germans launched an attack on the USSR, and before the USSR entered an alliance with the US and Britain.

5. What we often do not learn about is that, in addition to Chinese forces fighting Japan for 8 years (14 yrs if we count the years before Chiang's forces joined the Communists), the Soviets also inflicted heavy damage to Japan's Kwantung Army in NE China.

6. This made Stalin's declaration of war on Japan very real. If Japan did not surrender to the US, and if the Soviets invaded Japan's Hokkaido, then Japan would've been militarily occupied by both US and Soviet forces following its surrender.

7. If this were the case, then Korea would not have been partitioned, and Korea would have become a socialist country in its entirety, not just its northern half.

8. Under such a scenario, the US would have established a puppet regime in areas under its control like it did in Korea, which would then force the remainder of Japan to establish its own government.

9. Unless one side defeats the other, the country would remain in a state of division, like we see in Korea today. Today's situation with a divided Korea, from the perspective of the US, is an okay compromise, because the US has Japan AND south Korea as puppets.

10. However, if all of Korea were independent from US imperialism, and only half of Japan was a US puppet, then America's position in the Asia-Pacific would have been greatly weakened. Prior to 1949, the US wanted China to play the role that Japan does today as a junior partner

11. But history didn't pan out the way the US imperialists wanted it to. China became an independent country, with the exception of Taiwan under rule by the "ROC" government in exile. This was why Japan became the US' base of operations in East Asia.

12. If the US only had half of Japan under its control, and none of Korea, then its encirclement of China and the Soviet Union would have been very incomplete.

13. Seeing as the bombs weren't a factor in Japan's defeat, but in fact helped lend legitimacy to the Japanese ruling class in the eyes of the Japanese people, we really shouldn't be celebrating the use of the bombs, even if we rightfully hate Japan.

14. Furthermore, the bombs allow Japan, to this day, to act like they're simply victims of WWII, and deny its history of massacring, raping, and enslaving civilians in areas it conquered. This is how history is taught in Japan.

15. Not to mention, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen only because nearly all other major cities had already been destroyed by conventional firebombing. The US wanted to demonstrate the might of the atomic bomb to the world, and especially to Stalin.

16. Therefore, to condemn the use of atomic weapons on Japan, and to celebrate the defeat of those imperialist devils, are not contradictory, especially when the only country that has ever used nukes continues to condemn countries like Korea for protecting themselves with nukes

17. I've shared this article before and I'll share it again. Remember, Comrade Stalin's declaration of war on Japan was the straw that broke the imperialist Japanese camel's back, not the bombs. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/