As the largest force among the foreign armies that invaded Russia after the 1917 October Revolution, as well as a principal member of the Axis powers during World War II, Imperial Japan’s opposition to Soviet Russia may seem like a foregone conclusion. But it was hardly so.

Initially, many in the Japanese government viewed the Russian Revolution favorably, seeing in it similarities to Japan’s 1868 Meiji Restoration, which had put the country on the path to modernization.

Only when radical winds began to drift into Korea and China, threatening their colonial rule, did Imperial Japan really embrace anti-communism. Similarly, many Japanese leftists, like the Japanese Communist Party, came to break with the Russians over the latter’s focus on Korea and China.