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When I tell them that Stalin was marching on Japan and that was one of the reasons Hirohito surrendered, they laugh at me. --FreeProton
Well here's part of the problem. Stalin was not marching on Japan. Roosevelt and Churchill had been begging Stalin to open a second front on Japan for months, but Stalin kept begging off, citing how badly his army had been bled in defeating Germany.
It was only after Japan surrendered that the Soviets moved in to solidfy their position in the Kuril Islands, which had been disputed territory since the 1905 Russo-Japanese war.
Too bad you had to learn propaganda in your schools. It takes away from the very real sacrifice the Red Army made. (Bet you didn't learn about all the raping and pillaging that went along with the Red Army "liberation," by the way. That's why a heroic statue "honoring" a Red Army soldier in Prague was mockingly referred to as "the anonymous rapist.")
It's similar to a friend who grew up in France. He was convinced that France had pretty much single-handedly won the war in Europe with just a bit of help from the Americans and British.
