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I think (if I'm understanding him correctly) Mr. Hasegawa's point is that the war criminals at the head of the Japanese government were so depraved, that they actually weren't forced by any concern over massive civilian casualties. They had already lost many hundreds of thousands of civilians in the devastation of Tokyo and dozens of other major cities.

The Japanese elites were unconcerned about casualties among the common people (as is common with elites around the world).

If the Soviets conquered Japan, the Russians would exterminate the old elites entirely. The secret police would track down the Japanese elites, kill them and their entire families, like they did with the old Russian nobility and the White Russians. They would need to do this in order to re-form the society along their own lines. Machiavelli noted that authoritarian societies were hard to subvert, but easy to hold once conquered, PROVIDED you kill everybody from the old ruling families.

That's about what I thought. The Japanese leadership knew that surrendering to the USSR would be far worse for them, because the Russians would do their most systematic killing after the Japanese surrendered, and would go for the head.

Looks like we're in agreement on that.

Now may I ask again (I'm not nagging, just have an interest): would you offer a definition of murder?

Machiavelli noted that authoritarian societies were hard to subvert, but easy to hold once conquered, PROVIDED you kill everybody from the old ruling families.

Which is why communism, which arose in heavily industrialised 19th century Germany, heavily influenced by Fabianism in England and France (both industrialised) ultimately, if freakishly, succeeded in agrarian Russia

By eliminating the old elites, the Soviets managed to control the nation

Communism also took hold in East Germany yet in Poland it never managed to take deep roots -- even Stalin said that imposing Communism on Roman Catholic Poland was as absurd as putting a saddle on a cow

This country is so anti-authoritarian it puts the US to shame :)

there is the joke that if you have 2 Poles, you have 3 political parties and 5 opinions :)

Some of their film comedies made during the 70s and 80s (like "Poszukiwana/Poszukiwany" and "Sexmisja" and Wajda's classics) are so patently making fun of the communists it is incredible.

Ditto to compare China, a country with 3000 years of authoritarianism and India with 3000 years of chaos :)