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I have heard this claim a few times from some random people, and recently came across it in pravda.ru as well:

from "Japan will never forgive USA"

There is such a statistics: 25 per cent of young Japanese people believe that the bombings were carried out by the USSR, and not the USA.

from "Revising history: USSR bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"

Attempts to revise the history of World War II are not new at all, although the current scale of the revision of history is more than just impressive - it is shocking. Many Japanese people, under the influence of their propaganda machine, already believe that it was the USSR that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The USA and its controlled countries distort historical facts so much that in Japan, many people think that it was Russia, not America, that dropped the atomic bomb on them.

So, does a substantial number of people in Japan believe that USSR bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Andrew Grimm
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sashkello
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  • it's more like they believe it was a "necessity" under propaganda – Herokiller Sep 02 '15 at 08:34
  • The first quote from Pravda is part of a question in an interview, and the answer refutes the 25% – DJClayworth Sep 02 '15 at 21:56
  • @DJClayworth It doesn't really refute it, it is just one opinion which doesn't support it. It never mentions where this piece of statistics comes from or if there is contradicting information. – sashkello Sep 02 '15 at 23:02
  • Roughly speaking the conversation goes "Q: Aren't there 25% of young Japanese who believe the USSR dropped the atomic bombs? A: No." – DJClayworth Sep 02 '15 at 23:31
  • @DJClayworth No, not really, it is: "There is such a statistics: 25 per cent of young Japanese people believe that the bombings were carried out by the USSR, and not the USA. Is it really so?" The question has nothing to do with a claim that is still there. They do claim that such a statistics exists. – sashkello Sep 03 '15 at 00:20
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    @sashkello Yes, exactly. The questioner makes the "25%" claim and asks if its really the case. The answer says it's not true. – DJClayworth Sep 03 '15 at 02:18
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    @DJClayworth Pravda is suitable for notability/notoriety (establishing a claim exists), but isn't reliable enough (proving that the claim is false). – Andrew Grimm Sep 03 '15 at 03:50
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    A quick search in Japanese turns up a possible source as a site now under Sputnik News. Furthermore, 10 years ago (the 60th anniversary) [an NHK survey (pdf, page 189)](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/english/reports/pdf/06-07_no5_10.pdf) shows that 60% of people in their twenties and thirties could correctly recall the Hiroshima bombing date, so saying 25% did not know the country seems rather suspect. – Ken Y-N Sep 03 '15 at 06:16
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    Many school children in prefectures near Nagasaki and Hiroshima visit the atomic bomb memorials on school fieldtrips, and both sites make it quite clear that the bombs were dropped by the USA - so it would be impossible for some large scale coverup when neither Memorial mentions any USSR involvement. – Johnny Sep 03 '15 at 21:48
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    I'd want to see the exact wording of any survey that was taken on this question (and have it looked at by a Japanese speaker), to be able to tell whether it represents the genuine beliefs of the respondents, or only the fact that people sometimes mix up abbreviations that start with US. – Nate Eldredge Sep 08 '15 at 02:03
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    Speculation: 25% of Japanese think the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan ended the war. Then, it gets misinterpreted as being that 25% think the USSR dropped the bomb. – Andrew Grimm Sep 09 '15 at 22:37
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    @nate I asked, and so long as the survey was in Japanese, there wouldn't be any potential for confusion. http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/27955/are-japanese-terms-for-the-united-states-and-the-soviet-union-likely-to-be-confu – Andrew Grimm Sep 12 '15 at 09:58
  • Considering the timing that USSR declared a war just before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, I guess it could be possible as a misunderstanding... And if they read headlines like http://www.japanfocus.org/data/NYTnaga.su.manchuria.jpg, yet didn't really understand English. – Andrew T. Apr 21 '16 at 05:18

1 Answers1

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Firstly, the article cited in the OP itself clearly says that the 25% is not true:

Not 25 per cent

For true information, quoting Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations: Historical Essays by Sadao Asada at page 231:

The treatment of the bomb in high school history textbooks (1965, 1985, 1990) was almost perfunctory. The briefest textbook accounts laconically stated, “In August 1945 atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki,” [reference 108] without even saying which country had dropped the bombs or mentioning the scale of destruction and human suffering. [reference 109] (It is no wonder that 20 percent of primary and junior high school students, polled in 1969 and 1970, did not know that the United States had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki [reference 110])

Reference 110 is "Asahi Shimbum May 27 and August 5, 27, 1970".

The book goes on to explain that current (2007) Japanese textbooks are more clear that the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

DavePhD
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