Editing Manchukuo (section)

=== Soviet invasion, dissolution, and aftermath ===
On 8 August 1945, the [[Soviet Union]] declared war on Japan, in accordance with the agreement at the [[Yalta Conference]], and [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria|invaded Manchukuo]] from Outer Manchuria and Outer Mongolia. During the Soviet offensive, the [[Manchukuo Imperial Army]], on paper a 200,000-man force, performed poorly and whole units surrendered to the Soviets without firing a single shot; there were even cases of armed riots and mutinies against the Japanese forces.{{sfn|Jowett|2004|pp=36–38}} Puyi abdicated on 17 August and had hoped to escape to Japan to surrender to the Americans, but the Soviets captured him and eventually extradited him to the government of China, when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, where the authorities had him imprisoned on charges of [[war crimes]], along with all other captured Manchukuo officials.{{sfn|Behr|1987|p=285}}

From 1945 to 1948, Manchuria served as a base of operations for the [[People's Liberation Army]] against the [[National Revolutionary Army]] in the [[Chinese Civil War]].<ref name="Borisov">Borisov, O. (1977). ''[https://archive.org/details/sovietmanchurianrevolutionarybase The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Revolutionary Base (1945–1949)]''. Moscow, Progress Publishers.</ref> The [[Communist Party of China|Chinese Communists]] used Manchuria as a staging ground until the final Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Many Manchukuo army and Japanese Kantōgun personnel served with the communist troops during the Chinese Civil War against the Nationalist forces. Most of the 1.5&nbsp;million Japanese who had been left in Manchukuo at the end of World War II were sent back to their homeland in 1946–1948 by U.S. Navy ships in the operation now known as the [[Japanese repatriation from Huludao]].<ref>Paul K. Maruyama, ''Escape from Manchuria'' (iUniverse, 2009) {{ISBN|978-1-4502-0581-8}} (hard cover), 9781450205795 (paperback), based on the earlier books in Japanese by K. Maruyama (1970) and M. Musashi (2000) and other sources</ref>