Why does Russia want to dig up the 'greatest spy of all time' Richard Sorge from a Tokyo cemetery?

Russia wants to recover the cremated remains of a man frequently described as the greatest spy of all time from a cemetery in Tokyo and to rebury him on the Southern Kuril Islands.

The proposed location for Richard Sorge's last resting place is provocative given that Russia and Japan - which refers to the chain of four main islands as the Northern Territories - have been in dispute over the sovereignty of the islands since the end of World War II.

In a recent address to the lower house of the Russian parliament, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed that Moscow was looking into recovering Sorge's remains from Tama Cemetery, in the western Tokyo suburb of Fuchu, and transferring them to the Southern Kurils.

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Russian media quoted Lavrov as saying that Moscow was asking Japan to "finally resolve the issue in a positive way".

Japan has made no official comment on the removal of Sorge's remains, but an analyst said the government was unlikely to be supportive of the spy being used to reinforce Moscow's territorial claims.

Japan insists the islands should have been returned to Japanese control after being seized by Soviet forces in the closing stages of the war. Successive governments in Moscow and Tokyo have held talks on the question of sovereignty and an agreement on joint development and even the return of some of the islands to Japanese control has appeared close on occasions, but Russia's resolve to retain control of the territory has hardened under President Vladimir Putin.

"It would be an extraordinary thing to do," said James Brown, an associate professor of international relations at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.

"It appears they decide to reclaim a hero of the Soviet Union and then of Russia, but it's remarkable because that was not always the case," Brown said. "After he was arrested in Tokyo in 1941, Moscow made no efforts to save him and effectively allowed him to be executed by the Japanese."

Attempting to use Sorge to advance Moscow's geopolitical ambitions might even be considered "distasteful", Brown added, given that he had been buried in a mass grave after his execution aged 49 in November 1944 and that his Japanese common law wife, Hanako Ishii, was able to identify his body five years later due to his distinctive dental work and had his remains cremated.

Ishii had a tombstone erected bearing the words, "Here lies a hero who sacrificed his life fighting against war and for world peace." After Ishii's death in July 2000, her cremated remains were interred at the same spot.

As there were no surviving members of the Ishii family to continue the upkeep of the grave, the Russian embassy took over legal control of the plot. It is not clear what will happen to Ishii's remains if Sorge is repatriated to Russia.

The latest development in Sorge's story is as convoluted as the life of an agent that James Bond author Ian Fleming famously described as "the most famous spy in history" and thriller writer Tom Clancy acclaimed as, "The best spy of all time."

Born in 1895 to German parents in the Russian Caucasus, where his father was an engineer, Sorge was an avowed nationalist in the run-up to the First World War, but his experiences in the trenches turned him into a devoted communist - although he kept his allegiances very quiet.

Recruited by Soviet military intelligence in the early 1920s, he assumed the cover of a journalist to travel extensively in Europe, ultimately joining the Nazi Party in 1929. He used a spell in Shanghai over the next three years to build a network of like-minded individuals and sent intelligence reports back to Moscow.

Sorge was next ordered to move to Japan, given the code name Ramsay, and told to set up an espionage network. Using his Nazi credentials, he quickly forged friendships at the German embassy and among officials in all areas of the allied Japanese government.

In 1941, Sorge had discovered information about the impending German invasion of the Soviet Union and communicated the details - including the mid-June start of Operation Barbarossa - to Moscow. Josef Stalin dismissed those reports, along with a number of other warnings from different sources, only to be caught unprepared when the German assault started on June 22.

The next piece of critical information that Sorge gleaned from his sources in Tokyo was acted upon by Moscow, however. Sorge was able to determine that Japan would not attack Russia's Far East territories unless the Germans delivered a knock-out blow against Stalin's forces, which permitted the Russian leader to withdraw forces from the Far East in time for them to play a decisive part in the defence of Moscow and, ultimately, the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Sorge, however, never saw that day.

Japan's "Kempeitai" secret police realised that a spy ring was operating in Tokyo and rounded up members of Sorge's network. He was arrested on October 18, 1941, much to the surprise of his German friends, who believed him to be a loyal Nazi to the end.

Japan offered to exchange Sorge for one of their agents being held by the Russians, but Moscow denied all knowledge of Sorge's activities. Historians believe he was effectively abandoned as his release could have embarrassed Stalin, who had ignored his warnings.

Questioned and brutally tortured, Sorge was eventually hanged at Tokyo's Sugamo prison in November 1944. The Soviet Union did not acknowledge that he had been their agent until 1964.

Brown said Moscow's motivation for repatriating Sorge and burying him on the disputed islands was twofold.

"Russia is seeking in part to gain from the reflected glory of Sorge but this is also clearly not a friendly gesture," he said. "They are using this opportunity to do something that will disappoint the Japanese side and serve as a clear indication that Russia has no intention of compromising on the issue of the sovereignty of the islands."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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