Marie Claude – I am not sure what your point is, bringing in the Soviet Battle of Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin) as it regards the Japanese surrender ceremony. The USA, Britain and France, under the command of Eisenhower, and in accordance with Roosevelt policies, and by agreement with Russia, deliberately withheld attacking Berlin. USA opinion was that Germany was already defeated and Berlin itself, no longer of military value, was not worth the price of more US and British (etc) soldiers’ lives. The Russians lost more than 80,000 men in that battle.

I would not attempt at all to excuse the Russian brutality to the Berlin civilians. Explaining is not the same thing. But there is ample credible evidence that revenge for atrocities committed against the Russian civilian population at the hands of the Germans in the early 1940′s were very much a motivation.

Maybe after all, and maybe this is your point, a comparison between what they Russians did in Berlin and what the Allies did in Japan, where the atrocities were no less brutal, is worth considering.