Expert: Michel Cahier - 5/9/2009

Question
What exactly does this political cartoon mean?
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/pm/10620cs.jpg


Answer
This cartoon refers to three pacts signed in the 30s between germany, italy and japan :


1)The Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International (Comintern) in general, and the Soviet Union in particular.
2) The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in Moscow in  August 24, 1939. The agreement renounced warfare between the two countries and pledged neutrality by either party if the other were attacked by a third party.
3)The Tripartite Pact, also called the Three-Power Pact,  was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940 by Saburo Kurusu of Japan, Adolf Hitler of Germany, and Galeazzo Ciano (foreign minister) of Italy entering as a military alliance and officially founding the Axis Powers of World War II that opposed the Allied Powers.
So in the course  of 4 years only  Hitler's Germany agreed to come to the help of Japan if this country  was aggressed by the Soviet  Union, agreed to stay neutral if the  Soviet Union was aggressed by Japan and Japan ;  Germany and  Italy agreed to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict (i.e. essentially nations of central Europe and of SE Asia.
It was a windfall for the cartoonists who could  mock the duplicity and the hypocrisy of such a shabby  foreign policy. In other  words this cartoon says that Togo (Japan) wont attack Joe (Stalin as uncle  JO for his name  was Joseph Stalin) and Joe wont attack Togo unless they start to quarrel  when I, Hitler, will begin to hit Stalin.