 Furthermore, as part of the Yalta Conference, which allowed a Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria, the Soviets dismantled and removed more than half of the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese before handing over Manchuria to China.Large swathes of the prime farming areas had been ravaged by the fighting and there was starvation in the wake of the war.Many towns and cities were destroyed, and millions were rendered homeless by floods.