Hist 199 Postwar Japan

From Allinson, Ch. 1: Antecedents

What stands out to Allinson in the 1930s-WWII period?

1. Political and Economic Instability

2. Rapid Economic Growth but Political Inequality

3. Military assumed a dominant role in the political structure especially after 1932

 

Social Hierarchy:

Elites

--Imperial Household – locus of Sovereignty under the Meiji Constitution

"We the Emperor Bequeath to Our Subjects" Not "We the People...."

 

--The Aristocracy - Princes, Marquises, Counts, Viscounts and Barons

--Large Landholders in countryside

--Mid-sized land holders

Non-Elites:

--Small landholders or Landless Rural tenant farmers – very tough times

--Urban Poor - Factory Workers, Day Laborers

Urban Japan was newer but grew rapidly – banking, cotton spinning coal mining

There was dynamic growth in Japanese cities which featured upscale department stores, restaurants, amusement parks, baseball stadiums, movie theaters, dance halls, cafes, bars, urban trains, trolley cars, busses--anything and everything you would expect to find in a major European city.

 

White Collar Professions--the new middle class-- where Salaries run

--140-yen per month as opposed to

 

--Factory Workers = 80-yen per month;

--Farmers = 60-yen or less

 

Politics

Japan did have a bi-cameral legislature (Diet) inplace; but the Lower House was not a Responsible Party Cabinet System. What's the difference?

 

So, basically Japan was run by several groups of Plural Elites:

The Emperor himself viewed as semi-divine

The Imperial Household Ministry

Lord Keeper of the Privvy Seal

The Grand Chamberlain

Then there was the

Aristocracy--Lords, Princes, Barons, Earls, Viscounts, etc.

Military Leaders,

Civilian Bureaucrats,

Cabinet Members,

Party Politicians,

Zaibatsu Heads

= Not a Beast with Many Heads but

One Head (the Emperor) with Many Bodies!

And the military had a decided inside track – Direct Access to Emperor according to Meiji Constitution

Only males had the right to vote. 

1925 Universal Manhood Suffrage Bill expanded suffrage to all males over 25 who paid some income tax. Probably Quadrupled the electorate but still very small...

No women had the vote. 

Prefectures, Towns

Women denied access to best education and prestige tracks in employment

Dominant Ideology: Ryosai-kembô =

Good Wife, Wise Mother = prevailing ideology though Feminist ideas had circulated since the 1910s and 20s. Ellen Key, Alexandra Kollontai, etc.

Dual Structure to the economy:

1. The Modern Sector, urban, factories, unions, modernized industrial plants: steel, shipbuilding, also cotton textiles, etc.

There were a number of strikes and the labor movement grew.  So, aleftwing did exist.

 

Zaibatsu were the big “Industrial Combines” or "Industrial Conglomerates":  All consisted of holding companies, banks, shipping, mining,  companies, etc.

Featured "Vertical Integration"

The Four Bigs: 

Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda

 

2. And then there was the Primary Sector, the Farmers, Fisherman, etc. The more Traditional Sector

Poverty was a fact of life in the countryside - especially after the onset of the Worldwide Depression in 1930s.

 

The 1929 Worldwide Depression. 

Japan recovered well but military pushed expansionism into Manchuria, Korea. 

New Zaibatsu like Hitachi, Nissan and Toyota emerge. They were somewhat tied to overseas expansionism.

Urban population grew rapidly in the 1930s

Politics were unstable; political parties were criticized as selfish who promoted only their specific interests, not those of the Nation.

Meanwhile the notion of the “Kokutai” (国体)--the National Polity-- morphed into a rigid ideological construct with a veiled “sacredness” because it emanated from the emperor. This resulted in severe Censorship, the creation of the Thought Police, and a strong anti-union and anti-leftwing bias.

Let's look at this, though. During the 1905-1932 timeframe we have:

The Diet emerging as a central fixture in political order

The Seiyukai emerging as major political party

But a 2nd, anti-Seiyukai Party, the Doshikai/Kenseikai/Minseitô emergded as counterweight to the Oligarchs and the Bureaucracy

So, 2 Parties frequently alternated as the one to form a Cabinet or a Government

A vigorous partisan press

Frequent poltical rallies and demonstrations--sometimes evolving into Riots

e.g., Hibiya Park 1905, 1906, 1908, 1913, 1914, 1918 (Rice Riots) which suggests that the popular masses WILL become more involved

--People begin to become aware of, and to write and speak about "Social Problems" (shakai mondai)

--Awareness of Working and Housing conditions, the emergence of an urban poor, existence of slums, etc.

--A sustained effort inside and outside the Diet to expand the Suffrage resulting in the Universal Manhood Suffrage finally achieved in 1925

--The appearence of Proletarian political parties thereafter

--The Rise of Industrial Capitalism which produced a growing class of wage laborers and

--Also, an urban petty-bourgeosie--retail shop owners, small manufacturers

--A definite middle-class made up of salarymen, typists, telephone operators, clerks, etc.

--A strong Feminist tradition emerges

--Hiratsuka Raichô,  editor of Seitô (1911)

--Ichikawa Fusae--organizer and activist--along with Oku Mumeo formed the Shinfujinkai, the New Women's Association

Given the limited political options, this "Imperial Democratic" framework, women's suffrage was NOT really an option; so they lobbied for what they could get:

--Concerns for working women, and their desire for economic independence and personal freedoms

--Calls for the Repeal of Article 5 of the Police Safety Regulations that prevented women from joining political parties or giving speeches at political meetings; Succeeded in 1922!

--1921 several Progressive Women formed the Sekirankai--The Red Wave Soceity-- a more leftwing organization and brought a (red!) banner to the first May Day Demonstration

--Hosoi Wakizô publishes his Joko aishi or the Sad History of Female Textile Workers in 1925; widely read

--Ryosai-ken'bô (good wife, wise mother) ideology increasingly fails to persuade many women--they want something more!

--Many new journals emerged that were aimed at women and working women like Shufu no Tomo (Housewife's Friend) Fujin Kurabu (Women's Club) and Fujin Kôron

--New occupations for women also appeared: telephone operators, department store clerks, office clerks, tram conductresses, cafe waitresses, elevator operators, etc.

--Liberal, democratic and socialist thought begins to flourish -- The Communist Manifesto is translated into Japanese in the early 1920s

-- The Labor movement emerges as a force for social change as unions and strikes grew so the WORKING CLASS is clearly engaged in this new political order with slogans like:

"Our enemy is is the capitalist"

"Destroy the Zaibatsu!"

--See the tables in James McClain, Japan: A Modern History on pp. 370 and 372

 

Other Measures Historians take into account:

• Scholars also pay attention to things like the growth of urban areas and trhe spread of Mass Literacy:

  • Consider the Kaizôsha’s series  Gendai Nihonbungaku zenshû [A Complete Collection of Modern Japanese Literature](63 volumes) with each volume costing 1-yen.  It sold some 230,000 copies

• The popular magazine Kingu (King) first appeared in 1925 with 740,000 copies.  The population of Japan was about 60 million at that time meaning that there was one copy of the magazine for every 100 Japanese. Wow!

  Kingu was a grafting of American mass culture onto traditional social values, morals and mores, modeled after The Saturday Evening Post and The Ladies Home Journal. Also

  Shônen kurabu 1 million circulation in 1924; popular Kurama Tengû series

And women's Magazines like:

• Shufu no tomo - The Housewife's Friend

  Fujin kurabu - The Women's Club

  Fujin kôron  - Women's Discussion

  Fujin sekai - Women's World

  The had a Combined readership of over 1.2 million. 

  Newspaper circulation, which had been 1,630,000 in 1905, soared to 6,250,000 by 1924 

• Radio also launched 1925 with the founding of NHK--Nihon Hoso Kyokai [The Japan Broadcasting Association]

  --rajio kibun--"radio frame of mind" comes into being

•  

  We also note Growth in Population: 1880 35.9 million

  -------------------------> 1920 55.96 million

  The number of salaried workers rose from 1.987 million to 2.726 million during the same period.

  So, population grew 1.6 times while the salaried workforce grew 1.4 times. 

  Urbanization: By 1920, 18.1 percent of the populace was living in urban areas. 

  (This figure was to rise to 24.1 percent by 1930.) 

  Tokyo’s population grows from 1.44 million to 3.35 million--so it more than doubles!

  Osaka from 820,000 to 1.76 million--also more than doubles!

  Kyoto from 350,000 to 700,00--doubles!

  Kobe from 210,00 to 640,000--triples!! 

  Nagoya from 240,000 to 610,000--more than doubles

  Yokohama from 190,000 to 570,000--triples 

  This is impressive as major metropolitan areas grew between 2-3 times over a 22 year period!!

• In late Meiji, only two cities—Hiroshima and Nagasaki--exceeded 100,000

  But by 1920, there were 10 such cities:

  Nagasaki had reached 180,000 and 

  Hiroshima 160,000 while 

  Hakodate reached 140,000 

  Kure 130,000

  And More Medium-sized cities:

  Kanazawa, 130,000 

  Sendai, 120,000 

  Kagoshima, 100,000 

  Sapporo, 100,000 

  Otaru 110,000 and 

  Yawata 100,000

 

The underground (illegal) Japan Communist Party formed 1922

Voices on the Left are more ubiquitous like,

--Kawakami Hajime whose Bimbô monogatari, or Tales of Poverty (1918), wrestled in simple language with the basics of global economics and the problem of poverty in modern times

--Osugi Sakae--philosopher, Marxist, anarchist, partner of Itô Noe who took over as Editor of Hiratsuka's Seitô

--Sakai Toshihiko--translator, editor, activist; translates Communist Manifesto into Japanese and helps found the JCP--Japan Communist Party

--Nakano Shigeharu--influential poet, critic, Marxist -

So the point is: there was a broad-based, profound movement for change occurring during the 1905-1932 period! But would it be sufficient to check the militaristic and imperialistic impulses of various groups of leaders?

And it is a fact that the government was extremely wary of leftwing radicals and even moderate labor unionists.

 

For example, in 1928 there was a Big Round up of Leftists,

And Again in 1932 and constantly thereafter.

Most leftists, socialists, Marxists were either imprisoned or murdered!

So the one w active voice from the Left that could criticize the military during most of the 1930s was severely muted.

 

1931 Manchurian Incident

--Launches the 15 Year War for Japan.

--Japan created a false pretext and used the excuse to invade and take control of Manchuria

--This Begins a prolonged era of Mobilization, increasing injection of the Military into Politics, military expansion into China, Southeast Asia, etc.

The Dream of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,

Japan as Liberator of Asia from Western Imperialism,

Japan as the leading Race in Asia

Were all part of the package bering sold to the Japanese people and the world.

Still, that very dark and undemocratic Era does not erase from history what

Andrew Gordon's calls "Imperial Democracy," in his 1991 book Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan

1. As he sees it, the "Imperial Democratic Movement" has its roots inthe Popular Rights Movement (the PRM). The PRM fell apart under the pressure of intense government suppression, on the one hand, and the split that occurred within the Movement dividing the ex-samurai and landed elite or gentry who founded the movement v. the poor farmers on the other hand who later joined them in search of a voice and solutions to their problems.

So, when the Imperial Democratic Movement surfaces in the early 1900s, it contained some of the same forces that drove the PRM in that it called for

--expanded suffrage

--tax reduction

--respect for the electorate as represented in the Diet.

We have to start with Imperial; Democracy because it is what we are given. And it was solidified in the Prewar or Meiji Constitution.

So, what we have is:

--Imperial Bureaucracy, i.e., the early Meiji OLIGARCHIC STRUCTURE of Government where the Restoration Leaders and their subordinates are in charge with little or no power sharing. This is the context, the reality in which forces for democratic change had to operate in the 1870s and 1880s.

--When out of this initial arrangement is carved "Imperial Democracy"--enabled by both the PRM and the Meiji Constitution--then we can find some powerful forces for economic and social change. What do you think?

 

Gordon goes on to elaborate his views by describing two versions of Imperial Democracy that he identifies:

1. SEIYUKAI = or the Conservative version: Featuring bureaucrats in the Ministries and managers in large-scale Industries who cooperated to make Social Policies aimed at preserving ring social order and harmony--i.e., the Japanese EEmplyment System for example--through, especially,

--the Home Ministry which reached out to the cities, urban neighborhood associations, and DOWN to Village Youth Groups, the Imperial Military Reserve Associations, orchestrated Shrine mergers and consolidated some 190,000 shrines to create a state-centered network of shrines.

--Meanwhile, the Military had its Imperial Military Reserve Associations in every village where they could "reinforce the social order" and be called out in an emrgency. Some 2 million reservists belonged by 1918. "If we correctly guide the reservists. . .we can completely control the ideals of the populace and firm up the nation's foundation.' (Gen. Tanaka Giichi, 1913; see Gordon, p. 136-37, McClain, p. 428).

--And, further, the Education System, was doing its part adjusting the curriculum to being more nationalistic and emperor-focused while adding two more years of compulsory education.

--So the object was to get down to villages and local neighborhood, organize citizens into groups, diffuse nation-centered information and patriotic rituals, and mobilize the populace for social control purposes.

 

--But Workers and Tenant farmers got very little out of this version. Workers had neither the Economic Protection from the state nor the Political Means to Protest or claim rights for themselves.

--So the question was, should imperial Japan be a democracy just for men of capital and landed property only? Or should society be more open and allow all men--and women!--to participate in the political process?

The "Commoner" Prime Minister Hara Kei (i.e., not born into the former samurai class) could not agree. "It's too soon to abolish the property tax," he would say. "It's a dangerous idea. I cannot agree."

--In 1919, Hara helped found a "think tank" to study social problems and promote harmony among capital and labor called "the Harmonization Society" with state and corporate financial support. He also wanted the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to study tenant farming issues but landlords objected so that had to be shelved. In 1920 he moved harshly against a strike by steelworkers. So it's pretty clear where his priorities were.

--Cautiously and gradually, the Seiyukai broadened the scope of legal participation in national politics, and accepted controlled labor organization in the workplace. But the bottom line was always: How will it benefit the Seiyukai?

--Universal Manhood Suffrage, though, was too radical for Hara and his party in 1919, 1920, and even later after his death by a right wing Assassin.

 

2. KENSEIKAI = supported a more Liberal version of Imperial Democracy

Advocating such things as:

--Universal Manhood Suffrage

--Tenant disputes mediation law 1924

--Shidehara, "go slow" approach in China

--Broader political and civil rights for women

--But both parties basically accepted Imperialism, Capitalism and Parliamentary Government. See the Peace Preservation Law.

In the meantime, a Marxist movement did emerge contesting Capitalism, Imperialism and Parliamentary Politics in the early 1920s.

 

Hence, Japan in the 1920s was perceived to be LURCHING back and forth between different stances appearing at times unstable and fragile in social cohesion and unity. In reality, this may just be symptomatic of the reality that politics and policies were the result of the different PLURAL ELITES contesting with one another for dominance of the government and the bureacracy.

One of my favorite Japanese historians, Kano Masanao, wrote a book on the Taishô period called

Taishô Demokurashii no Teiryu「底流--Dozokuteki seishin [土俗的精神] e no kaiki [回帰].

Kind of tricky to translate: "The Undercurrents of Taishô Democracy: Towards the Recovery of a "Native"or "Indigenous" Spirit."

What does he address?

Two kinds of "Reconstruction" [Kaizô] which was the name of a new popualr magazine = Reconstruction dating from 1919, edited by Yamamoto Sanehiko (see Telling Lives). First people to grace the cover were Marx and Freud.

It tried to give a picture of a modern world that is under construction.

The other kind of "Reconstruction" was political reconstruction necessitated by the Rice Riots. This also plays off of 1919 radical thinker Kita Ikki who developed his Plan for a Reconstruction of Japan. His was a little scary: He called for

--a military take over, a coup d'etat,

--then a top down revolution to get rid of all social classes,

--Eliminate the  zaibatsu,

--get rid of greed and corruption,

--have state ownership of businesses, and

--have everyone equal under the emperor.

What did Professor Kano study in hos book? Basically three broad topics:

1. A new popular/unorthodox religion called Omotokyô which wound up being persecuted by the state because its leader acted kind of like the tennô. At any rate, it operated outside the boundary of acceptable practices. In its own way it challenged state authority.

2.Village Youth Group Movements, especially in Nagano Prefecture. Based on his own fieldwork, he shows how village youth were progressive, eager to read and learn about the wider world...but they were easily co-opted by the state structure.

3. Taishu bungaku [大衆] or "Mass Literature" a new phenomenon of the Taishô period. Nakazoto Kaizan as an example of a mass or pulp literature major author; the "blind swordsman," etc.

All of these movements and historical figures underscore that Prewar Japan was complicated but had considerable vitality and a strong current of opposition that pushed for change. Some of these historical actors were perscuted, jailed, beaten, tortured and killed. Others went underground, hid, and worked to build a better Japan.

But the clear hallmark of the era was Political Instability: between 1932-1945 11 different men formed 13 different cabinets. Only one lasted as long as two years--others survived only a few months.

Bickering and infighting seemed to be the order of the day and the Two Major Political Parties who who had alternated in Power gradually became less relevant. While the political parties were a force for civilian and some degree of popular control over the government, they never really developed a political rationale or justification for why political parties opposing and criticizing one another was a good way to operate government. The Japanese lacked an historical experience that would teach them that this was the case.

So, when groups like Young Military Officers claimed that political parties only represented "selfish" interests, and that the military was the more pure alternative as loyal servants of the sovereign, it sounded convincing.

Military leaders, along with sincere and "pure-hearted" and heavily indocrinated Young Officers combined with Right Wing Civilians to instigate coup d'etat attempts involving the assassination of civilian officials and political party leaders giving the Military in general an advantage in seizing control of the government and its policies, pushing Japan toward overseas expansion, military adventurism, and eventually a cataclysmic war.

After the Manchurian Incident in 1931 gave Japan a strong presence in Northern China as they illegally took over Manchuria and turned it into a puppet state (Manzhuguo), it was a short step to invading all of China in 1937, including the notorious Rape of Nanjing in December.

The ensuing years saw strong verbal opposition by the US, and a "Non Recognition" Doctrine regarding Japan's expansionism into Asia, leading eventually to steel and oil embargoes which sparked Japan's "Move South" into SE Asia to secure alternative sources of oil, tin and rubber, and untimately culminating in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941 resulting in a formal declaration of war between the two nations. Western countries had clearly underestimated Japan but once the power of the US economy and military was unleashed, there was little hope of Japan prevailing.

The tide turned for Japan at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, six months after the war began. Losing 4 Aircraft Carries and many planes and pilots, they could not compete with the US' capacity to replace battle ships and carriers, and train new pilots and combatants.

After the fall of Saipan in 1944, the US could send B-29s to bomb Japanese cities with impunity. Japan could no longer supply its armies defending its empire, and civilians at home were starving and suffering from the bombing raids. It is true that many in Japan did not feel that surrender was an option but eventually there was no simply other choice.

To the bitter end, though, diehards in the military resisted and plotted against those who favored suing for peace. It is a very unpleasant story.

 

One of the most eminent historians of modern Japan, John Dower, published two important books on the War and the ensuing Occupation:

1. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986)

2: Embracing Defeat (1999)

For anyone who wants to read more deeply into this area, these two are masterpieces!