Fascism in Japan?

1. Fascism in Japan?

2. What is fascism?

3. Organization • Fascism, is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy.

4. Leadership and Violence • Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.

5. Totalitarianism • Viewing the nation as an integrated collective community, they see pluralism as a dysfunctional aspect of society, and justify a totalitarian state as a means to represent the nation in its entirety. They advocate the creation of a single-party state.

6. Ethnic Policy • Fascists reject and resist the autonomy of cultural or ethnic groups who are not considered part of the fascists' nation and who refuse to assimilate or are unable to be assimilated.

7. Opposition • Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement.

8. War • They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.

9. Transcending Class • Fascists present their ideology as that of an economically trans-class movement that promotes ending economic class conflict to secure national solidarity.

10. Conservatism • Fascism perceives conservatism as partly valuable for its support of order in society but opposes its typical opposition to change and modernization.

11. Third Way • Fascists support a "Third Position" in economic policy, which they believe superior to both the rampant individualism of laissez-faire capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.

12. Leadership • Wikipedia article unusual in not describing personal leadership. All European and Latin American cases associated with individuals

15. Japanese Candidates

16. Japanese Candidates • Nakano Seigo • Kokumin domei 国民同盟 1932 • Tohokai　東方会 1936 • Merged in IRAA in 1940 • Broke away in 1941 • Unsuccessful in 1942 election • Suicide in 1943

17. 出口 王仁三郎 • Onisaburo Deguchi • Oomoto-kyo (大本教) • 1921不敬罪 • 1935 治安維持法違反と不敬罪 • All leaders jailed • All property confiscated and sold • Headquarters dynamited • All publications proscribed

18. Political Parties or Movements • Estado Novo • Falange • Partito Nazionale Fascista • Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) • 大政翼賛会 Imperial Rule Assistance Assocation IRAA

19. 大政翼賛会

20. 大政翼賛会

21. “Fascism” as a pejorative term • When did “fascism” become a pejorative term?

22. Contemporary Views • Winston Churchill described Mussolini as the "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men." • FDR described Mussolini as an “admirable gentlemen” • Members of FDR’s “Brain Trust” praised Mussolini • NRA (National Recovery Administration) head Hugh Johnson taken by Italian models • Ongoing debate in US on “corporatist” (aka fascist) influence on “New Deal” • Conservatives want to link fascism → New Deal → Obama • HNN “History News Network” • Search on hnn “new deal” fascism

23. Why “fascism?” • What’s wrong with • Corporatism • Totalitarianism • Japanese often used 全体主義 • Military-fascism • 軍ファシズム • Militarism • 軍国主義 • Imperial fascism • 天皇制ファシズム • National socialism • 国家資本主義

24. Reasons for using “fascism” • Rhetorical device • Parallel to “Holocaust” in Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II” • Atrocity not strong enough • Link Japan to German extermination programme • “Fascism” allows linking to Germany and “ultimate evil” • “Fascism” validates “the great war against fascism” • “The great war against corporatism”

25. Reasons for using “fascism” • Required by political ideology • Comintern (Third International) • Popular Front (Against Fascism) • Comintern said Japan was fascist, therefore Japan must have been fascist • Totalitarianism links to USSR • National socialism links to socialism at large

26. Reasons for using “fascism” • Universalistic vs particularistic explanations • 天皇制ファシズム 軍ファシズム • Japan specific • Sui genris (Japan is unique, peculiar) • Militarism • Universal • Lacks “bite”

27. Maruyama Masao • Maruyama Masao 丸山眞男 (1914 - 1996)

28. Problématique(問題意識) • what were the internal factors that drove Japan into her disastrous war? How was it that Japanese intellectuals, who for decades past had been absorbing Western scholarship and techniques and ways of life, who were more familiar -- or at least believed themselves more familiar -- with Western than with Japanese or Asian traditions, proved in the end so willing to accept, or at so impotent to halt, the onrush of a blindly nationalistic militarism inspired by the crudest beliefs in the mythology of a uniquely Japanese 'Imperial Way'?

29. Three Stages of “Fascism” • Describes third stage • The third stage extends a little longer, and is the period from the army purge carried out after the February Incident until the end of the war on 15 August 1945. We may term this the consummation period of Japanese fascism, in which the military, now the open supporters of fascism from above, fashioned an unstable ruling structure in coalition with the semi-feudal power of the bureaucracy and the Senior Retainers on the one hand, and with monopoly capital and the political parties on the other.

30. Fascism defined? • Japanese fascism...shares the ideology of its Italian and German counterparts in such matters as the rejection of the world view of individualistic liberalism, opposition to parliamentary politics which is the political expression of liberalism, insistence on foreign expansion, a tendency to glorify military build-up and war, a strong emphasis on racial myths and the national essence, a rejection of class warfare based on totalitarianism, and the struggle against Marxism.

31. Agrarianism • The next distinctive characteristic of Japanese fascist ideology is the prominent position occupied by the idea of agrarianism. [37] • ....  In this respect the [Japanese] right wing may be divided into two sections: those who advocated an intensive development of industry and who wished to increase State control for this end, and those who flatly rejected the idea and thought in terms of agrarianism centered on the villages. Many members of the right wing held both these views, mingled in confusing eclecticism.

32. Class character • Roughly speaking, we can say that the middle strata provided the social support for the fascist movement in Japan as well. But in the case of Japan a more elaborate analysis is necessary. The middle or petty bourgeois stratum in Japan can be divided into the following two types: first, the social class that comprises small factory owners, building contractors, proprietors of retail shops, master carpenters, small landowners, independent farmers, school teachers (especially in primary schools), employees of village offices, low-grade officials, Buddhist and Shinto priests; secondly, persons like urban salaried employees, so-called men of culture, journalists, men in occupations demanding higher knowledge such as professors and lawyers, and university and college students...

33. Intelligentsia and Fascism • In Germany and Italy the learned class positively hoisted the banner of fascism, and the university students played a major role. Not so in Japan. Of course, some students participated in the right-wing movement; but among these there were many who by education and intelligence should rather be assigned to the first group. The intelligentsia student class as a whole never supported the fascist movement. There is an incomparable difference between this and the extent to which it was caught up in the whirlwind of Marxism and the socialist movement in the late twenties and early thirties.

34. Pseudo-intellectuals • My use of the term 'pseudo-intelligentsia' refers also to two things that divide these people from the masses pure and simple: first, their desire to be accepted as members of the intelligentsia, secondly, their fragmentary and hearsay knowledge of social problems, ranging from world politics to local affairs, and above all their own self-image as opinion leaders on the local level.

35. The “quality” of Japanese “fascism” • It is only to be expected that the fascist ideology of Japan, based as it was on the positive support of such a class as the pseudo-intelligentsia, should be far inferior in quality and even more absurd in content than those of Germany and Italy. ....  

36. Democracy as a Prerequisite for Fascism • In the final analysis it was the historical circumstance that Japan had not undergone the experience of a bourgeois revolution that determined this character of the fascist movement. ....  The Japanese political parties, instead of behaving as the champions of democracy, had from an early date compromised with the absolutist forces, adapted themselves to it, and were contented with a sham constitutional system. Hence the oligarchic structure that had existed since the Meiji era was able to transform itself into a fascist structure without the need for a fascist 'revolution.'

37. IMTFE

38. IMTFE • Crimes against Peace: Namely, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a declared or undeclared war of aggression, or a war in violation of international law, treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

39. IMTFE • Crimes against Humanity: Namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political or racial grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such plan.

40. Conspiracy • Not part of European civil law tradition • First introduced at Nuremberg • European legal experts found concept difficult to understand • Found in UK civil law but primarily American especially as applied in war crimes trials • Vague, ill defined • Comparable to Japanese 治安警察法 and 国体

41. Conspiracy • The war crimes trials were...marked by a sharp clash between the 'joint conspiracy' view of the Prosecution and the argument of the Defence, which stressed the absence of any real planning. From the standpoint of jurisprudence these two approaches were no doubt irreconcilable. This, however, does not necessarily apply in the case of historical analysis.

42. Common Aspiration • The men in the dock at the Tokyo trials had unquestionably been motivated by a common aspiration: the desire to establish a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, to build up a new order with the 'Eight Corners of the World Under one Roof', to proclaim the Imperial Way throughout the world.

43. Prize Students • First and foremost, the background of the Nazi leaders differed diametrically from that of our own criminals. Most of the top Nazis had enjoyed very little formal education and until they actually seized power, few of them had held any position worthy of the name. The prisoners in the dock at Tokyo...were all 'prize students' who had attended the foremost educational institutions or the military colleges, and who after graduation had traveled along the smooth highway of advancement until they came to occupy the highest official positions in the Empire.

44. Robots Manipulated from Below • The Class A war crime suspects in Japan, far from being the prime movers, can rather be regarded as pathetic robots, manipulated by outlaws (some big and some small, some belonging to the government and some outside) on whom they looked down from the height of their positions.

45. Dwarfishness • The dwarfishness of Japan's wartime leaders was most clearly brought home to the world by the way in which the war crimes suspects with one accord denied their responsibility. • Compared with [Germans on trial at Nuremberg], the answers of the defendants and of many of the witnesses at the Tokyo trials were slippery as eels, hazy as the mist. .... Time after time through the trials the defendants and witnesses had to be admonished, 'That is no reply. A suitable answer is either "Yes" or "No".'

46. Evasive Defendants • To escape the implications of their positions and the inference of guilt from their activities, the defendants are almost unanimous in one defense. The refrain is heard time and again: These men were without authority, without knowledge, without influence without importance. • In the testimony of each defendant, at some point there was reached the familiar blank wall: Nobody knew anything about what was going on. Time after time we have heard the chorus from the dock: "I only heard about these things here for the first time." • Nearly all the defendants take two or more conflicting positions. Let us illustrate the inconsistencies of their positions by the record of one defendant who, if pressed, would himself concede that he is the most intelligent, honorable, and innocent man in the dock. • These defendants, unable to deny that they were the men in the very top ranks of power, and unable to deny that the crimes I have outlined actually happened, know that their own denials are incredible unless they can suggest someone who is guilty. • The defendants have been unanimous, when pressed, in shifting the blame on other men, sometimes on one and sometimes on another.

47. Pathetic Robots • We are now in a position to understand the psychological basis of a phenomenon noticed earlier: namely, that the men who held supreme power in Japan were in fact mere robots manipulated by their subordinates, who in turn were being manipulated by officers serving overseas and by the right-wing ronin and ruffians associated with the military.

48. Evasive Defendants • Robert H. Jackson • Associate Justice, US Supreme Court • Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg • Airey Neave • On Trial at Nuremberg • British interrogator, Tory MP, assasinated by IRA in 1979 • Described Germans in same terms Maruyama had used for Japanese

49. Nihonjinron Nihonbunkaron • 日本人論　日本文化論 • The uniquely unique Japanese • Maruyama not usually included • Scholars who ridicule Nihonjinron praise Maruyama • Writings have basic attributes of Nihonjinron

50. Maruyama as Nihonjinron • Japanese peculiarities • “The West” or “Western” as the model or the demon • Annecdotal • Undocumented assertions • Every knows • It is obvious • Cultural before else • No discussion, no mention of economics