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WAR AND SOCIETY

WAR AND SOCIETY. The Home Front. War and Society: Structure. Censorship and Repression: Intellectual responses to the war Morale: Information and Control How is morale measured? Education Religion Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) Propaganda and its effectiveness

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WAR AND SOCIETY

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  1. WAR AND SOCIETY The Home Front

  2. War and Society: Structure • Censorship and Repression: Intellectual responses to the war • Morale: Information and Control • How is morale measured? • Education • Religion • Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) • Propaganda and its effectiveness • Subversive activities • The Effects of Strategic Bombing: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey

  3. Freedom of Speech Chapter II of the Meiji Constitution: • Article xxviii Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief. • Article xxix Japanese subjects shall, within the limits of law, enjoy the liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings and associations.

  4. Laws regulating the press and public meetings • 1875 Press Law and Libel Law • 1880 Regulations for Public Meetings • 1890 Law Concerning Public Meetings and Political Associations • 1900 Police and Policing Law • 1909 Newspaper Law • 1925 Peace Preservation Law (partially revised in 1928, completely revised in 1941) • 1938 National Mobilisation Law • 1940 New Order for the Press

  5. Policing and the Kokutai • 1912 Higher Police Force founded • 1925 Special Higher Police or ‘thought police’. • 1936 Kokutai no hongi (Cardinal Principles of the National Polity) published

  6. Newspaper Law of 1909 • Prevent circulation. • The courts could terminate a journal. • Legal responsibility shared by editors, authors and, for some offences, the publisher and printer as well. • Maximum prison sentences for various offences ranged from three months to two years.

  7. The Erosion of Academic Freedom • 1920 Morito Tatsuo prosecuted for publishing a treatise on the social thought of the anarchist, Kropotkin. • 1925 Minoda Kyōki’s (1894-1946) True Japan Society • 15 March 1928: March 15 Communist Incident. • October 1932 Takigawa Yukitoki (1891-1962) Case. • 1935 Minobe Affair. • 1937-8 Yanaihara Incident.

  8. Morale: Sources and Definitions • Source: United States Strategic Bombing Survey • 3,150 interviews with carefully selected X-section of Japanese society between 10 November and 29th December 1945. • Morale: short-hand term for a complex of factors which indicate the willingness and capacity of the Japanese to follow their leaders and to work and make sacrifices to win the war.

  9. How is Morale Measured? • Individual’s personal willingness to go on with the war. • Personal acceptance of the purposes of the war. • Confidence in the possibility of achieving these goals – i.e. in victory. • Confidence in the leadership: • Military leaders – ability to achieve victory, protect the people from attack and retaliate against enemy attacks. • Civil leaders – ability to take care of the home front, concern for welfare. • Feeling of group solidarity. • Psychological and physical well-being of the individual.

  10. Education • Textbook revision (on citizenship) • Dai Nippon Youth Corps, 1944 • ‘Dangerous thoughts’ campaign. • Combination of guidance and pressure. • After 1941: military drills. • Labour service program. • 1941 fully-fledged student labour conscription.

  11. Religion • State Shinto: Nationwide observances of ceremonies, shrine worship, holidays observance, pilgrimage and personal ritual actions. • Christianity and Buddhism seen as a threat. • In November 1940 United Church of Christ (Christian Federation) • East Asia Religious League (to unite Shinto, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian Sects). • December 1944: Wartime Patriotic Association. • Religious groups scrutinized by Special Higher Police.

  12. Politics • KonoeFumimaro’s Imperial Rule Assistance Assocation (IRAA) (1940) • Neighbourhood Associations (tonari-gumi).

  13. Subversive Activities • Communist underground. • Subversive activities occurred among all groups. • Some religious groups – inc. Shinto sects, Buddhists and Christians. • Workers – deliberate slow downs and open violence in factories. • Farmers – passive resistance, tenancy disputes • Koreans • After 1943 expressions of ‘disrespect’ and anti-war talk. • American-sponsored long-wave broadcasts from Saipan • American leaflets.

  14. Potsdam Declaration, 26 July • There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest … • We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. • We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces . . . The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

  15. News of Defeat: 15 August • … the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage … • We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia … • …we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace … by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.

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