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Kokkashugi (国家主義)[a] was the ruling ideology of theEmpire of Japan, particularly during the first decades of theShōwa era. It is sometimes also referred to asEmperor-system fascism (天皇制ファシズム,Tennōsei fashizumu),[5][6]Japanese-style fascism (日本型ファシズム,Nihongata fashizumu)[6] orShōwa Statism.[7] Developed over time following theMeiji Restoration,Kokkashugi incorporatedultranationalism,traditionalist conservatism,militaristimperialism, and adirigisme-based economy.
With a more aggressive foreign policy, and victory over China in theFirst Sino-Japanese War and overImperial Russia in theRusso-Japanese War, Japan joined the Western imperialist powers. The need for a strong military to secure Japan's newoverseas empire was strengthened by a sense that only through a strong military would Japan earn the respect of Western nations, and thus revision of the"unequal treaties" imposed in the 19th century.
TheJapanese military viewed itself as "politically clean" in terms of corruption, and criticized political parties under aliberal democracy as self-serving and a threat to national security by their failure to provide adequate military spending or to address pressing social and economic issues. The complicity of the politicians with thezaibatsu corporate monopolies also came under criticism. The military tended to favordirigisme and other forms of direct state control over industry, rather thanfree-market capitalism, as well as greater state-sponsoredsocial welfare, to reduce the attraction ofsocialism andcommunism in Japan.
The special relation of militarists and the central civil government with theImperial Family supported the important position of the Emperor as Head of State with political powers and the relationship with the nationalist right-wing movements. However, Japanese political thought had relatively little contact with European political thinking until the 20th century.
Under this ascendancy of the military, the country developed a very hierarchical, aristocratic economic system with significant state involvement. During theMeiji Restoration, there had been a surge in the creation of monopolies. This was in part due to state intervention, as the monopolies served to allow Japan to become a world economic power. The state itself owned some of the monopolies, and others were owned by the zaibatsu. The monopolies managed the central core of the economy, with other aspects being controlled by the government ministry appropriate to the activity, including the National Central Bank and the Imperial family. This economic arrangement was in many ways similar to the latercorporatist models of European fascists.
During the same period, certain thinkers with ideals similar to those fromshogunate times developed the early basis of Japaneseexpansionism andpan-Asian theories such as theHakkō ichiu,Yen Block, and Amau doctrines,[8] which eventually served as the basis for policies such as theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.[9]
The 1919Treaty of Versailles did not recognize theEmpire of Japan's territorial claims, and international naval treaties between Western powers and the Empire of Japan (Washington Naval Treaty andLondon Naval Treaty) imposed limitations on navalshipbuilding which limited the size of theImperial Japanese Navy at a 10:10:6 ratio. These measures were considered by many in Japan as the refusal by the Occidental powers to consider Japan an equal partner. The latter brought about theMay 15 incident.
Based on national security, these events released a surge ofJapanese nationalism and ended collaboration diplomacy which supported peaceful economic expansion. The implementation of a military dictatorship and territorial expansionism were considered the best ways to protect theYamato-damashii.
In the early 1930s, theHome Ministry began arresting left-wing political dissidents, generally to extract a confession and renouncement of anti-state leanings. Over 30,000 such arrests were made between 1930 and 1933. In response, a large group of writers founded a Japanese branch of the International Popular Front Against Fascism and published articles in major literary journals warning of the dangers of statism. Their periodical,The People's Library (人民文庫), achieved a circulation of over five thousand and was widely read in literary circles, but was eventually censored, and later dismantled in January 1938.[10]
Ikki Kita was an early 20th-century political theorist, who advocated a hybrid ofstatism with "Asian nationalism", which thus blended the early ultranationalist movement with Japanese militarism. His political philosophy was outlined in his thesisKokutairon and Pure Socialism of 1906 andAn Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan [ja] (日本改造法案大綱Nihon Kaizō Hōan Taikō) of 1923. Kita proposed a militarycoup d'état to replace the existing political structure of Japan with amilitary dictatorship. The new military leadership would rescind theMeiji Constitution, banpolitical parties, replace theDiet of Japan with an assembly free of corruption, and wouldnationalize major industries. Kita also envisioned strict limits to private ownership of property, andland reform to improve the lot oftenant farmers. Thus strengthened internally, Japan could then embark on a crusade to free all of Asia from Westernimperialism.
Although his works were banned by the government almost immediately after publication, circulation was widespread, and his thesis proved popular not only with the young officer class excited at the prospects of military rule and Japanese expansionism but with thepopulist movement for its appeal to theagrarian classes as well.
Shūmei Ōkawa was a right-wing political philosopher, active in numerous Japanese nationalist societies in the 1920s. In 1926, he publishedJapan and the Way of the Japanese (日本及び日本人の道,Nihon oyobi Nihonjin no michi), among other works, which helped popularize the concept of the inevitability of aclash of civilizations between Japan and the west. Politically, his theories built on the works of Ikki Kita, but further emphasized that Japan needed to return to its traditionalkokutai traditions to survive the increasing social tensions created byindustrialization and foreign cultural influences.
Sadao Araki was a noted political philosopher in the Imperial Japanese Army during the 1920s, who had a wide following within the junior officer corps. Although implicated in the February 26 Incident, he went on to serve in numerous influential government posts, and was a cabinet minister underPrime MinisterFumimaro Konoe.
The Japanese Army, already trained alongPrussian lines since the earlyMeiji period, often mentioned the affinity betweenyamato-damashii and the "Prussian Military Spirit" in pushing for a military alliance withItaly andGermany along with the need to combatcommunism andsocialism. Araki's writing is imbued with nostalgia towards the military administrative system of the former shogunate, in a similar manner to which theNational Fascist Party of Italy looked back to the ancient ideals of theRoman Empire or theNSDAP in Germany recalled an idealized version of theHoly Roman Empire and theTeutonic Order.
Araki modified the interpretation of thebushidowarrior code toseishin kyōiku ("spiritual training"), which he introduced to the military as Army Minister, and the general public as Education Minister, and in general brought the concepts of theShowa Restoration movement into mainstream Japanese politics.
Some of the distinctive features of this policy were also used outside Japan. Thepuppet states ofManchukuo,Mengjiang, and theWang Jingwei Government were later organized partly following Araki's ideas. In the case ofWang Jingwei's state, he himself had someGerman influences—prior to the Japanese invasion of China, he met with German leaders and picked up some fascist ideas during his time in theKuomintang. These, he combined with Japanese militarist thinking. Japanese agents also supported local and nationalist elements inSoutheast asia andWhite Russian residents inManchukuo before war broke out.
Seigō Nakano sought to bring about a rebirth of Japan through a blend of thesamurai ethic,Neo-Confucianism, andpopulistnationalism modelled on Europeanfascism. He sawSaigō Takamori as epitomizing the 'true spirit' of theMeijiishin, and the task of modern Japan to recapture it.
Ikki Kita and Shūmei Ōkawa joined forces in 1919 to organize the short-livedYūzonsha, a political study group intended to become an umbrella organization for the various right-wing statist movements. Although the group soon collapsed due to irreconcilable ideological differences between Kita and Ōkawa, it served its purpose in that it managed to join the right-wing anti-socialist, Pan-Asian militarist societies with centrist and left-wing supporters of a strong state.
In the 1920s and 1930s, these supporters of Japanese statism used the sloganShowa Restoration (昭和維新,Shōwa isshin), which implied that a new resolution was needed to replace the existing political order dominated by corrupt politicians and industrialists, with one which (in their eyes), would fulfill the original goals of the Meiji Restoration of direct Imperial rule via military proxies.
However, the Shōwa Restoration had different meanings for different groups. For the radicals of theSakurakai, it meant the violent overthrow of the government to create anational syndicalist state with more equitable distribution of wealth and the removal of corrupt politicians andzaibatsu leaders. For the young officers, it meant a return to some form of "military-shogunate" in which the emperor would re-assume direct political power with dictatorial attributes, as well as divine symbolism, without the intervention of the Diet or liberal democracy, but who would effectively be a figurehead with day-to-day decisions left to the military leadership.
Another point of view was supported byPrince Chichibu, a brother ofEmperor Shōwa, who repeatedly counselled him to implement adirect imperial rule, even if that meant suspending the constitution.[11]
In principle, some theorists proposedShōwa Restoration, the plan of giving directdictatorial powers to the Emperor (due to hisdivine attributes) for leading the future overseas actions in mainland Asia. This was the purpose behind theFebruary 26 Incident and other similar uprisings in Japan. Later, however, these previously mentioned thinkers decided to organize their own political clique based on previous radical, militaristic movements in the 1930s; this was the origin of theKodoha party and their political desire to take direct control of all thepolitical power in the country from the moderate and democratic political voices.[citation needed]
Following the formation of this "political clique", there was a new current of thought among militarists, industrialists and landowners that emphasized a desire to return to the ancient shogunate system, but in the form of a modern military dictatorship with new structures. It was organized with theJapanese Army andJapanese Navy acting asclans under command of a supreme military native leader (theshōgun) controlling the country. In this government, the Emperor was covertly reduced in his functions and used as a figurehead for political or religious use under the control of the militarists.[citation needed]
The failure of various attempted coups, including theLeague of Blood Incident, theImperial Colors Incident and theFebruary 26 Incident, discredited supporters of the Shōwa Restoration movement, but the concepts of Japanese statism migrated to mainstream Japanese politics, where it joined with some elements of Europeanfascism.[citation needed]
EarlyKokkashugi is sometimes given the retrospective label "fascism"[by whom?], but this was not a self-appellation. When authoritarian tools of the state such as theKempeitai were put into use in the early Shōwa period, they were employed to protect the rule of law under theMeiji Constitution from perceived enemies on both the left and the right.[12]
Some ideologists, such asKingoro Hashimoto, proposed a single-party dictatorship, based on populism, patterned after the European fascist movements.An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus shows the influence clearly.[13]
These geopolitical ideals developed into theAmau Doctrine (天羽声明; an AsianMonroe Doctrine), stating that Japan assumed total responsibility for peace in Asia, and can be seen later when Prime MinisterKōki Hirota proclaimed justified Japanese expansion into northern China as the creation of "a special zone, anti-communist, pro-Japanese and pro-Manchukuo" that was a "fundamental part" of Japanese national existence.
Although the reformist right-wing, kakushin uyoku, was interested in the concept, the idealist right-wing, or kannen uyoku, rejected fascism as they rejected all things of western origin.[citation needed]
Because of the mistrust of unions in such unity, the Japanese went to replace them with "councils" (経営財団,keiei zaidan; lit. "management foundations", shortened:営団eidan) in every factory, containing both management and worker representatives to contain conflict.[14] This was part of a program to create a classless national unity.[15] However, the nobles had a large amount of control in society in which there was no parallel in fascist countries.. The most famous of the councils is the Teito Rapid Transit Authority (帝都高速度交通営団,Teito Kōsoku-do Kōtsū Eidan; lit. "Imperial Capital Highspeed Transportation Council", TRTA), which survived the dismantling of the councils under theUS-led Allied occupation. The TRTA is now theTokyo Metro.
TheKokuhonsha was founded in 1924 byconservativeMinister of Justice and President of theHouse of PeersHiranuma Kiichirō.[16] It called on Japanese patriots to reject the various foreign political "-isms" (such associalism,communism,Marxism,anarchism, etc.) in favor of a rather vaguely defined "Japanese national spirit" (kokutai). The name "kokuhon" was selected as an antithesis to the word "minpon", fromminpon shugi, the commonly used translation for the word "democracy", and theKokuhonsha society was openly supportive oftotalitarian ideology.[17]
One particular concept exploited was a decree ascribed to the legendary firstemperor of Japan, EmperorJimmu, in 660BC: the policy ofhakkō ichiu (八紘一宇; all eight corners of the world under one roof).[18]
This also related to the concept ofkokutai or national polity, meaning the uniqueness of the Japanese people in having a leader with spiritual origins.[13] The pamphletKokutai no Hongi taught that students should put the nation before the self, and that they were part of the state and not separate from it.[19]Shinmin no Michi enjoined all Japanese to follow the central precepts of loyalty and filial piety, which would throw aside selfishness and allow them to complete their "holy task."[20]
The bases of the modern form ofkokutai andhakkō ichiu were to develop after 1868 and would take the following form:
The concept of the divineEmperors was another belief that was to fit the later goals. It was an integral part of the Japanese religious structure that theTennō was divine, descended directly from the line of Ama-Terasu (or Amaterasu, the Sun Kami or Goddess).
The final idea that was modified in modern times was the concept ofBushido. This was thewarrior code and laws offeudal Japan, that while having cultural surface differences, was at its heart not that different from the code ofchivalry or any other similar system in other cultures. In later years, the code ofBushido found a resurgence in belief following theMeiji Restoration. At first, this allowed Japan to field what was considered one of the most professional and humanemilitaries in the world, one respected by friend and foe alike.[citation needed] Eventually, however, this belief would become a combination ofpropaganda andfanaticism that would lead to theSecond Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s and World War II.
It was the third concept, especially, that would chart Japan's course towards several wars that would culminate with World War II.
During 1940, Prime MinisterFumimaro Konoe proclaimed theShintaisei (New National Structure), making Japan into a "National Defense State". Under theNational Mobilization Law, the government was given absolute power over the nation's assets. Allpolitical parties were ordered to dissolve into theImperial Rule Assistance Association, forming aone-party state based ontotalitarian values. Such measures as theNational Service Draft Ordinance and theNational Spiritual Mobilization Movement were intended to mobilize Japanese society for atotal war against the West.
Associated with government efforts to create astatist society included creation of theTonarigumi (residents' committees), and emphasis on theKokutai no Hongi ("Japan's Fundamentals of National Policy"), presenting a view of Japan's history, and its mission to unite the East and West under theHakkō ichiu theory in schools as official texts. The official academic text was another book,Shinmin no Michi (The Subject's Way), the "moral national Bible", presented an effective catechism on nation, religion, cultural, social, and ideological topics.
Imperial Japan withdrew from theLeague of Nations in 1933, bringing it closer toNazi Germany, which also left that year, and toFascist Italy, which was dissatisfied with the League. During the 1930s Japan drifted further away from Western Europe and the United States. During this period, American, British, and French films were increasingly censored, and in 1937 Japan froze all American assets throughout its empire.[21]
In 1940, the three countries formed the Axis powers, and became more closely linked. Japan imported German propaganda films such asOhm Krüger (1941), advertising them as narratives showing the suffering caused by Western imperialism.
Kokkashugi was discredited and destroyed by the failure of Japan's military in World War II. After thesurrender of Japan, Japan was put underAllied occupation. Some of its former military leaders were tried forwar crimes before theTokyo tribunal, the government educational system was revised, and the tenets ofliberal democracy were written into the post-warConstitution of Japan as one of its key themes.
The collapse of statist ideologies in 1945–1946 was paralleled by a formalization of relations between theShinto religion and the Japanese state, includingdisestablishment: termination of Shinto's status as astate religion. In August 1945, the termState Shinto (Kokka Shintō) was invented to refer to some aspects of statism. On 1 January 1946, EmperorShōwa issued an imperial rescript, sometimes referred as theNingen-sengen ("Humanity Declaration") in which he quoted theFive Charter Oath (Gokajō no Goseimon) of his grandfather,Emperor Meiji and renounced officially "the false conception that the Emperor is a divinity". However, the wording of the Declaration – in thecourt language of theImperial family, an archaic Japanese dialect known asKyūteigo – and content of this statement have been the subject of much debate. For instance, the renunciation did not include the word usually used to impute the Emperor's divinity:arahitogami ("living god"). It instead used the unusual wordakitsumikami, which was officially translated as "divinity", but more literally meant "manifestation/incarnation of akami ("god/spirit")". Hence, commentators such asJohn W. Dower andHerbert P. Bix have argued, Hirohito did not specifically deny being a "living god" (arahitogami).
...the literal translation of kokkashugi is "state socialism." This rendering reflects its proponents' emphasis on the state as an institution to solve economic and social problems. But the adherents of this ideology often translated kokkashugi as "national socialism," and contemporaries often remarked about the parallels with German National Socialism. For example, the title of the journal of this school of thought was kokkashakaishugi, which they translated as "national socialism."
... Shōwa statism as a source for a reinvigorated Japanese nationalism.
Careful attention to the history of the Special Higher Police, and particularly to their use by Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki against his enemies even further to his political right, reveals that extreme rightists, fascists, and practically anyone deemed to pose a threat to the Meiji constitutional order were at risk.
