An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan (1931-1945)

by Shunsuke Tsurumi

  In the fifteen years between 1931 and 1945 militarism and fascism governed Japan. In order to evade the difficult problem of solving Japan's internal problems by social reform, the Government chose the path of military expansion. The Government required intellectuals to conform with this policy and provide its theoretical justification. To this end, various coercive measures, including imprisonment, were used. But the most effective measure was the manipulation of the age-old tradition of insularity, which had its roots in the pre-Meiji, pre-industrial era. Uniformity of public opinion was achieved via the institution of Neighbour Associations, by means of which rumour and free speech were repressed. In these circumstances the current fashion in radical and progressive ideas, which was followed by the Association of New Men, was easily transformed into propaganda for militarism and ultra-nationalism. This was the prevalent form of tenkō in the 1930s.

  Among the cases of protest and resistance during the Fifteen Years’ War, we find examples of the tradition of insularity being put to a different use. Two major ideologies of ultra-nationalism in Japan are Kita Ikki and Gondō Seikyō118. Both relied on this tradition. Kita advocated the socialization of Japan in the name of the Emperor by the use of the Army to equalize the incomes of the people. He was executed on the basis of an allegation that he was connected with the uprising of 26 February 1936. Gondō’s traditionalist nationalism called for the resurrection of old customs in order to deal with the problems of food, housing, and production. He advocated self-rule through radical agrarianism, a view close to that of Yanagita Kunio, a conservative scholar, and that of Ishikawa Sanshirō, an anarchist of the original socialist group of the late Meiji period. Ishikawa saw democracy as self-rule by the people of the soil, an interpretation diametrically opposed to that of the contemporary student movement, the Association of New Men.*119 Ishikawa supported himself until his late seventies on his own half-acre vegetable farm, without relying on his writing for income. He refused to conform to state policy in his published works even during the war, and he advocated desertion from military service and non-violent methods of sabotage.120

  Kashiwagi Gien, another survivor of Meiji socialism, lived as a pastor. He criticized the war against China, for which his small magazine was banned, but because he was loyal and kind to his neighbours and always showed them sincere consideration, he continued to be loved until his death, less for his anti-war thought than for the warmth of his character.

  Masaki Hiroshi, a lawyer, edited a small magazine called From Nearby121, in which he relentlessly published cases of prisoners tortured to death by policemen during the war. This brought the use of torture under public scrutiny. His criticism always focused on specific issues, and was backed with positive evidence.122 He was therefore able to continue publication of his magazine until the end of the war.

  Tsuji Jun, a dadaist of the Taisho era, professed, after this period, a disbelief in all slogans and all political ideologies. All the imported ideas fell off his head like dandruff. He did not, however, replace them with the Government's militarism. He lived as a beggar, playing a bamboo flute, and seems to have died of starvation during the war.123

  All these might be called examples of ineffectual socialism, or ineffectual liberalism. But we must bear in mind that the desire for practical effectiveness led many of the Taishō advocates of liberalism and socialism into militarism and ultra-nationalism during the Fifteen Years’ War. By contrast, these ‘ineffectual’ forms of protest and resistance survived, because they were based on the traditions of the pre-Meiji era of insularity, traditions too deeply embedded for the To jo Government to uproot. They survived as a separate sphere of insularity within Japanese wartime insularity. These traditions may flourish under the utterly changed conditions following the defeat and Occupation.

  Japan's military defences are no match for the force of the super-powers, the U.S.A. and Soviet Russia. Japan must therefore establish trade with other countries without the help of military coercion. Thus insularity can no longer be used, as it once was, for militaristic unification and expansion. The presence of Koreans in Japan, the memories of the inhabitants of Okinawa, of the victims of the atomic bombs, and above all the memory of the Fifteen Years’ War and its negative spiritual legacy, have all shaped the trait of insularity into a form undreamed of in pre-war Japan. In wartime Japan the trait of insularity was distorted in an attempt to counter the influence of Western systems of thought by idealizing Japanese traditions as the embodiment of infallible universal principles. In fact, the true nature of Japanese tradition is to refrain from making universal rules to bind men in all places and all times. This negative character is its strength. It is this refusal to enforce universal principles which was the basis of the village tradition that no member of the community should be persecuted because of his way of thinking. By concentrating on tackling the specific and concrete problems which face us, we could develop a method for the different ethnic groups of the world to communicate their different modes of thought in a Japanese way, in accordance with this Japanese tradition of tolerating difference. Although this kind of approach has not been respected in the intellectual tradition of Western societies, it is an alternative path for us to follow.

  When faced with McCarthyism, Lillian Hellman saw the inadequacy of the liberal tradition in the United States and turned instead to a belief in ‘decency’. Her belief was shared by many others, both intellectuals and non-intellectuals. Perhaps her intuitive concept was equivalent to the ideas I have sought to express here. The sense of decency displayed in one's manner of living is of more intellectual import than the instruments of ideology wielded by the intellectuals.

  ____________

  * Ishikawa translated the English word ‘democracy’ as domin-shugi, literally, ‘people-of-the-soil-ism’.

  References

  1 An Approach to Japan, 1931-1945

  1 Shisō no Kagaku Kenkyūkai, Tenkō, 3 vols. (Heibonsha, 1959-62. Rev. ed., 1978).

  Honda Shūgo's Tenkō Bungakuron (Miraisha, 1957) preceded this study, and Yoshimoto Takaaki, ‘Tenkoron’, Geijutsuteki Teikō to Zasetsu (Miraisha, 1959) appeared at the same time.

  2 Cary, O., Reischauer, E., Inoki, M., Sakata, Y. and Tsurumi, S. ‘Democracy in Japan: Past, Present, and Future’, Nichi Bei Forum, June 1963.

  3 The term ‘Fifteen Years’ War’ is used in order to imply that the various military incidents which occurred between 1931 and 1945 were in fact a continuous undeclared war. In this I was partly inspired by S. Neumann's ‘Thirty Years’ War’, in The Future in Perspective. The Second Thirty Years’ War (Putnam and Sons, 1946). I first used this phrase in ‘Chishikijin no Sensō Sekinin’, Chūō Kōron, Jan. 1956.1 clarified my view in ‘Ninon Chishikijin no Amerika Zō’, Chūō Kōron, July 1956. Ienaga adopts a similar view in his Taiheiyō Sensō (Iwanami, 1968), translated as The Pacific War, Frank Baldwin (trans. New York, Pantheon, 1978).

  2 Concerning Tenkō

  4 Ashizu Uzuhiko ‘Sonnō Jōi to wa?’, Tsurumi (ed.), Kataritsugu Sengoshi, Shisō no Kagakusha, 1969. Ashizu's view is more fully developed in Toki no Nagare (Jinja Shinpōsha, 1981).

  5 Dore, R.P. The Diploma Disease (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1976); Education in the Tokugawa Period (London, Kegan Paul, 1965).

  Who's Who in Japan, Jinji Koshinroku (Tokyo, Jinjikoshin-Sha, 1955).

  6 Ishidō Seirin and Tateyama Toshitada (eds), Tōkyō Teidai Shinjinkai no Kiroku (Keizai Oraisha, 1976).

  Smith, H. ‘Shiryō no Jungle - Shinjinkai o Tsuiseki Suru’, Rōdō-shiryō, Jan. 1968; Japan's First Student Radicals (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972).

  7 Fujita Shōzō ‘Shōwa 15-nen o Chūshin to suru Tenkō no Jōkyō’, Tenkō, vol. II (Heibonsha, 1960).

  8 Naimu-shō Keiho-kyoku (ed.), Shōwa 9 nendo ni okeru Shakai-undō no Jōkyō, 1935.

  9 Ikeda, K. ‘Sayoku hanzai no Oboegaki’, Bōhan-kagaku Zenshū, vol. 6, Shisō-han hen (Chūō Kōronsha, 1936).

  10 Fujita, Shōzō ‘Shōwa
8-nen o Chūshin to suru Tenkō no Jōkyō, Tenkō, vol. I (Heibonsha, 1959).

  11 Ikeda, K., and Mori, M. Shisō-han hen, Bōhan-kagaku Zenshū (Chūō Kōronsha, 1936).

  12 Yoshimoto, Takaaki ‘Tenkō-ron’. Geijutsuteki Teikō to Zasetsu (Miraisha, 1959).

  13 Shihō-shō, Hogo-kyoku, Shisō-han Hogo-taishōsha ni Kansuru Shō chōsa, Shihō-hogo-shiryō, vol. 33, 1943.

  14 Honda, S. ‘Shohyō Shisō no Kagaku-Kenkyukai hen. Kyōdō-kenkyu Tenkō jō, Shisō, July 1959.

  3 Insularity and National Isolation

  15 Origuchi Shinobu, Nihonbungaku Keimō (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1950). Ikeda Yasaburō, Nihongeino Denshōron (Chūō Kōronsha), 1962.

  16 Itō Sei ‘Waga Chishiki-kaikyū - Kono Kandō Naezaran ga tame ni’, Miyako Shinbun, 14 Dec, 1941.

  17 Itō Sei, Nihon Bundan-shi (Kōdansha, 1953-69).

  18 Koizumi Shinzō, Kaigun Shukei Taii Koizumi Shinkichi (Bungei Shunjūsha, 1966).

  19 Morita Shirō, Nihon no Mura (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1978).

  20 Katō Shūichi, Nihon Bungakushi Josetsu, Katō Shūichi Chosakushū (Heibonsha, 1980).

  Sato Tadao, Hadaka no Nihonjin (Kobunsha, 1958); Chūshingura: Iji no Keifu (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1976).

  21 Osabe Kingo. ‘Shisōhan no Hogo ni tsuite’, Shihō Kenkyū, vol. 21, no. 10 (Shihō-shō Chōsa-ka, 1937).

  22 Nakano Shigeharu, Mura no Ie, 1935. Bary, B. de (trans.), Three Works by Nakano Shigeharu, Cornell University East Asia Papers, No. 21 (Ithaca, N.Y.).

  4 National Structure

  23 Hashikawa Bunzō, ‘Kokutairon no Rensō’, Tenbō, Sept. 1975.

  24 Harada Kumao, Saionji-kō to Seikyoku, 8 vols (Iawanami, 1950-56).

  25 Maruyama Masao, ‘Gunkoku Shihaisha no Seishin Keitai’, Gendai Seiji no Shisō to Kōdō (Miraisha, 1957), trans, as Thought and Behavior in Modern Japanese Politics (London, Oxford University Press, 1963).

  26 Minoda Kyōki, Gakujutsu Ishin Genri Nihon (Genri Nihonsha, 1933).

  27 Ozaki Shirō, Tennō Kikansetsu, 1951.

  28 Inoue Kiyoshi, Tennō no Sensō Sekinin (Gendai Hyōronsha, 1975).

  29 Takahashi Hajime and Hayashi Saburō, ‘Kyū Gunjin no Baai’, Me, Aug. 1953.

  5 Greater Asia

  30 Takeuchi Yoshimi, ‘Nihon no Aziashugi’, Aziashugi, Gendai Nihon Shisō Taikei, vol. 9 (Chikuma Shobō, 1963).

  31 Matsuoka Yōsuke's announcement on 1 Aug. 1940, as quoted by Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 2 Aug. 1940.

  32 Shōwa Doninkai (ed.), Shōwa Kenkyūkai (Keizai Ōraisha, 1968).

  33 Ozaki Hozumi, Aijō wa Furu Hoshi no Gotoku (Sekai Hyoronsha, 1946).

  34 Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939-1946 (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1968).

  35 Steinberg, D. J. Philippine Collaboration in World War II (Solidaridad Publishing House, Manila, 1967).

  36 Ōoka Shōhei, Waga Bungaku Seikatsu (Chūō Kōronsha, 1975).

  37 ‘Daitōa Sensō to Warera no Ketsui’, Chūgoku Bungaku, no. 80, Jan. 1942.

  38 Kan Takayuki, Tennō-sei no Saikō Keitai towa Nani ka’, Tennō-ron Nōto (Tabata Shoten, 1975).

  39 Matsumoto Kenichi, ‘"Azia" kara "Seiō" e’, Shisō no Kagaku, Sept. 1979.

  6 Patterns of Immobility

  40 Takita Kōya, Shōwa Jidai no Senpuku Kirishitan (Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, 1954).

  41 Nakamura Hajime, Toyōjin no Shii Hōhō, 2 vols (Misuzu Shobō, 1948-49).

  42 Aizen Tokumi, Waga Kakushi Nenbutsu (Shisō no Kagakusha, 1977).

  43 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc., 1959).

  Kasahara Yoshimitsu, ‘Heieki o Kyohi Shita Kirisutosha’, Shisō no Kagaku, Oct. 1970.

  Kōsaka Kaoru, ‘Akashi Junzō to Sumaura Seisho Kōdō’, Shisō no Kagaku, Feb. 1973.

  Ota Yuzō, Uchimura Kanzō (Kenkyūsha, 1977).

  Yoneda, Y., and Takayama, Y. Shōwa no Shūkyō Danatsu (Inochi no Kotobasha, 1964).

  Sakamoto Kōshirō, ‘Koyama Munesuke Bokushiho no Jisatsu’, Shisō no Kagaku, Dec. 1969 and Jan. 1970.

  Dōshisha Jinbun-kagaku Kenkyūjo, Senjika Teikō no Kenkyū, 2 vols (Misuzu Shobō, 1968-69).

  44 Abe Tomoji, Ryōshinteki Heieki Kyohi no Shisō (Iwanami, 1969).

  45 Shimane, K. ‘Shinkō Bukkyō Seinen Dōmei: Senoo Girō’, Tenkō, vol. I (Heibonsha, 1959).

  Inagaki M. Butsuda o Oite Gaitō e (Iwanami, 1974).

  Nakano and Inagaki (eds), Senoo Girō, 7 vols (Kokusho Kankōkai, 1974-75).

  46 Kōgei, 1931-51.

  Blake to Whitman, 1931-33.

  Yanagi Muneyoshi Zenshū, 22 vols (Chikuma Shobō, 1980-86).

  47 Makiguchi Tsunesaburō Zenshū, 8 vols (Daisan Bunmeisha, 1981-82).

  48 Ōmoto 70 nenshi Hensankai, OmotokyŌ 70 nenshi, 2 vols (Shūkyo-hōjin Ōmoto, 1964).

  Ikeda, A. Hitonomichi Kyōdan Fukei Jiken Kankei Shiryō Shūsei (San-ichi Shobō, 1977).

  Murakami, S. Honmichi Fukei Jiken (Kōdansha, 1974).

  49 Yoshimoto Takaaki ‘Tenkō-ron’, Geijutsuteki Teikō to Zasetsu (Miraisha, 1959).

  50 Shiba Ryutarō, Hitobito no Ashioto, 2 vols (Chuō Kōronsha, 1981).

  51 Muramoto had a keen perception of changes in the historical environment.

  7 The Korea Within Japan

  52 Tarui Tōkichi, Daitō Gappō-ron, 1893.

  53 Ishikawa Takuboku, ‘Jidai Heisoku no Genjō’, 1910. This contains his literary criticism of contemporary naturalism which disregarded the suffocating effect of state power on the citizen.

  54 Kisaki, M. Kisaki Nikki (Tosho Shinbunsha, 1964).

  55 The victims are said by the president of the Korean paper Dokuritsu Shinbun to have numbered 6,415. According to Yoshino they numbered 2,711. Kang Tok Sang, Kantō Daishinsai (Chūō Kōronsha, 1975).

  56 Park Kyong Sik, Chōsenjin Kyōsei-renkō no Kiroku (Miraisha, 1965).

  57 Ozaki Hozuki, ‘Daitōa Bungakusha Taikai ni Tsuite’, Kyū-shokuminichi Bungaku no Kenkyū (Keisō Shobō, 1971).

  58 Pak Chun-il, Kindai Nihon Bungaku ni Okeru Chosenzō (Miraisha, 1969).

  Taksasaki Ryūji, ‘Bungaku ni miru Chosenjinzō’, Sanzenri, no. 25, Feb. 1981.

  59 Takasaki Sōji, ‘Yanagi Muneyoshi to Chosen’, Chōen Shishō, no. 1, June 1979.

  Ri Chin-hui, ‘Richō no Bi to Yanagi Muneyoshi’, Sanzenri, Feb. 1975.

  60 Wagner, E. W. The Korean Minority in Japan, 1904-1950 (International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1951).

  61 Kim Si-chong, Niigata (Kōzōsha, 1970).

  Kim Si-chong, Igaino Shishū (Tokyo Shinbun Shuppan-kyoku, 1978).

  62 Kim Talsu, Pak Ta-ri no Saiban (Chikuma Shobō, 1959).

  63 Ko Sa-myong, Ikiru Koto no Imi (Chikuma Shobō, 1974).

  8 Germs of Anti-Stalinism

  64 The Kindai Bungaku held the first meeting of founding members on 3 Oct. 1945. It began its publication with the Jan. 1946 number, issued on 30 Dec. 1945, and ended with the Aug. 1964 number.

  Kindai Bungaku Sōkan no Koro (Shinya Sōsho, 1977).

  65 Haniya Yutaka, ‘Dōkutsu’, Koso, nos. 1 and 2, 1939; ‘Credo Quia Absurdum’, Koso, 1-7, 1939-40.

  Shiryō, a serialized novel, began with the first number of the Kindai Bungaku, Jan. 1946, and remains unfinished.

  66 Hirano Ken, Rinchi Kyōsantō Jiken no Omoide (San-ichi Shobō, 1976).

  Tachibana Takashi, Nihon Kyōsanto no Kenkyū (Kōdansha, 1978).

  Miyauchi Isamu, 1930 nendai Nihon Kyōsantō Shiki (San-ichi ShobV, 1976).

  Sugawara Katsumi, Tōi Shirō (Sōjusha, 1977).

  67 Yamakawa Kikue and Yamakawa Shinsaku (eds), Yamakawa Hitoshi Zenshū, 20 vols (Keisō Shobō, 1966).

  Takabatake Michitoshi, Yamakawa Hitoshi-shū, Kindai Nihon Shisō Taikei (Chikuma Shobō, 1976).

  68 Takabatake Michitoshi, ‘Seisanryoku Riron - Ōkōchi Kazuo to Kazahaya Yasoji’, Tenkō, vol. 2 (Heibonsha, 1960).

  Nakajima Makoto, Tenkō-ron Josetsu (Mineruva Shob�
�, 1980).

  69 Hanada Kiyoteru, ‘Tsumi to Batsu’, Sakuran no Ronri (Shinzenbisha, 1947); ‘Younger Generation e’, Bungaku, July 1957; ‘Nautilus-go Hannō Ari’, Kikan Gendai Geijutsu, no. 3, 1959.

  Yoshimoto Takaaki, ‘Tenkō Fascist no Kiben’, Kindai Bungaku, Sept. 1959.

  70 Kan Sueharu, Katararezaru Shinjitsu (Chikuma Shobō, 1950); Jinsei no Ronri (Sōbisha, 1950).

  71 Takasugi Ichirō, Kyokukō no Kage ni (Nihon Shobō, 1950).

  Uchimura Gosuke, Iki Isogu (Sanseidō, 1967).

  Hasegawa Shirö, Shiberia Monogatari (Chikuma Shobö, 1952). Ishiwara Yoshirö, Nichijö Kara no Kyösei (Közösha, 1970); Bökyö to Umi (Chikuma Shobö, 1972).

  72 Itö Toshio, Shiroki Angara-gawa (Shisö no Kagakusha, 1979).

  73 In 1981, Soviet Russia was one of the most unpopular countries according to Japanese polls.

  9 The Philosophy of Glorious Self-destruction

  74 Huang Chun Ming, Sayonara Tsai Chen, trans, by Tanaka Hiroshi and Fukuda Keiji (Mekon, 1979).

  75 Sigmund Neumann, The Future in Perspective (New York, Putnam and Sons, 1946).

  76 Ienaga Saburö, Taiheiyö Sensö (Iwanami, 1968). Ienaga Saburö, in his The Pacific War, accepts my conception of a continuous war between 1931 and 1945, defining it primarily as a war lost to China.

  77 Morishima Morito, Inbö, Ansatsu, Gunto (Iwanami, 1950).

  78 Sanbö Honbu (ed.) Sugiyama Memo (Haru Shobö, 1969).

  Gomikawa Junpei, Gozen Kaigi (Bungei Shunjüsha, 1978).

  Ike, N. Japan's Decision for War (Stanford, Cal., Stanford University Press, 1967).

  79 Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinenkai (ed.), Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Tödai Kyödö Kumiai Shuppanbu, 1949).

  Watanabe Kiyoshi, Umi no Shiro (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1969); Senkan Yamato no Saigo (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1971); Kudakareta Kami (Hyöronsha 1977); Watashi no Tennö-kan (Henkyosha, 1981).

  80 Hayashi Tadao, Waga Inochi Getsumei ni Moyu (Chikuma Shobö, 1967).