BETWEEN THE WARS, 1920-36

Two-Party System

The two-party political system that had been developing in Japan since theturn of the century finally came of age after World War I. This period hassometimes been called that of 'Taish Democracy,' after the reign titleof the emperor. In 1918 Hara Takashi (1856-1921), a protégé of Saionji and amajor influence in the prewar Seiyokai cabinets, had become the first commonerto serve as prime minister. He took advantage of long-standing relationships hehad throughout the government, won the support of the surviving genro and theHouse of Peers, and brought into his cabinet as army minister Tanaka Giichi(1864-1929), who had a greater appreciation of favorable civil-militaryrelations than his predecessors. Nevertheless, major problems confronted Hara:inflation, the need to adjust the Japanese economy to postwar circumstances, theinflux of foreign ideas, and an emerging labor movement. Prewar solutions wereapplied by the cabinet to these postwar problems, and little was done to reformthe government. Hara worked to ensure a Seiyokai majority through time-testedmethods, such as new election laws and electoral redistricting, and embarked onmajor government-funded public works programs.

The public grew disillusioned with the growing national debt and the newelection laws, which retained the old minimum tax qualifications for voters.Calls were raised for universal suffrage and the dismantling of the oldpolitical party network. Students, university professors, and journalists,bolstered by labor unions and inspired by a variety of democratic, socialist,communist, anarchist, and other Western schools of thought, mounted large butorderly public demonstrations in favor of universal male suffrage in 1919 and1920. New elections brought still another Seiyokai majority, but barely so. Inthe political milieu of the day, there was a proliferation of new parties,including socialist and communist parties.

In the midst of this political ferment, Hara was assassinated by adisenchanted railroad worker in 1921. Hara wasfollowed by a succession of nonparty prime ministers and coalition cabinets.Fear of a broader electorate, left-wing power, and the growing social changeengendered by the influx of Western popular culture together led to the passageof the Peace Preservation Law (1925), which forbade any change in the politicalstructure or the abolition of private property.

Unstable coalitions and divisiveness in the Diet led the Kenseikai(Constitutional Government Association) and the Seiy Honto (True Seiyokai) tomerge as the Rikken Minseito (Constitutional Democratic Party) in 1927. TheRikken Minseito platform was committed to the parliamentary system, democraticpolitics, and world peace. Thereafter, until 1932, the Seiyokai and the RikkenMinseito alternated in power.

Despite the political realignments and hope for more orderly government,domestic economic crises plagued whichever party held power. Fiscal austerityprograms and appeals for public support of such conservative government policiesas the Peace Preservation Law--including reminders of the moral obligation tomake sacrifices for the emperor and the state--were attempted as solutions.Although the world depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s had minimaleffects on Japan--indeed, Japanese exports grew substantially during thisperiod--there was a sense of rising discontent that was heightened with theassassination of Rikken Minseito prime minister Hamaguchi Osachi (1870-1931) in1931.

The events flowing from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 had seen not only thefulfillment of many domestic and foreign economic and politicalobjectives--without Japan's first suffering the colonial fate of other Asiannations--but also a new intellectual ferment, in a time when there was interestworldwide in socialism and an urban proletariat was developing. Universal malesuffrage, social welfare, workers' rights, and nonviolent protest were ideals ofthe early leftist movement. Government suppression of leftist activities,however, led to more radical leftist action and even more suppression, resultingin the dissolution of the Japan Socialist Party (Nihon Shakaito), only a yearafter its 1906 founding, and in the general failure of the socialist movement.

The victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 and their hopes for a worldrevolution led to the establishment of the Comintern (a contraction of CommunistInternational, the organization founded in Moscow in 1919 to coordinate theworld communist movement). The Comintern realized the importance of Japan inachieving successful revolution in East Asia and actively worked to form theJapan Communist Party (Nihon Kyosanto), which was founded in July 1922. Theannounced goals of the Japan Communist Party in 1923 were an end to feudalism,abolition of the monarchy, recognition of the Soviet Union, and withdrawal ofJapanese troops from Siberia, Sakhalin, China, Korea, and Taiwan. A brutalsuppression of the party followed. Radicals responded with an assassinationattempt on Prince Regent Hirohito. The 1925 Peace Preservation Law was a directresponse to the 'dangerous thoughts' perpetrated by communist elementsin Japan.

The liberalization of election laws, also in 1925, benefited communistcandidates even though the Japan Communist Party itself was banned. A new PeacePreservation Law in 1928, however, further impeded communist efforts by banningthe parties they had infiltrated. The police apparatus of the day was ubiquitousand quite thorough in attempting to control the socialist movement. By 1926 the Japan Communist Party had been forcedunderground, by the summer of 1929 the party leadership had been virtuallydestroyed, and by 1933 the party had largely disintegrated.

Diplomacy

Emerging Chinese nationalism, the victory of the communists in Russia, andthe growing presence of the United States in East Asia all worked againstJapan's postwar foreign policy interests. The four-year Siberian expedition andactivities in China, combined with big domestic spending programs, had depletedJapan's wartime earnings. Only through more competitive business practices,supported by further economic development and industrial modernization, allaccommodated by the growth of the zaibatsu, couldJapan hope to become predominant in Asia. The United States, long a source ofmany imported goods and loans needed for development, was seen as becoming amajor impediment to this goal because of its policies of containing Japaneseimperialism.

An international turning point in military diplomacy was the WashingtonConference of 1921-22, which produced a series of agreements that effected a neworder in the Pacific region. Japan's economic problems made a naval buildupnearly impossible and, realizing the need to compete with the United States onan economic rather than a military basis, rapprochement became inevitable. Japanadopted a more neutral attitude toward the civil war in China, dropped effortsto expand its hegemony into China proper, and joined the United States, Britain,and France in encouraging Chinese self-development.

In the Four Power Treaty on Insular Possessions (December 13, 1921), Japan,the United States, Britain, and France agreed to recognize the status quo in thePacific, and Japan and Britain agreed to terminate formally their Treaty ofAlliance. The Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty (February 6, 1922) establishedan international capital ship ratio (5, 5, 3, 1.75, and 1.75, respectively, forthe United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) and limited the size andarmaments of capital ships already built or under construction. In a move thatgave the Japanese Imperial Navy greater freedom in the Pacific, Washington andLondon agreed not to build any new military bases between Singapore and Hawaii.

The goal of the Nine Power Treaty (February 6, 1922), signed by Belgium,China, the Netherlands, and Portugal, along with the original five powers, wasthe prevention of war in the Pacific. The signatories agreed to respect China'sindependence and integrity, not to interfere in Chinese attempts to establish astable government, to refrain from seeking special privileges in China orthreatening the positions of other nations there, to support a policy of equalopportunity for commerce and industry of all nations in China, and to reexamineextraterritoriality and tariff autonomy policies. Japan also agreed to withdrawits troops from Shandong, relinquishing all but purely economic rights there,and to evacuate its troops from Siberia.

In 1928 Japan joined fourteen other nations in signing the Kellogg-BriandPact, which denounced 'recourse to war for the solution of internationalcontroversies.' Thus, when Japan invaded Manchuria only three years later,its pretext was the defense of its nationals and economic interests there. TheLondon Naval Conference in 1930 came at a time of economic recession in Japan,and the Japanese government was amenable to further, cost-saving navalreductions. Although Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi had civilian support, hebypassed the Naval General Staff and approved the signing of the London NavalTreaty. Hamaguchi's success was pyrrhic: ultranationalists called the treaty anational surrender, and navy and army officials girded themselves for defense oftheir budgets. Hamaguchi himself died from wounds suffered in an assassinationattempt in November 1930, and the treaty, with its complex formula for shiptonnage and numbers aimed at restricting the naval arms race, had loopholes thatmade it ineffective by 1938.

The Rise of the Militarists

Ultranationalism was characteristic of right-wing politicians andconservative military men since the inception of the Meiji Restoration,contributing greatly to the prowar politics of the 1870s. Disenchanted formersamurai had established patriotic societies and intelligence-gatheringorganizations, such as the Gen'yosha (Black Ocean Society, founded in 1881) andits later offshoot, the Kokuryukai (Black Dragon Society, or Amur River Society,founded in 1901). These groups became active in domestic and foreign politics,helped foment prowar sentiments, and supported ultranationalist causes throughthe end of World War II. After Japan's victories over China and Russia, theultranationalists concentrated on domestic issues and perceived domesticthreats, such as socialism and communism.

After World War I and the intellectual ferment of the period, nationalistsocieties became numerous but had a minority voice during the era of two-partydemocratic politics. Diverse and angry groups called for nationalization of allwealth above a fixed minimal amount and for armed overseas expansion. Theemperor was highly revered by these groups, and when Hirohito was enthroned in1927, initiating the Showa period (Bright Harmony, 1926-89), there were callsfor a 'Showa Restoration' and a revival of Shinto. Emperor-centeredneo-Shintoism, or State Shinto, which had long been developing, came to fruitionin the 1930s and 1940s. It glorified the emperor and traditional Japanesevirtues to the exclusion of Western influences, which were perceived as greedy,individualistic, bourgeois, and assertive. The ideals of the Japanesefamily-state and self-sacrifice in service of the nation were given a missionaryinterpretation and were thought by their ultranationalist proponents to beapplicable to the modern world.

The 1930s were a decade of fear in Japan, characterized by the resurgence ofright-wing patriotism, the weakening of democratic forces, domestic terroristviolence (including an assassination attempt on the emperor in 1932), andstepped-up military aggression abroad. A prelude to this state of affairs wasTanaka Giichi's term as prime minister from 1927 to 1929. Twice he sent troopsto China to obstruct Chiang Kai-shek's unification campaign. In June 1928,adventurist officers of the Guandong Army, the Imperial Japanese Army unitstationed in Manchuria, embarked an unauthorized initiatives to protect Japaneseinterests, including the assassination of a former ally, Manchurian warlordZhang Zuolin. The perpetrators hoped the Chinese would be prompted to takemilitary action, forcing the Guandong Army to retaliate. The Japanese highcommand and the Chinese, however, both refused to mobilize. The incident turnedout to be a striking example of unchecked terrorism. Even though presscensorship kept the Japanese public from knowing about these events, they led tothe downfall of Tanaka and set the stage for a similar plot, the ManchurianIncident, in 1931.

A secret society founded by army officers seeking to establish a militarydictatorship--the Sakurakai (Cherry Society, the cherry blossom being emblematicof self-sacrifice)--plotted to attack the Diet and political party headquarters,assassinate the prime minister, and declare martial law under a 'ShowaRestoration' government led by the army minister. Although the armycanceled its coup plans (to have been carried out in March 1931), no reprisalswere taken and terrorist activity was again tacitly condoned.

The Manchurian Incident of September 1931 did not fail, and it set the stagefor the eventual military takeover of the Japanese government. Guandong Armyconspirators blew up a few meters of South Manchurian Railway Company track nearMukden (now Shenyang), blamed it on Chinese saboteurs, and used the event as anexcuse to seize Mukden. One month later, in Tokyo, military figures plotted theOctober Incident, which was aimed at setting up a national socialist state. Theplot failed, but again the news was suppressed and the military perpetratorswere not punished. Japanese forces attacked Shanghai in January 1932 on thepretext of Chinese resistance in Manchuria. Finding stiff Chinese resistance inShanghai, the Japanese waged a three-month undeclared war there before a trucewas reached in March 1932. Several days later, Manchukuo was established.Manchukuo was a Japanese puppet state headed by the last Chinese emperor, Puyi,as chief executive and later emperor. The civilian government in Tokyo waspowerless to prevent these military happenings. Instead of being condemned, theGuandong Army's actions enjoyed popular support back home. Internationalreactions were extremely negative, however. Japan withdrew from the League ofNations, and the United States became increasingly hostile.

The Japanese system of party government finally met its demise with the May15th Incident in 1932, when a group of junior naval officers and army cadetsassassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932). Although the assassinswere put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment, they were seenpopularly as having acted out of patriotism. Inukai's successors, military menchosen by Saionji, the last surviving genro, recognized Manchukuo and generallyapproved the army's actions in securing Manchuria as an industrial base, an areafor Japanese emigration, and a staging ground for war with the Soviet Union.Various army factions contended for power amid increasing suppression of dissentand more assassinations. In the February 26th Incident of 1936, about 1,500troops went on a rampage of assassination against the current and former primeministers and other cabinet members, and even Saionji and members of theimperial court. The revolt was put down by other military units, and its leaderswere executed after secret trials. Despite public dismay over these events andthe discredit they brought to numerous military figures, Japan's civilianleadership capitulated to the army's demands in the hope of ending domesticviolence. Increases were seen in defense budgets, naval construction (Japanannounced it would no longer accede to the London Naval Treaty), and patrioticindoctrination as Japan moved toward a wartime footing.

In November 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact, an agreement to exchangeinformation and collaborate in preventing communist activities, was signed byJapan and Germany (Italy joined a year later). War was launched against Chinaafter the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937, in which an allegedlyunplanned clash took place near Beiping (as Beijing was then called) betweenChinese and Japanese troops and quickly escalated into full-scale warfare. TheSecond Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) ensued, and relations with the United States,Britain, and the Soviet Union deteriorated. The increased military activities inChina--and the Japanese idea of establishing 'Mengukuo' in InnerMongolia and the Mongolian People's Republic--soon led to a major clash overrival Mongolia-Manchukuo border claims. When Japanese troops invaded easternMongolia, a ground and air battle with a joint Soviet- Mongolian army took placebetween May and September 1939 at the Battle of Halhin Gol. The Japanese wereseverely defeated, sustaining as many as 80,000 casualties, and thereafter Japanconcentrated its war efforts on its southward drive in China and Southeast Asia,a strategy that helped propel Japan ever closer to war with the United Statesand Britain and their allies.

Under the prime ministership of Konoe Fumimaro (1891-1945)--the last head ofthe famous Fujiwara house--the government was streamlined and given absolutepower over the nation's assets. In 1940, the 2,600th anniversary of the foundingof Japan, according to tradition, Konoe's cabinet called for the establishmentof a 'Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere,' a concept building onKonoe's 1938 call for a 'New Order in Greater East Asia,' encompassingJapan, Manchukuo, China, and Southeast Asia. The Greater East Asia CoprosperitySphere was to integrate Asia politically and economically--under Japaneseleadership--against Western domination and was developed in recognition of thechanging geopolitical situation emerging in 1940. (In 1942 the Greater East AsiaMinistry was established, and in 1943 the Greater East Asia Conference was heldin Tokyo.) Also in 1940, political parties were ordered to dissolve, and theImperial Rule Assistance Association, comprising members of all former parties,was established to transmit government orders throughout society. In September1940, Japan joined the Axis alliance with Germany and Italy when it signed theTripartite Pact, a military agreement to redivide the world that was directedprimarily against the United States.

There had been a long-standing and deep-seated antagonism between Japan andthe United States since the first decade of the twentieth century. Eachperceived the other as a military threat, and trade rivalry was carried on inearnest. The Japanese greatly resented the racial discrimination perpetuated byUnited States immigration laws, and the Americans became increasingly wary ofJapan's interference in the self-determination of other peoples. Japan'smilitary expansionism and quest for national self- sufficiency eventually ledthe United States in 1940 to embargo war supplies, abrogate a long-standingcommercial treaty, and put greater restrictions on the export of criticalcommodities. These American tactics, rather than forcing Japan to a standstill,made Japan more desperate. After signing the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact inApril 1941, and while still actively making war plans against the United States,Japan participated in diplomatic negotiations with Washington aimed at achievinga peaceful settlement. Washington was concerned about Japan's role in theTripartite Pact and demanded the withdrawal of Japanese troops from China andSoutheast Asia. Japan countered that it would not use force unless 'acountry not yet involved in the European war' (that is, the United States)attacked Germany or Italy. Further, Japan demanded that the United States andBritain not interfere with a Japanese settlement in China (a pro-Japanese puppetgovernment had been set up in Nanjing in 1940). Because certain Japanesemilitary leaders were working at cross-purposes with officials seeking apeaceful settlement (including Konoe, other civilians, and some militaryfigures), talks were deadlocked. On October 15, 1941, army minister Tojo Hideki(1884-1948) declared the negotiations ended. Konoe resigned and was replaced byTojo. After the final United States rejection of Japan's terms of negotiation,on December 1, 1941, the Imperial Conference (an ad hoc meeting convened--andthen only rarely--in the presence of the emperor) ratified the decision toembark on a war of 'self-defense and self-preservation' and to attackthe United States naval base at Pearl Harbor.

SOURCE: Area Handbook of the US Library ofCongress