Japan in War and Peace

Japan in War and Peace

State and Society in the Dark Valley

Last week we discussed what the Wartime Japanese state is not. Conclusion: though authoritarian it is not necessarily fascist. Also we suggested that fascism itself is not a particularly appropriate concept for describing any particular state. So if not fascist what type of state was it? That is the first question and secondly what was the relationship between the state and the society over which it presided. I will be concentrating on the issue of censorship and freedom of speech.

Bibliog. Gregory Kasza The State and Mass Media

Marshall Academic Freedom and the Imperial Universities

Ben ami-Shillony Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan

1.  The Nature of the Japanese State

The Meiji State

The Meiji elite or the Elder Statesmen (Genro) were first pressured to accept party government in 1918 prompted in part by the rice riots of that year, which underlined the need for governments with popular support. The democratic cause was further aided after 1922 by the fact that the last remaining Genro, Saionji Kinmochi was a supporter of party politics. Despite electoral abuses, however, election results suggest that the views of the voters remained paramount. The gradual evolution of democratic institutions in Japan was not merely a source of compromise but also a source of strength. Moreover from 1925 onwards there was a two-party system with several alternations of power and no deep ideological rifts between the two which typified a moderate political system. It appeared at this time that the Japanese regime was steadily evolving into a more permanent and complete democracy.

In sum, elected officials controlled the principal locus of state authority - the cabinet - and were periodically compelled to demonstrate their popular mandate at the polls.

Show OHP of electoral changes.

2.  The transition to military rule 1932-37

The transition to a military-bureaucratic regime was characterised neither by forceful overthrow nor negotiated agreement it was instead an incremental shift from party dominance to military-bureaucratic rule there was no definite point of change. After the assassination of the last party PM in May 1932 the Genro Saionji appointed non party PM Saitö Makoto (1932-1934) and Okada Keisuke (1934-36) who presided over national unity cabinets. Conflict between the parties and the military simmered just below the surface. The premiers were weak and gradually bureaucrats rather than politicians were installed in the ministries. This was the first phase of the national unity cabinets but after the Feb. 26 incident in 1936 began we witness a second phase of national unity cabinets. Saito and Okada had been genuine conservatives but the governments of ex-bureaucrat Hirota Köki (March 1936-January 1937) and retired General Hayashi Senjürö (February-May 1937) skewed "national unity" towards greater military power within the state. In may 1936 the rule that only active-duty officers could become military ministers was reinstated (last in 1913) and thus if the army or navy refused to offer a minister, no cabinet could be formed. In January 1937 Army minister Terauchi resigned to topple the Hirota cabinet - the first time a military minister had so undermined a government since 1912 - in order to prevent Saionji replacing Hirota with a moderate (retire Gen. Ugaki Kazushige) the army's ruling triumvirate (Army Minister, Chief of General Staff, Inspector General of Military Education) sabotaged the appointment by refusing a minister so that Hayashi was appointed instead. After the 1937 elections the Seiyükai and Minseitö jointly resolved that the government should resign.

The campaign against legal scholar Minobe Tatsukichi in 1935 was the most important event in media politics in this period. Minobe's theory about the constitutional status of the emperor was not only accepted by most legal scholars but also by the emperor himself. He was kept out of prison but was in effect a prisoner in his own home and abandoned by friends who were afraid for their lives to be associated with him. He was shot and wounded by an assassin during the Feb. 26 incident. The Minobe affair had a profound effect on subsequent expression in the mass media. If a man of Minobe's stature could be ruined before the eyes of the entire nation no one was safe.

Evidence suggests that most of Japan's rightist groups were not as radical as the European fascist movements to which they are often compared. Most groups embraced a more moderate politico-economic reform program, a strategy of influencing elites rather than organising mass action and traditional monarchical principles of legitimacy that had no parallel in fascist ideologies. Undoubtedly rightist assassination, intimidation and propaganda were crucial to the course of Japanese politics and contributed mightily to the breakdown of party government, to the sense of political crisis and the delegitimation of democracy, freedom, individualism and internationalism from public discourse. But no civil rightist group ever seized power.

3.  IRAA

Under Konoe a commission set up the Taisei Yokusankai - Imperial Rule Assistance Association. Originally Konoe viewed IRAA as a popular government force and a civilian organisation which would block the power of the. In fact most of the politicians and bureaucrats were opposed to the idea of a strong mass party and the IRAA remained a weak national organisation – not even a party – Kai –and it was made up of people from many walks of life. Konoe resigned in 1941 - General Tojo Hideki took over and presided over a military-bureaucratic regime. There was, however, still an election in 1942 for the House of Representatives and although 466 candidates were recommended by the Imperial Rule Assistance Political Structure Association (Yokusan Seiji Taisei Gyôgikai) another 613 non-recommended candidates also ran. Despite a massive propaganda campaign and secret funds organised for the recommended candidates of the 461 elected delegates 378 were recommended and 83 were not and the latter were able to gain 17 percent of the seats in the House.

4.  The State and Press Freedom

Meiji Press policy: From 1868 the Meiji elites were concerned to protect their authority from challenges and yet they provided a relatively auspicious foundation for press autonomy in Modern Japan. There is much scholarly debate on the repressiveness of the early Meiji state but it must not be forgotten that the Meiji founders never wavered in their acceptance of privately operated journals with an independent political role.

Article 29 of the 1889 constitution affirmed that "Japanese subjects shall, within the limits of law, enjoy the liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings, and associations."

The Newspaper Law of 1909 reversed the liberal trend of the first two decades and it endured until 1945. It governed newspapers and magazines for the next thirty six years. The relevant tenets are:

·  The Home Minister could stop circulation of any issue threatening public order or manners or morals, and prohibit further publication of similar contents by the same journal.

·  A court of law could terminate a journal carrying items banned by the Army, Navy, or Foreign Ministers, disturbing public order or manners and morals, or violating the clauses on the imperial family, political regime, or constitution.

·  Legal responsibility for the contents of an article was shared by the chief editor, subordinate editors who worked on the article, and the author, and, for some offences, the publisher and printer as well.

·  Maximum prison sentences for various offences were three months for inciting rime or vindicating a criminal, six months to the publisher, editor, and author for disobeying a judicial writ to cease publication, disturbing public order or manners and morals, or violating a Home Ministry prohibition on certain contents; two years to the publisher, editors, and author for items banned by the Army, Navy, or Foreign Ministers, and the publisher, editors, author and printer for articles violating clauses on the imperial family, political regime, and constitution.

As far as press codes go, however the Newspaper Law was hardly Draconian and many of the forbidden contents have been fairly standard even in the press laws of democratic regimes. Only two provisions stand out as departing for the liberal norm one is the demand for a security deposit and the other is the administrative right to seize offending editions, which liberal regimes have generally only permitted in time of emergency if at all. This did not however, constitute a system of pre-publication censorship, and short of revolutionary rhetoric the law allowed severe reproofs of government policies and officials.

Peace Preservation Law: Controls over Film were particularly tough but radio was the most tightly controlled of all, confined to a public interest monopoly that denied autonomous political expression. However this record is not at all unusual in democracies.

The most important extra-legal policy was the pre-publication warning where officials would notify journalists not to report on certain current events related to public order. This applied particularly to military activities in Manchuria between 1931 and 1932 where there were some nineteen warnings to gag reporting. Thought control became a major government slogan in the late 1920s and the Home Ministry's Special Higher Police were often referred to as the "thought police". Mass arrests of communists and other radicals occurred periodically from 1923 to 1932. The peak time for arrests was between 1931 and 1933 when almost 40,000 people were arrested out of which 1,574 were imprisoned, 152 for more than five years.

5.  Press Policy 1937-1945

Japan, however, underwent a policy revolution between 1937 and 1945 that involved a fundamental reorganisation of many social sectors. The military bureaucrats were strongly influenced by Marxist and fascist thought and the perception of war as symptomatic of a vast metamorphosis in world politics, economics and culture provides the ideological background to the changes they wrought. They managed to reshape a highly advanced media system and harness it to their purposes and launched a massive onslaught of state control policies that largely recast Japanese society.

Most concerted effort at mobilising mass media was made 1940-41 as part of Konoe's New Order – Mobilisation Act of 1938. State control advanced beyond negative censorship to positive mobilization of content and industrial restructuring after 1937.

1. The consultation format

was the key to understanding state power in late imperial Japan. It regulated not only the mass media but also the economy, religion, art and education. Magazine consultations were employed to institute pre-publication censorship of proofs during 1939-1941. In 1939 officials eliminated the unauthorised use of blank type (Xs and Os) through the censorship of galleys (printed copies made for the purpose of correcting the type before the actual printing of issues to be circulated.) cutting whatever displeased them before the final printing.

Show OHP of Yoshino

This new policy had no legal foundation and marked a sharp upgrading of state control. The Cabinet Information Bureau later took charge of this system and from May 1941 demanded a description of planned contents and authors every month.

7.  The blacklisting of writers

was another product of consultations. In December 1937 the Home Ministry arrested about 400 intellectual and labour leaders (the [Jinmin Sensen Jiken] Popular Front Incident) previously classified with the legal left.. There followed in Feb. 1938 the arrest of about 45 intellectuals including moderate leftist university professors and members of the Social Masses Party ([ Gakusha or Kyoju Gurüpu Jiken] Scholars' Group Incident). The Peace Preservation Law was used in both cases.

The next step was to blacklist writers not under arrest. This began in a Home Ministry consultation for major Tokyo magazines in March 1938 when editors were told unofficially to reject any articles by certain writers. Nothing was said to the writers themselves just to the journals.

Baba Tsunego, a critic of the military described the impact of these changes:

Until the year when the Great East Asian War started [1941], I was writing political commentary for the newspapers once a week and for so many magazines each month. Little by little I became unable to write, and during the war I was absolutely silenced. If one looks for the reason, it was that newspapers and magazines stopped accepting my manuscripts. However, no official or military man ever confronted me saying this article is bad or ordering me not to write such and such a thing, or even spoke with me.

By January 1941 the Special Higher Police had card files on individuals with suspicious backgrounds and editors were urged to phone in for advice with regard to the suitability of contributors.

1. The New Order for the Press 1940-45

Underpinned by the State Total Mobilzation Law. Officials liquidated the vast majority of firms and herded the remainder into controlled groups it exemplified a much broader pattern for the expansion of state control over society. The law empowered the govt to ban or limit publication of information when necessary for mobilization and to seize offending copies. Second, all publishing companies were made subject to general mobilization powers which effectively gave the govt. unqualified power over the life and death of any newspaper, magazine and book publishing company. The state could expropriate all or part of any mobilisation business, order or prohibit changes in its equipment, control the hiring and firing of employees and regulate their salaries and limit the companies' production, distribution and consumption of goods. Finally the law authorised officials to set up control associations, fashioned after the Nazi Wirtschaftsgruppen to regulate groups of enterprises. The bill's principal justification was that a modern total war required total mobilization. When some Diet members complained that the law would invite a "fascist" despotism as in Germany and Italy, the home minister replied:

I think "fascist" politics was born in response to the necessities and special conditions of Italy. In our country there is an authorized constitution based on our grand national polity that stands proud in the world. Regardless of what sort of politics there are in other countries, in our country politics conforms to the spirit of this great authorized constitution.

1. Hosokawa Karoku

A well-known Japanese Marxist wrote a two part article in Kaizo in August and September 1942 which suggested that Japan adopt some of the Soviet Union's colonial policies for use in the South Seas. The Editors were rebuked by army information officials and the two editions containing the articles were banned despite the fact that galleys of the articles had passed the CIB's censorship. A week later Hosokawa was arrested by Yokohama's Special Higher Police and Kaizo was told that it could not continue without an editorial change. Thus began the Yokohama Incident in which Kaizo's chief editor and the staff member handling Hosokawa's manuscript resigned.