Organizer: Frederick R. Dickinson, University of Pennsylvania
Chair: W. Miles Fletcher III, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Discussant: Gordon M. Berger, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Historians of modern Japan have long pondered the mystery of Taisho liberalism. How did the movement for democracy and internationalism in the 1920s descend so precipitously into militarism and war? Either Taisho democracy was inherently weak or the external forces arrayed against it (Chinese nationalism, the international economic crisis) were inordinately strong.
The presenters of this panel neither doubt the vitality of Taisho democracy nor perceive war in the 1930s as a sudden about-face precipitated by external events. Rather, we believe that the key to Japanese aggression in the 1930s lies in a long-term resistance to liberal reform. We propose to view Taisho Japan not simply as an age of liberalism but of illiberalism.
The four papers highlight the resistance to liberal reform in three realms: ideology, politics and foreign affairs. Chris Szpilman looks at the ideology of the Kokuhonsha, a powerful nationalist society formed in 1920 to defend the prerogatives of the state over the individual. Ito Yukio focuses upon the Seiyukai Party's retreat from liberal social and economic reform in the latter 1920s. Genzo Yamamoto probes the debate surrounding universal manhood suffrage in the House of Peers. Fred Dickinson highlights foreign policy as a key weapon in the domestic fight against democracy in the 1920s. The focus upon illiberalism reveals that Taisho Japan was neither simply a flowering nor a failure of liberalism, but a turbulent struggle for political power. It is this fundamental struggle for power between proponents of liberal reform and their enemies that ties the "liberal" 1920s with the "militarist" 1930s.
The Nationalist Assault on Liberalism: Hiranuma Kiichiro and the Kokuhonsha in
the 1920s
Christopher Szpilman, Asia University
This paper will examine Taisho illiberalism by focusing on the thought and behavior of the Kokuhonsha (National Foundation Society), a political organization founded by Hiranuma Kiichiro in 1920. With a total membership of over 10,000, comprised of generals, admirals, elite bureaucrats, intellectuals, future prime ministers and cabinet ministers and supported by its large-circulation weekly and monthly publications, the significance of the Kokuhonsha is beyond doubt.
Though historians have recognized this importance, they have yet to make a systematic study of the Kokuhonsha's ideas. This paper will highlight the Kokuhonsha's opposition to Wilsonian ideals, the League of Nations, party politics, universal suffrage, civilian control and disarmament. I will probe the society's lamentations of social decadence, encouragement of violence against ideological enemies, appeal to national unity and glorification of military strength, and its conspiratorial view of history and anti-Semitism.
The Kokuhonsha played a major role in contesting the democratic/liberal movement throughout the 1920s, just as it promoted the militarism and aggression of the 1930s. If, as it is frequently alleged, the inadequacies of the political parties contributed to the reaction of the 1930s, this paper demonstrates that the Kokuhonsha's consistent and effective opposition to liberalism and its proponents played just as great, if not a greater role.
The Political Retreat from Liberalism: The Seiyukai in the 1920s
Yukio Ito, Kyoto University
This paper will probe the post-World War I response to liberalism by a major prewar Japanese political party, the Seiyukai. I do not believe that the forces of liberalism were defeated in a furious contest with their foes after the First World War. Rather, many supporters of liberalism became disaffected in the first half of the 1920s and joined the battle against the liberal agenda. The consequent weakening of liberal forces paved the way to war in the 1930s.
From its founding in 1900, the Seiyukai, under the leadership of Hara Takashi, advocated avoidance of conflict with the powers and internal financial and administrative reform. From the First World War, it pursued a clear policy of cooperation with the United States. Seiyukai leaders viewed the post-World War I age as one of economic, not military competition and welcomed the Washington Conference and arms reductions.
Apprehensive about American economic power, they attempted to strengthen Japan via political reforms such as universal manhood suffrage and economic reforms such as Sino-Japanese economic cooperation, renovation of the industrial base, improvement of labor-management relations, and increased industrial efficiency.
But the 1920s brought unexpected developments. The economy stagnated, Sino-Japanese economic cooperation and industrial reorganization failed, British power in the China market revived and American economic penetration of the Asian continent exceeded its wartime gains. In this context, there emerged in the Seiyukai a distrust of the Anglo-American-dominated Washington system. This marked the beginning of the decline of Japanese liberalism in the latter 1920s.
Illiberal Uses of Foreign Policy: The 'Obstacle' of Versailles in Taisho Politics
Frederick R. Dickinson, University of Pennsylvania
Japan was more than a victor at Versailles in 1919. She was victorious. Few powers matched the benefits reaped by Tokyo in the occupation of Shandong, acquisition of the German South Pacific islands and elevation from a regional to a world power after World War I.
But in the historiography of modem Japan, the Versailles Conference persists as a symbol of trouble, not success. Woodrow Wilson resisted Japanese demands for Shandong and refused in the peace treaty to condemn racial discrimination. Konoe Fumimaro declared before talks began that Versailles would mark the triumph of Anglo-American hegemony.
Versailles has assumed a crucial place in the recent emphasis on external causes of Japanese aggression in the 1930s. It is the opening act in a 26-year play of American hegemony in the Pacific, a tragedy which highlights the Washington Conference, the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act and economic sanctions of Japan as principal catalysts of war.
This paper argues that the significance of Versailles for Japan was internal, not external. It was less a symbol of American hegemony than a key component in the Japanese domestic fight against liberal reform. From the conclusion of peace in 1919, members of the military-bureaucratic elite perceived the political utility of branding the treaty an obstacle to national greatness. In so doing, they hoped to sustain public sympathy for arms and empire and buttress their waning political authority. The politics of Versailles in the 1920s forecast the road to war in the 1930s.
The Power and Resilience of Elite Illiberalism: The Japanese Aristocracy and
Universal Manhood Suffrage
Genzo Yamamoto, Yale University
The conservative character of the Japanese House of Peers is common knowledge. But preoccupation with factions, alliances with the Lower House, and even the quantity of bills initiated, has distracted from the actual power, ideology, and significance of the House in Japanese history. In membership, only the elite leaders in academics, business, politics, bureaucracy, and military, were peers. Structurally, the Upper House could not be (and was not) dissolved from 1889 until 1945. Functionally, they served as overseers of government with a mission to protect the monarchy and to make Japan powerful. The reasoned deliberations by House elites aimed to maintain the framework of the nation's political philosophy and thus to promote national welfare.
Despite troubling setbacks, their story throughout the Taisho era was one of success. Contrary to the image of universal manhood suffrage as a sign of a weakening aristocracy, the aristocracy "conceded" this issue as it promised to strengthen national mobilization, a lesson learned from the recent war. Their philosophical justification for suffrage expansion, however, was an open and adamant monarchical repudiation of the liberalism that shook the world during and after the First World War. They critiqued the political, historical, and cultural context of republican thought as well as its philosophical tenets and on all these grounds discarded democracy as a mistake not to be copied. They led Japan carefully into the late 1920s (and to the end of the war) with the monarchy and aristocracy intact.