Japan in the '20s-'30s

[kashkin]

I recently read Alvin Coox's account of Kalkhin Gol/Nomonhan, and in the first volume he talks about how during the mid 1920s there was a reaction against the military in Japan (soldiers and officers wouldn't go out in uniform, soldiers were spat on), etc and then documents (briefly) how the younger officers managed to push the army to become more hawkish, culminating in Marco Polo. So I was wondering if anyone knew of any good books regarding the politics of that period and especially books regarding the working class during that period and if they either fought back or accepted and supported the militarist rule.

[x359594]

Reflections on the Way to the Gallows and Peasants, Rebels and Outcasts by Mikiso Hane and Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan by Andrew Gordon are good general histories.

[kashkin]

Thanks, they look good. I'll see if I can find them.

[citizen of industry]

Go to Doro-Chiba's website (do a google search) and order/download the English version of "We Live on the Railways." The translation is bad, but it is a detailed history of pre-post war Japanese class struggle, very detailed and thorough.

[Stadtsmasher]

Japan had a very strong and healthy leftist movement in those decades and indeed it was a tossup whether they would go Communist or fascist until, of course, the ultranationalists took charge.

[islandmilitia]

Also in the realm of memoir, you might be interested in Life Along the South Manchurian Railway: The Memoirs of Ito Takeo. As the name suggests, it is the translated memoirs of one individual who, having been educated in Japan, worked in Manchuria as part of the Japanese colonial presence in North China from the 1920s up to the end of the war, in various different roles. The individual in question narrates his involvement in left-wing political activity during the 1920s, and so the fact that he later went on to take up a role in a colonial apparatus under the militarist government tells you a lot about just how complex Japanese domestic politics and colonialism were during this period.

[Psy]

Japan had a very strong and healthy leftist movement in those decades and indeed it was a tossup whether they would go Communist or fascist until, of course, the ultranationalists took charge.
Yes but the Communists were split over those wanting to join up with "progressive" capitalists and those wanting to overthrow capitalism all together and the 3rd International didn't really resolve the issue. In the end the communists ended up in jail when the ultranationalists took power, though some were released if they agreed to corporate with the government most famous being Mitsuyo Seo that made propaganda for the Japanese Government in exchange for being released from prison, including the most famous war propaganda film Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors.

So Japan really had a lack of a strong party to unite the workers and peasants into a unified movement against all the capitalists.

[Geiseric]

I wonder if the purges extended to Japan too.

[Doflamingo]

To be honest I know nothing about the communist movement in Japan, but now I'm interested in learning more about it.

[Psy]

I wonder if the purges extended to Japan too.
Moscow didn't have any power in Japan due to the Kempeitai (secret police) being everywhere and foreigners sticking out in Japan.


To be honest I know nothing about the communist movement in Japan, but now I'm interested in learning more about it.
Japan faces the Abyss from published in 1944 is a good analyst of Japan during WWII giving us context to the situation of the time, though off hand I don't have a link talking about the Japanese communist movement.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/glass/1944/02/japan1.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/glass/1944/03/japan2.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/glass/1944/04/japan3.htm

[Raúl Duke]

Moscow didn't have any power in Japan due to the Kempeitai (secret police) being everywhere and foreigners sticking out in Japan.
What about Richard Sorge? Although he didn't have any contact with the JCP...

It was totally possible to get an agent in there somehow.

[Psy]

What about Richard Sorge? Although he didn't have any contact with the JCP...

It was totally possible to get an agent in there somehow.

Spying on the ruling class of Japan is different then wondering into the slums where the JCP had its power base. The Kempeitai was not a counter intelligence agency, their job was to neutralize the threat of dissenters, they basically were Japan's version of the Sturmabteilung (brown shirts) though were fully integrated into the Japanese army so were also used for the army's domestic intelligence (so the Kempeitai was able to call for backup and have a battalion of army troops do mass arrests for the Kempeitai).

So the problem would be for someone like Richard Sorge being in the same area the Kempeitai were monitoring, that would be a huge possibility given the Kempeitai were spying on the working class of Japan.

[x359594]

...So the problem would be for someone like Richard Sorge being in the same area the Kempeitai were monitoring, that would be a huge possibility given the Kempeitai were spying on the working class of Japan.

Somewhat off-topic here, but Sorge's principal agent for gathering "street" information was Miyagi Yotaku who traveled around Japan gathering information on conditions in the countryside. For example, he supplied Sorge with information on how the American silk boycott was affecting the economic well being of the peasantry.

Miyagi was an Okinawan who emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was a child. He went to Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and joined the Communist Party. When he returned to Japan in 1933 he joined Sorge's network. His name was on an FBI list of CP members that they provide to the Japanese government , thus providing a clue to breaking up the ring and eventually arresting Ozaki Hotsumi and finally Sorge.