John Dower
- August 15, 1945: News that Emperor would speak to subjects. First time Emperor’s voice ever heard
- Hope for some that husbands/fathers would return
- Hirohito’s task: call a halt to war without disavowing war aims or acknowledging atrocities – and in a matter that divorced him from any personal responsibility
- Hirohito initiated idea of radio broadcast. Script for Hirohito’s speech not finalized until night before. Tapes hidden from army leaders opposed to surrender
o “endure the unendurable and bear the unbearable”
o never mentioned surrender or defeat directly
o “The enemy for the first time has used cruel bombs to kill and maim extremely large numbers of the innocent and the casualties are beyond measure. To continue the war could lead in the end not only to the extermination of our race, but also to the destruction of all human civilization”
o “open the way for a great peace for thousands years to come”
o Presented Japan’s decision to capitulate as magnanimous act
o Reaffirmed that the war had been for the survival of Japan and the stability of Asia (not a war of aggression)
o “my vital organs are torn asunder.” Made himself embodiment of people’s suffering. Made himself the victim of the war, the symbol of agony.
o The fact that this was the first time they heard his voice made the appeal more convincing, as this was the first time his “true voice” was being heard.
o Announcement of surrender was also move to reaffirm imperial control/tradition
- Variety of reactions. Many felt burden lifted. Anger, emptiness, anguish, regret
o Most notable response was pragmatic and self-serving: bureaucrats and officers burning documents
- Only a small number of officers – several hundred – actually carried through with suicide
- September 2, 1942: Ceremonial surrender aboard Missouri (homestate of Truman). Flag on deck was same flying over White House on Dec 7,1941. Another flag was same type of 31-star flag flown by Admiral Perry. Imperial family did not participate, to the surprise of many.
- Japanese uncertain about future that Americans had planned for them.
- Military destroyed, millions of homeless
- Japanese impression of surrender ceremony: US was strong (400 B-29s flew overhead), Japan was weak. Scale of Japan’s defeat was huge. Underlying message that Japan could attain the same riches under the American-style democracy.
- MacArthur relegated Japan to “fourth-rate nation” status. Huge wound to the Japanese, who were obsessed with becoming ittou koku (first-rate nation)
- West greatly overestimated remaining fighting capacity of Japan
- “Virtually all that would take place in the several years that followed unfolded against this background of crushing defeat. Despair took root and flourished in such a milieu; so did cynicism and opportunism – as well as marvelous expressions of resilience, creativity, and idealism of a sort possible only among people who have seen an old world destroyed and are being forced to imagine an new one. In such circumstances, it was hardly surprising that few Japanese had the energy, imagination, or desire to dwell on how many other lives they had shattered in the course of carrying out their emperor’s holy war.”
- 1.74 million armed forces deaths (fairly accurate). Rest of figures are uncertain
- Probably 2.7 million servicemen and civilians died as a result of the war (3-4% of population of 74 million).
- Approximately 45 million servicemen were identified as being wounded or ill
- 300,000 given disability pensions.
- Estimated that Allied assault on shipping and bombing destroyed ¼ of country’s wealth
o 4/5s of all ships, 1/3 of all industrial machine tools, ¼ of all roling stock and motor vehicles
o MacArthur estimates placed figure higher at 1/3 of total wealth and ½ of potential income
o Rural standards estimated to have fallen by 65% and nonrural 35%
- 66 major cities heavily bombed, with 40% of are destroyed and 30% of population homeless. Tokyo: 65% of residences destroyed. Osaka: 57%. Nagoya: 89%
- American bombing appeared to have targeted poorer residences. Tokyo financial district largely undestroyed, wealthy neighborhoods survived
- Railroads still functioning
- 9 million homeless
Coming Home… Perhaps
- 6.5 million Japanese stranded in Asia, Siberia, and Pacific Ocean area. 3.5 million soldiers and sailors
- Sept 1946: 2 million Japanese still unrepatriated, and whereabouts of 540,000 no known
- Manchuria: estimated that 179,000 civilians and 66,000 military died in confusion and harsh winter following surrender
- Disease epidemics slowed repatriation process
- Americans (used to phase out wartime facilities) and British (used to re-establish imperial authority) held onto prisoners to use as labor. Americans retained 70,000, British 113,500. Last of Japanese detained by British in Malaya and Burma were not repatriated until Oct 1947.
- China also held onto Japanese prisoners. In April 1949, estimated more than 60,000 still held in communist-controlled areas
- 1.6-1.7 million Japanese held into Soviet hands (Russia entered war 1 week before end). Used to offset own manpower losses. Repatriation also delayed to indoctrinate prisoners
o 300,000 Japanese unaccounted for in Russia. 4 decades later Russia related names of 46,000 Japanese known to be buried in Siberia, still leaving many unaccounted for.
- April 1950, MacArthur received 120,000-stitch embroidered portrait of himself (one stitch each from relatives of missing servicemen), a petition for help in repatriating still-missing soldiers.
- American POWs malnourished, diseased and often abused. Vivisections conducted on some prisoners. 31,617 POWs freed by 10/31/45 (187 remained hospitalized)
- 1.35 million Koreans in Japan at time of surrender. By first week of 1946, 630,000 Koreans repatriated, 930,00 by end of year. Many attempted to reenter after discovering confusion and hardship in divided Korea (US/Soviet).
- 31,000 Chinese POWs returned
- Okinawans forced to stay in repatriation camps, as Okinawa had been destroyed by war and could not support their return.
o 20 people died a day in Kamoi Repatriation Center
- Chizuko’s story: carried ashes of entire family around her neck
- Repatriation vessel Hikawa Maru put in at Uraga with 7,000 boxes of unclaimed ashes
- Missing Persons – broadcast program to reunite repatriated Japanese with families. Continued until March 31, 1962
- Military transferred abuses top-down. Officers despised by enlisted.
- Veterans did not receive great welcome when they returned
- Discipline collapsed in many places after surrender, and many soldiers looted military stores
- “living war dead” – returned home to find own grave marker, wife married to someone else
- By 1946, news of atrocities preceded repatriates, and many treated like pariahs
- No strong tradition of responsibility toward strangers, or of unrequited philanthropy, or of tolerance/sympathy towards suffering
o This despite Buddhist tradition of care for weak, and Confucian homilies about reciprocal obligations between superiors and inferiors, and despite imperial “one family” vision
- Many viewed outside “proper” social categories, received harsh treatment:
o Survivors of atomic bombing (‘polluted’ by radiation)
o War orphans (1948: 123,510) and street children.
o War widows (society unkind to women w/o men)
o Homeless and abandoned clogged Tokyo’s Ueno Station
o Handicapped, mentally ill
- Japanese government did nothing to help war orphans
o Japanese lacked sympathy for strangers
o Homeless rounded up and place in militaristic detention centers
- War widows had little means of supporting themselves
p.65
- Cartoonist Katou Etsurou.
o Folly of fighting atomic bombs with fire-fighting buckets and bamboo spears
o “Democratic revolution” parachuting from the sky, “Gift From Heaven”
o Ridiculed first-year postwar cabinet, advertising merchandise with nothing to sell
o Militarist donning coat of democracy, politician writing liberalism over wartime slogans, etc…
o Americans godlike
- Rampant inflation following war
- First universal suffrage election in April 1946 produced Pandora’s box of reactionary cabinet under conservative diplomat
- First year financial policies did little more than preserve big capitalists
- “Key of freedom”: US unlocking free speech and expression
- American bringing “democratic revolution from above” (69)
- Until 1947, leftists and liberals alike (even communists!) commonly viewed Americans as liberation force
- Conservatives viewed revolution from above as “red” manipulation, regarded with reservation and even alarm
- Revolution not earned: revolution from above meant that Japanese were not cutting their own chains. Following orders from new set of leaders. Democracy did not build deep roots within the people. Not a real struggle.
- American leaders possessed “an arrogant certainty of high purpose”
- United States set about to remake “political, social, cultural, and economic fabric of a defeated nation, and in the process changing the very way of thinking of its populace.” This was without legal or historical precedent, and consequences were uncertain
- August 1945-April 1952: Formal period of Allied Occupation of Japan (75)
o Misnomer, as US alone charted Japan’s course
- Policy makers in Washington drafted three main objective documents:
o Potsdam Declaration: announced terms of surrender
§ Japan loses empire
§ Japan placed under military occupation, with “stern justice” for war criminals
§ Authority and influence of pro-war leaders would be eliminated “for all time”
§ “Just reparations in kind”
§ Military “completely disarmed”
§ Economy demilitarized but returned to world trade
§ Remove obstacles to democratic tendencies: free speech, religion, and though, and respect for human rights
§ Occupation would be terminated when “there had been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government”
o “United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy Relating to Japan”
§ Called for more extensive democratization than Potsdam outlined
§ (a) To insure that Japan will not again become a menace to the United States or to the peace and security of the world.
§ (b) To bring about the eventual establishment of a peaceful and responsible government which will respect the rights of other states and will support the objectives of the United States as reflected in the ideals and principles of the Character of the United Nations. The United States desires that this government should conform as closely as may be to principles of democratic self-government but it is not the responsibility of the Allied Powers to impose upon Japan any form of government not supported by the freely expressed will of the people.
§ Despite policy of not “imposing,” US carried out reforms that would create society where “will of the people” would prevail over “will to war” and dismantled authoritarian structure
o Joint Chiefs of Staff elaborating of postsurrender policy (remained secret until 11/ 1948)
§ MacArthur command was to micromanage democratization agenda
o Documents made clear that demilitarization would be permanent
o Purge of individuals advocating militarism, even in economic field
o Country democratized as well as immunized from Communism (re-education)
o Economic policy only called for only to stabilization to avert chaos, no implied rehabilitation
o Attack on the zaibatsu. Promotion of policies “which permit a wide distribution of income and ownership of the mans of production and trade”
o Promote labor unions and carryout sweeping land-reform
o Idealism
o Audacious
- MacArthur’s singular command epitomized American monopoly on policy and power
o Controlled war tribunal
o “the policies of the United States will govern”
o Germany did not have same domination of ambitious American goals
o MacArthur conveyed a “messianic fervor” that had no real counterpart in Germany.
o MacArthur had unchecked power in Japan as US focused on Soviet and Euro theaters. “I could by fiat issue directives”
o Inherent racism: Nazism was cancer in Germany in a mature Western society, Oriental culture in itself was a cancer
- Unprecedented occupation policies rationalized by the unprecedented destructiveness of WWII, and desire to create new norms of international behavior that would eradicate the will to war.
o War tribunal accused criminals of “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” that had no basis in international law
- Political and social reforms usually emanate from below (80)
o At least come from indigenous society
- Democratization by “neocolonial military dictatorship”
- Japanese insisted that Potsdam Declaration represented a contractual and conditional surrender. Americans insisted that surrender was unconditional.
- Americans displayed ambitiousness of reforms with two SCAP directives month after surrender:
o October 4: “Civil-Liberties Directive.” Dissolution of restraints to free expression, assembly, speech. Peace Preservation Law of 1925 abrogated.
§ Political prisoners released
§ Special Higher Police (thought police) abolished
§ Heads of Home Ministry and national police force purged
§ Higashikuni and cabinet resigned (Higashikuni thought it was unthinkable to release communist prisoners)
o Oct 11: Second directive, delivered to new premier, Shidehara Kijuro. Signalled American commitment to radical reforms
§ Suffrage for women
§ Promote labor unionization
§ Liberalization of the constitution
§ Open schools to more liberal education
§ Revise “monopolistic industrial controls”
§ Eliminate all despotic visages in society
o “Holding companies” of zaibatsus dissolved
o “antimonopoly” and “deconcentration” legislation passed
o Large enterprises earmarked for breakup (though did not happen)
o Agrarian land reform initiated: dissolved system of exploitive tenancy and replaced with huge constituency of small owner-farmers
o State Shinto abolished on Dec 15
o Edwin Pauley called for extensive reparations to be made by Japan’s industrial plant
o Dec 22: Trade Union Law. Right to strike and bargain collectively
o 1946: start of purge directives that would prohibit 200,000 individuals from public office
- Next two years of reforms:
o Elimination of feudalistic family system that legally rendered women inferior, along with suffrage
o Decentralization of police
o Progessive laws on work conditions
o Revision of structure and curriculum of education system
o Renovation of electoral system
o Promotion of greater local autonomy
- Forced to adopt new constitution that retained imperial system but established popular sovereignty and guaranteed broad range of human rights
o Renunciation of war
o Constitution’s reforms extremely drastic
- Conservatives argued that government should be returned to status quo ante of the late 1920s, before militarists rose to power.
o However, not in a position to oppose American reforms because of “unconditional” surrender
o Rejected idea of that there were root causes of militarism. Instead viewed war as aberration of imperial military
- Yoshida Shigeru (prime minister 1946-7,48-54) belittled possibility of making Japan democratic.
- More liberal thinkers, like Kato, had there hesitations as well
o “Kato feared that the exhaustion of defeat, the resilience of the old guard, and the lack of grass-roots struggle inherent in the very notion of a revolution ‘from above’ might prevent the Japanese from ever making the democratic revolution on their own.”
- Japanese society had undergone “socialization for death”
- Japan had been geared for war for 15 years (since 1931)
- The “hundred million” would die defending the homeland, people resigned or committed to collective suicide
- Reaction to surrender was stupefaction, then relief (liberation from death), followed by exhaustion/despair
o Widespread state of psychic collapse: “kyodatsu condition.” Distracted and dejected condition. Widely believed that this condition was greatest danger – “the great enemy that could destroy Japan.”
- Trying to promote “revolution from above” in a society with stagnant productivity and runaway inflation
- Most Japanese preoccupied with finding food
o “field vandalizing”: 46% of crimes in Osaka involved food
o Absentee rates in major cities was 40+% (food major factor)
o A large percentage of food came from China, Korea, etc… War severed these imports
o “Economic strangulation” of torpedoing supply ships cut off supplies to homeland
o Southeast Asian and Pacific theaters starving to death
o Gov’t provided recommendations for eating acorns, sawdust, silkworm cocoons, etc… “Eat This Way – Endless Supplies of Materials by Ingenuity”
o 1945 was most disastrous harvest since 1910 (40% shortfall)
o Exaggerated and widely reported figure was that 10M would starve to death if food imports not coming
o Food shipments from US enhanced its image
o June 1946, black market price of rice was 30X what official rationing program paid. 2 years later, still 7.5X
o “Bamboo-shoot existence” (takenoko seikatsu): urban people would go to countryside and change belongings for food, stripping of clothing and possession for food (peeling of bamboo shoot in layer). “Onion existence”: peeling and weeping.
o Government shipments unreliable. Tokyo failed to receive full month’s ration 6 months out of 12
o Hunger and scarcity served stimulated grass-roots activism
o Many (most?) descended to black market
o Rations supplied only ½ of daily required caloric intake, as little as 1/3rd
- Letter “I Am About to Commit Suicide.” Can no longer work full month. Can’t afford black market food anymore. Borrowed money. Black market merchants making 50,000-60,000 yen/year. Criticized gov’t officials.
- Life for most did not recover until 1949 – 4 years.
- Death of judge (starvation): presided over black market cases. Most cases were of people struggling to survive. Forced to find them guilty while industrialists, politicians, and former military officers made $$$. 1.22M arrested in 1946 for black market transactions. Judge’s family relied on black market, but judge himself refused anything more than his rationed allotment to resolve moral dilemma.
- Story of starving family: pay hardly covered rapid inflation in price of rice. 1945, bag of rice 80 yen, made only 300 yen a month. Forced to sell possessions. Price of rationed rice tripled in 1946, forced to buy black market rice at 400 yen/mo, while making on 360 yen a month. At anything they could to supplement diet. Sewing (and making cigarettes for others) supplemented income. By 1948 food situation improved somewhat, but wife/husband fell ill and into debt. 1949 could eat meat and fish again, and by 1950 could finally survive on husband’s income
- Serious crowding and spread of disease. 1945-8: 99,654 deaths due to disease (excluding TB). 1947: 146,241 deaths due to TB.
- Maketa sensou – “lost war”
- Loss of cause, spirit. Started before end of war.
- Public discouragement enhanced by prospering of bureaucrats, bankers, policemen, etc…
- Daylight savings time opposed on the grounds that it extended difficulty of daily life
- “Group marriage meetings” arose out of disruption of families and shortage of intermediaries. Women outnumbered men by 1M and faced prospect of no husband.
- Alcoholism. Cheap alcohol made from questionable ingredients. “kasutori culture.” (kasu – sake dregs). Methyl blindings
- Drug use among writers and artists acquired “a certain cachet of fashionable decadence”
- Homilies about Japan’s unique racial and cultural harmony proved hollow
o Corruption, black market
o Media singled in on violent crime, crimes (murder) out of hunger
o By American standards, crime rates not exceptional, though higher than war years. Theft significantly rose.
o Crime committed mostly by young. April 1949: reported that individuals between 8-25 committed ½ of all serious crimes
- Children went from playing heroic pilots to games like panpan asobi – pretending to be GI and prostitute
o Other two most popular games:
§ Yamiichi-gokko: mock black market
§ Demo asobi: left-wing political demonstrations
o Other games:
§ “Repatriate train,” “special train,” and “ordinary train”
§ rupen-gokko: homeless vagrants
§ dorobo-gokko: catch a thief
§ kaidashi-gokko: pretending to leaving home to search for food
- As kids grew older, young girls became prostitutes, young boys made money by leading GIs to girls
- 4 year recovery result of policy shortcomings (Japanese and American), as well as corruption/economic sabotage
o “new yen” failed to curb inflation
o “Priority production” of funneling funds to strategic industries inadequate
o Americans delayed at resolving issue of industrial reparations: slowed reinvestment in industry
o Significant black marketers (offices, politicians, etc…) unpunished
o Inflation compounded by significant military spending at end of war
§ Secret Instruction No. 363: Suzuki cabinet instructed unit commanders to disperse all war materials to local governments
§ 70% of year’s war budget spent by August, rest quickly spent on military contractors before arrival of occupation forces
§ Bank of Japan extended massive loans to war contractor/cronies
§ Military looting: 70% of all stocks disbursed in first looting frenzy
§ Disappearance of 100 billion yen worth of supplies: occupation authorities turned over portion of military stocks to government, which the Home Ministry entrusted to committee of 5 zaibatsu reps
o “No wise men or heroes, no commendable statesmen, emerged from among the old elite”
o Huge financial drains on Japanese budget:
§ 1/3rd of budget went to support occupation army. Had to provide American living standards, while own people homeless. Americans provided special occupation army trains, while own trains miserably crowded
§ Huge cost of repatriating millions
o Hyperinflation. Year-by-year: 539%, 336%, 256%, 127%
o Black market prices started 34x “official price.” Eventually declined to 2x in 1949
§ Industrial reconstruction languished as military supplies diverted to black market
§ Corruption within political structure. Diet on down.
§ Value of missing military stockpiles placed at 300B yen (national budget for that year was 205B yen)
o Loss of empire wrecked industrial structure
o Loss of Korean and Chinese labor in industrial sectors (coal)
- Out of suffering, new focus began to emerge. Poverty radicalized workers, corruption prompted criticism, and stories of survival inspired. Free expression. Film industry prospered. New formulation of culture.
p.120
- Moment of flux. Aware of need to reinvent lives
- Not a homogeneous reaction. Some slow to rebuild. Some fell into despair. Others celebrated and looked forward.
- Defeat showed how quickly ultranationalistic indoctrination could be discarded
o Not the robotic, brainwashed society that foreign nation perceived them to be
- Most visible expression of reinvention was at margins of “respectable society.”
o Three overlapping subcultures: panpan prostitute, black market, and kasutori culture (self-indulgence)
o Represented visceral transcending of kyodatsu condition
- Two sensational events that gave prostitution a face
o Sept 29, 1946: Letter to Mainichi newspaper about falling into prostitution. Made into a popular song – with government and bureaucracy blamed for her fall
o National radio broadcast of interview with prostitute. “Rakuchou no Otoki”
- Fear that American troops would rape Japanese women – linked to the imperial troops own violations
- Japanese government financed enlisting prostitutes to serve as a barrier between the American GIs and the “good” women of Japan. Historical precedent for dealing with Westerners.
o By August 27, 1945: 1,360 women in Tokyo had enlisted in “Recreation and Amusement Association”
o “Okichis of our era”: Okichi had been comfort woman for Townsend Harris
o Called on 15-60 times a day
o Only cost 15 yen – $1 (half a pack of cigarettes)
o Though rape and assault still occurred, rates remained low in comparison with size of occupation force
o January 1946: ordered abolition of RAA. High rate of venereal disease one impetus. 90% women tested positive. US patents for penicillin licensed to Japan in April
- December 1946: Home Ministry declared that women had the right to become prostitutes, and setup official red-line districts
- Estimated 55,000-75,000 served as prostitutes in these districts
- panpan women were seen as bold and subversive. Associated with liberation repressed sensuality.
- Some chose way of life out of economic or social reasons (war orphans), but substantial number chose “out of curiosity”
- Batafurai (Butterflies): promiscuous prostitute who went from customer to customer
- Youpan: (you: foreign, Western) specialized in GIs
- Onrii wan (“only one”): loyal to single patron
- Panglish and SCAPanese
- Demasculization of Japan through seeing Japanese women give themselves to Americans, while rest of Japan also figuratively prostituting itself to America
- Panpan lead way for Western materialism and consumerism. Access to PX goods
o Lipstick and nylon stockings
o Panpan were as close as Japanese could get to Hollywood image
o Liberation from the “extravagance is an enemy” propaganda. Cosmetics provided temporary transcendence of kyodatsu
- Huge amounts of money passed from American GIs to panpans. Estimated that half of the tens of millions that the GIs spent on recreation went to panpans
- For the first time, “horizontal” Westernization. Previously, Western symbols available only to upper class
- Transformation of Japan from bestial, masculine threat to a compliant feminine body
o All Japanese women perceived as sex objects
- onna wa panpan, otoko ga katsu giya – women became panpan, men became carriers for the black market
- Place of hardened hearts and harsh dealings
- Development of markets initially greeted with enthusiasm by media
- Gangs divided black market territory. Yakuza gumi
- Tachiuri: “stand and sell” people. Come back from countryside with pack of goods
- July 1946: officials estimated 100,000 sellers on black market. 80% repatriated soldiers or former factory workers
- Osaka “free market”
o Moritomo Mitsuji: organizer of Umeda market
o Police ineffective at regulating
- Not all goods sold illicit. Some legitimate vendors
- Matsuda gang in Tokyo
o Matsuda began organizing petty vendors around Shinbashi station
o Approved vendors for a fee, organized toilets, lighting, trash collection
o Tokyo gov’t and police supported market
o Enforced by gang members, not police
o 200,000 members at peak
o Vendor licenses issued by local police. Issued generally reserved for war wounded, family of someone killed in war, handicapped, former vendors, or retail merchants
o 80% still unregistered
o Matsuda assassinated by former gang member
- Supply sources:
o Food from countryside, sea products from fishing communities, panpan-acquired American goods, military stockpiles
- Hiearchy of brokers:
o 2-3 levels of wholesalers (oroshiya)
o 20-30% profit at each level normal
- Profits
o 8000 yen a day for tough operators, modest vendors could expect 50 yen/day
o oniisan – collectors/enforcers made 600-1000 yen/month
- “Shibuya incident”: violence between Formosan vendors and Matsuda-gumi members spilled over into Shibuya district, with fight in front of police station. 7 Formosans dead.
o Stronger hostility between police and Koreans and Formosans
o Prejudice against “third-country people” increased
o Anger and rising crime rate fell on non-Japanese
o Revealed inability of police to control market
- Police officers venal, corrupt, harried, hapless, incompetent
- Japanese harmony/solidarity fell to the way-side. “Familial” concepts meaningless.
o Corruption in markets vs. democratization efforts of US
- No one had thoughts of saving money because of rampant inflation. Drank instead.
- Instead of 3 sacred imperial regalia, had aloha shirts, nylon belts, and rubber-soled shoes
- Farmers, traditionally humble and subservient, became hard-nosed dealers
- Dower: “In their peculiar way, they were more honest than the prominent politicians, capitalists, and former military officers who snuggled up to the conquerors and put on righteous faces while secretly profiting from the black market”
- Though not an exemplary example, Japan and non-Japanese (Korean, Formosan) worked side-by-side in this environment
- Dower: “From a plainer perspective, the men and women who worked the market exemplified, without varnish, a pragmatic materialism and even an exemplary work ethic.”
- Black marketers more admirable for their hard work than those engaged in labor protests
- Dower: “One way or another, the black market/free market/blue-sky market challenged everyone to define where they stood”
- Vile, dangerous drink
- Drink of choice among artists and writers. Cult of degeneracy/nihilism
- Sexually oriented entertainment and pulp literature
- Iconoclastic
- Kasutori-gencha (kasutori-gentsia): philosophers of kasutori.
o Decadence is the only true honesty.
o Hedonism
- Sangome de tsubereru (“gone by the third”). Kasutori knocks one out by the third drink. Similarly, kasutori zasshi rarely got beyond three issues
- Kasutori literature had no high-minded purpose. Bathroom reading. Transient moment of pleasure.
o Idealized Western female form
o Dominant imagery: kissing, strip shows, underpants, panpan, chastity, incest, masturbation, and lonely widows
- “Rehabilitation of kissing.” Kissing started appearing in film (platonic).
- Strip shows spread across the country from Asakusa
- Apure: (from French apésguerre) first meant existentialist and nihilist writers who argued all absolute values gone with war. Came to mean any young person who defied norms.
- Despite appropriation of Western symbols, counter-culture came from within
- bunkajin: “men of culture”
- Emergence of sensuality in writing
- Dazai, Sakaguchi, and Tamura
o Writings (along w/ others) linked degeneracy and carnal behavior to authenticity and individuality
- “On Decadence”: Sakaguchi. Critique of illusory nature of wartime experience, contrasting it to the intensely human and truthful decadence of postwar society
o Dower: “Only by starting with a humble attitude toward decadence could people begin to imagine a new, more genuine morality”
o Sakuchi’s writings affirmed idea that societies that lacked a genuine shutaisei – a true ‘subjectivity’ or ‘authonomy’ at individual level – could hope to resist indoctrinating power of state
- Tamura Taijiro. Nikutai: inverted concept of kokutai. Body of flesh. Individual was what mattered
- Dazai Osamu
o Self-annihilation through self-indulgence. Began long before surrender
o Symbol of world without moorings. Committed suicide
o “love and revolution”
o Wrote against nationalism, occupation. Not interested in liberal (economics-based) doctrine
§ “Not you\ Not you\ It was not you\ we were waiting for”
o Obsession with the victim
- Many commentators appalled by these writings. Intellectuals loath to acknowledge their influence
- Dower: “…roiled popular consciousness and called doctrinaire modes of thinking into question in ways their intellectual critics rarely succeed in doing”
- Feudal ideology:
o Women’s duty to father, husband, then son
o Ryousai kenbo: “good wife and wise mother”
o Duty was to serve male-dominated family. Duty of family was to serve state
o Sexual desires and behavior improper for woman
- Rise of idea of reciprocal love, mutual gratification
o Conjugal relations text in top-ten for a year in 1946. Translation of Van de Velde’s text
o Linking of sex and marriage
- Fufu Seikatsu (Married Life): linked sex and marriage, discussion of sexual techniques. Extremely popular.
- Open publishing flourished, American reformers guided radio programs, political rhetoric prominent
- Transformation of war industries into civilian industries
- Horizontal Westernization. Appropriating Western culture
- Military uniforms, heitai fuku, became “defeat suits” (haisen fuku)
- Cynicism pervasive. Rewriting lyrics to children songs. Scorn for old ideology
- Jokes, puns, twisting of phrases
- Iroha karuta – syllabary cards
o Su : susumu Npppon, kagyaku chikyuu: Advancing Japan, Radiant Globe ® sutaru doogi ni saku kenka: Morale deteriorates, fights blossom
- War state had not tolerated satire or frivolity in publication
- Media focused on brightness (akarui) and “newness”
- “Apple Song” craze. Frivolity, reaching for happiness
- Move from darkness to light
- Popularity of “Come Come English” radio program
- “Brightness” appropriated from wartime slogans
- Kodansha focused on bright and fun novels
- Wartime rhetoric was malleable because it was not overtly militaristic. Filled with idealistic vision of peace, coexistence, prosperity. Ordinary response was that wartime rhetoric reflected decent, even noble ideals, but Japan was deceived and misled by leaders in the pursuit of these ideals
- Most popular catch phrase in postwar Japan: Heiwa Kokka Kensetsu: “Construct a nation of peace. Also Bunka Kokka Kensetsu: Construct a nation of culture. Transformation of wartime slogans
- Dower: “Catchphrases were like valises, waiting to be emptied of their old contents and filled with something new”
- kyouryoku suru (cooperate) and gambaru. Wartime slogans that became postwar slogans for reconstruction and peace
- Cult of the new. “New” appeared in the titles for hundreds of magazines (shin, atarashii, nyuu).
- Renovation and rapid change had been central idea of war years, as well as pre-war years
- Ever since Meiji Restoration, Japan had been in search for new order. Defeat was confirmation that search had to continue
- Renovation and iconoclasm existed side-by-side with reverence for past and subservience to leaders
- What changed is what the vision of change should be
- Transfer of idea of source of trouble from Western imperialists/Communists to Japan’s gunbatsu (military cliques)
- Democratic elements in the past to draw on: Charter Oath, Taisho Democracy (pluralism). Reinstitution of May Day (repressed in 1936).
- Drew on language and history in reinventing concept of new Japan
- Publishing was one of first sectors to recover. Hunger to speak
- Number of publishers increased six fold in six years (1,900)
- Many wartime publications underwent name change to make transition
- Though some publications pulp, many focused on visions of democracy/future reform
- Book publishing skyrocketed. 3 translations of foreign works every 2 days. 45,000 books submitted to SCAP in 1949 for censoring
- Kyouryoku Shimbun : conservative publication. Emperor magnanimous in ending war, 100M bear collective responsibility for war, self-reflection, repentance about past. Concentrate on future, catching-up
- Many periodicals repudiated the past (feudalistic legacies, antiscientific attitudes)
- Strong nationalism still present. Love of country.
- Emergence of leftist publications: Jinmin (The people). Denounced militarists, landlords, zaibatsu, emperor-centered bureaucracy. Allied victory a valuable gift.
o Resumption of old left-wing voices that had been silenced by war state
- “Kodansha culture”: light, mass-market publications.
- “Iwanami culture”: progressive, intellectual publishing house. Elite publishing. Critics and intellectuals flocked to publisher.
o Sekai (World): monthly journal. Road ahead difficult, but it is road to glory. Create world of “broad and bright morality and culture.” Idealistic. Seized on respect for individuality, freedom of speech, etc… as essentially to preventing tyranny from rising again.
- First sensational postwar bestseller was short English-language conversation book by Ogawa Kikumatsu. All-time bestseller until 1981. Conceived on day of surrender
o 1-3 days to compose full draft
o No particular competence in English, just wanted to get rich
o 32 pages long
o By end of 1945, 3.5M copies sold
- Broad literary output. Revitalization of older authors (4 of Japanese authors on bestsellers list dead).
- Interest in introspective works
- New native sons: Kawakami, Miki, and Ozaki. All writers imprisoned for political beliefs. Emphasized individual, autonomy, free thought.
o Kawakami:
§ Denounced poverty. Bimbou Monogatari (A Tale of Poverty). Imprisoned for communist activities. Lengthy biography written from 1943-5 published (died before first installment)
o Miki
§ Succumbed in prison 6 weeks after war ended, before prisoners had been freed. Social critic. Communist sympathizer. Attempted to reconcile existentialism and religion. Appeal to readers was his quest, as much as his answers
o Ozaki: Most fascinating
§ Prison letters to wife and daughter. Executed as Comintern spy. Only Japanese to be formally tried and hanged for treason.
§ Appeal was emotional letters written to wife and daughter. Humanistic quality. Focus on love for family as opposed to “family state.”
§ Frank, affectionate, and intellectual
§ Revolutionary and utopian vision of new socialist world order that would arise from war, but this was not the important aspect of writings
§ Traitor quality was transformed into a symbol of a true patriot, one who had courage to stand against ultra-nationalists. Takada Tadashi, judge who hanged him, confided that he regarded Ozaki as a model patriot (not merely a man of virtue and ideals)
§ Showed Japanese need for symbol of suffering and hope
§ Held up as visionary of bright new world
- Japanese heroine Miyamoto Yuriko. Writer and radical organizer
- Nagai Takashi. Young scientist dying of radiation sickness in Nagasaki. Published Nagasaki no Kane (The Bells of Nagasaki). Bestseller. “Saint of Nagasaki.” Visited by Helen Keller, Hirohito. Pope paid tribute to him. Regarded bombings as act of Christian God meant to bring world to its senses.
- Use of wartime writings as peace statements. Listen. (199)
- Despite antiwar and antimilitaristic intentions, still could not shake off past. “Bridges of language.” Phrases from Man’yoshu and the like.
p. 200
- Tradition of top down “revolutions”
o Meiji Restoration
o 1880s nation building
o 1930s militarism and imperialism
- MacArthur maintained high and aloof position
o Granted audiences only to high officials
o Brooked no criticism
- MacArthur barely saw Japan, Japanese
o Only spoke to 16 Japanese more than twice, all top officials
o Travel restricted to commute from residence to SCAP headquarters
o Prior to Korean War in June 1950, only left Tokyo twice (Manila and Seoul)
o Thrived on veneration, believed that “the Oriental mind” was predisposed to “adulate a winter”
- GHQ’s “super government”
- MacArthur was overlord, underlings were petty viceroys
o Operated by “noncommands with the force of commands.” Suggestions to Japanese were taken as orders
o Policy of “demand, insist, enforce, ban, burn”
- Hand-on direction of educational system and mundane culture
o Grass-roots education. Reinforced American ideals of freedom and democracy
o Censored media
§ Criticism of SCAP prohibited
o Forcing democratization through authoritarian means, build “Joe Nip” (John Doe)
- Power easily abused
o Protected NHK monopoly against rival stations
o Huge amount of power placed in hands of few
o Major General William Marquat
§ Supervised all developments in finance, economics, labor, and science
o Colonel Chief Whitney
§ Supervised purges, policies regarding imperial institution
- “Little America”
o 1 million American GIs
o Segregated status
o Requisitioned upper-class homes
o Theaters, stores, hotels, trains, rec centers designated occupation personnel only
o PXs stocked with luxury items while Japanese shopped on black market
o Surrounded by ravaged Tokyo
- Japanese-American relationships beneficial, though Americans always superior in this relationship
o Americans provided penicillin, streptomycin, blood banks, public libraries
o Taught technical skills
- Flying of Japanese flag and singing of national anthem restricted
o June 48, man sentenced to 6 months hard labor for improper display
- Crimes inevitably committed by GIs
o Rapes and assaults
o Tried in American courts and not reported to Japanese
o Mixed-blood children victims
- Contradictions of SCAP
o Democracy by fiat
§ Military organization not suited to non-authoritarian rule
o Equality preached by privileged
o Assumption of superiority of Western culture
o Supported bureaucracy and throne
§ Policy of working indirectly through existing organs of state (unlike in Germany, where direct military goverment)
§ “Blacklist”: initial orders were for direct military government
§ “Initial Post-Surrender Policy”: received eve of arrival, stages that authority should be exercised through government machinery
· Motivation was that Americans lacked linguistic and technocratic capacity to govern Japan
§ Civilian bureaucracy left relatively untouched
§ Only Home Ministry and military dismantled
- p.213
- WWOM-like arguments: Japanese as monkeys, barbarians, lacking in humanity
o On to Tokyo, Know Your Enemy
- American public had to be re-educated
o Instructional materials issued to Americans being trained in CA:
§ “Under he heat of wartime emotion the Japanese were commonly seen as treacherous, brutal, sadistic, and fanatical “monkey-men”… it is a mistake to think that all Japanese are predominantly the monkey-man type. It would be just as wrong to picture all Americans as constantly being engaged in mob-lynching, gangsterism and race rioting”
- “Little Japanese” almost human
o Military handbook: “The docile, meek little Japanese when put in uniform, ruthlessly trained and turned loose, has an opportunity for the first time in his life to express himself, and he may go completely berserk…”
o Equated Japanese treachery with extreme manifestation of “all’s fair in love and war”
- Our Job in Japan
o Japanese were people “trained to play follow-the-leader”
o Problem Americans faced was Japanese brain, which could “make trouble” or “make sense.” Can do good or bad things depending on what is put inside of it
o “old, backward, superstitious country”
o Must instill in Japanese that “THIS IS JAPAN’S LAST WAR”
o Job for GIs was to be themselves
§ “By being ourselves we can prove that what we like to call the American way, or democracy, or just plain old Golden Rule common sense, is a pretty good way to live…” (216)
o America’s righteous mission and manifest destiny
- Used Japanese traditions (seasonal festivals and traditional dances) to emphasize alien nature of Japanese culture
- View from Western “specialists” that Japanese were people “trained to play follow-the-leader”
o Belittled capacity of Japanese to govern themselves
o Japanese as “obedient herd”
o “misgivings regarding Japanese ability to operate democratic institutions” (p. 218)
o “monstrous beehive”
o Dower associates this view from experts came from the fact that many of them had spent most of their time among the Japanese elite, and were merely reflecting the views heard from this class
o Idea of introducing democratic revolution from above ridiculed
- Behavioral scientists came out on the other side
o Japanese “malleable”
o Democratic values were universal in nature and appeal
o Optimistic about imposing democratic revolution
o OWI report (Office of War Information): (219)
§ “Japanese civilization pattern seems to be most closely akin to the clinical picture of an obsessional neurosis”
§ “Which are the individuals and social groups who set the pattern of thoughts and attitudes likely to be imitated by the rest of Japan?”
o Ruth Benedict
§ Japanese behaved in accordance with situational or particularistic ethics, as opposed to ‘universal’ values in Western tradition
§ No core values, no clear subjectified self
§ Japanese responded submissively to authority
o Argued that Emperor was empty vessel that could be made to carry imperial democracy
- Had Japan surrendered earlier, might have been spared democratic revolution from above (220)
- Postwar policy mostly came from New Dealers
o Placed faith in applying democratic ideals
o Labor organization
- More radical viewpoint
o Democratic revolution from below
o Denounced emperor and civilian old guard
o Andrew Roth argued that the true potential for democracy lied at the bottom
- SCAP avoided using Japanese experts
o Japanese experts came to be regarded as bamboozled by Japanese conservative elite
o “China Crowd”: harsh in critique of civilian elite, argued for elimination of existing economic (zaibatsu) system
§ Owen Lattimore
o China experts used
o Americans trained in Japanese during war not sent to occupation
o MacArthur knew very little about Japanese
§ Guided by Washington, Lincoln, and Jesus
o “If you knew too much about Japan, you might be prejudiced. We do not like old Japan hands.” (224)
- Kobayashi
o Japanese conformism moving from militarism to democracy, same forces at work
- Yoshida Shigeru
o Premier 1948 on
o Helped postwar conservative resurgence
o GHQ: “Go Home Quckly”
o Thought he/Japan would be able to undo reforms after occupation, found that this was not the case
- jinpu bikzoku (Good morals and manners)
o Strong sense of hierarchy and proper place
o World of “beautiful customs”
§ Village festivals, portable shrines, folk dances, traditional weddings and funerals, lachrymose popular songs, tea ceremonies, martial arts,
§ filial piety, diligence and industriousness, respect for elders, catalog of feminine virtues, romanticized sense of tension between “duty” and “emotion” (giri and ninjō), considerations of appearance and “face,” esteem for harmony (wa)
- Spontaneous popular response to the victors and their policies were more vigorous that predicted, and ideologically more ambiguous (227)
o Embraced SCAP and MacArthur
§ Reasons varied though, and personal
- Embracement of MacArthur
o Paradox of authoritarian that brings democracy
o Embraced much like emperor, but different in that he was viewed as more approachable (229)
o Flooded with gifts
o Flooded with letters
§ Over half of those addressing concerns dealt with repatriation
§ Some focuses on specific policies
§ Some fingered war criminals
§ Individual expressions: some for emperor, some against
§ Expressions of gratitude
- “Progressive men of letters” (shinpoteki bunkajin)
o Promoters of democracy and liberty
- Turnaround for intellectuals
o Most during 1930s had recanted left-wing views
o Only a handful resisted ultranationalism
o Some noted hypocrisy of intellectuals now promoting progressive course
- “Community of remorse”
o Maruyama Masao
o Regret for past, hope for future
o Remarked openly about own guilt
- Many embraced Marxism as good explanation of Japan’s recent experience with Meiji Restoration and defeat in WWII
- Strong appeal of Western models of self (236)
- Growth of progressive intellectual discourse exceeded American expectations
- Leftwing elitism often similar to rightwing in that it believed that the Japanese people as a whole were backwards and in need of guidance (imperial democracy)
- Communist Party insisted on strict adherence to its ideology. Stifled criticism and created new dogma/authority (239)
- Many criticized superficial embrace of democracy
o Women’s suffrage being imposed before women even understood significance
o People turned from militarism to democracy too quickly
o Joking that Democracy posters being made on the back of militaristic posters
o Worried that American’s only trying to guide Japan towards America’s form of democracy, not taking into account Japan’s nature and traditions
- Student protest in Mito city forced militaristic principle to resign (242)
o Similar protest in Tokyo
o Basis for postwar student movement formed in 11/45
- Women’s movement
o Prewar leaders met August 25, 1942. Petitioned MacArthur 1 month later for suffrage
o First week of Nov, first nationwide women’s org established
- Reorganizations/shakeups at major newspapers
- Grass-roots discussions, polls, about democratic revolution
- Public radio (NHK) became forum of political discussion. Used by candidates.
- Dower: “Such grass-roots activities were not necessarily ‘revolutionary’ or even ‘political’ in the sense that the progressive intelligentsia used such concepts, but they subverted old hierarchies and reflected a popular receptivity to a more open society that was often spontaneously creative. They were also but the tip of the iceberg where embracing democracy was concerned.”
- P.244
- Reforms
o Land reform eliminated tenancy problems
o Electoral reform strengthened bicameral legislature
o Constitutional reform established popular sovereignty
§ Guaranteed more rights than US Constitution
§ Placed antimilitary ideals at center of national character
o Labor reforms gave workers new rights
o Educational reform liberalized curriculum
§ Broadened access to universities
o Position of women strengthened in divorce and inheritance
o Civil code reforms removed legal underpinnings of patriarchal family system
- Nearly all reforms implemented, if not instigated, by Japanese.
o Abolishment of patriarchal family system brought about without American urging
o Alfred Oppler: “They did a more thorough job than we had expected”
o Shock of defeat stimulated reevaluation of values
o Labor reforms exceeded American goals (245)
§ Labor Standards Law of 1947 came from mid-level Japanese manipulation by Teramoto. Based on prewar initiatives that had been suspended as well as international conventions
- Educational reforms (247-251)
o Blackening out of passages (suminuru) began before occupation
§ Promoted idea to youth that ideas an be challenged
§ Left other youths confused
o Ministry of Education moved from ultra nationalism to democracy/peace
- Imported American terms into education system: “curriculum,” guidance,” home room,” home project,” course of study,” and “club activity”
- 2 historical precedents:
o Borrowing from China in ancient/medieval times
o Borrowing from Western world in Meiji Restoration
- Annuals books published of shingo (new terms)
o Alibi, casting vote, ecstasy, scandal, up-to-date, Achilles’heel, Amen
o Class consciousness, social revolution, feminism, feminist, pubic opinion, popular sovereignty, four freedoms, transgression of human rights
- New idioms:
o “money-moon”: honeymoon of those that marry for money
o “sex seller”: erotic best seller
o go-seru “five lets” to appease gov’t officials: let them eat, drink, grab money, sleep with women, and put on airs
- Disappearance of ultra-nationalistic terms:
o “eight corners under one roof,” hōkoku (repay the country)
- Radical behavior surprised Americans
- “Food May Day”
- “Student May Day”
- Marxists had challenge of turning democratic revolution peaceably into a socialist revolution
- At war’s end, political prisoners released, Communist Party legalized, pro-labor reforms, freedom of organization
- Workers rapidly unionized
- Socialists gathered support in labor movement, Communist Party had even stronger support
- Nosaka Sanzō’s “lovable Communist Party”
o Rhetoric promoted peaceful revolution through current democratic movements
o Not “trying to realize socialism by overthrowing capitalism today”
o “we Communists are the true patriots and the true service brigade for our democracy”
o Softened emperor opposition. Opposed imperial institution as national system, but suggested that emperor as a religious leader could be left to popular vote
- Communist party gained control over 2/3rds of organized labor
- Union disputes: