Depression Crisis to Total War
Situation of late 1920s• Japan culturally: exuberant yet anxious
modernity
• Japan politically and socially: fragile imperial democracy– Uneasy but clear move to wider participation– Keeping imperial sovereignty and empire as beyond
question
• Japan economically troubled from 1927
Crisis of Imperial Democracy
A multi-sided crisis sparked byglobal and domestic shocks brings change
•Consequences:-A different sort of modern mass
society (not a retreat from the modern)
-repudiation of “imperial democracy”-search for a New Order, on road to war
Depression Crisis: at home
Stagnant 1920s--> banking crisis--> world depression
Depression Crisis: at home
Crisis in rural Japan
Landlord-tenant disputes
Depression Crisis: at home
Crisis in rural Japan
famine
Depression Crisis: at home
Crisis in rural Japan: more daughters to brothels
Depression Crisis: at home
Crisis in the citiesUnemployment
Depression Crisis: at home
Crisis in the cities
2. Small businessfailures skyrocket
1. Labor disputes surge
Depression Crisis: at home
Gender anarchy?
The modern girl
Depression Crisis Abroad
Crisis abroad, two dimensions. (1) Tensions with West
(2) Tensions with China
Crisis of Imperial democracy
Perceptions of Japan at a dead end
Threats all around: abroad, at home, rural and urban, all connected
•diary of General Ugaki Kazushige: Fuehrer wannabe•A shared element in this critique, of left and right– common “radical” view of status quo
Breaking the Impasse
•Politics ofassassination, repudiating party rule
Breaking the Impasse
•takeover of Manchuria
Breaking the Impasse
•takeover of Manchuria•Continuing politics of assassination, repudiating party rule
•Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi, 1930•Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke, 1932•Mitsui Chairman, Dan Takuma, 1932•Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, 1932•Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo
and several other cabinet ministers, 2/26/1936
Breaking the Impasse:2-26 (1936) incident
Mobilizing for Total War• Suspicion of competition, control of industry
– Promotion of cartels: Important Industries Control Law, 1931
– Increased central planning, 1936-7: Cabinet Planning Board
• National General Mobilization Law: 1938– Allows measures to “control material and human
resources” WITHOUT legislative approval– The peak measure of state power
Programs of the New Order: 1938-40
• Political New Order– Prince Konoe advisors’ concept of mass party– Outcome: Imperial Rule Assistance Association:
1940
• Economic New Order– Builds on “rationalizing” steps since late ’20s– Culminates in “Control Associations” of 1940
• Labor New Order– Modeled on Nazi Labor Front– Industrial Patriotic Service Association, 1940
Japan
Germany
Italy
Monarchy
Holo-caust
Mass party,Charismaticleader
Church
Fascism: One strategy for comparative analysis
At the intersection: the “fascist minimum”
•Sense of social crisis•Latecomer international aspirations denied•Glorified national body and race•Anti-democratic•Anti-capitalist rhetoric, but not full state control•Autarchic empire•Aggressive foreign policywar
Pope,Emperor