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