Fascism Study and Thought Questions Topics in Japanese Political History

FascismStudy and Thought Questions

Topics in Japanese Political History

Wilson New Look

• Wilson postulates two common approaches to “fascism” in Japan– Marxist approach– Authoritarian modernization approach– How do they differ?

• The Marxist approach– What does ipso facto mean?– According to Marxists, what is the relation between

capitalism and fascism?– How do they explain the fact that Japanese “fascists”

were generally anti-capitalist and murdered capitalists?

Wilson New Look

• What is “the crisis of capitalism?”

• Where does Maruyama Masao stand in Wilson’s classification of those who call Japan “fascist?”

• According to Maruyama, how did the relative strength of popular democracy in Japan, Germany, and Italy shape the character of “fascism” in these countries?

Wilson New Look

• What is the logical consequence of emphasizing that the leaders and institutions of “fascist” Japan were largely unchanged from before the appearance of “fascism?”

• Who were Tanin and Yohan?

• Who was Karl Radek?

Wilson New Look

• What role does Wilson see for psychology in predisposing Western and Japanese to apply the term “fascist” to 1930s and 1940s Japan?

• In numerous works including E. H. Norman’s Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State, the rapidity of Japanese development was seen as a contributory of causal factor in the rise of fascism.– Was Japanese development singularly rapid?– Have other cases of demonstrably rapid development

led to “fascism?”

Wilson New Look

• “Feudal carryovers” or “the feudal legacy” in Japan due to an “incomplete bourgeois revolution” at the time of the Meiji restoration have been seen as contributing to or causing the “rise of fascism” in Japan.– In what sense was Japan “feudal” in the period

immediately prior to the “rise of fascism?”– Were these patterns peculiar to Japan at that

point in time?

Wilson New Look

• In conclusion, does Wilson find “fascism” a useful concept for describing 1930s-1940s Japan?

Doak Fascism Seen and Unseen

• Other authors have seen the label “fascist” as appealing to two groups. “Marxists” are common to all, but what is Doak’s second group?

• “Socialist realism” is a literary style associated with the USSR under Stalin. Was there a comparable genre of “fascist realism” or “fascist fiction” in Japan, Italy, or Germany?


• According to Imanaka Tsugimaro, how was fascism related to– World War I– Nationalism– Socialism– The working class– The middle class– The stage of capitalist development


• What does Doak mean by “revolutionary fascism?” Why might “fascism” be more commonly called “reactionary?”

• How does the appeal of “fascism” to the working class differ from the appeal of “socialism” or “communism?” For the “middle class(es)?”

• How have “fascism” and “socialism” generally dealt with race and ethnicity?


• Who were Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika?– What did they do?– What is tenkou 転向 ?– Is a change from international socialism to nat

ional socialism really a “change of course” or a significant ideological “conversion?”


• Who was Tosaka Jun ( 戸坂潤 )?• What does Doak mean by “the Japanist moveme

nt?”• Doak divides the “Japanist movement” into ideali

sts and progressives?– How did these two tendencies relate to “fascism from

above?”– What other commonly cited factional division parallels

this division with the “Japanist movement?”


• What was the Cabinet Planning Board Incident (企画院事件 )?– What is meant by “reform bureaucrats ( 革新

官僚 )?”– Why might the Japanese police link “national

socialism” (aka fascism) with communism?


• This article appeared in a collection dealing with “the culture of Japanese fascism?” Most authors were American. (See the review article by Roger Brown in the handouts archive.)– What alternative aspects of fascism might be emphasized?– Among postwar intellectuals and scholars, who would be

attracted to studies of the culture of fascism? Why?– Who, on the ground in Japan in the 1930s, would be attracted by

the cultural aspects of fascism?– What appeal did fascism other than culture?

• What would attract a skilled worker to fascism?• What would attract a bureaucrat to fascism?• What would attract an academic economist to fascism?

Kasza Facism from Below?

• What ideological and political divisions are associated with the after the fact labeling of Japan in the 1930s-1940s as “fascist?”

• Stanley Payne has postulated three key features of “fascist movements.” How do these apply to the Japanese case?– Anti-liberalism– Anti-communism– Anti-conservatism


• In addition to fascism Payne postulated that– The conservative authoritarian right– The radical right

• Were major political tendencies in the Interwar period.

• How does these tendencies differ?

• Are they applicable to Japan?


• Does Kasza use primary or secondary sources to reach his conclusions about “fascism from below” in Japan?

• Did Japanese rightist groups in the 1930s have a strong nationalist socialist coloring?

• Who were the advocates of national socialism (of the type associated with fascism in Europe) in 1930s Japan?


• What do the terms “idealistic” 観念的 and “progressive” 進歩的 mean in the context of the “Japanist” movement?

• What role does violence play in “fascism?”– Who glorified violence in 1930s Japan?– Who engaged in violence in 1930s Japan?– Was violence associated with mass organizati

on in Japan? In Europe?


• Who was Nakano Seigo?• What is his connection to

Waseda University?• What was the political

style of his Eastern Way Society ( 東方会 )?

• How successful was this movement?

• What was his connection to European fascism?


• The term imperial fascism 天皇制ファシズム implies an organic link between the imperial and Japanese “fascism.” Others would argue that the presence of the Emperor in the particular form of the imperial institution in the 1930s precluded the possibility of fascism in Japan. Explain these contrasting views.


• Kasza writes of “the sparse emulation of European models” in Japan.– What elements associated with European

fascism were• Emulated in Japan?• Not emulated in Japan?

– Who were the advocates of explicitly European fascist models in Japan?

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Fascism Study and Thought Questions Topics in Japanese Political History