H381 "Imperial Democracy"

 

Background: Who are the players and how did things become as they were? For more information on Taisho politics and society, click here.

 

 

Why would we say that the Taishô Era was "democratic" or liberal?

 

Smith's Critique of Taishô Democracy's limits:

i.e., Taishô society was increasingly democratic but not especially liberal. . .It was for the most part in the structural rather than the attitudinal sense that Japan was becoming more and more democratic in the early twentieth century.

Smith admits while society was becoming more democratic, it was not necessarily becoming more liberal.  He wants to distinguish between “democracy” as a type of political and social structure and Democracy as a set of beliefs and prescriptions.  He suggests it was in this structural sense rather than the attitudinal sense that Japan was becoming more democratic in the 20th century.  Some of this was the result of institutional changes and some of it just followed from all the modern economic and technological changes.  Modern education, communications, and industrialization increased social mobility and gnerated rising economic expectations.  Society became more “democratic” because more people had the ability and the will to influence their economic destiny. 

[But isn't that pretty significant?  More people with a stake in the game, more people wanting to live the way the Charter Oath suggested they ought to be able to live?]

Smith also talks about the distinction between liberal—a general temperament favoring change from the bonds of traditional society to become more moral and free—and Liberal—a historical political ideology derived from England committed to individual freedom of political and economic activity.  Originally, Liberalism was liberal, but by 20thCit could be considered conservative.

Four Limits to Taishô Democracy

1. It's liberal character is exaggerated. The Parties were too pragmatic and realistic in their quest for power. Never were oriented towards "ideals," principles, or ideology. "Taishô party politics was rooted in a realistic quest for power rather than in an idealistic pursuit of ideological goals."

Much like the Constitution, Universal Manhood Suffrage was eventually accepted--perhaps acquiesced in is a better term--more as a "trend of the times" than on its ideological principles or intrinsic merits.

Hara was known for ably recruiting "up-and-coming" buearucrats into the party, getting them to run for office, funding that run, and then using their votes to pass legislation that he wanted to see passed. The main program of the Seiyukai under Hara was called the

"Positive Policy" of the Seiyukai. The main, overarching goal over time was to replace hanbatsu (clique) government with political party-based cabinets and achieve the goals of fukoku-kyohei. So his policies were expressed in a 4-point platform:

1. Educational Reform = new schools, books, construction contracts, etc.

2. Transportation and Communication Networks = RR, telegraph, telephone lines

3. National Defense = ships, guns, ammunition, unforms, troops, bases, training academies

4. Industrial Growth = fukoku kyohei, encouragement of trade and industry

 

2. The period is too short--really only 1918-1923. Inspired by wartime Allied propaganda, but buttressed by the Rice Riots and growing Labor Unrest at home. The labor movement in general, and the whole spectrum of leftwing activity, were given a boost by the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

But, according to Smith, the democratic movement peaked in 1919 and died with the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. "Even before the earthquake," Smith writes, "Liberalism had been largely supplanted by socialism among the middle-class intellectuals and labor leaders who had been its major advocates."

 

3. Most liberal part of the Taishô period came from outside--international. Yes, there was talk of a new peaceful, MULTILATERAL WORLD ORDER in East Asia in the 1920s. Wilsonian influence was real butthe wholse discourse still remained within an imperialistic framework which was rarely called into question (except by Yoshino Sakuzo). Smith sees Japan's commitment to this experiment was as much pragmatic as idealistic.

 

4. "True" liberals existed but were few and far between. Ozaki Yukio, Ishibashi Tanzan, Yoshino Sakuzo. But they were often isolated and not tyical of the Taisho period in general. Even the socialists seemed to prefer a strong state.

 

Four Varieties of Taishô Non-Liberalism

1. The bureaucracy = elitist, hostile to politics in liberal sense of open conflict and competition among divese interest groups. Bureaucrats were willing to champion government programs on behalf of poor and working classes, but did not want to empower them to participate. They did not acommodate much in the way of structural changes intrinsic to an industrialzing society. In their "totalistic conception" of society, and their reliance on technical expertise to solve social and economic problems, they did not really envision a place for people to have a voice in these structural adaptations. So they opposed local autonomy and party rule. Smith feels the Bureaucracy was much more important than the Parties and the Diet, yet so much scholarly attention has been given to the Parties (Duus and Najita). We have to remember that Japan was a capitalist nation and the state supported industrial capitalism all the way.

 

2. Socialist Post-Liberalism = true bourgeois liberals--middle class advocates of progressive social change--were to be found in the socialist movement rather than established parties. But Smith claims even if they were temperamental radical favoring abrupt change, they usually thought of such change within the context of a strong state, a strong central government. So, they favored a strong central state as a mechanism to achieving socialism, making them statist and collectivists rather than true liberal egalitarians. Also, there is the fact of Japan being a "Latecomer" to modernization and as with Germany, radical socialism and romantic nationalism, tended to coexist. More important, though, they had the advantage of being able to see where some modernized societies had gone and wanted to avoid the disruptions of a conflictural political framework.

 

3. Grass Roots Il-Liberalism = local organizations like

--chônaikai - urban neighborhood associations

--seinendan - rural youth groups

--dôsôkai - school alumni associations

--labor and tenant unions

--urban prefectural clubs

--village shrine/religious associations

--patriotic ceremonies held at shrines and villages

--New Religions like Omotokyô

--Not to mention the Imperial Military Reserve Association--a powerful agent for focusing loyalty up toward the emperor and the state, and reinforcing patriotism, service, respect for leaders and social superiors, traditional values like consensus and social harmony, etc.

were all in their various ways conservative, particularistic, nationalistic, and supportive of the state. Origianlly, they had a bottom up kind of volunteeristic impulses; but they were also communal in nature and il-liberal by espousing collective solidarity over individual freedoms and independence.

 

4. Nationalist Anti-Liberalism = explicitly and belligerently opposed to Liberalism, e.g. Kita Ikki--see Power Point presentation. Right-wing nationalism was a small but significant voice in the 1920s that continued to grow.

"The simple point is that Taisho political life was complex, contradictory, and multivalemt, leading no more surely to fascism than to communism or social democracy." (198)

 

 

Two other limitations or weaknesses of the Taishô and Shôwa era political parties are:

1. Parties were never mass-based organizations. Never had much in the way of grass-roots organization. Nor were they ideologically oriented. They did not stand for certain principles but rather seemed to represent major interest groups.

 

2. They never justified themselves in terms of core Japanese values (harmony, selflessness, dedication) in the minds f Japaense citizens. So they came out being vulnerable to charges of representing narrow, selfish, "private" interests of businessmen, professional politicians, lobbyists, bankers, capitalists, etc.

 

How do you feel Smith's arguments operate? Are they convincing?

 

There is room for modification, though. When working on Turn Against the Modern, I found Sho Konishi's book on Anarchist Modernity (2013) to be quite compelling. He writes about a "community" of about 5,000-6,000 individuals whp shared a lot of "progressive" ideas, but were not all locked in to some rigid ideological position. Some embraced utopian communalism, some were based Christian ethics, and this sometimes led people to embrace Christian Socialism, and from there, just Socialism, others were motivated by pacifist antiwar or values, others by Daoism or anarchism, many became engaged through the Labor Movement, unions, labor activism stikes, egalitarian notions about "fairness" in things like working and living conditions, etc. But Konishi sees them all asgenerally being attracted to non-state centered form of civic engagement. So this is a kind of picture that as not there when Smith was writing his piece.

 

Also more recent is Andrew Gordon's notion of "Imperial Democracy,"from his 1991 book Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan

1. As he sees it, the "Imperial Democratic Movement" has its roots in the PRM--the Popular Rights Movement. The PRM fell apart under the pressure of intense government suppression, on the one hand, and the split that occurred within the Movement dividing the ex-samurai and landed elite or gentry who founded the movement v. the poor farmers on the other hand who later joined them in search of a voice and solutions to their problems.

So, when the Imperial Democratic Movement surfaces in the early 1900s, it contained some of the same forces that drove the PRM in that it called for

--expanded suffrage

--tax reduction

--respect for the electorate as represented in the Diet

But we have to call this movement "Imperial Democratic," however, because it addresses several central features of late Meiji political order =

--the oligarchs;

--the emperor centered constitutional order they created

-- the bureacrats, the heads of the Ministries and Agencies

--including lots of "extra-constitutional" historical actors like

--the imperial household minister,

--the grand chamberlain,

--the chief aide de camp, and

--the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal,who,

-- along with leaders of the executive branch,

--and, of course, things like, the Imperial Rescript on Education,

--the power of Home Ministry,with their control over Prefectural Governors, the Police, Shinto Shrines,

--the passage of the Peace Prevervation Law

--all the rhetoric about Emperor, the Kokutai and Japan's "uniqueness," etc., etc.

--In other words, forces not that amenable to an open society and a participatory political system

 

The inauguration of electoral politics in the 1890s, though, created several new institutions and political behaviors:

--the press--> and a new educated, avid reading public---> mass circulation papers and magazines

--the politcal parties

--political rallies--hundreds held in Tokyo

--public speeches

--speaking tours

--later, political Demonstrations

--emerging new bourgeoise, salarymen class

--emerging class of wage laborers; remember Yokoyama Gennosuke's reportage on slums and the working and living conditiosn among the poor.

So, according to Gordon, we need to lengthen out our view of Taishô Period so that we don't limit it to 1912-1926, or to the 1918-23 stretch as Smith is prone to do; rather, we should go back to 1905 and extend it all the way up to 1932. That is when the last civilian, political party PM, Inukai Tsuyoshi, was assassinated in office. So, we need to widen and deepen our gaze.

If we do this, then we would see the following historical currents:

 

Another View:

 

 

 

 

The point of all this would be that this is yet another way of seeing how ordinary people, the "masses" [taishû 大衆] were participating in society via entrepreneurship, modern technical job training, the spread of mass transit and media, the rapid growth in employment and consumption. So, in this sense, it does support what Gordon is arguing for.

Back to Gordon.

Why does he favor the term "Imperial Democracy"? Because it is what we we start with; it is our given. Imperial Bureaucracy, i.e., the early Meiji OLIGARCHIC STRUCTURE of Government where the Restoration Leaders and their subordinates are in charge with little or no power sharing. This is the context, the reality in which forces for democratic change first appeared in the 1870s and 1880s. When out of this initial arrangement is carved "Imperial Democracy"--enabled by both the PRM and the Meiji Constitution--then we can find some powerful forces for economic and social change. What do you think?

Gordon goes on to elaborate his views by describing two versions of Imperial Democracy that he identifies:

 1. SEIYUKAI = or the Conservative version:

Bureaucrats in the Ministries and managers in large-scale Industries who cooperated to make Social Policies aimed at preserving ring social order and harmony--i.e., the JES for example--through, especially, the Home Ministry which reached out to the cities, urban neighborhood associations, and DOWN to Village Youth Groups, the Imperial Military Reserve Associations, orchestrated Shrine mergers and consolidated some 190,000 shrines to create a state-centered network of shrines.

Meanwhile, the Military had its Imperial Reserve Associations in every village where they could "reinforce the social order" and be called out in an emrgency. Some 2 million reservists belonged by 1918. "If we correctly guide the reservists. . .we can completely control the ideals of the populace and firm up the nation's foundation.' (Gen. Tanaka Giichi, 1913; see Gordon, p. 136-37, McClain, p. 428).

And, further, the Education System, was doing its part adjusting the curriculum to being more nationalistic and emperor-focused while adding two more years of compulsory education.

So the object was to get down to villages and local neighborhood, organize citizens into groups, diffuse nation-centered information and patriotic rituals, and mobilize the populace for social control purposes.

But Workers and Tenant farmers got very little out of this version. Workers had neither the Economic Protection from the state nor the Political Means to Protest or claim rights for themselves. So the question was, should imperial Japan be a democracy just for men of capital and landed property only? Or should society and the political process be more open and allow all men--and women!--to participate in the political process? Hara Kei could not agree. "It's too soon to abolish the property tax," he would say. "It's a dangerous idea. I cannot agree."

In 1919, Hara helped found a "think tank" to study social problems and promote harmony among capital and labor called "the Harmonization Society" with state and corporate financial support. He also wanted the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to study tenant farming issues but landlords objected so that had to be shelved. In 1920 he moved harshly against a strike by steelworkers. So it's pretty clear where his priorities were.

Cautiously and gradually, Seiyukai broadened the scope of legal participation in national politics, and accepted controlled labor organization in the workplace. But the bottom line was always: How will it benefit the Seiyukai? Universal Manhood Suffrage, though, was too radical for Hara and his party in 1919, 1920, and even later after his death.

 

2. KENSEIKAI = a more Liberal version of Imperial Democracy

Supported such things as:

 

But both parties basically accepted Imperialism, Capitalism and Parliamentary Government. See the PPL--the Peace Preservation Law.

In the meantime, a Marxist movement did emerge contesting Capitalism, Imperialism and Parliamentary Politics in the early 1920s.

Hence, Japan in the 1920s was perceived to be LURCHING back and forth between different stances appearing at times unstable and fragile in social cohesion and unity. In reality, this may just be symptomatic of the reality that politics and policies were the result of the different PLURAL ELITES contesting with one another for dominance of the government and the bureacracy.

 

One of my favorite Japanese historians, Kano Masanao, wrote a book on the Taishô period called

Taishô Demokurashii no Teiryu「底流」--Dozokuteki seishin [土俗的精神] e no kaiki [回帰].　

Kind of tricky to translate: "The Undercurrents of Taishô Democracy: Towards the Recovery of a "Native"or "Indigenous" Spirit."

What does he address?

Two kinds of "Reconstruction" [Kaizô] which was the name of a new popualr magazine = Reconstruction dating from 1919, edited by Yamamoto Sanehiko (see Telling Lives). First people to grace the cover were Marx and Freud. It's the modern world and its under construction. The other kind of"Reconstruction" was political reconstruction necessitated by the Rice Riots. This also plays off of 1919 radical thinker Kita Ikki who developed his Plan for a Reconstruction of Japan. His was a little scary: let's have a military take over, a coup d'etat, then a top down revolution to get rid of all social classes, get rid of zaibatsu, get rid of greed and corruption, have state ownership of businesses, and have everyone equal under the emperor.

What did Kano-sensei study? Basically three broad topics:

1. A new popular/unorthodox religion called Omotokyô which wound up being persecuted by the state because its leader acted kind of like the tennô. At any rate, it operated outside the boundary of acceptable practices. In its own way it challenged state authority.

2.Village Youth Group Movements, especially in Nagano Prefecture. Based on his own fieldwork, he shows how village youth were progressive, eager to read and learn about the wider world...but they were easily co-opted by the state structure.

3. Taishu bungaku [大衆] or "Mass Literature" a new phenomenon of the Taishô period. Nakazoto Kaizan as an example of a mass or pulp literature major author; the "blind swordsman," etc.

 

 

See also an interesting essay by Tetsuo Kogawa on Japan as a manipulated society focusing on the tennôsei or emperor system at: http://anarchy.k2.tku.ac.jp/non-japanese/manipulated.html