KITA IKKI AND ULTRANATIONALISM IN JAPAN, 1936–1937

Nationalism dominated Japanese politics in the decades following World War I. By the late 1920s Japanese nationalists embraced a belief in Japanese racial superiority, not only toward westerners but also toward fellow Asians. Nationalists also promoted the idea of Japanese territorial expansion, particularly in the Chinese province of Manchuria. By the 1930s many Japanese nationalists insisted that Japan could achieve greatness only through war and that civilian politicians who opposed the military were traitors.

Kita Ikki (1883–1937) was one of the most authoritative voices of Japanese nationalism. As a young man he had studied in China and witnessed the fervent outpouring of Chinese nationalism in the May 4, 1919 demonstrations against the Treaty of Versailles. Although often labeled a fascist, Kita Ikki considered himself a modernizer. Ikki insisted that the Emperor of Japan was the keystone of the Japanese state. He argued that the men of commerce currently running Japan should be replaced by new “pure-hearted” elites (presumably from the military) who would lead Japan to greatness.

During the 1920s only a few Japanese read Kita Ikki, but in the 1930s his writings, particularly Outline for the Reconstruction of Japan (1919) became very popular among the ultranationalists. In this text, Ikki called for a three-year suspension of the constitution, dissolution of parliament, and the assumption of power by “pure-hearted” elites. Under his plan Japan not only had the absolute right to start a war to protect its own national interests, it also had the right to declare war to protect the interests of other Asian countries.

Although not a clear or logical thinker, Kita Ikki was an inspirational writer who was particularly influential among junior army officers, many of whom had little formal education. Although he had no part in the Tokyo coup d’état,on26 February 1936, his name was linked with the young army officers captured after the failed coup. Arrested and charged with treason, Ikki was executed in 1937. Ironically, the military government of General Hideki Tojo that came to power in 1941 adopted many of Kita Ikki’s ideas.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Ikki insisted that, of all the European countries, Germany was the most appropriate model for Japan. Why would Germany’s political and military institutions be so popular in early twentienth-century Japan?
2. Although he insisted he was not a fascist, Kita Ikki has often been called Japan’s premier fascist thinker. Investigate the meaning of the term “fascist” and based on your understanding of the term determine whether Ikki was a fascist.
3. Many of the young army officers executed in the failed coup d’état in 1936 insisted they were imitating the chivalric ideals of the ancient Japanese Samurai warriors, the revered Forty-Seven Ronin, who had sacrificed their lives to avenge the honor of the Emperor of Japan. After reading the story of the Forty-Seven Ronin (see Suggested Sources), do you agree?
4. Investigate the failure of parliamentary government in Japan in the 1930s and determine the various factors in addition to Ikki’s ultranationalist ideas that contributed to that failure.
5. The governments of China, South Korea, and the Philippines have insisted that Japan must pay indemnities to their citizens for “the racially motivated ultranationalist conduct of Japanese military during World War II.” Examine the Japanese occupation policies in one of these countries and write a paper analyzing the legitimacy of these claims for indemnity.
6. To ensure that Japan’s military would not be able to repeat its ultranationalist policies of the 1930s, the 1946 Japanese Constitution incorporated special measures to restrict the military. Read the constitution (see Suggested Sources) and assess the constitutional role of the military in contemporary Japan.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Paris Peace Conference, 1919” (#11), “The Rape of Nanking, 1937” (#28), “The Use of Atomic Bombs in World War II, 1945” (#37), and “The Japanese Economic Miracle in the 1950s” (#47). Search under fascism, Shinto, and International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Kita Ikki. “Outline for the Reconstruction of Japan.” In Sources of Japanese History, vol. 2. Edited by David Lu. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.

Writers and Revolutionaries: The Pacific Century [videorecording]. Seattle: Nihon Hoso Kyokai and KCTS: Annenberg/CPB Project, 1992. The film examines the lives of Lu Xun, China’s greatest modern writer, and Kita Ikki. George M. Wilson, one of the premier American scholars of Kita Ikki, reads from Ikki’s works and comments on his writings.

Secondary Sources

Chikamatsu, Monzaemon. Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu. Trans. Donald Keene. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. These English selections have the story of the “Forty-Seven Ronin” who avenged the honor of their lord.

Ineaga, Saburo. The Pacific War: 1931–1941. Translated by Frank Baldwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Written by a leading Japanese scholar who insists that too many Japanese accounts gloss over the “naked realities” of Japanese aggression.

Inoue, Kyoko. MacArthur’s Japanese Constitution: A Linguistic and Cultural Study of Its Making. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. A detailed examination of the English and Japanese versions of the 1946 constitution.

Iriye, Akira. The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific. London: Longman, 1987. Written by the leading American authority, this book has a very helpful bibliography of all aspects of the period.

———. Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History with Documents and Essays. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. The best introduction to Japanese strategic planning for the PacificWar and the Japanese military’s role in pressing for war.

“Kita Ikki, 1883–1937.” In The Routledge Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Political Thinkers. 2nd ed. Edited by Robert Benewick and Philip Green, 129–30. London: Routledge, 1992. A crisp summary of Ikki’s ideas.

Reischauer, Edwin, and Albert M. Craig. Japan: Tradition and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Although this is a general textbook, it is very good on the interwar years.