The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 35 | Number 1 | Article ID 4369 | Aug 31, 2015

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Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the JapanesePeople

Yoshimi Yoshiaki

Translated and introduced by Ethan Mark

Yoshimi Yoshiaki

Introduction

The People and the War

As a young historian researching prewarpopular political movements in the early 1970s,Yoshimi Yoshiaki (b. 1946) became increasinglystruck—and troubled—by the systematicinattention to popular experiences of the warperiod, along with the virtually universals i lence on quest ions of popular warresponsibility. Imbued with the progressiveconvictions of a scholarly generation that cameof age amid the political struggles of the late1960s, he was dissatisfied with the near-universal academic focus on elites and abstractsocial structures that rendered the story of the

Japanese experience of the war “a historywithout people.” After many years of research,stops and starts, the end result was GrassrootsFascism: a radically different vantage on thewartime experience from the “bottom-up” and abold attempt to break out of the constrictedconfines of “history in the passive voice.”

Taking us on a narrative journey that beginswith the war’s troubled early 1930s beginningsand culminates in the disaster of defeat and thepromise of a new beginning in 1945, movingadeptly and systematically between the homefront and the diverse variety of “fronts” thatdistinguished Japan’s far-flung Asian imperium,Grassroots Fascism exposes us to a remarkablearray of popular voices deftly assembled fromsources such as diaries, government archives,and memoirs. Along the way Yoshimi presents acarefully nuanced and historicized portrait ofeveryday, non-elite Japanese in all their real-lifecomplexity and ambiguity not only as victimsof, but also as active participants in, thewartime struggle for hegemony in Asia andsocial renovation at home. Grassroots Fascismis also at special pains to include penetratingaccounts of the experience of Japanese ethnicminorities and imperial subjects, includingOkinawans, Koreans, and Taiwanese, engagedin their own complex personal and groupnegotiations of the wartime enterprise.

In taking Japan’s “common people” asprotagonists and letting them in effect tell theirown story of the war as it evolved, GrassrootsFascism reveals a 1930s and 1940s Japan thatdefies historiographical convention. Viewedfrom the bottom up, there unfolds before us acomplex modern mass society, with a

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corresponding variety of popular roles andagendas. The comfortable, transparent “blackand white” of conventional narratives of victimsand villains is boldly exchanged for thetranslucent “grey” of a Japanese people cast asboth victim and victimizer. In this and in itsingenious deployment of source material toevoke the wartime experience in threedimensions of vividness and diversity, Yoshimi’sstudy elevates scholarly discussion of thenature and dynamics of Japan’s wartimeexperience—and of “Japanese fascism”—to abold new level.

Grassroots Fascism, Japanese edition, 1987.

Fascism and Empire at the Grassroots

Yoshimi’s narrative of the unfolding of Japanesefascism is distinguished by his identification of

the crucial role played by the interactionbetween the metropolitan center and theimperial periphery and the link between theincreasingly brutal Japanese suppression ofant ico lon ia l res i s tance and fasc is tradicalization. This innovative perspective inturn emphasizes the historicity of the Japanesewartime regime as one evolving—andintensifying—in response to the perceiveddemands of total war.

At the start of the Sino-Japanese war in the late1930s,“Domestically there was not much of acrisis situation, but quite important in place ofthis was the great number of the people whowere mobilized into the military and sent to theChinese mainland, there having a crisis type ofexperience that played an extraordinarily greatrole in Japan’s fascistization—this is mythinking.”1 Yoshimi’s centering of this Chinawar dynamic in the making of Japanese fascismleads him to locate the critical moment offascist consolidation at a time in which thesavagery of the war and the tenacity of Chineseresistance prompted an increasingly radicalJapanese response. He dates this moment to1940–1941—precisely the period in whichconventional, domestically-focused scholarshave identified a “failure” of attempts toconsolidate a genuinely fascist regime in thepolitical center “back home.”2 In turn, Japan’sunexpectedly easy and dramatic string ofvictories against the Western Powers in Asiaand the Pacific during the first months of thePacific War that followed soon afterwardimparted a deeper solidity and legitimacy toJapan’s war, to the system supporting it, and tothe sacrifices it demanded, its “success”virtually silencing all remaining domesticdissent. “Here, a true situation of wildenthusiasm had finally emerged,” writesYoshimi, “and emperor-system fascism hadcrystallized.”3 In this sense this experience canbe f ru i t fu l ly compared wi th s imi lardevelopments in Europe in the wake ofMussolini’s 1935 victory in Ethiopia andHitler’s unexpectedly easy defeat of archrival

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France in 1940, but for two reasons its impactwas all the more broad and profound: militarily,it could not have posed a more positive contrastto the inconclusive and ongoing quagmire ofJapan’s war in China. Equally or moreimportant was its matching of Japanesepropaganda of “Asian liberation” with concreteand effective action. As Yoshimi observes inGrassroots Fascism, such a mission held anappeal not only for Japanese but indeed forpeoples around the globe convinced of theillegitimacy of Western imperial domination,including Taiwanese, Koreans, and SoutheastAsians.

What ultimately sets Yoshimi’s approach apartis h is combinat ion of an empirewideperspective with a focus on the rise of fascismfrom the “bottom up”: the ambivalent role ofordinary Japanese not only as victims but alsoas agents and conduits of fascism. In adialectical movement between metropole andperiphery, between battlefield and paddy field,and between visions of imperial prosperity andthe grim reality of wartime deprivation,ordinary Japanese came to share with militaryand bureaucratic elites a desire for atranscendent resolution of the national crisis,producing indispensible mass support for aradical transformation of the relations of stateand society along fascist lines. In the Japanesecountryside, Yoshimi says, at first it was“landlords and powerful landed farmers whowere the core figures at the center of thesystem,”reflecting a situation of social andpolitical continuity since the Meiji period. Butas the war escalated into total war, he argues,“many people were needed as supporters, andthe central supporters [of fascism] becomethose of a slightly lower level—landed farmersand landed/tenant farmers.”4 For many,participation in the war effort was not simplythe product of patriotism or pressure fromabove, but it also beckoned as a revolutionaryopportunity for social and political participationand advancement in a time of crisis. Frompeasant recruits to small farmers to elementary

school teachers to colonial settlers, we are thusconfronted with grassroots fascism as anambiguous, ambivalent product of oppressionand ambit ion, hope and desperation,brutalization and brutality. EM

Grassroots Imperialism

When the Sino-Japanese War began on July 7th

1937, popular cal ls for “ imperial ismexternally,” a desire previously well buried,suddenly came to the fore. Along with limits onfreedom of expression and the manipulation ofpublic opinion, a number of other factors beganto have a determining influence on popularconsciousness. There was a manner of thinkingalong the lines of a fait accompli: “Now that thewar has started, we’d better win it.” There wasa strong sense that Japan was winning the war.And by the end of 1937, Japan had dispatchedsome 770,000 troops, a reality that weighedheavily.

According to a national survey of thirty-eightmunicipalities conducted at the end of 1937 bythe Cabinet Planning Board’s Industry Section,the attitude of people in farming, mountain,and fishing villages towards the war againstChina, summarized in terms of a single village,was divided between “the middle class and up,”who “want the war to be pursued ... to thefullest (to the point that [hostilities] will notflare up again),” and “the middle class andbelow,” who “want it to be brought to asspeedy an end as possible.”5

If we examine the calls for a speedy end to thewar more closely—voices mostly from “themiddle and below”—the following sorts ofexamples emerge with particular force.

a. “We hope that it ends quickly. (We hope thatoverseas development will be possible. There isonly one person who does not want to leave thevillage and emigrate to Manchuria).”

b. “In order to extend Japan’s influence innorthern China, we are planning to send out

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two or three of my boys.”

c. “To compensate for all the sacrifices theImperial Army has made, [(North and CentralChina]) should be brought under the control ofthe Empire.”

d. “We hope that we’ll be able to secureconsiderable rights and interests.”

Each of these statements represented a hopefor a swift end to the war that went hand inhand with a yearning for concrete profits orrights and interests, clearly demonstrating thata “grassroots imperialism” ideology had begunto surge among the people. The people of thetown of Kawashima in Kagawa Prefecture werea representative example. Reflecting thecomplexity of popular attitudes, it was reportedhere that “if the war goes on for long it will bea problem—this is what people genuinely say.Yet on the other hand, people of all classes alsosay that we have to keep fighting until we win.”One said that “ i t would be a waste tomeaninglessly give back territory people havegiven their lives for,” another that “the peoplewill not accept it if we gain nothing—eitherland or reparations. We don’t want to give backwhat we’ve already spent so much moneygetting for no reason. Northern China alonewill not do. This is the second time we’ve shedblood in Shanghai.”

Here, then, is the picture of a people who, inthe midst of their difficult lives, earnestlydesired to cooperate in the war because it wast h e i r “ d u t y a s J a p a n e s e , ” w i s h i n gsimultaneously for a swift end to the conflictand to gain privileges from it.

The Profits of War

For the soldiers and their families, conscriptionand deployment to the front did not bring onlysuffering. An examination of letters frompeasant soldiers who died in battle conductedby the Iwate Prefecture Farming VillagesCulture Discussion Association (Iwate ken

nōson bunka kondankai) makes clear that fromthe moment they joined the army, peasantsoldiers were liberated from time-consumingand arduous farming chores. With “a dailybath,” “fairly good” food, and “fine shoes,” theyled more privileged lives than they had in theirfarming villages. They received salaries thatthey could save or send to their families. Theywere able to enjoy “equal” treatment withoutregard to their social status or their wealth orpoverty. They received education and were ableto improve their social standing through theirown talents.6

The army was also seen to afford peasantsoldiers new prospects. If one became anoncommissioned officer—a corporal orsergeant—through service in the field, the roadlay open to becoming a person of influence inone’s village upon return. Soldiers were soeager to make the rank of corporal that teasingof those who remained privates sometimes ledto incidents of assault.7

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Japanese settlers in Manchuria, late 1930s.

Soldiers perceived the colonies and theoccupied territories as good places to “getahead” after they’d been discharged. AbeKatsuo, a peasant cultivator from Iwayadō inIwate Prefecture who fought in China’s ShanxiProvince, reported thinking to himself, “Afterthis, for the sake of the development ofnorthern China... they say you can findemployment in a government office or acompany, and if it’s true you can earn as muchas 150 yen per month, then maybe I’ll trysettling in China for a bit.”8 Sasaki Tokusaburō,the eldest son of an owner-cultivator fromTokiwa Village in Akita Prefecture, studiedwhile in the army and hoped to take exams tobecome a forest superintendent in SouthSakhalin or to become a policeman there or inKorea or Hokkaidō.9

Tsuch iya Yosh io , the son o f a t rack

maintenance worker and tenant farmer inSaigō Village in Yamagata Prefecture,volunteered after the Manchurian Incident andwas sent to Manchuria as a military policeman(kenpei). After his discharge he intended to“make a name” for himself (hitohata ageru) byfinding employment with the South ManchurianRailway Company; when he later heard theannouncement of the attack on Pearl Harbor,he pondered the possibility of becoming “eventhe master of some island in the SouthPacific.”10

Fighting in southern China in July 1939,Sergeant Murata Washirō discussed with hisunderlings his plan of going into business innorthern China upon his discharge and, ifpossible, managing a newspaper or hospital ororganizing a resident’s association.11

These were the attempts of some men to find away to live in the war’s midst after it hadshattered their life prospects. It must be saidthat soldiers were cornered into this situation.At the same time, we cannot overlook thisaspect: that the desire to get as much profit aspossible out of the war transcended theirunhappiness at being conscripted, and thatsoldiers supported the war in earnest.

Battles in Northern China and Soldiersfrom Tōhoku

Many soldiers hailing from the Tōhoku regionin the north of the main island of Honshū, oneof Japan’s most impoverished regions, weresent to northern China. How did the war alterthe consciousness of soldiers from Tōhoku, andwhat was their thinking after repatriation? Asan example, let us examine the case of aschoolteacher. Kimura Genzaemon, aninstructor at Tōmai Ordinary/ HigherElementary School in Akita Prefecture,received his draft notice on August 25, 1937and participated in numerous battlesthroughout northern China as a stretcherbearer in the medical corps of the 108th

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Division.12

Before he departed for the front, Kimurarecited a “speech on the world-historical andJapanese-historical significance of the [China]Incident.” From this salutation, we may gatherthat he supported the war. Yet as he crossedover the Shanhaiguan Pass and enteredNorthern China on September 24, 1937, heoffered the following calm, candidly pessimisticobservation: “Those who would sincerelywelcome the chance to go to the front are, ingeneral, only the uneducated. Children,women, (uneducated) o ld fo lks . Theintelligentsia are, in general, bystanders. Is theJapanese Spirit unable to hold its own againstCulture?”13

As Kimura witnessed Chinese people made intorefugees after defeat in battle, participated intheir enslavement, carried out requisitions,watched prisoners murdered, and heard aboutthe “shooting to death of all the villageinhabitants” in a punitive expedition (October14, 1937),14 however, he came to believesincerely in the “superiority” of the Japaneserace:

When I think about the future ofthe Japanese race compared to theChinese race I discover that I amall the more confident of oursuperiority. Of course among theranks of Japanese youth anapathetic, utilitarian quality hasrecently been drawing attention,but at least so long as they retaintheir emotionalism, their obsessionwith cleanliness, and their yen forimprovement, I believe it will beeasy for them to overcome theanimal-like prowess, the physicalrobustness, and the existentialdeep-rootedness of the Chinesemasses.15

On February 18, Kimura’s Kasuya unit enteredLicheng county (黎城県) in Shanxi Province.They repeatedly fought with the Eighth RouteArmy in Shanxi, and Kimura’s unit wasgradually annihilated. Waged by a Chinesepeople whose solidarity extended to the elderly,women, and children, the relentless waragainst the Japanese far surpassed hisexpectations. Confronting this situation—onedifficult to comprehend according to what hadb e e n J a p a n e s e p o p u l a r “ c o m m o nsense"—Kimura found no means of overcominghis spiritual crisis other than by abnormallyratcheting up his will to battle and his hatred ofthe enemy.

Kimura subsequently participated in severalpunitive expeditions in Shanxi, during which hehad such experiences as “lopping off enemyheads without a second thought when theopportunity arises” (May 10, 1939) and“beheading one” prisoner while “submittingtwo more for vivisection” (August 11, 1939). Hereceived a letter of commendation for hisefforts in the campaign. Within this context, hisview of China became even more warped.16

Looking back over the results of more than twoyears of battlefield experience on the eve of hisreturn to Japan on October 30th, 1939, Kimurarealized he’d reached a point where a “spectacular idealism” had been conquered byan “extremely simple realism.” His realismamounted to this: In order to construct an“East Asian Cooperative Body” (Tōa kyōdōtai)and a “New East Asian Order,” the “Japaneserace” itself required a “renovation andreformation of its domestic style,” but the gapbetween reality and what was needed wasexceedingly wide, and overcoming this wouldbe far more difficult than battling “millionsupon millions of enemies.” Behind this thinkingwas a recognition of the fact that an anti-Japanese war of a truly popular nature wasbeing waged, a recognition combined with a

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deep-seated fear. Thus Kimura ultimatelyhardened in his determination to see a NewEast Asian Order established: “No matter whatthe difficulties, so long as we cannot afford toevade it, we must continue to make solidprogress toward it, step by step.”17

On November 25, 1939, Kimura was reunitedwith his family at Akita Station, and from thenon he would pursue his teaching in AkitaPrefecture from the standpoint he hadarticulated on the eve of his repatriation. YY

The above is an abridged, modified excerptfrom the Translator’s Introduction and ChapterOne of Yoshimi Yoshiaki’s Grassroots Fascism(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0231165684/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20): The War Experience of theJapanese People, translated by Ethan Mark andpublished by Columbia University Press (NewYork: 2015). First published in Japanese byTokyo University Press as Kusa no ne nofashizumu: Nihon minshū no sensō taiken in1987 and still unsurpassed in its ambitiousgeographical, social, and chronological scope,Grassroots Fascism comprises at once both anintimate exploration of popular experiences ofJapan’s war and an earnest attempt to interpretand reckon with the meaning and lessons ofthese experiences for the present—both inscholarly and moral terms. In both aims, thework is distinguished by its reliance upon, andfaithful representation of, the voices ofordinary people. The war’s end is now seventyyears behind us, and the authors of thesepopular testimonies are for the most part nolonger with us. But in a time of unprecedentedpolarization regarding Japan’s wartime historyand its legacies, their voices—and ProfessorYoshimi’s classic study— are surely morerelevant than ever. EM

Ethan Mark is a lecturer in Modern JapaneseHistory at Leiden University. His article on“The Perils of Co-Prosperity: Takeda Rintarō,Occupied Southeast Asia, and the Seductions ofPostcolonial Empire,” was published in 2014 in

The American Historical Review 119(4):1 1 8 4 - 1 2 0 6 .(http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/119.4.1184?ijkey=xXizRzYdX9wY0jV&keytype=ref)

Excerpted from Grassroots Fascism by YoshimiYoshiaki. Copyright (c) 1987 Yoshimi Yoshiakitranslation Copyright (c) 2015 ColumbiaUniversity Press Used by arrangement with thePublisher. All rights reserved.

Recommended citation: Yoshimi Yoshiaki andEthan Mark, "Grassroots Fascism: The WarExperience of the Japanese People", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 35, No. 1, August31, 2015.

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Notes

1 Personal interview with Yoshimi Yoshiaki,Tokyo, January 19, 2007.

2 Scholars have typically illustrated this“failure” with reference to the experience ofthe Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA)established around this time, intended by itselite instigators as a vehicle for fascist-styleone-party rule under Prime Minister Konoe

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Fumimaro, but frustrated by the bureaucraticestablishment. As E.H. Norman observed at thetime, “experienced bureaucracy has graduallysnuffed out all signs of democratic activity, buton the other hand it has blocked the victory ofoutright fascist forces.” E.H. Norman, cited inJohn W. Dower, “E.H. Norman, Japan, and theUses of History,” in Origins of the ModernJapanese State: Selected Writings of E.H.Norman, ed. John W. Dower (New York:Pantheon, 1975), pp. 73.

3 Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism, p. 96.

4 Personal interview with Yoshimi, Tokyo,January 19, 2007.

5 This and the following comments fromJapanese villagers are from Naikaku jōhōbu,ed., “Jihenka ni okeru nōsangyoson no shisōdōkō” (Tendencies of Thinking during the[China] Incident in Farming, Mountain, andFishing Villages), repr. In Shiryō Nihongendaishi, ed. Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Ikō Toshiya,and Yoshida Yutaka (Tokyo: Ōtsuki shoten,1984), 11, pp. 310, 319-322.

6 Iwate ken nōson bunka kondankai, Senbotsunōmin heishi no tegami (Tokyo: Iwanami

shoten, 1961), 226–229

7 Yamamoto Takeshi, Ichiheishi no jūgun kiroku(Fukui: Yasuda shoten, 1985), 192.

8 Senbotsu nōmin heishi no tegami, 74.

9 Ibid.

10 Asahi shimbun Yamagata shikyoku, Kikigaki:aru kenpe i no k i roku (Tokyo : Asah ishimbunsha, 1985), 26, 152.

11 Murata Washirō, Nitchū sensō nikki (Tokyo,Hōwa shuppan, 1983), 5:112.

12 This account draws on Kimura Genzaemon’sdetailed diary from the front, Nitchū sensōshussei nikki (Akita: Mumyōsha shuppan,1982).

13 Ibid, 19.

14 Ibid, p. 30.

15 Ibid, p. 53. Entry of January 5, 1938.

16 Ibid, pp. 207, 233.

17 Ibid, p. 266.