Taisei Yokusankai
The Taisei Yokusankai ( Japanese 大 政 翼 賛 会 , German Support Society for Imperial Rule , or Imperial Aid Society ) was founded in 1940 by the Japanese Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro . He intended to abolish party politics in Japan . Under the doctrine called Shintaisen , he set about abolishing traditional parties. The Taisei Yokusankai , a "right-wing socialist" collective movement, was intended to replace this . This made Japan a de facto one-party state.
Origins
The movement grew out of consultations in Karuizawa with the participation of Konoe and his political colleagues Gotō Fumio , Count Arima Yoriyasu and the ex-trade unionist and spokesman for the right wing, Kuhara Fusanosuke . The movement was conceived with two wings: a socialist and populist left wing, led by Hashimoto Kingorō , and a traditionalist right wing, led by Hayashi Senjūrō . Another leader in the movement was Yanagawa Heisuke .
Ideas
Konoe wanted a one-party government. This party would be in accordance with the Imperial Doctrine of Japan by uniting all bureaucrats and politicians. All views should come to a consensus in the spirit of the common cause. At the same time, all remaining independent unions were banned and replaced by a centralized “patriotic” union (“Society for the Service of the Nation”) which supported the war effort. The doctrine of the “consensus state” arose from the war situation at the time. A certain similarity to the synchronization in Germany a few years earlier can be seen.
This went hand in hand with efforts to psychologically influence and mobilize the population under catchphrases such as Yamato-Damashi (Yamato spirit), Kōdō (Imperial Way), Hakkō Ichiu , Saisei-Itchi (unity of government and religion) and also the Amau doctrine ( a kind of Asiatic Monroe doctrine ).
To what extent the idea of the Shōwa study group ( Shōwa Kenkyūkai ) flowed into the concept of the Taisei Yokusankai must be carefully evaluated.
Political career
While the organization was officially established and Konoe was hailed as a “political savior” of the nation out of chaos, the two wings were divided by struggles between their opposing doctrines, at the latest when the left and right MPs represented the capitalists and traditionalists in parliament , openly declared war.
literature
- Christopher Aldous: The Police in Occupation Japan. Control, corruption and resistance to reform. Routledge, London 1997, ISBN 0-203-44014-5 .
- John Whitney Hall : From Action in Manchuria to War in the Pacific . In: John Whitney Hall : The Japanese Empire (= Fischer World History . Volume 20). Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 319 ff.
- Edwin Palmer Hoyt: Japan's War. The Great Pacific Conflict. 1853 to 1952. McGraw-Hill, New York 1986, ISBN 0-07-030612-5 .
- Tomohide Ito : Militarism of the civilian in Japan 1937-1940: Discourses and their effects on political decision-making processes (series on the history of Asia; Vol. 19). Iudicium Verlag, Munich 2019. ISBN 978-3862052202 . (Especially pp. 322–355)
- Karel van Wolferen : The Enigma of Japanese Power. Vintage, New York 1990, ISBN 0-679-72802-3 .
