Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

Social life, the economic structure, and the price system, already dislocated by this rapid change, received a terrible jolt in the depression of 1920-1921, but Japan rapidly recovered and was shielded from the full consequences of her large population and limited resources by the boom of the 1920’s. Rapid technological advance in the United States, Germany, and Japan itself, demand for Japanese goods (especially textiles) in southern and southeastern Asia, American loans throughout the world, large American purchases of Japanese silk, and the general “boom psychology” of the whole world protected Japan from the full impact of its situation until 1929-1931. Under this protection the older authoritarian and militaristic traditions were weakened, liberalism and democracy grew slowly but steadily, the aping of Germanic traditions in intellectual and political life (which had been going on since about 1880) was largely abandoned, the first party government was established in 1918, universal manhood suffrage was established in 1925, civilian governors replaced military rule for the first time in colonial areas like Formosa, the army was reduced from 21 to 17 divisions in 1924, the navy was reduced by international agreement in 1922 and in 1930, and there was a great expansion of education, especially in the higher levels. This movement toward democracy and liberalism alarmed the militarists and drove them to desperation. At the same time, the growth of unity and public order in China, which these militarists had regarded as a potential victim for their operations, convinced them that they must act quickly before it was too late. The world depression gave this group their great opportunity.

Even before its onset, however, four ominous factors in Japanese political life hung like threatening clouds on the horizon. These were (a) the lack of any constitutional requirement for a government responsible to the Diet, (b) the continued constitutional freedom of the army from civilian control, (c) the growing use of political assassination by the conservatives as a means for removing liberal politicians from public life, as was done against three premiers and many lesser persons in the period 1918-1932, and (d) the growing appeal of revolutionary Socialism in laboring circles.

The world depression and the financial crisis hit Japan a terrible blow. The declining demand for raw silk in competition with synthetic fibers like rayon and the slow decline of such Asiatic markets as China and India because of political disturbances and growing industrialization made this blow harder to bear. Under this impact, the reactionary and aggressive forces in Japanese society were able to solidify their control of the state, intimidate all domestic opposition, and embark on that adventure of aggression and destruction that led ultimately to the disasters of 1945.

These economic storms were severe, but Japan took the road to aggression because of its own past traditions rather than for economic reasons. The militarist traditions of feudal Japan continued into the modern period, and flourished in spite of steady criticism and opposition. The constitutional structure shielded both the military leaders and the civilian politicians from popular control, and justified their actions as being in the emperor’s name. But these two branches of government were separated so that the civilians had no control over the generals. The law and custom of the constitution allowed the generals and admirals to approach the emperor directly without the knowledge or consent of the Cabinet, and required that only officers of this rank could serve as ministers for these services in the Cabinet itself. No civilian intervened in the chain of command from emperor to lowly private, and the armed services became a state within the state. Since the officers did not hesitate to use their positions to ensure civilian compliance with their wishes, and constantly resorted to armed force and assassination, the power of the military grew steadily after 1927. All their acts, they said, were in the name of the emperor, for the glory of Japan, to free the nation from corruption, from partisan politicians, and from plutocratic exploitation, and to restore the old Japanese virtues of order, self-sacrifice, and devotion to authority.

Separate from the armed forces, sometimes in opposition to them but generally dependent upon them as the chief purchasers of the products of heavy industry, were the forces of monopoly capitalism. These were led, as we have indicated, by the eight great economic complexes, controlled as family units, known as zaibatsu. These eight controlled 75 percent of the nation’s corporate wealth by 1930 and were headed by Mitsui, which had 15 per cent of all corporate capital in the country. They engaged in openly corrupt relationships with Japanese politicians and, less frequently, with Japanese militarists. They usually cooperated with each other. For example, in 1927, the efforts of Mitsui and Mitsubishi to smash a smaller competitor, Suzuki Company of Kobe, precipitated a financial panic which closed most of the banks in Japan. While the Showa Bank, operated jointly by the zaibatsu, took over many smaller corporations and banks which failed in the crisis and over 180,000 depositors lost their savings, the Cabinet of the militarist General Tanaka granted 1,500 million yen to save the zaibatsu themselves from the consequences of their greed.

The militaristic and nationalistic traditions were widely accepted by the Japanese people. These traditions, extolled by the majority of politicians and teachers, and propagated by numerous patriotic societies, both open and secret, were given a free hand, while any opposing voices were crushed out by legal or illegal methods until, by 1930, most such voices were silenced. About the same date, the militarists and the zaibatsu, who had previously been in opposition as often as in coalition, came together in their last fateful alliance. They united on a program of heavy industrialization, militarization, and foreign aggression. Eastern Asia, especially northern China and Manchuria, became the designated victim, since these seemed to offer the necessary raw materials and markets for the industrialists and the field of glory and booty for the militarists.

In aiming their attack at Manchuria in 1931 and at northern China in 1937, the Japanese chose a victim who was clearly vulnerable. As we have seen, the Chinese Revolution of 1912 had done little to rejuvenate the country. Partisan bickering, disagreements on goals, struggles for selfish advantages, and the constant threat to good government from military leaders who were not much more than bandits disrupted the country and made rehabilitation very difficult. North of the Yangtze River the war lords fought for supremacy until 1926, while south of the river, at Canton, the Kuomintang, a political party founded by Sun Yat-sen, and oriented toward the West, set up its own government. Unlike the northern war lords, this party had ideals and a program, although it must be confessed that both of these were embodied in words rather than in deeds.

The Kuomintang ideals were a mixture of Western, native Chinese, and Bolshevik Russian factors. They sought to achieve a unified, independent China with a democratic government and a mixed, cooperative, Socialistic, individualistic economic system. In general, Dr. Sun went to China’s own traditions for his cultural ideas, to Western (largely Anglo-American) traditions for his political ideas, and to a mixture, with strong Socialist elements, for his economic ideas. His program envisaged the achievement of these ideals through three successive stages of development of which the first would be a period of military domination to secure unity and independence, the second would be a period of Kuomintang dictatorship to secure the necessary political education of the masses, and only the third would be one of constitutional democracy. This program was followed as far as Stage Two. This presumably was reached in 1927 with the announcement that the Kuomintang would henceforth be the sole legal political party. This had been preceded by eleven years of military domination in which Chiang Kai-shek emerged as the military ruler of most of China in the name of the Kuomintang.