Did Japan have its own version of "fascism" similar to the German and Italian movements motivating the Sino-Japanese wars and WWII?

by KaliYugaz

Were there people upset by the Meiji reforms who believed that Japanese culture was being eroded and polluted by foreign influences, and that the solution was to renew the "vitality" of the Japanese people through military aggression and conquest?

phoenixbasileus

What you've said could be a simple description of some of the rhetoric of the ultranationalists within Japan, and there were certainly elements of the supremacist aspects of German and Italian 'fascism' present within ultranationalist ideology. They weren't necessarily angry at the Meiji Restoration, but rather their concerns related to the increasing political and social liberalisation of the Taisho period, and Western cultural influences.

However, I really don't think you can apply the term 'fascist' to Japan, as the ultranationalists were a group with a much more loosely defined and less organised set of ideas.

There was certainly nothing like the party structures of Germany or even Italy present in Japan, despite the attempts of Prince Konoe and others to create this through the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and a better analogy would be a military junta.

Algebrace

Question was asked a few days ago but the answers answer your question:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vdcgk/why_was_imperial_japan_so_infatuated_with_the/

Nelson_Mac

Actually there was a native fascist movement inside Japan. The enemy wasn't so much foreign influences per se, but rather big business and the grinding depression that hit Japan after WW1, particularly after 1927. The Great Depression hits Japan earlier than in the US. Japan boomed during WW1 but after the war ended, and after the European economies recovered, the Japanese economy began to suffer. Then the 1927 Showa Financial Panic really screwed the Japanese economy.

Kita Ikki argued for a Showa Ishin (Showa Restoration/Revolution) to break the power of the zaibatsu (conglomerates) and restore power back to the people and the Emperor. In 1906 he wrote a book called "Kokutairon and junsei shakaishugi" (Theory of the Body Politic and a Pure Socialism. A nationalist-socialist book, just like what the Nazis: National-Socialist German Workers Party would later enact.) So he's a very early fascist.

Then fascist economic ideas were experimented on with the new state of Manchukuo that the Japanese military set up in 1932. State control over the economy, emphasis on heavy industry, preparation for war, etc. This was primarily Ishiwara Kanji's vision (although it didn't all go according to his plans).

5 years later, in 1937, military officers influenced by Kita launched the infamous 2.26 Incident (a military coup). Ishiwara ironically stayed with the establishment and helped crush the coup. When the army crushed the coup, the generals took over in Japan and from there a fascist style government was implemented by the generals and top civilian leaders (using Fascist Italy, Manchukuo, and Nazi Germany as working models).

Japanese leaders realized that popular discontent was high in Japan during the Great Depression (well duh). So out of the three choices available at the time: a failing democratic capitalism (especially after 1929) like in the West, or the dreaded Socialism/Communism in Russia, or the rising fascism in Italy and Germany they chose fascism.