Grassroots fascism : the war experience of the Japanese people ; translated and annoted by Ethan Mark

357 Pages·2015·8.06 MB·English

by  Mark

grassroots fascism
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THE WAR EXPERIENCE OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
YOSHIMI YOSHIAKI
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTED BY ETHAN MARK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
First published in Japanese by University of Tokyo Press in 1987.
Copyright © 1987 Yoshiaki Yoshimi
Translation copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yoshimi, Yoshiaki, 1946–
[Kusa no ne no fashizumu. English]
Grassroots fascism : the war experience of the Japanese people = Kusa no ne no fashizumu : Nihon minshu no
senso taiken / Yoshiaki Yoshimi ; Ethan Mark, translator.
pages cm — (Weatherhead books on Asia)
Summary: “A profile of the Asia Pacific War, the most important and still the least understood experience of
Japan and Asia’s modern history—as seen and lived by ordinary Japanese”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-231-16568-6 (cloth : alkaline paper) — isbn 978-0-231-53859-6 (ebook)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Japanese. 2. Japan—History—1926–1945—Biography.
3. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area. 4. Fascism—Japan—History—20th century. 5. Japan—Politics
and government—1926–1945. I. Title.
D811.A2Y5913 2015
940.53'52—dc23
2014017123
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
jacket + book Design by vin dang
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION: THE PEOPLE IN THE WAR 1
1 FROM DEMOCRACY TO FASCISM 41
Hopes and Misgivings Regarding the War 41
The People’s War 55
On the Battlefields of China 64
2 GRASSROOTS FASCISM 89
The Roots of Fascism 89
The Agents and Receptors of Fascism 96
The Situation of the Japanese in the Occupied Areas 110
Departing for and Journeying to the Front in the Asia-Pacific War 114
Ranking the People 120
3 THE ASIAN WAR 151
The Illusion of Indonesia 151
Burma’s Meteor Shower 166
In the Philippine Countryside 183
Back on the China Front 200
4 DEMOCRACY FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 219
Fascism Develops Cracks 219
Overcoming the Collapse of the State 232
VI contents
POSTSCRIPT 257
NOTES 261
INDEX 329
grassroots fascism

Translator’s Introduction
THE PEOPLE IN THE WAR
ETHAN MARK
From 1939 to 1940, Japan not only expended more than ten billion yen and suffered
more than one hundred thousand deaths in battle. It also absorbed several hundred
thousand repatriated soldiers who had accumulated raw experiences of China and
its battlefields, who had developed a deep fear of China’s resistance that involved
the country’s entire people, and who had hardened in their determination to fight on.
The Japan of this period was thus a Japan different from before. One by one, people
returning from the battlefield—along with people at home who had been supporting
the war—were becoming earnest and beginning to give it their all.
YOSHIMI YOSHIAKI, Grassroots Fascism
The study of wartime Japan and its empire is a study of extremes.1 Staggering
was the scale of the misery and destruction visited upon Japan’s neighbors and
ultimately upon Japanese as well. Staggering was the brutality and barbarity
associated with Japan’s military aggression, immortalized in such infamous sig-
nifiers as the “Rape of Nanjing,” “Unit 731,” the “comfort women,” the “Bataan
Death March,” the Thai-Burma Railway, and the rômusha; staggering too the
violence of the Allied response, culminating in a hail of fire- and atom bombs
dropped on largely defenseless Japanese cities. As the merciless killing fields
of China expanded into a “War Without Mercy” with the Western allies, the
conflict ensnared not only millions of soldiers but also the lives and livelihoods