"After the defeat we became distrustful of the grownups around us, and came to feel the true way of living existed in the opposite of whatever they said. We came to believe that revolution and love were the best and most delicious things in this life, and because they are such good things grownups perversely lied." - Dazai Osamu, 'The Setting Sun' 1947
"We say defeated, defeated, but I don't think that's so. We've been ruined. Destroyed. [From one corner to the other the country of Japan is occupied, and every single one of us is a captive.] People who don't find this is shameful are fools." - Dazai Osamu (bracketed words censored by US military)
************
John W. Dower won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for this history of postwar Japan in an attempt to see the occupation, and reordering of society and polity, from the viewpoint of the vanquished. He begins with the Hirohito radio address declaring an end to the war without admitting responsibility or defeat. Japan had attacked and invaded for the survival and liberation of Asia, not for aggression or aggrandizement. He now sought peace for humanitarian reasons, to save the world from nuclear devastation, asking the nation to make sacrifices along with his own, as he remained on the throne.
Despair
Dower describes the vast destruction in Japan and millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians spread through Asia and the Pacific. General MacArthur and the American occupation were greeted by anger, joy, grief and relief as the displaced were repatriated to refugee camps. Veterans returned from futile and fanatic campaigns, embittered towards those who led them and shunned by others for losing. Atrocity reports followed them home. Widows, orphans and homeless were ostracized. Black markets, prostitutes and crime proliferated as imperialist politicians swiftly switched to liberal parties.
Purges
An American revolution came from above, and communists released from Japanese prisons and endoctrinated POW's from Soviet camps briefly praised defeat of the old guard, but democracy by fiat and freedom under martial law were inherent contradictions. During the occupation of 1945-52 war crime trials were held for military leaders and ministers. A constitution drafted by US lawyers guaranteed freedom of speech, religion and human rights, renouncing prerogatives to wage war. Purges evolved from military officers initially banned from public office to communists as cold war began.
Reforms
Agrarian land reform and labor laws became a part of the Supreme Command's purview. The large banking-industrial monopolies known as zaibatsu were broken up by antitrust actions. It was a sweeping program to uproot the oligarchy who supported the war as mass disarmament campaigns destroyed weapons and planes. Universal suffrage and equal protection for women shattered social conventions. Nation building, on a scale not seen before or after, was a source of anguish for conservative elites and hope in former subjects. It was seen as a boon granted by a new emperor, MacArthur.
Survival
Starvation was alleviated by aid shipments but hobbled by profiteers, as people ate rodents and insects. Industrialists, politicians and military officers got rich while inflation and unemployment went off the scale. Diseases were rampant, multiple families crowded into shacks. Alcoholism and drug abuse were widespread, robbery and murder commonplace. In time criminals and prostitutes were organized into yakuza gangs. People endured in misery, perhaps as a retribution for the misery caused by their war. Wartime myths of a unique racial and cultural harmony crashed into the postwar reality.
Corruption
The day before surrender military funds and supplies were diverted to private hands, more than the annual budget. The Bank of Japan made massive loans to military contractors, emptying its coffers before the allies arrived, as documents went up in smoke. Echoing Korean comfort women, state sponsored brothels were set up to service the arriving army and protect others chastity. It was ended in six months by occupation authorities as a violation of human rights, but prostitution persisted. Open air black markets sold all things from foodstuffs to industrial materials, looted by the army.
Synthesis
Sexual commercialization took on western pop forms of pulp magazines, hollywood movies, strip shows and chorus lines. Along with the counterculture English loan words accrued. Writers repudiated tradition, espousing decadence. War was an illusion and defeat the human condition; a national body was superseded by the individual body. Marital relationships became more egalitarian, compared to the roles women had played prior to war. Factories retooled from machine guns to sewing machines, business arose catering to G.I.'s. People looked foward to a bright future, a new start from the past.
Victors
The top down approach of American reformers succeeded in dramatically transforming the status quo. MacArthur became a popular figure although he rarely left headquarters and met only a handful of Japanese leaders. Engineering all facets of society from media to banks, schools, hospitals, libraries and government required an army of experts and a million G.I.'s. Mid level officers lived in upper class homes spared from the Tokyo fire bombing with staffs of servants. Relationships developed between conqueror and conquered, democracy and freedom learned to be loved on command.
Vanquished
While Americans lived in their colonial enclaves criticism was forbidden to the press and extraterritorial laws applied. The occupation resembled old forms of racial supremacy, visited on the east by the west. MacArthur's command was a military bureaucracy not unlike that of Hirohito. Rule was made through existing state organs requiring support of the throne. A pivot from monkey-man war propaganda and the detention of a 100,000 Japanese-Americans seemed to be needed. Democracy deemed impossible in Japan, the best that could be hoped for was a constitutional monarchy.
Revolution
Culture viewed conformist by the west was a traditional mix of manners and morals in the east, and yet the resistance to reforms by average Japanese was much less than expected. Catastrophic defeat made many question the system that had brought it. Intellectuals went further calling for socialism or communism, left of where the Americans had desired to go. After the Chinese revolution and the Korean war it would be time to fetter freedom, but before then the militarists were forced to resign from newsrooms and universities. Women won national elections and labor unions organized strikes.
Propaganda
International opinion grew in Allied and Asian countries to stage a war crimes trial of the emperor. The decision not to hold Hirohito accountable made it difficult for others to feel responsible, and his retention complicated ideas of popular sovereignty. Wartime analysts had determined he would be useful later and propagandists created fictions he had been tricked and betrayed by gangster militarists. In order to save lives and maintain their control Allies planned to depend on blind obedience to the emperor. Royalist cronies argued all of Japan bore guilt for the defeat with the exception of Hirohito.
Trials
The Allies and the Imperial House collaborated on a rescript, renouncing divinity of the emperor and racial superiority, as Shinto religion was separated from the state. Hirohito was hailed in the US, a hero and leader of democratic reform, seen as a bulwark against communism. Both the court and cabinet discussed his abdication, but MacArthur would have none of it. Princes who had been politicians and generals in the war were absolved, including those involved in atrocities. Trials were held through 1948 for crimes against peace and humanity. The emperor resolved to remain on the throne.
Democracy
After months of proposals from the government and political parties for a revised constitution MacArthur issued a memo outlining three principles and ordered the army to write up it in a week. His tenets were to preserve the emperor, proscribe the military and end feudalism. With Hirohito's endorsement it was adopted into law although conservatives were aghast. He toured each prefect and endeared himself to the nation. Prior to surrender he never spoke in public and was rarely seen. Preservation of the emperor, no longer a sovereign, made the constitution acceptable to both polity and people.
Guilt
With values of freedom came a strict censorship. Criticism of MacArthur and the Americans was excised from newspapers radio and theater. As Tokyo trials proceeded highly ranked officials were imprisoned or executed, eventually thousands across Asia and the Pacific. Charges of judicial idealism and victor's justice contributed to a later neo-nationalism. Many imagined drumhead court martials and firing squads rather than lengthy legal battles. Allies were enraged over abuse of prisoners, the most common conviction. In Manchuria lethal medical experiments had killed three thousand captives. The director was co-opted by the CIA and his research resumed.
Reconstruction
In the cold war charges against high profile capitalists and bureaucrats were dropped. Communists now a concern, occupation forces aligned with the right wing. Politicians who were purged returned to public office. The radical left became censored and removed from their positions of power. European victors attempted to re-establish rule in SE Asia, nuclear arms races ensued while war erupted again in Korea. MacArthur bowed out as Americans re-armed their former enemy. Japan's disasterous downfall would be rivaled by a miraculous recovery as Hirohito visited presidents and kings.
This book was meticulously researched by Dower, a Harvard Ph.D in Japanese history and language. Since then he was a professor in California State and an emeritus historian at MIT. It is not weighed down by ponderous academic style. Dower enlivens the text with photos and stories from the news and popular culture of the period, balanced by the political and economic facts. Arranged by topic, individual sections follow a timeline. Dower may be better read after 'Hirohito' by Herbert Bix, his fellow alumni and Pulitzer winner, a biography and political history of WWII Japan.
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Marc
It is Brilliant in is detail if you like history
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2017Elsa, Upper Graig
Embracing Defeat, Japan in the wake of World War 2
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2012Thomas A. Regelski
Excellent account of the problems facing Japan and its citizens ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2017
