The title and subtitle of this essay may seem unrelated; hence a word of explanation may be useful. The essay was written for a memorial number of Liberation which as the editor expressed it. "gathered together a series of articles that deal with some of the problems with which A. J struggled." I think that Muste's revolutionary pacifism was and is a profoundly important doctrine both in the political analysis and the moral conviction that it expresses. The circumstances of the antifascist war subjected it to the most severe of tests. Does it survive this test? When I began working on this article I was not at all sure. I still feel quite ambivalent about the matter. There are several points that seem to me fairly clear however. The American reaction to
This essay touches on all of these questions: on Muste's revolutionary pacifism and his interpretation of it in connection with the Second World War; on the backgrounds of Japan's imperial ventures; on the Western reaction and responsibility; and by implication on the relevance of these matters to the problems of contemporary imperialism in Asia. No doubt the essay would be more coherent were it limited to one or two of these themes. I am sure that it would be more clear if it advocated a particular "political line." After exploring these themes. I can suggest nothing more than the tentative remarks of the final paragraph.
In a crucial essay written forty years ago,1 A. J. Muste explained the concept of revolutionary nonviolence that was the guiding principle of an extraordinary life. "In a world built on violence one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist." "There is a certain indolence in us a wish not to be disturbed which tempts us to think that when things are quiet all is well. Subconsciously we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force." Muste was insistent that pacifists "get our thinking focussed." Their foremost task "is to denounce the violence on which the present system is based and all the evil -- material and spiritual -- this entails for the masses of men throughout the world.... So long as we are not dealing honestly and adequately with this ninety percent of our problem there is something ludicrous and perhaps hypocritical about our concern over the ten percent of violence employed by the rebels against oppression." Never in American history have these thoughts been so tragically appropriate as today.
Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth position and power accruing from a social system based on violence and putting a premium on acquisitiveness and to identify themselves in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the light may help in a measure -- more doubtless by life than by words -- to devise a more excellent way a technique of social progress less crude brutal costly and slow than mankind has yet evolved.
Muste believed with Gandhi that "unjust laws and practices survive because men obey them and conform to them. This they do out of fear. There are things they dread more than the continuance of the evil." He enriched half a century of American history with a personal commitment to these simple truths. His efforts began in a time when "men believed that a better human order a classless and warless world a socialist society if you please could be achieved," a time when the labor movement could be described as "that remarkable combination of mass power prophetic idealism and utopian hope." They continued through the general disillusionment of war and depression and antiradical hysteria to the days when American sociologists could proclaim that "the realization that escapes no one is that the egalitarian and socially mobile society which the 'free-floating intellectuals' associated with the Marxist tradition have been calling for during the last hundred years has finally emerged in the form of our cumbersome bureaucratic mass society and has in turn engulfed the heretics."2 And finally still not "engulfed," he persisted in his refusal to be one of the obedient docile men who are the terror of our time to the moment when our "egalitarian and socially mobile society" is facing a virtual rebellion from the lower depths when young men are being faced every day with the questions posed at Nuremberg as their country devotes itself to enforcing the "stability" of the graveyard and the bulldozed village and when the realization that escapes no one is that something is drastically wrong in American society.
In one of his last published essays. Muste describes himself as an "unrepentant unilateralist on political as well as moral grounds."3 In part he bases his position on an absolute moral commitment that one may accept or reject but that cannot be profitably debated. In part he defends it on grounds that seem to me not very persuasive a psychological principle that "like produces like kindness provokes kindness," hence an appeal to "the essential humanity of the enemy."4 It is very difficult to retain a faith in the "essential humanity" of the SS trooper or the commissar or the racist blinded with hate and fear or for that matter the insensate victim of a lifetime of anti-Communist indoctrination. When the enemy is a remote technician programming B-52 raids or "pacification," there is no possibility for a human confrontation and the psychological basis for nonviolent tactics whatever it may be simply evaporates. A society that is capable of producing concepts like "un-American" and "peacenik" -- of turning "peace" into a dirty word -- has advanced a long way towards immunizing the individual against any human appeal. American society has reached the stage of near total immersion in ideology. The commitment has vanished from consciousness -- what else can a right-thinking person possibly believe? Americans are simply "pragmatic," and they must bring others to this happy state. Thus an official of the Agency for International Development can write with no trace of irony that our goal is to move nations "from doctrinaire reliance on state enterprise to a pragmatic support of private initiative,"5 and a headline in the New York Times can refer to Indian capitulation to American demands concerning the conditions of foreign investment as India's "drift from socialism to pragmatism." With this narrowing of the range of the thinkable comes an inability to comprehend how the weak and dispossessed can resist our benevolent manipulation of their lives an incapacity to react in human terms to the misery that we impose.
in the mid-sixties it is much too easy to defend. There is no particular merit in being more reasonable than a lunatic; correspondingly almost any policy is more rational than one that accepts repeated risk of nuclear war hence a near guarantee of nuclear war in the long run -- a "long run" that is unlikely to be very long given the risks that policy makers are willing to accept. Thus in the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy was willing (according to Sorensen's memoirs) to accept a probability of 1/3 to 1/2 of nuclear war in order to establish that the United States alone has the right to maintain missiles on the borders of a potential enemy.6 And who knows what "probabilities" the CIA is now providing to the Rostows and the Wheelers who are trying to save something from their Vietnam fiasco by bombing at the Chinese border? Furthermore it does not require an unusual political intelligence to urge world-wide de-escalation on the great power that by any objective standard is the most aggressive in the world -- as measured by the number of governments maintained by force or subverted by intrigue by troops and bases on foreign soil by willingness to use the most awesome "killing machine" in history to enforce its concept of world order.
consolidating its Eastern European empire with brutality and deceit. But it is the international situation of December 1941 that provides the most severe test for Muste's doctrine. There is a great deal to be learned from a study of the events that led up to an armed attack by a competing imperialism on American possessions and the forces defending them and even more from a consideration of the varying reactions to these events and their aftermath. If Muste's revolutionary pacifism is defensible as a general political program then it must be defensible in these extreme circumstances. By arguing that it was. Muste isolated himself not only from any mass base but also from all but a marginal fringe of American intellectuals. Writing in 1941. Muste saw the war as
controls some 70% of the earth's resources and thirty million square miles of territory. The imperialistic status quo thus to their advantage was achieved by a series of wars including the last one. All they ask now is to be left at peace and if so they are disposed to make their rule mild though firm.... On the other hand stands a group of powers such as Germany. Italy. Hungary. Japan controlling about 15% of the earth's resources and one million square miles of territory equally determined to alter the situation in their own favor to impose their ideas of "order," and armed to the teeth to do that even if it means plunging the whole world into war.7
"that we shall be the next nation to seek world domination -- in other words to do what we condemn Hitler for trying to do." In the disordered postwar world we shall be told he predicts that "our only safety lies in making or keeping ourselves 'impregnable.' But that.. means being able to decide by preponderance of military might any international issue that may arise -- which would put us in the position in which Hitler is trying to put
would emerge as the world-dominant power was political realism; to forecast that it would act accordingly having achieved this status by force was no less realistic. This tragedy might be averted. Muste urged by a serious attempt at peaceful reconciliation with no attempt to fasten sole war-guilt on any nation assurance to all peoples of equitable access to markets and essential materials armament reduction massive economic rehabilitation and moves towards international federation. To the American ideologist of 1941 such a recommendation seemed as senseless as the proposal today that we support popular revolution. And at that moment events and policy were taking a very different direction.
As I mentioned the point of view that Muste expressed was a rather isolated one. To see how little the intellectual climate has changed it is enough to consider the lengthy debate over the decision to drop the bomb. What has been at issue is the question whether this constituted the last act of World War II or the first phase of American postwar diplomacy; or whether it was justified as a means of bringing the war to a quick conclusion. Only rarely has the question been raised whether there was any justification for American victory in the Pacific war; and this issue where faced at all has been posed in the context of the Cold War -- that is was it wise to have removed a counterweight to growing Chinese power soon to become "Communist" power?
It is remarkable that such an attitude should be so blandly expressed and easily accepted. Is it true that in August 1945 the American people "had every reason to rejoice" -- at the sight of a Japanese countryside devastated by conventional bombing in which tens of thousands of civilians had been massacred not to speak of the horrifying toll of two atom bombs (the second being so it appears history's most abominable experiment); or at the news of a final gratuitous act of barbarism trivial in the context of what had just taken place a thousand-plane raid launched after the Japanese surrender had been announced but technically before it was officially received?10 To Secretary of War Stimson it seemed "appalling that there had been no protest over the air strikes we were conducting against Japan which led to such extraordinarily heavy losses of life"; he felt that "there was something wrong with a country where no one questioned that." What then are we to say of a country that still twenty years later is incapable of facing the question of war guilt?
It is not of course that the question of war guilt has gone out of fashion. No trip to Germany is complete even today without a ritual sigh and wringing of hands over the failure of the German people to face up to the sins of the Nazi era or the German school texts which glide so easily over the Nazi atrocities and the question of war guilt. This is a sure sign of the corruption of their nature. Just recently a group of American liberal intellectuals gave their impressions of a tour of
in the Atlantic Monthly (May 1967). None failed to raise the question of war guilt. One comments that "however disparate our temperaments or our political emphases we were plainly a group made coherent by our shared suspicions of Germany's capacity for political health.. we had not forgotten nor could we forget that we were in the country which had been able to devise and implement. Nazism." The same commentator is impressed with the "dignity and fortitude" with which young Germans "carry an emotional and moral burden unmatched in history: they have to live with the knowledge that their parent generation and often their own parents perpetrated the worst atrocities on the record of mankind." Another a fervent apologist for the American war in
-- provoke the same response?) To their credit a few refer to Vietnam; but not once is a question raised -- even to be dismissed -- as to American conduct in the Second World War or the "emotional and moral burden" carried by those whose "parent generation" stood by while two atom bombs were used against a beaten and virtually defenseless enemy.
To free ourselves from the conformism and moral blindness that have become a national scandal it is a good idea occasionally to read the measured reactions of conservative Asians to some of our own exploits. Consider for example the words of the Indian justice Radhabinod Pal the leading Asian voice at the Tokyo Tribunal that assessed the war guilt of the Japanese. In his carefully argued (and largely ignored) dissenting opinion to the decision of the tribunal he has the following remarks to make:
The Kaiser Wilhelm II was credited with a letter to the Austrian Kaiser Franz Joseph in the early days of that war wherein he stated as follows: "My soul is torn but everything must be put to fire and sword; men women and children and old men must be slaughtered and not a tree or house be left standing. With these methods of terrorism which are alone capable of affecting a people as degenerate as the French the war will be over in two months whereas if I admit considerations of humanity it will be prolonged for years. In spite of my repugnance I have therefore been obliged to choose the former system." This showed his ruthless policy and this policy of indiscriminate murder to shorten the war was considered to be a crime. In the Pacific war under our consideration if there was anything approaching what is indicated in the above letter of the German Emperor it is the decision coming from the allied powers to use the atom bomb. Future generations will judge this dire decision. History will say whether any outburst of popular sentiment against usage of such a weapon is irrational and only sentimental and whether it has become legitimate by such indiscriminate slaughter to win the victory by breaking the will of the whole nation to continue to fight. We need not stop here to consider whether or not "the atom bomb comes to force a more fundamental searching of the nature of warfare and of the legitimate means for the pursuit of military objectives." It would be sufficient for my present purpose to say that if any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegitimate in warfare then in the Pacific war this decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War. Nothing like this could be traced to the credit of the present accused.11
When we lament over the German conscience we are demanding of them a display of self-hatred -- a good thing no doubt. But for us the matter is infinitely more serious. It is not a matter of self-hatred regarding the sins of the past. Like the German Kaiser we believe that everything must be put to fire and sword so that the war will be more quickly finished -- and we act on this belief. Unlike the German Kaiser our soul is not torn. We manage a relative calm as we continue today to write new chapters of history with the blood of the helpless and innocent.
was the recognition by the Japanese military that it was "now or never." The Western powers controlled the raw materials on which their existence depended and these supplies were being choked off in retaliation for expansion on the mainland and association with
in the Tripartite Pact. Japan faced an American diplomatic offensive aimed at changing it "from a hostile expansionist empire with great pride in its destiny and ambitious plans for its future to a peaceful contented nation of merchants subcontracting with the United States to aid America's fight against Hitler"12 -- precisely what was achieved by the war if we replace "Hitler" by "the international Communist conspiracy." To understand the Japanese predicament more fully to evaluate the claim that
had been opened to Western influence by a threat of force in the mid-nineteenth century and had then undertaken a remarkably successful effort at modernization. A new plutocracy replaced the old feudal structure adopting the forms of parliamentary government. Mass participation in the developing political structure was minimal; it is doubtful that the living standards of the peasantry and urban workers rose during the period of transition from a medieval to a modern capitalist society.
in the ratio of 5:5:3 accepting the American position of "equality of security" rather than the Japanese goal of "equality of armaments." As Schroeder comments. "the American argument was that Japan a state surrounded on all sides by historic enemies and powerful rivals had a superior natural situation for defense while the United States in the midst of two oceans without a powerful enemy on two continents had defensively an inferior natural endowment."13
was a very serious matter. It led to a strengthening of the role of the military which felt with reason that the civilian leadership was seriously endangering Japanese security. The treaty also evoked the first of "the series of violent attacks on the legally appointed leaders of Japan which would characterize the political history of that country during the 1930's" when Premier Hamaguchi who was responsible for the treaty was shot by "a patriotic youth" in 1930. An immediate consequence of the treaty was the adoption by the opposition party of a platform insisting on "the maintenance of
's privileged position in Manchuria and a foreign policy which discounted the necessity of cooperation with the Anglo-American nations in defense of
and Eastern Pacific) was a significant contributory cause to the crisis that was soon to erupt. In later years the Japanese came to feel with much justice that they had been hoodwinked more generally in the diplomatic arrangements of the early 1920s which "embodied the idea that the Far East is essentially a place for the commercial and financial activities of the Western peoples; and.. emphasized the importance of placing the signatory powers on an equal footing thus ignoring the desirability of providing special relations between particular countries especially between Japan and China."15 A typical Japanese view of the situation was expressed by a delegate to the 1925 conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR): "Just as [
and in Nationalist China. "Technically under a 1905 protocol. China was barred from building any railway lines parallel to the South Manchurian Railway or from constructing any lines which might endanger the commercial traffic along it,"20 but China was quite naturally disinclined to honor this provision and Japanese attempts to conduct discussions on railroad construction were frustrated as the Kuomintang pursued its course of attempting to incorporate Manchuria within China and to eliminate Japanese influence no doubt with the support of the majority of the Manchurian population. A number of fairly serious incidents of violence occurred involving Korean settlers and the Japanese military. A Japanese officer was murdered in the summer of 1931. In
power bloc" guaranteed by military force or in continuing to abide by "the new rules of diplomacy established by Occidental and satiated powers."21 The issue was resolved in September 1931 when Kwantung Army officers provoked a clash with Chinese forces (the "Mukden incident") and proceeded to take full control of
not unexpectedly refused the Japanese offers to negotiate insisting that "evacuation is a precondition of direct negotiation."22 Exercising the right of "self-defense" against Chinese "bandits," the Kwantung Army established control by force and in August 1932 the Japanese government under strong military and popular pressure recognized Manchuria as the new. "independent" state of Manchukuo under the former Manchu emperor. Pu Yi. As Walter Lippmann commented the procedure of setting up "local Chinese governments which are dependent upon
were at the mercy of the Chinese army with its rather left-wing tendencies. Furthermore. "Chinese Communists" were starting strikes in Japanese-owned mills. For all of these reasons. Shigemitsu felt justified in requesting troops which "succeeded in dislodging the Chinese forces from the Shanghai district and restoring law and order" -- a "familiar procedure," as Lippmann rightly observed and not without present-day parallels.26
itself is concerned the events of 1931-1932 were quite serious in their impact. According to the outstanding Japanese political scientist Masao Maruyama. "the energy of radical fascism stored up in the preparatory period now burst forth in full concentration under the combined pressure of domestic panic and international crises such as the Manchurian Incident the Shanghai Incident and
"27 Furthermore. "the issue of the infringement of the supreme command," raised when the civilian leadership had overruled the military leaders and in effect capitulated to the West at the London Naval Conference. "was a great stimulus to the fascist movement" (p. 81). In 1932 a series of assassinations of important political figures (including Prime Minister Inukai) contributed further to the decline of civilian power and the strengthening of the hand of the military.
. the central army authorities.. insisted upon the creation of a new local regime with authority to negotiate settlement of Manchurian problems but under the formal sovereignty of the Chinese National Government a traditional arrangement. This was the arrangement that the world at large was willing to accept. The Lytton Commission proposed the constitution of a special regime for the administration of
The report went on to point out that the dispute arose in a territory in which both China and Japan "claim to have rights and interests only some of which are clearly defined by international law; a territory which although legally an integral part of China had a sufficiently autonomous character to carry out direct negotiations with Japan on the matters which lay at the roots of this conflict."29
It is an open question whether a more conciliatory American diplomacy that took into account some of the real problems faced by Japan might have helped the civilian government (backed by the central army authorities) to prevail over the independent initiative of the Kwantung Army which ultimately succeeded in bringing the Japanese government to recognize the fait accompli of a Manchukuo that was more a puppet of the Kwantung Army than of Japan proper.
and was also dissatisfied with the injustice of domestic Japanese society. The independent initiative of the Kwantung Army was largely that of the young officers of petit-bourgeois origin who felt that they represented as well the interests of the soldiers predominantly of peasant stock. "The Manchurian affair constitutes an external expression of the radical reform movement that was originally inspired by Kita and Okawa,"31 who had developed the view that
itself this program appealed to the Social Democrats who blamed "Chinese warlords and selfish Japanese capitalists for the difficulties in [Manchuria]" and who demanded "the creation of a socialistic system in Manchuria one that would benefit 'both Chinese and Japanese living in
Ogata cites a great deal of evidence to support the conclusion that the Kwantung Army never expected to establish Japanese supremacy but rather proposed to leave "wide discretion to the local self-governing Chinese bodies and intended neither the disruption of the daily lives of the Manchurian people nor their assimilation into Japanese culture" (p. 182). The program for autonomy was apparently influenced by and attempted to incorporate certain indigenous Chinese moves towards autonomy. "In the period immediately preceding the Manchurian Affair a group of Chinese under the leadership of Chang Ku also attempted to create an autonomous Manchuria based on cooperation of its six largest ethnic groups (Japanese. Chinese. Russians. Mongolians. Koreans and Manchurians) in order to protect the area from Japanese. Chinese and Soviet encroachment" (p. 40). The governing bodies set up by the Kwantung Army
which in contrast to the warlords had held to the principle of absolute hokyo anmin (secure boundary and peaceful life). According to him the protection and prosperity of the Northeastern Provinces assumed priority over all including the relationship with
In general the Kwantung Army regarded the thirty million people of Manchuria -- half of whom had immigrated since the initiation of Japanese development efforts a quarter of a century earlier -- as "suffering masses who had been sacrificed to the misrule of warlords and the avarice of wicked officials masses deriving no benefits of civilization despite the natural abundance of the region."34 Furthermore the Army regarded
as "the fortress against Russian southern advancement which became increasingly threatening as Soviet influence over the Chinese revolution became more and more apparent."35 With many Japanese civilians it felt that "Under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and with the support of the Western democratic powers which wanted to keep China in a semi-colonial state safe from the continental advance of the Japanese. China was rapidly becoming a military-fascist country"36 and had no right to dominate Manchuria. To use the kind of terminology favored by Secretary Rusk it was unwilling to sacrifice the Manchurian people to their more powerful or better organized neighbors and it engaged in serious efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people and to encourage the responsible Chinese leadership that had itself been working for Manchurian independence.37
as well -- was motivated by the desire to secure Japanese rights and interests. A liberal professor of American history. Yasaka Takagi observes that the general support for the Japanese military in 1931 was similar to the Manifest Destiny psychology underlying American expansion into Florida. Texas. California. Cuba and Hawaii.39 He describes the bandit-infested warlord-controlled Manchurian region then subject to the clash of expansionist Chinese Nationalism and Japanese imperialism as similar to the Caribbean when the United States justified its Caribbean policy. He asks why there should be a Monroe Doctrine in
and suggests an international conference to resolve the outstanding problems of the area noting however that few Americans would "entertain even for a moment the idea of letting an international conference define the Monroe Doctrine and review Mexican relations." He points out quite correctly that "the peace machinery of the world is in itself primarily the creation of the dominant races of the earth of those who are the greatest beneficiaries from the maintenance of the status quo."
Nevertheless it appears that few Japanese were willing to justify the Manchurian incident and subsequent events on the "pragmatic" grounds of self-interest. Rather they emphasized the high moral character of the intervention the benefits it would bring to the suffering masses (once the terrorism had been suppressed) and the intention of establishing an "earthly paradise" in the independent state of
.. I doubt if one Japanese in a hundred really believes that they have actually broken the Kellogg Pact the Nine-Power Treaty and the Covenant of the League. A comparatively few thinking men are capable of frankly facing the facts and one Japanese said to me: "Yes we've broken every one of these instruments; we've waged open war; the arguments of 'self-defense' and 'self-determination for Manchuria' are rot; but we needed
and that's that." But such men are in the minority. The great majority of Japanese are astonishingly capable of really fooling themselves.... It isn't that the Japanese necessarily has his tongue in his cheek when he signs the obligation. It merely means that when the obligation runs counter to his own interests as he conceives them he will interpret the obligation to suit himself and according to his own lights and mentality he will very likely be perfectly honest in so doing.... Such a mentality is a great deal harder to deal with than a mentality which however brazen knows that it is in the wrong.
In this respect the analogy to current American behavior in Asia fails; more than one American in a hundred understands that we have actually violated our commitments not only at Geneva but more importantly to the United Nations Charter. However the general observation remains quite valid in the changed circumstances of today. It is very difficult to deal with the mentality that reinterprets obligations to suit self-interest and may very well be perfectly honest -- in some curious sense of the word -- in so doing.
They have trespassed on the prerogatives of the Emperor's rights of supreme command -- among other times in the conclusion of the London Naval Treaty and in the removal of the Inspector General of Military Education. Moreover they secretly conspired to steal the supreme command in the March Incident; and they united with disloyal professors in rebellious places. These are but a few of the most notable instances of their villainies...."42
Certainly this time of crucial decisions is a time to uphold the government -- President and Congress -- with our prayers. Yes to see that no mist of false doctrine or sleazy upbringing can upset the constitutional order which gives thrust and purpose to our country. And to remind ourselves and affirm that our leaders have the utilization of ever-present intelligence and wisdom from on high that they indeed can perceive and follow the "path which no fowl knoweth." (Job 28) [Italics mine]
One would have to search with some diligence in the literature of totalitarianism to find such a statement. An obscure Japanese military officer condemns the disloyal professors and other betrayers who have trespassed on the imperial prerogatives; a writer for one of our most distinguished and "responsible" newspapers denounces the pseudointellectuals of false doctrine and sleazy upbringing who refuse to recognize that our leaders are divinely inspired. There are to be sure important differences between the two situations; thus Captain Nonaka bombed the printing presses whereas his contemporary equivalent is featured by the responsible American press.
"44 Secretary of State Bryan in 1915 stated that "the United States frankly recognized that territorial contiguity creates special relations between Japan and these districts" (Shantung. South Manchuria and East Mongolia); and the Lansing-Ishii Notes of 1917 stated that "territorial propinquity creates special relations between countries and consequently the Government of the United States recognizes that Japan has special interests in China particularly in the part to which her possessions are contiguous."45 In fact the
and even after Chiang's massacre of Communists in 1927 showed little pro-Nationalist sympathy. As late as 1930 the American minister to China saw no difference between the Kuomintang and the warlord rebels in Peking and wrote that he could not "see any hope in any of the self-appointed leaders that are drifting over the land at the head of odd bands of troops."46 At the same time the
insisted on preserving its special rights including the right of extraterritoriality which exempted American citizens from Chinese law. In 1928 there were more than 5,200 American marines in China protecting these rights (the Japanese army in Manchuria at the time was about 10,000 troops).47 The other imperialist powers were even more insistent on protecting their rights and persisted in their anti-Nationalist attitudes right through the Manchurian incident.
they still retained the support of the American business community (as long as it did not itself feel threatened by these actions). In 1928. American consuls supported the dispatch of Japanese troops; one reported that their arrival "has brought a feeling of relief.. even among Chinese especially those of the substantial class."48 The business community remained relatively pro-Japanese even after Japanese actions in Manchuria and Shanghai in 1931-1932; "in general it was felt that the Japanese were fighting the battle of all foreigners against the Chinese who wished to destroy foreign rights and privileges.. that if the organizing abilities of the Japanese were turned loose in China it might be a good thing for everybody."49 Ambassador Grew on November 20. 1937 entered in his diary a note that the MacMurray Memorandum just circulated by one of the main American spokesmen on Far Eastern affairs. "would serve to relieve many of our fellow countrymen of the generally accepted theory that Japan has been a big bully and China the downtrodden victim."50 Commonly the American attitude remained that expressed by Ambassador Nelson Johnson who argued that the American interest dictated that we be neither pro-Chinese nor pro-Japanese but rather "must have a single eye to the.. effect of developments in the East.. upon the future interests of America," namely. "the fact that the great population of Asia offers a valuable outlet for the products of our industries and that as our industries develop we will be more and more interested in cultivating an outlet for them".51 Also typical is his explanation of the attitude we should adopt "toward these oriental peoples for whose future we became responsible." What we make of them will be "peculiarly the product of American idealism"; in their future "we shall continue to be interested as a father must be interested in the career of his son long after the son has left the family nest."52 He was concerned in fact that native American altruism would be too predominant in our treatment of our Asian wards and hoped rather that the "new period of American international relations" would be "characterized by the acquisitive practical side of American life rather than its idealistic and altruistic side."
The depression of 1929 marked the final collapse of the attempt of Japanese civilians to live by the rules established by the Western powers. Just as the depression struck the new Hamaguchi cabinet adopted the gold standard in an attempt to link the Japanese economy more closely with the West foregoing the previous attempts at unilateral Sino-Japanese "co-prosperity." An immediate consequence was a drastic decline in Japanese exports. In 1931.
Western economic policies of the 1930s made an intolerable situation still worse as was reported regularly in the conferences of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). The report of the Banff conference of August 1933 noted that "the Indian Government in an attempt to foster its own cotton industry imposed an almost prohibitive tariff on imported cotton goods the effects of which were of course felt chiefly by Japanese traders whose markets in India had been growing rapidly."59 "Japan which is a rapidly growing industrial nation has a special need for... [mineral resources] .. and is faced with a serious shortage of iron steel oil and a number of important industrial minerals under her domestic control while on the other hand the greater part of the supplies of tin and rubber not only of the Pacific area but for the whole world are by historical accident largely under the control of Great Britain and the Netherlands."60 The same was true of iron and oil of course. In 1932. Japanese exports of cotton piece-goods for the first time exceeded those of
did not have the resiliency to absorb such a serious shock to its economy. The textile industry which was hit most severely by the discriminatory policies of the major imperialist powers produced nearly half of the total value of manufactured goods and about two thirds of the value of Japanese exports and employed about half of the factory workers. Though industrialized by Asian standards. Japan had only about one seventh the energy capacity per capita of Germany; from 1927 to 1932 its pig-iron production was 44 percent that of Luxemburg and its steel production about 95 percent.63 It was in no position to tolerate a situation in which India. Malaya. Indochina and the Philippines erected tariff barriers favoring the mother country and could not survive the deterioration in its very substantial trade with the United States and the sharp decline in the China trade. It was in fact being suffocated by the American and British and other Western imperial systems which quickly abandoned their lofty liberal rhetoric as soon as the shoe began to pinch.
.. Japan demands that China in accordance with the principle of equality between the two countries should recognize the freedom of residence and trade on the part of Japanese subjects in the interior of China with a view to promoting the economic interests of both peoples; and that in the light of the historical and economic relations between the two nations. China should extend to Japan facilities for the development of China's natural resources especially in the regions of North China and Inner Mongolia.66
from Communism."69 The latter was a particularly critical matter. "The Japanese felt that the United Front and the Sino-Soviet pact of 1937 were steps toward the destruction of Nationalist China and the Bolshevization of East Asia."70 The Japanese were furthermore quite willing to withdraw their troops once the "illegal acts" by Communists and other lawless elements were terminated,71 and the safety and rights of Japanese and Korean residents in
to perform the obligations of a sovereign state in the protection of foreign citizens and their property" (September 2. 1925). The Washington Treaty powers were "prepared to consider the Chinese government's proposal for the modification of existing treaties in measure as the Chinese authorities demonstrated their willingness and ability to fulfill their obligations and to assume the protection of foreign rights and interests now safeguarded by the exceptional provisions of those treaties," and admonished China of "the necessity of giving concrete evidence of its ability and willingness to enforce respect for the safety of foreign lives and property and to suppress disorders and anti-foreign agitations" as a precondition for the carrying on of negotiations over the unequal treaties (notes of September 4. 1925).72 Because of this "inability and unwillingness," "none of the Treaty of Washington signatories gave effect to the treaty with respect to extra-territorial rights intervening in internal Chinese affairs tariffs courts etc. on grounds that their interests were prejudiced by lawlessness and the ineffectiveness of the government of China."73
With all of the talk about benevolence and generosity it is doubtful that Japanese spokesmen ever surpassed the level of fatuity that characterizes much of American scholarship which often seems mired in the rhetoric of a Fourth of July address. For example. Willard Thorp describes American policy in these terms: ".. we do not believe in exploitation piracy imperialism or war-mongering. In fact we have used our wealth to help other countries and our military strength to defend the independence of small nations"75 (in the manner indicated in note 62 for example). Many similar remarks might be cited but it is depressing to continue.
responded as follows: "The Government is of the opinion that any bombardment of an extensive zone containing a sizeable population engaged in their peaceful pursuits is inadmissible and runs counter to the principles of law and humanity."76 Now that these principles have been repealed it is difficult to recapture the feeling of horror at the events themselves and of contempt for those who had perpetrated them. For an American today to describe these events in the manner they deserve would be the ultimate in hypocrisy. For this reason I will say very little about them.
the insurgents who menaced the people and obstructed the attainment of wangtao [the perfect way of the ancient kings or the kingly way] had at one point reached 300,000 but the earnest and brave efforts of various subjugating agencies headed by the Japanese army brought about great results. Thus the number of insurgents declined from 120,000 in 1933 to 50,000 in 1934; 40,000 in 1935; 30,000 in 1936; and 20,000 in 1937. As of September. 1938 the number of insurgents is estimated at 10,000.78
and in part by the police. "Because of the success of these activities [which led to the winning of the support of the masses] the insurgent groups are now in an extremely precarious condition and the attainment of peace seems to be in sight." The "native bandits" and "rebellious troops from the local armies" had been absorbed by the Chinese Communist party during this period and were by 1938. "under the Communist hegemony operating with the slogan of 'Oppose
The use of military force against the insurgents is the principal means of attaining peace and order in that it will directly reduce the number of insurgents. But this method is to be used only as a last resort; it is not a method that is compatible with our nation's philosophy which is the realization of the kingly way (wangtao). The most appropriate means suitable for a righteous government is that of liberating the masses from old notions implanted by a long period of exploitative rule by military cliques and feudalistic habits and of dispelling the illusions created by Communist ideology. Furthermore the philosophy of the state calls for a proper understanding by the masses of the true nature of righteous government the reasons behind the establishment of the state and the current state of affairs. The insurgents should be given an opportunity to alter their misconceived notions and to become good citizens. This is why the operation for the inducement of surrender has such grave significance.
that the insurgent groups return to their original state of operation as soon as the subjugation period is terminated and troops are withdrawn."79 To counter this tendency a number of methods were used with considerable success. Communist groups were heavily infiltrated and alienation was created within the guerrilla groups. The formerly anti-Japanese Korean community was won over by "sociopolitical and accompanying psychological changes" ("revolutionary development," in modern phraseology) specifically by offering them "the possibility of owning land and escaping from the control of their Chinese landlords" (Lee p. 23). Among the Chinese the situation was different and more difficult.
Through propaganda and example the guerrillas awakened the patriotism of the people and convinced them that the guerrillas were the only true defenders of their interests. When necessary the guerrillas terrorized the reluctant elements as a warning to others. An intricate network of anti-Japanese societies peasant societies and the like provided the guerrillas both with the necessary supplies and with vital intelligence. Farmers who were located in regions too remote to be protected by the
Families were ordered to move from their farm homes with little or no notice even if the collective hamlets were not ready. Some farmers were forced to move just before the sowing season making it impossible for them to plant any seeds that year while others were ordered to move just before harvest. Many farmhouses seem to have been destroyed by troops engaged in mop-up operations before preparations had been made for the farmers' relocation. The only concern of the military was to cut off the guerrillas' sources of food supply and their contacts with the farmers. [Pp. 26 f.]
The collective-hamlet program was fairly successful though it was necessary to prevent insurgents from "assaulting the weakly protected collective hamlets and.. plundering food and grain" and to prevent infiltration. According to a report in 1939 many of the residents of the hamlets continued to "sympathize with Communism and secretly plan to join the insurgents," and the Communists continued to exploit the farmers' grievances with skill (Lee pp. 33 f.). Vice-Governor Itagaki formulated the problem succinctly: "We are not afraid of Communist propaganda; but we are worried because the material for propaganda can be found in the farmers' lives. We are not afraid of the ignition of fire; rather we are afraid of the seeping oil" (p. 34).
The Japanese undertook a number of what are now called "population control methods," including registration of residents issuance of residence certificates unscheduled searches and so on.80 They also made use of the method of reward and punishment recommended by more recent theorists of pacification (see Lee pp. 39-40).81 The Japanese understood that "it was totally unrealistic to expect reforms or innovations to be initiated by those who were already well off" and therefore replaced the former "local gentry" by "young and capable administrative personnel" who were "trained to assist the local administrators through the Hsueh-ho-hui the government-sponsored organization to recruit mass support for the Manchukuo regime" (p. 46). Many abuses at the village level were also eliminated in an attempt to wean the villagers from their traditional belief that the government is merely an agency of exploitation. Extensive propaganda efforts were conducted to win the hearts and minds of the villagers (cf pp. 55 f.). In comparison with American efforts at pacification the Japanese appear to have achieved considerable success -- if these documents can be believed -- in part apparently because Japan was not committed to guaranteeing the persistence of the old semi-feudal order and was less solicitous of property rights. The reports indicate that by 1940 the Communist guerrillas had been virtually exterminated in
It must be said that the economic and spiritual impact of the reconstruction activities on the citizens of the province has been very uplifting. We have observed an increase in the areas under cultivation as a result of the recovery of abandoned lands; an increase in agricultural production owing to improvements in seeds; an increase of farmers' cash incomes as a result of improvement in market facilities; remarkable progress among merchants and industrialists assisted by government loans; and the winning of public support through medical treatment and the administration of medicine.82
they could be shown reports of the sort just quoted and warned of the atrocities that would be sure to follow were Japanese troops to be removed and the Communist guerrillas given a free hand. Obviously regardless of cost the Japanese must continue to use limited means to secure law and order and to permit the responsible elements of Manchurian society to build an independent nation free from externally directed terror.
The construction of the defense hamlets must be enforced -- with tears. We issue small subsidy funds and severe orders [to the farmers] telling them to move to a designated location by such and such a date and that this is the last order. But it is too miserable [to watch] the farmers destroying their accustomed houses and [to see] little innocent babies wrapped in rags and smiling on carts that are carrying the household goods away. A few days ago a girl of sixteen or seventeen made me weep by coming to my office at the prefectural government and kneeling down to beg me to spare her house. She said. "Do we really have to tear down our house councilor?" She had walked a long way to town thinking. "If I asked the councilor something could be done." Watching the bony back of the little girl who was quietly led out by the office boy. I closed my eyes and told myself. "You will go to hell." The hardship of the Japanese police officers at the forefront who have to guide the coercive operation directly is beyond imagination. I was told many times while I was on my inspection tours of the front. "I cannot go on with this kind of wretched work. I will quit and go home." These words uttered [as we sat] around a lamp sipping kaoliang gin sounded as though someone was spitting blood. In each case we had to console and keep telling each other that this was the last hill that needed to be conquered. The program was forced through mercilessly inhumanely without emotion -- as if driving a horse. As a result more than 100 defense hamlets were constructed throughout the prefecture. These were built with blood tears and sweat.84
"the Japanese suffered from guerrilla attacks and from their inability to distinguish a guerrilla from a villager." In the north the policy implemented was "the physical destruction of all life and property in an area where guerrillas were thought to exist.. whereas in central China a policy of establishing so-called Model Peace Zones was pursued... [consisting] of expelling the Communists from certain very rich agricultural areas and then following this military phase of integrating the cleared area into the Japanese satellite economy." The latter policy was far more successful and it was possible to place the government in Chinese hands. There was also a "strategic hamlet" program described in the following terms in a recent Japanese commentary:
... The concept of "Chinghsiang" lies in making the village or hamlet the basis for reforming government at the grass-root level; and by concentrating all military political economic and ideological effort on a single village in building it up into a peaceful stabilized and secure area; then by using this village as a model district in gradually extending security and stability to cover the whole "hsien" (county) the whole province and eventually the whole country.86
appeared invincible. With the termination of the Japanese-American commercial treaty in January 1940. Japan turned to "other commercial channels," that is to plans for occupation of French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies and for gaining "independence" for the Philippines. The expiration of the treaty was the turning point that led many moderates towards support for the Axis powers.87
"92 It may be that the underlying motive was to justify the forthcoming American involvement in the European war. In any event the American terms by November were such that Japan would have had to abandon totally its attempt to secure "special interests" of the sort possessed by the United States and Britain in the areas under their domination as well as its alliance with the Axis powers becoming a mere "subcontractor" in the emerging American world system. Japan chose war -- as we now know with no expectation of victory over the United States but in the hope "that the Americans confronted by a German victory in Europe and weary of war in the Pacific would agree to a negotiated peace in which Japan would be recognized as the dominant power in Eastern Asia."93
professed to be shocked. In his view of the matter the Monroe Doctrine. "as we interpret and apply it uniformly since 1823 only contemplates steps for our physical safety," whereas Japan is bent on aggression.94 He deplored the "simplicity of mind that made it difficult for... [Japanese generals] .. to see why the United States on the one hand should assert leadership in the Western Hemisphere with the Monroe Doctrine and on the other want to interfere with Japan's assuming leadership in Asia," and he asked Nomura. "Why can't the Japanese Government educate the generals" to a more correct understanding of this fundamental distinction?95
American scholars were equally offended by the analogy. W. W. Willoughby in a detailed analysis concludes that no comparison can be made between the Monroe Doctrine and Japan's plans.96 The United States he asserts has never resorted to the Monroe Doctrine to demand "that it be given special commercial or other economic privileges in the other American States." Rather. "it has exercised its powers of military intervention or of financial administration for the benefit of the peoples of the countries concerned or of those who have had just pecuniary claims against them." He cites with approval the discussion by G. H. Blakeslee in Foreign Affairs,97 which characterizes the main difference between the American and Japanese position in this way:
This contribution to the history of imperialist apologia at least has the merit of originality. To my knowledge no one had previously argued that attempts by one nation to dominate another are proper to the extent that the victim is smaller and weaker than the power that is bent on subjugating it. However this argument is perhaps surpassed in acuity by Blakeslee's next explanation of the fundamental error in the Japanese analogy:
American willingness to submit to the people's will in the Caribbean was in fact nicely illustrated in the fall of 1933 a few months after Blakeslee's article appeared when Ramón Grau San Martín came into power in Cuba with a program that interrupted what Sumner Welles described as the attempt to secure "a practical monopoly of the Cuban market for American imports." As Welles noted this government was "highly prejudicial to our interest.. our own commercial and export interests cannot be revived under this government." Consequently. Roosevelt refused to recognize the Grau government and Welles commenced his intrigues (which he admitted were "anomalous") with Batista who was in his judgment. "the only individual in
It is this benevolence of intent that the Japanese do not share. Consequently their appeal to the precedent of American practice is entirely without worth. The matter is simply put in a recent study of postwar American foreign policy which is very critical of its recent directions: ".. the American empire came into being by accident and has been maintained from a sense of benevolence." ... "We engaged in a kind of welfare imperialism empire-building for noble ends rather than for such base motives as profit and influence." ... "We have not exploited our empire." ".. have we not been generous with our clients and allies sending them vast amounts of money and even sacrificing the lives of our own soldiers on their behalf? Of course we have."99
in 1941 and in earlier years. The predominant American opinion remains that the only proper response was the one that was adopted. In contrast. "realists" of the Grew-Kennan variety take the position expressed by Schroeder who argues against the mistake of basing policy on an "emphasis on meting out justice rather than doing good." The "moralistic" position of
" in Schroeder's view was not based on "sinister design or warlike intent but on a sincere and uncompromising adherence to moral principles and liberal doctrines." The "realistic" approach of accommodation favored by Grew would not have been immoral he argues. "It would have constituted only a recognition that the American government was not then in a position to enforce its principles reserving for
In contrast to the alternatives of "realism" and "moralism," so defined the revolutionary pacifism of Muste seems to me both eminently realistic and highly moral. Furthermore even if we were to grant the claim that the United States simply acted in legitimate self-defense subsequent events in Asia have amply hideously confirmed Muste's basic premise that "the means one uses inevitably incorporate themselves into his ends and if evil will defeat him." Whether Muste's was in fact the most realistic and moral position at the time may be debated but I think there is no doubt that its remoteness from the American consciousness was a great tragedy. The lack of a radical critique of the sort that Muste and a few others sought to develop was one of the factors that contributed to the atrocity of
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