Japanese resistance during the Shōwa period



Japanese resistance during the Shōwa period was resistance by dissident Japanese individuals and organizations to the Empire of Japan (1868–1947) during the Shōwa period (1926–1989), the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito.

Japan's militarist era began during the early 1930s of the Shōwa period. The February 26 Incident, a failed military coup in February 26, 1936, increased the role of the mainstream military leadership in the government, as civilian officials depended more and more on the army to maintain stability. The Peace Preservation Law of 1925 criminalized communism, socialism, and any other ideologies that threatened the Empire of Japan. The Second Sino-Japanese War, and World War II broke out during the period, where the Japanese Military committed war crimes.

Assassination attempts on Hirohito before he became Emperor
20th century Japan was no stranger to assassination attempts on its Emperors. Japanese anarchist Kotoku Shusui was executed along with 11 others in the attempted assassination of Emperor Meiji. There had been thirty-five public acts of disrespect toward Hirohito during his regency from 1921 to 1926. During his regency, Hirohito became the target of assassination by Japanese dissidents. Daisuke Namba, a Japanese communist, attempted to assassinate Hirohito in 1923. Namba had been outraged by the atrocities committed against Koreans, socialists, and labor leaders during the Kanto earthquake. He was executed following the assassinations' failure. Korean independence fighter, Park Yeol, and his Japanese lover, anarchist Kaneko Fumiko, allegedly plotted to assassinate Prince Hirohito, and his father, Emperor Taishō, by bombing the prince's wedding in 1925. Kaneko committed suicide while in prison, and Park was imprisoned until the end of World War II.

Communist movement
The Japanese authorities cracked down on the communist movement before the beginning of World War II. The Japanese Communist Party, founded in 1922, was outlawed in Japan until the end of World War II. The March 15 Incident of 1928 was a mass arrest of suspected communists.

The Salon de thé François was a tea salon that funded the banned Japanese Communist Party, and distributed the anti-fascist Doyōbi newspaper before the newspaper was disbanded by the government. There were many active Japanese members of the United States Communist Party in 1932-1933.

Communists, and suspected communists were subjected to brutal torture at the hands of police interrogators. Takiji Kobayashi, a Japanese proletarian writer, and member of the Japanese Communist Party was allegedly tortured to death by Japanese authorities.

Labour-Farmer Party
The Labour-Farmer Party was a left-wing political party that advocated universal suffrage, minimum wages, and women's rights. It was banned in 1928. In February 1929, Yamamoto Senji, a Labour-Farmer Party candidate for Kyoto at the 1928 general election under universal suffrage, was killed by a right-wing assassin. Party member Ikuo Oyama fled Japan in 1933 to the United States where he got a job at Northwestern University.

Takigawa incident
In 1933, Shigenao Konishi, president of Kyoto University, was requested by the government to dismiss Professor Yukitoki Takigawa, who was a critic of his country's judicial systems. Konishi rejected the request, but due to pressure from the military, and nationalists, Takigawa was fired from the university. This lead to mass protests in Kyoto University. During Ichirō Hatoyama's term as education minister, a number of elementary school teachers were also dismissed for having "dangerous thoughts".

Ōmoto sect
The Ōmoto religious sect was condemned for revering deities other than the Sun Goddess Ameratsu. On December 8, 1935, police vandalized the Omoto headquarters, and arrested nearly a thousand sect members. Four years later, the Religious Organizations Law was passed, which gave the government the power to dissolve any religious organization that went against the "The Imperial Way.

Sorge spy ring


The Sorge spy ring operated inside Japan for seven years, and was headed by Soviet Spy Richard Sorge. Richard, along with Hotsumi Ozaki, and a small circle of underground Japanese Communists, gathered intelligence on Japan for the Soviet Union. Ozaki, a Japanese journalst, was trying to prevent a Sino-Japanese war.

By 1941, all the members of the ring had been arrested. Yotoku Miyagi, an Okinawan member of the ring, died in prison. The Order of the Patriotic War (Second Class) was posthumously awarded to Yotoku, in 1964. Ozaki and Sorge were executed in 1944. Ozaki became viewed as an anti-militarist martyr after World War II.

Religious persecution
The Diet passed the Religious Organizations Law (Shukyo Dantai Ho) of 1939, which allowed the state to disband any religious organization that went against the "The Imperial Way. During the war, there were cases of dissident religions being persecuted.

Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda, and other members of the controversial Sokka Gakkai buddhist movement were imprisoned in 1943 as "thought criminals" for advising their followers not to purchase amulets from the Grand Shrine of Ise. Tsunesaburō Makiguchi died in Sugamo Prison in 1944. After World War II, Toda restored the movement, and adopted shaku-buku, a method of forced conversion.

Jehova's Witnesses were one (they say the only one) religious group to be persecuted by all combatant, and some non-combatant, nations during the Second World War. Evidence indicates that it was due to their neutrality stand and incitement of the authorities. Witnesses in Japan suffered imprisonment and torture. There were incidents in the Japanese military of Jehova's Witnesses refusing to bear arms.

Akashi Junzo, and other members of the Japan branch of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society were persecuted by the government. Its members resisted the draft, including Akashi Mahito who was Akashi Junzo's eldest son who was recruited by the army, but returned the rifle given to him due to his non-violent beliefs.

Resistance abroad
Due to government suppression, some resisters went abroad, joining the Empire's enemies during the war. Japanese anti-militarists in the U.S produced American propaganda aimed at Japanese POWs, and civilians. The Office of War Information, and the Office of Strategic Services recruited Japanese in the U.S against the Empire of Japan. They recruited political dissidents Ayako Ishigaki,Eitaro Ishigaki, Taro Yashima, and Mitsu Yashima. Karl Yoneda, a kibei (Japanese-American educated in Japan) dissident on the run from the Japanese secret police, joined the U.S Army.

Others joined the Chinese resistance during the Second Sino-Japanese war such as Wataru Kaji, and communist Sanzo Nosaka where they engaged in propaganda work against the Empire of Japan. The Japanese wives of overseas Chinese students accompanied their husbands to China, and some of these wives made propaganda broadcasts against Japan. Esparantist Teru Hasegawa, a strong supporter of China, broadcast propaganda against the Japanese for the Kuomintang. Kiyoko Hara, under the guidance of Nosaka, made propaganda broadcasts that were targeted at Japanese soldiers.

Disillusionment with Tojo Government in later years of World War II
As the war progressed, many Japanese leaders became more inclined to believe Japan's defeat, and became disillusioned with General Hideki Tojo. Admiral Sokichi Takagi was involved in an unexecuted plot to assassinate Tojo. Tojo's wife received an anonymous phone call asking her "Hasn't Tojo committed hara kiri yet.?" following the Fall of Saipan In April 1944, Prince Konoye sought the assistance of Prince Higashikuni and Prince Kaya in persuading the Emperor to oust Hideki Tojo.

Major Tsunoda Tomoshige planned to deliver a bomb laced with potassium cyanide to Tojo's office. Tsunoda was associated with members of Ishiwara Kanji's East Asia League, and served under Prince Mikasa in China. In July 1944, Prince Mikasa showed Prince Higashikuni a pamphlet that he had received from Major Tsunoda Tomoshige, which called for the resignation of Tojo, the establishment of a cabinet under Higashikuni and immediate peace talks with the Allies through Moscow. Tsunoda admitted that he planned to kill Tojo. who resigned in July 1944, and launch a new cabinet, headed by Prince Higashikuni. Tsunoda was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

"Liberation" of Japan
The SCAP liberated some three thousand Japanese political prisoners, most of them marxist and communist intellectuals and politicians. The Marxist/leftist liberals at first welcomed the US occupation forces as a liberation army in the spirit of the Grand Alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in World War II.

During the occupation, the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, which suppressed political dissidents, was abolished.

United States support for Japanese nationalism
During World War II, the U.S allied with Japanese leftists, but the relationship soured during the Cold War. The Central Intelligence Agency funded the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party in order to make the country a bulwark against Communism in Asia and to undermine the Japanese left. Kishi Nobusuke, who during the war, directed the abduction and mass transport of Chinese forced laborers to Japan, was elected prime minister in 1957, allegedly with the aid of CIA funds, and became a trusted ally of the U.S during the Cold War. Yoshio Kodama, a Japanese ultranationalist, yakuza gangster, Class A War Criminal, and anti-communist was recruited by the CIA. Former officers in the Imperial Japanese Military, many of them holding extreme right-wing views, were recruited by Major General Charles Willoughby's G-2 (U.S Army Intelligence) for anti-leftist operations.

Relationships with Japanese allies during World War II also deteriorated. Wataru Kaji was allegedly tortured by the CIA. Sanzo Nosaka played a part in the organizing of student riots against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

Film

 * Millennium Actress, anime film by Satoshi Kon The main heroine spent most of her life searching for a painter and revolutionary that she helped to escape the police.
 * Kabei: Our Mother, a 2008 Japanese film starring Sayuri Yoshinaga and directed by Yoji Yamada. Shigeru Nogami, the husband of Kayo, is accused of being a communist and imprisoned for speaking out against the government in 1940s Tokyo.
 * No Regrets for Our Youth, a 1946 film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. Is based on the Takigawa incident.
 * The Human Condition film series Based in part on a six-volume novel by Junpei Gomikawa and, in part, on the film's director Masaki Kobayashi's own wartime experiences as a pacifist trying to survive in the Japanese army.

Books

 * "Chapter 10 Dissent and Resistance: Change from Within" from the history book, Pacific War, 1931-1945 By Saburo Ienaga, focuses on the Japanese Resistance.
 * An Artist of the Floating World, a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
 * The Garden of Evening Mists by Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng
 * The New Sun by Taro Yashima was written in 1943 and tells of his experiences as a young man under the harsh Japanese regime.