/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

You might want to check out “Against Japanism”, pretty sure it’s on Spotify. It’s from a Japanese dude living in Canada. He’s a Marxist and talks a lot about Japanese Marxists and their theories. I think the podcast title itself came from a book by one Japanese communist imprisoned during the Fascist era who analyzed Japanese Fascism and tried to explain it.

There was never such a thing as "Japense fascism" or militarism. Imperial Japan wasn't that different to Britain or France or any other imperialist state at the time. After the war, the Allies invented the idea of "Japanese fascism" because the Tokyo war crimes tribuneral looked pretty hypocritical and third worldies were beginning to point fingers. If the Japanese are a bunch of raping thugs, what about the French? What about America? That was the reason for Radhabinod Pal's dissenting judgement at Tokyo. The victors have tried dressing up the war as a struggle against fascism or some sort of innate Japanese evil that's in their blood or something. Hypocrasy of the highest order but one that's allowed Japanese nationalists to defer responsibility by arguing every claim against Japan was victor's justice and biased.

The Imperial Japanese state did believe its ruling class were more developed and evolved than other people's of Asia and therefore they had a right to conquer those lands and enact their own version of a Monroe Doctrine (they actually called it that). The Japanese race would be the big brother to the Chinese and Koreans keeping them in a subserviant tutaledge untill they grow up and earn their independence (copied from the Anglo-French mandate system in the Middle East). At the same time, the Japanese were anti-imperialist and pan-Asianist. As the most civilized Asian power, Japan has a duty to help liberate Asia from the white man and create a new regional order based on Asian coprosperity a kind of Pacific NATO for weebs. This is the kind of inconsistency that made the Japanese model unworkable. It was imperialist anti-imperalism. Cemil Aydin compares it to the US invasion of Iraq with the whole R2P thing and bringing democracy bullshit.

Unless you see the British empire as fascist, there was nothing especially fascist about Showa era Japan. An argument I've seen is that there was a Japanese fascism but it was defeated in the Feburary 26 Incident. The leaders of the coup attempt were militant and aggressive expansionists, many were also feirce pan-Asianists, socialists, and anti-capitalists, but I don't think they were really more aggressive/expansionist than any other faction in the army or government at the time.

Post WW2 Japan was more fascist than Imperial Japan. You are not ready for this trvthnvke

>>1797811
>Unless you see the British empire as fascist
You don't?

>>1797830
i am ready, give me the mental gymnastics that made you reach this conclusion

>>1797831
I guess you can make the argument but no. The British empire was a liberal state and people need to wake up to the reality that liberalism is just as bad as fascism.

>>1797832
There's a lot of continuity between the postwar state and the Showa era. Both are nation-states based on a single race or ethnic group is dominant to the exclusion of others (especially Koreans). Japanese or Yamato race is made into something special and exceptional or Japan has exceptional and special cultural values irrespective of race. Both are Westernizing states where government and society try to model themselves on Europe and America, promote the wholesale Westernization and Americanization of society. Scrubbing away traditional rural society and anything deemed "feudal." Both are authoritarian states although modern Japan slightly less so.

You could say somethings are actually worse because at least Showa Japan was explicitly committed to a non-Westcentric world order and multipolarity whereas modern Japan is effectively a client state. Japanese society has entered a phase of near total social breakdown under the conditions of hyper liberal capitalism. One of its biggest exports is porn, people are overworked, employment is precarious, traditional family arrangements have broken down, everywhere people are alienated and atomized with no real moral fiber. Once this happens, its like brain cancer. Its a slippery slope to the burger brainmelt of yankee land.

>>1797811
The notion that showa japan was not fascist but rather just another form of the british and french empires is not correct
For example lets look at elements of what made fascism, fascism
the "anti-capitalism":
If we look at imperial japan, the showa statists had many anti capitalist elements. This is seen by how the imperial way faction and some degree the control faction adopated a lot of ikki kita beliefs. ikka kita who was originally a "socialist", but then morphed later into praticlaly a fascist.
Additionally the imperial way and to some extension the control faction was utterly disgusted by zaibatsu capitalism and how it controlled and ruined the nation. How the government, and even some upper echlons of the military was a puppet of corporate interests. This is best seen in the song of the showa restortaion, where they say the zaibatsu are playing the country like go(a board game). And how if we examine the showa restortations, specifically the imperial way, they seethed about zaibatasu capitalism, and how it ruined the nation, and the "common people"
national rebirth: Which leads to another thing, the national rebirth. The showa statists did not only believe in expansion. They believed in the radical reconstruction of the nation. One where the evils of capitalism was curtailed, and instead replaced by what was essestionally a pseudo planned economy. One where the political organizations would be heavily reconstructed to something unaffected by the evils of zaibatsu capitalism and liberalism(the national defense state). one, where society wise, the evils of western culture and other western influences(political, economic and etc) was curtailed and destroyed. And one where traditional japanese culture was revived though in a more modern context(though some idiots wanted a full return…).
Essentially the showa statists believed that japan had to be reconstructed from the bottom up. To become a new society that returns back to the purity of the meiji restortation.
Manchuko: which leads to manchuko. While the imperial way was purged in japan(though in reality, the purge was very limited). A lot of the ideas lived on.
For example crucial members who played a part in the 1936 coup, and other coups. Or crucial members that were part of the "radical" factions of japan, were key players in the construction of manchuko. And they would bring the ideas of the imperial way faction to manchuko. If there was any place where the imperial way factions were very implemented it was manchuria
And it is here where we see the most extreme intepertations of the showa restoration. Take a lot of the things, I mentioned before and times it by 10. Except in the case of manchuko, it was basically "new".
Unlike japan where they had to deal with the concentration of preexisting zaibatsu, political instutions which they despised, and societal dyanmics that were already well in place, in manchuko they pretty much had free reign. Except for the poor chinese, and manchurians there(which the japanese unofficially didnt give a shit about overall)the junta there was free to create their new society. Which we can see, by how it was in manchuko where the most strongest implementations of the "pseudo planned economy", the national defense state, the reform bureacrats, the "pure" new japanese culture/society, and etc were implemented in manchuko.

And if you want to read more about this, I suggest you read the park chung hee book. Despite what the title suggests, its mainly a examaination and anlysis of imperial japan and manchuko. And how these things later played a role, on how south korea went. I recommend anons to read it since this is a recent highly detailed anlysis on showa japan and its offshoots.

>>1797625
>Against Japanism
That dude is completely retarded on multipolarity and China.

>>1797878
>The notion that showa japan was not fascist but rather just another form of the british and french empires is not correct
I don't see strong evidence that A. Japan had a distinctive form of fascism on the same level as Italian and German fascisms and this fascism was the official ideology of the Japanese state during the Showa era. B. This Japanese fascism largely explains the behavior of the Japanese state during the 30s and the war years. Did Japan commit atrocities? Yes. Did they operate a brutal colonial regime? Yes. Were they expansionist? Yes. Did they have racial and eugenic theories to justify this? Yes. But unless you use fascist as a generic insult, Showa Japan wasn't more or less fascist than the British empire which had all of these features too.

The existence of a "fascist ideology" in the 30s is wheeled out by Japanese intellectuals to paper over the continuities between the pre and postwar Japan while Western intellectuals deploy "fascism" as a fallguy to distract from their own societies historical sins.

>>1797879
We're all wrong about something, you too.

>>1797832
Japan after WW2 is the bulwark of reaction. They entrapped the Philippines in particular and the SEA in general as their peripheral economic zone through the various loans given to US-backed dictators like Marcos, they propped up Taiwan AND South Korea (even if inadvertently), they facilitated the spread of various CIA-backed rightist cults, etc
These are things that did not happen under Imperial Japan, which, reactionary as it was, played a historically progressive role against Western Colonialism not unlike Russia today. Japan after WW2 played a simply reactionary role both in-itself and in motion.
>>1797838
What this anon said too. Japan did not have a Labour party-like formation that helped deccelerate the march of capitalism and provided a temporary salve to neoliberalism. As such the contradictions between the advancement of technology and the capitalist status quo is intensified to an extreme degree, resulting in a hyperreal and schizoid world not unlike what's happening in other US client states like Pakistan for example

>>1797811
>This is the kind of inconsistency that made the Japanese model unworkable. It was imperialist anti-imperalism.
It's not that strange tbqh. Europeans cited all kinds of "progressive" sounding justifications for their own imperialism such as abolishing slavery.

>>1797901
you know anon, ive spent some time thinking about this and well…I disagree
national rebirth:
This did happen in france, early germany and britain
primarcy of the military:
This did happen in france and early germany
Colonial expiremental states:
british india and etc

but what I cant find is
"anti-capitalism" :
In showa japan, there were movements against the evils of zaibatsu capitalism. This hatred and disgust of it was shared by the imperial way and control factions. And both wanted to replace the zaibatsu capitalist system with something they considered different.
The thing is I cant really find anything really comparable to that in the other empires. The british empire was the embodiment of capitalism. Prussia and the early german empire wanted to copy the british empire, including their capitalist system. The french empire wasn't also against capitalism either.
And while you can point to elements in them, that were, those were mostly associated with socialist and communist elements. Not the full on, "far-right" groups that were the imperial way and control factions. Which often shared elements closer to….fascist movements in italy and germany (though of course with differences)
Which leads to another thing, the context of these movements. The movements in showa japan reacted against what they find to be imported liberal western values. They reacted against what they found to be liberal individual, or other "western values". And they also reacted against what they percieved to be the encroaching "liberal capitalism" that started appearing during the meiji era.
I dont really see anything anologous with that with the other empires. The british empire was where these things were sparked. The french empire was where these things were expanded. And the german empire followed a modified version of these things, that still pratically embraced them.
If anything, how japan reacted was closer to how certain fascist movements in italy and nazi germany reacted, but of course with differences.

>>1798010
>These are things that did not happen under Imperial Japan, which, reactionary as it was, played a historically progressive role against Western Colonialism not unlike Russia today.
I wish all of you uyghurs were this honest.