WHAT IS JAPANESE TOTALITARIANISM? - HISTORY - 2025

The Japanese totalitarianism was the form of government that developed in the Japanese state between 1925 and 1945 under Emperor Hirohito's mandate. At the end of the First World War, in Germany under Nazism, Italy under Fascism, and in Russia and Japan, leaders were strengthened who displayed their authority in the manner of gods. Their image was mythical and before their governed they appeared as the saviors of the nation.

A totalitarian government encourages citizens to worship their leader and uses different tools to restore honor to the country, as well as justify any performance to make the nation dominate the world. So did Hitler, so did Stalin, and so did Hiroito along with his military.

Hiroito, December 31, 1934

Characteristics of Japanese totalitarianism

Totalitarianism bases its development on feelings of great nationalism nourished by religious ideas. It exceeds the limits of the State because it considers a country as a united and indivisible nation based on traditional values ​​such as honesty and morality.

Second, a totalitarian government promulgates an idea of ​​superiority over other nations and thus justifies expansionist actions.

To achieve expansion, and as a third characteristic, dominance prevails over another, which is indicated as inferior.

Totalitarianism exercises its power through military forces in regimes that are generally of terror and through political propaganda based on lies.

In Japan particularly values ​​extracted from Buddhism, Confucianism, and even Shintoism, based on the worship of nature spirits or Kami, were promoted for years.

These philosophical tendencies, which united the Japanese people so much, were an aspect that the totalitarian regime took advantage of.

Emperor Hiroito

In 1926, Emperor Hiroito, a supreme symbol of unity of the nation, a sacred man and owner of the Japanese Empire, ascended to the throne. At the age of 25, he concentrated the powers of head of state, supreme commander of the army and the navy and defined himself as a total authority to direct the war.

With Hiroito a totalitarian regime began in Japan. Nationalism, patriotism and expansionism were values ​​that he managed to establish in the hearts of the Japanese.

And although the emperor gave orders over the entire territory, seeing it was almost impossible since his orders were carried out through a secret hierarchy system.

But unlike other totalitarian states such as Germany or Italy, at the time, Hiroito maintained pluralism in ideas as long as they remained alienated in nationalist precepts.

He promoted education and patriotic training and awarded the military career with honor; that's how the kamikazes were born, soldiers who dreamed of giving their lives in war for their country (2).

Hiroito's Minister of War

Hideki Tojo was an outstanding military man who began his rise to power in 1935, thanks to the idea of ​​invading China so that Japan could seize new natural resources. His defiant character heralded the demise of democracy.

The idea of ​​invading China began in the city of Manchuria, on July 8, 1937. Four months later the Japanese troops arrived in Shanghai and the city of Naiki where more than 200,000 people were massacred during the occupation.

This action cost Japan the exit of the League of Nations of its own free will, since the member countries did not support its expansionist campaign.

While Japan was gaining territory, at the same time it was losing to the North American market. He was punished by freezing his assets in the United States who stopped distributing oil, tin and other materials to them.

One of the soldiers who accompanied him in this campaign was Tetsuzan Nagata, who was assassinated by forces that did not agree with the war in China.

The very affected Emperor Hiroito gave all the power to the already Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo to restore order.

The years of terror

Tojo became head of the military forces and thus began a time of terror in which thousands of Japanese perished who, although they revered the emperor, did not agree with his actions.

For a little over five years in Japan, disappearances and cruel torture occurred under the orders of the Kempeitai, a paramilitary force capable of the worst atrocities. Tojo learned the criminal actions covered by war decrees that he copied from Hitler and Mussolini.

Tojo was a loyal admirer of the Nazi nationalists and his ideas about China coincided on the precept that a superior race has the right to expand its territory and use cheap labor from the invaded countries; he considered the Chinese population a subhuman race (3).

More than 300,000 Chinese were brutally massacred in three weeks of occupation, burned, buried alive or beheaded by order of Tajo, known to his friends as "La Navaja".

Admiring his own prominence, Tojo proposed expansion throughout Asia. The emperor not only agreed but also appointed him minister of war with full powers to develop the new company (4).

The end of Japanese totalitarianism

With the support of Hiroito the expansion of the Japanese army in the Pacific began. The Philippines, Malaysia, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and Hong Kong were occupied by Japanese force while France, England, and the United States retaliated in response to these military campaigns.

The drastic measures implemented by the Americans made Tojo devise a plan to invade the US military base at Pearl Harbor, action that led to the declaration of an open war (5).

Although Japan won several battles against the United States, it was with the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that Japan surrendered and thus collapsed a totalitarian regime that ruled Japan for almost 30 years.

Hirohito had to agree with General Douglas Mac Arthur, commander of the allied forces in the South Pacific, to restore peace in Japan, agreeing to restore democracy.

References

1. Monje A. Apart Reí, 36. Magazine of Philosophy. serbal.pntic.mec.es
2. Hoyt, EP (1992). Hirohito: The emperor and the man. Air Force Magazine. vol 75 no 9. page 34-56
3. Dower, J. (1999). Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War IWWNorton & Company, inc. page 25-40
4. Craven WF (1983). The Army Air Forces in World War II. Volume 7. Services Around the World. dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA440397
5. Lenihan D. (1989). Submerged Cultural Resources Study: USS Arizona Memorial and Pearl Harbor National Historic Landmark. Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, National Park Service. P. 54-60.