State ultranationalism (超國家主義 or 超国家主義, ''Chōkokkashugi''; lit. "ultra-statism") or simply ultranationalism (ウルトラナショナリズム, ''Urutoranashonarizumu''), refers mainly to the radical statist movement of the Shōwa period, but it can also refer to extreme

Japanese nationalism Japanese nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts the belief that the Japanese people, Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture. Over the last two centuries, it has encompassed a broad range of ideas and sentimen ...

before and after the

Shōwa era The was a historical period of History of Japan, Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) from December 25, 1926, until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death on January 7, 1989. It was preceded by the T ...

. State ultranationalists use the authority of the state/nation (国家) through ''

Tennō The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

'' as the focus of public loyalty. Other

Ikki Kita was a Japanese author, intellectual and political philosopher who was active in early Shōwa period Japan. Drawing from an eclectic range of influences, Kita was a self-described socialist who has also been described by detractors as the "i ...

's "state socialism" or "national socialism" (国家社会主義) is a representative idea referred to as 超国家主義 in Japan.

History

Since the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, Japan's political practice had been dominated by statism/nationalism, and in the early 20th century, the middle and lower classes, led by Ikki Kita, who were dissatisfied with the control of national resources by the elder, important ministers, old and new ''

Kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'',

warlords Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throug ...

, ''

zaibatsu is a Japanese language, Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertical integration, vertically integrated business conglomerate (company), conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over signifi ...

'', and political parties heads since the Meiji Restoration, sought radical reforms and advocated that the representatives of the traditional statism/nationalism be indiscriminately categorized as the culprits of the evils, and that they should be killed one by one to show a break with the traditional statism since the Meiji Restoration. This was a break with the traditional statism/nationalism of the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

. This rupture was most fully manifested when the ''Tennō'' began to be viewed not as a symbol of tradition, but as a symbol of change, and the failed mutiny by ultra-nationalist junior officers in 1936 ultimately led to Japan's full-scale entry into the era of Japanese nationalist military government four years later.

Connection to fascism

Japanese liberal scholars, including Masao Maruyama, saw Japanese state ultranationalism as

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

and referred to it as . American historian Robert O. Paxton argues that with the absence of a mass revolutionary party and a rupture from the incumbent regime, Imperial Japan was merely "an expansionist military dictatorship with a high degree of state-sponsored mobilization

ather Ather Energy is an Indian electric two-wheeler manufacturer headquartered in Bengaluru. It was founded by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain in 2013. It manufactures electric scooters including the Ather 450 series and Ather Rizta. It has EV man ...

than as a fascist regime". British historian

Roger Griffin Roger David Griffin (born 31 January 1948) is a British professor of modern history and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. His principal interest is the socio-historical and ideological dynamics of fascism, as well as v ...

, called Putin's Russia and World War II-era Japan "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist".

Analysis by Masao Maruyama

Masao Maruyama, assessed that the Japanese statist/nationalist (国家主義) government model was similar to uropeanfascism, but not directly related to state/national-socialism (国家社会主義). However, he claimed that ultra-nationalism (超国家主義) as Japanese statism was clearly influenced by national-socialism. According to him, the proposal of apaneseultra-nationalism is based on ideal socialism and combines the ideologies of some national-socialism. According to the methodology of political practice, state/national-socialism is the socialism that the government promotes from top to bottom. Ultra-nationalists, on the one hand, wants the ''Tennō'' to accept their radical national-socialist ideology, but on the other hand, it causes problems at a low level and puts pressure on the government to reform. Eventually, Japan entered Japanese nationalism, which is similar to fascism, not a national-socialist state, but 40 years of ultra-nationalism have been a great success. Japan has been in a state of statism/nationalism (国家主義) and militarism (軍国主義) since the Meiji Restoration, but it was this "ultra-" (超) that led Japan to the military path of Japanese nationalism. And this "ultra-" is the Japanese practice of national-socialist ideology.

Ultranationalist organizations and political parties

Post-war

Greater Japan Patriotic Party The , frequently abbreviated to Aikokutō (愛国党, ''Aikokutō''), is a Japanese political party and far-right political group. It was created in 1951 by right-wing ultranationalist Bin Akao, who became the first head of the party. __NOTOC__ O ...

(1951–present) *

Tatenokai The or Shield Society was a private militia in Japan dedicated to traditional Japanese values and veneration of the Emperor. collected in (of that in pp.33–35) It was founded and led by author Yukio Mishima. The private militia was official ...

(1968–1970) *

National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party The is a neo-Nazi political party in Japan. It is headed by , who maintains a website and blog which includes praise for Adolf Hitler and the September 11 attacks. Pictures of Yamada, a Holocaust-denier, posing with Cabinet minister Sanae Taka ...

(1982–present) *

Nippon Kaigi is Japan's largest ultraconservative and ultranationalist far-right non-governmental organisation and lobbying group. It was established in 1997 and has approximately 38,000 to 40,000 members as of 2020. The group has significant influence i ...

(1997–present) *

Zaitokukai Zaitokukai, full name , is an ultra-nationalist and Far-right politics, far-right extremist political organization in Japan, which calls for an end to state welfare and alleged privileges afforded to Koreans in Japan, Zainichi Koreans. It has b ...

(2007–present) *

Japan First Party The is a far-right political party in Japan founded by Makoto Sakurai. History On August 15, 2016, Sakurai announced in front of a crowd at the annual gathering to protest the Hantenren in front of Yasukuni Shrine that he would not stop at the To ...

(2016–present) *

Conservative Party of Japan The Conservative Party of Japan (, ''Nippon'' ''Hoshutō''; CPJ) is a Conservatism, conservative, Ultranationalism (Japan), Japanese ultranationalist and Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in Japan. It was founded by novelis ...

(2023–present) The

Liberal Democratic Party Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Liberal Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties have usually followed liberalism as ideology, although they can vary widely from very progr ...

(1955–present), Japanese largest right-wing party, has an ultranationalist faction.

Pre-war

Black Dragon Society The , or the Amur River Society, was a prominent paramilitary, ultranationalist group in Japan. History The ''Kokuryūkai'' was founded in 1901 by martial artist Uchida Ryohei as a successor to his mentor Mitsuru Tōyama's '' Gen'yōsha''. ...

(founded in 1901) *

Kokumin Dōmei was a Statism in Shōwa Japan, Japanese fascist political party in Japan active in the 1930s. In 1931, Home Ministry (Japan), Home Minister Adachi Kenzō spoke out strongly in support of the Imperial Japanese Army’s unauthorized incursions i ...

(1932–1940) *

Tōhōkai was a Japanese fascist political party. The party was active in Japan during the 1930s and early 1940s. Its origins lay in the right-wing political organization Kokumin Domei which was formed by Adachi Kenzō in 1933. In 1936, Nakano Seigō ...

(1936–1945) *

Imperial Rule Assistance Association The , or Imperial Aid Association, was the Empire of Japan's ruling political organization during much of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. It was created by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe on 12 October 1940, to promote the goals ...

(1940–1945)

Ultranationalist figures

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe (21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. ...

Bin Akao was a Japanese Far far-right (uyoku) politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives of Japan during World War II. Akao was cofounder and first president of the Kenkokukai and became one of the leading Ultranationalism (Japan) ...

* Naoki Hyakuta *

Yoshio Kodama was a Japanese right-wing Ultranationalism (Japan), ultranationalist and a prominent figure in the rise of organized crime in Japan. The most famous ''Fixer (person), kuromaku'', or behind-the-scenes power broker, of the 20th century, he was act ...

Hideaki Kase was a Japanese diplomatic critic known for promoting historical negationism. His father, Toshikazu Kase, was a diplomat under Shigenori Tōgō who negotiated an end to the Pacific war. Yoko Ono is his cousin. Revisionist organizations Kase wa ...

Nobusuke Kishi was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China in the 1930s, ...

Fumimaro Konoe was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1937 to 1939 and from 1940 to 1941. He presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and breakdown in relations with the United States, which shortly after his t ...

Yukio Mishima Kimitake Hiraoka ( , ''Hiraoka Kimitake''; 14 January 192525 November 1970), known by his pen name Yukio Mishima ( , ''Mishima Yukio''), was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Ultranationalism (Japan), ultranationalis ...

Shūmei Ōkawa was a Japanese nationalist and Pan-Asianist writer, known for his publications on Japanese history, philosophy of religion, Indian philosophy, and colonialism. Ōkawa advocated a form of Pan-Asianism which promoted Asian solidarity as a cov ...

Makoto Sakurai is the pen name of a political activist, blogger, and writer from Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. A former civil servant in a ward office, he is the founder and former leader of the far-right nationalist group Zaitokukai, known for its ...

Ryōichi Sasakawa was a Japanese people, Japanese businessman, philanthropist, far-right politician, and suspected war criminal. In the 1930s and during the Second World War he was active both in finance and in politics, actively supporting the Japanese war effo ...

Hideki Tojo was a Japanese general and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944 during the Second World War. His leadership was marked by widespread state violence and mass killings perpetrated in the name of Japanese nationalis ...

Ryōhei Uchida was a Japanese ultranationalist political activist, martial artist, and "continental adventurer" ('' tairiku rōnin'') active in the pre-war Empire of Japan. Biography Uchida was born in Fukuoka prefecture. He was the son of '' Shinto Muso-ry ...

Otoya Yamaguchi was a Japanese right-wing Ultranationalism (Japan), ultranationalist youth who assassinated Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, on 12 October 1960. Yamaguchi rushed the stage and stabbed Asanuma with a wakizashi-like shor ...

Events

October incident The , also known as the , was an abortive coup d'état attempt in the Empire of Japan on 21 October 1931, launched by the ''Sakurakai'' secret society within the Imperial Japanese Army, aided by civilian ultranationalist groups. Background and h ...

(1930–1931) * March incident (1931) *

League of Blood Incident was a 1932 assassination plot in Japan in which extremists targeted wealthy businessmen and liberal politicians. The group chose twenty victims but succeeded in killing only two: former Ministry of Finance (Japan), Finance Minister and head of t ...

(1932) * May 15 incident (1932) * Military Academy incident (1934–1935) * February 26 incident (1936) * (1940) *

Kyūjō incident The was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by th ...

(1945) *

Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma On 12 October 1960, , chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, was assassinated at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. During a televised debate, 17-year-old right-wing ultranationalist Otoya Yamaguchi charged onto the stage and fatally stabbed Asanuma w ...

(1960) * Sanmu incident (1961) * Mishima incident (1970)

External links

Statism In political science, statism or etatism (from French, ''état'' 'state') is the doctrine that the political authority of the state is legitimate to some degree. This may include economic and social policy, especially in regard to taxation ...

(国家主義) *

Emperor-system fascism is the view that ultranationalistic politics, society, and ideas based on the Japanese Empire's " Emperor system" were a kind of fascism until the end of World War II in Asia. Overview The movement was influenced by the European fascism and ...

(天皇制ファシズム) *

Ultranationalism Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...

(超国家主義)

References

{{Shōwa nationalism * * * Far-right politics in Japan Japanese monarchy Monarchism in Japan Para-fascism Totalitarianism