USM Open Source History Text: The World at War: World History 1914-1945Main MenuIntroduction: A Mural as WindowOn Diego Rivera's Detroit IndustryThe World Around 1914, Part I: the Journey of Young GandhiThe World Around 1914, Part II: The Era of Nationalism and Imperialism (1848-1914)The First World WarThe Long Russian Revolution (1917 – 1929)The Decline of the West? Europe from 1919 – 1929A New Middle East: The Rise of the Middle East State SystemChina Between Qing Collapse and WWIILatin America Between Boom and Bust (1911-1929)Africa Under Colonial Rule: Politics and Race from 1914‐1939The United States from The First World War to the Great DepressionThe Great DepressionThree Varieties of Radicalism in the 1930s: Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Imperial JapanThree Responses to Modernity: Ho Chi Minh, Ibn Saud, and Getulio VargasThe Second World WarSeth Rogoff5f001fc099cd635507b143be056702764af6929c
The Waning of Japanese Democracy and the Rise of Military Authoritarianism
12017-07-17T22:00:50-07:00Seth Rogoff5f001fc099cd635507b143be056702764af6929c192372plain2017-09-19T09:12:18-07:00Seth Rogoff5f001fc099cd635507b143be056702764af6929cIn the wake of the Great Depression and the spectacular success of the campaign in Manchuria, the legitimacy of the parliamentary government in Tokyo increasingly came into focus. On the other side, the authority of the military establishment and insurgent military groups like the Manchurian-based Imperial Way gained popular support and power within both military and civilian institutions. During the 1930s, the military increasingly moved to take control of Japanese politics and society, marginalizing and then terminating the authority of the government, re-orienting and co-opting the Zaibatsu conglomerates in its push toward massive military development, and terrorizing potential political opponents through its secret police arms. Though the military establishment under the so-called Control Faction purged the more ideological members of the Imperial Way in 1936, following a coup d’état attempt, it maintained part of the ideological agenda of the younger zealots, including the belief in Japanese racial superiority over other Asians, Japanese rights to control an East Asian zone of influence, and to some extent the notion of the symbolic power of the emperor. The central pillar of this ideology, as described in Japan’s official “Fundamental Principles of National Policy,” was the creation of a core Japanese zone that included Japan, the newly created puppet state of Manchukao, and northern China. Such a plan set the stage for Japan’s 1937 invasion of China and the beginning of the Second World War in the East.
