Prepared as a contribution for SMU Apolitical’s Primer on the Rule of Law (2022).
Introduction
It is taken as an article of faith today that the rule of law and democracy are universal social goods, and treated as the ultimate outcome and signifier of an enlightened society. Many theorists in the past have postulated about the “end of history”; in other words, a particular socio-economic or political system that constitutes the final and ultimate development of human society. This, of course, presupposes that ideological progress for society is largely inevitable. In the modern context, this belief has been used by scholars like Francis Fukuyama to argue that liberal democracy and the rule of law, along with all the human goods that come with it, represent the most rational choice of political and economic system that exists for humanity[1].
However, the ideological triumph of liberal democracy does not guarantee triumph in the real world. As we speak, the much-vaunted “leader of the free world”, the United States, faces a rule of law crisis viewed by many as unprecedented even in its long and troubled history. The other defender of liberal democracy, the European Union, faces threats from within as reactionary forces within Poland and Hungary attempt to move their countries away from the rule of law. The problem with the declaration of an ideological victory is that it blinds us to its struggles in reality. While the heliocentric solar system with a round earth seems to us to be very much proven, there yet exist ever-growing groups of people who believe in a geocentric solar system with a flat earth. The logical triumph of an idea does not immediately mean that it has been adopted by all.
For much of human history, most people were ruled by men and not by laws. The ancient systems of hereditary despotism, in which the rulers of certain tracts of land laid down the rules governing those lands while holding life-or-death powers over the inhabitants of that land, can be traced even further beyond feudalism, and would only truly be put to rest by the liberal revolutions of the 19th century and the great global wars of the 20th century. Given that the defining feature of a rule of man is arbitrary rule, in which the laws change from ruler to ruler, there is no purer example that that of the monarchs of old. However, the world changed, and most today are born into and grow up in relatively free societies when compared to those of the past. Who would want to bring the rule of man back?
I believe that question is moot. I believe that the more important question is: how could one bring the rule of man back in spite of the institutions in liberal democracies? It is only by understanding the dynamics that bring about dictators in the modern era that we can prevent their rise. These dynamics are the most clearly felt at points in world history that can be identified as forks in the road, where a nation grappled with its very soul and the rule of man won out. The two points in world history I will use in an attempt to crystallize these dynamics are the struggles of Weimar Germany and Taisho Japan, in between the world wars. Furthermore, I will be using the framework of modernization and industrialization developed by Barrington Moore to analyse the trajectories of Germany and Japan.
Capitalist-Reactionary Development, by Barrington Moore
In his work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Moore outlines three trajectories through industrialization to modernity for states, based on their developmental roots in premodern times. These three routes are: (1) the capitalist democratic route, leading to liberal democracy; (2) the capitalist-reactionary route, leading to fascist dictatorship; and (3) the communist route. For the purposes of this essay, I will be focusing on the capitalist-reactionary route, since that is the one directly relevant to the modern rule of man[2]. I will also be referencing the essay Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco[3].
Moore believes that capitalist-reactionary industrializations are based on the labour-repressive system of agriculture[4], defined by the use of political methods, among others, to keep a “servile or semiservice labour on large units of cultivation”. This system would “lead to the preservation of a military ethic among the nobility in a manner unfavourable to the growth of democratic institutions”. As the power of the agricultural peasantry grew, the aristocratic elite as well as urban bourgeoisie would feel threatened; however, so long as there was no revolution from below, the landed elites would retain a substantial share of power in society.
Because the impetus to modernize comes from higher classes in society, a semi-parliamentary system is typically observed to develop, a decidedly more conservative form of modernization than if the peasantry had initiated reform and modernization instead. Moore identifies a few conditions for the success for this conservative modernization. Firstly, able leadership was required to pull along the more spirited and committed reactionaries; modernization, while necessary, typically did not sit well with the landed elite even in principle. Thus, a feature of this form of modernization is the prominent and able statesman, to drag uncooperative conservative elements along in this modernization. A prominent example of this would be the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
Secondly, the modernization is highly makeshift, and doomed to collapse into a fascist dictatorship. One of the features of an industrial modernization in terms of its effects on the socio-political structure of society is that mass politics becomes an increasingly powerful force. This is not in question; in all industrial societies, the question for elites has never been how one can move against mass politics, but rather how to weaponize it for their gain[5]. In this case, since conservative-reactionary elements have held the reins of society throughout its lifespan, fascism is the result of these elements turning popular and plebeian through democratic failure and subversion. As Eco notes, fascism denotes a kind of popular elitism, one in which “Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party.”
Thirdly, when the collapse to fascism occurs, the peasantry is glorified against the alienation of modern capitalism[6]. Nazi Germany glorified the image of the “free man of the free land”, a peasant who does not merely work his land but is symbolically and emotionally tied to it. It is, in effect, a romanticized version of a pre-capitalist past manufactured for the consumption of not just the alienated peasantry, but also the old landed aristocracy who had been disempowered by industry. Tied in with this glorification of the peasantry is also a glorification of national identity and subsequently a vilification of foreign elements viewed as obstructing the return to a better way of life. This pushback against capitalist alienation is also a rallying cry for modern neo-fascist movements as well, characterized effectively in the slogan “blood and soil”. Eco echoes these thoughts, stating that followers should feel not only humiliation but also disdain at the presumed ostentatious wealth of fascism’s enemies, and that heroism of the common man becomes the norm rather than the exception.
The Weimar Republic (1918-1933)
The short history of Weimar Germany was a tumultuous one, filled with crises at every turn, and propped up only by the steadying hands of dedicated and principled statesmen. The constitution was weak, and many attempts at coup d’etats were stopped just short of reaching their goal. Even actions taken to pacify and de-radicalize political extremists in Germany often backfired tragically; as we will see later, Hitler’s appointment to the chancellorship was one such act.
The first few years of the Weimar Republic was marked by seemingly unending crises and political turmoil. Nothing is more representative of this than the sheer number of major political parties vying for control of the Reichstag: in particular, there was a conflict between the majority social democratic party (MSPD) and the independent social democratic party (USDP), as well as the communist party (KPD), for the grassroot vote. From the end of the war until 1923, the Weimar Republic suffered buffeting attacks from both extreme left- and right-wing movements, this would crystallize in the Kapp Putsch. The Kapp Putsch (1920) was orchestrated by 12,000 Freikorps members, veterans whose objective was to suppress what they saw as the rise of the far-left. However, the legitimate government had fled to Stuttgart, and put out a call for a general strike against the Kapp government in Berlin. The civil service in particular complied, and the Kapp government collapsed after 4 days.
The late 1920s brought about unprecedented economic growth and individual prosperity across the Western world. Just as in the US, this brought about a flourishing of cultural and political life. In particular, liberal political and cultural movements were embraced, the most notable of which might be feminism. With women’s suffrage enshrined in the Weimar constitution and, many women, such as Helene Stöcker, began to look beyond mere suffrage. Competing ideas on how exactly women should be integrated into the political order and improve it by the injection of femininity in some form or another were debated in the public space[7]. Yet, in the midst of new cultural and political ideas and excitement about progress, we must remember that for Weimar Germany, the 1920s were shaped just as much by the shifts in middle-class values as it was by their anxieties.
Conservative Modernization and Labour-Repressive Agricultural System
The experience of German industrial modernization is most strongly tied to its political and cultural history, and in particular its experiences with unification. Prior to 1871, Germany was a patchwork of 38 independent states. A liberal unification of Germany under a constitutional monarchy was initiated in 1848 by the Frankfurt Assembly, but when the Assembly presented the crown of Emperor of Germany to Prussian King Frederick William IV, he rejected it, calling it a “crown from the gutter”. The failure of the 1848 liberal movement to take root in Germany meant that much of Germany’s unification would be a matter handled by conservative aristocrats. Chief among these would be Otto von Bismarck, the eminent statesmen hailed to this day, and Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who engineered the military successes of Prussia. Combined, these two statesmen would bring Prussia to the head of Germany through the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71).
Notably, Bismarck was born into the great landed nobility of Prussia, known as the Junkers. This class of nobility held great estates north of the Elbe river, and would live up to Moore’s expectations by being great defenders of the monarchy and reactionary thought[8]. Having come to acquire this land through a multi-century colonization effort by German nobles, the Junker class also acquired a particularly militaristic character[9]. This militarism was particularly influential throughout the lifetime of Prussia, with French Count Mirabeau famously stating that Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country. They would later be instrumental in bringing Hitler to power as well, their power having lived well beyond the end of the Great War[10]. Moltke the Elder, while not a member of this illustrious class of landed Prussian nobility, was descended also from a family of Danish and German landowners. His Danish background, however, destined him for a future career in the military, as was tradition for Danish great nobility at the time, and he would revolutionize Prussian warfare during his service in General Staff.
Germany’s modernization and unification were largely a duo-act between these two statesmen. Internally, Bismarck balanced the liberal and reactionary forces in Prussia’s semi-parliamentary constitutional monarchy, famously using gaps in the constitution to sidestep parliamentary authority during his time as Chancellor[11]. Externally, Bismarck did his best to maintain the European balance of power to preserve Prussian/German diplomatic authority, cherry-picking military targets and setting Moltke the Elder’s army on them during times of opportunity[12]. By the time he was expelled from the German government by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, he had completed his objective of performing an economic modernization of Germany, while containing political development and ultimately enabling the retainment of pre-industrial traditions at the centre of the German state[13].
Democratic Failure and Reactionary Mass Politics
When the German Empire collapsed and the Weimar Republic came into being, it marked Germany’s first serious attempt at republican government. With Kaiser Wilhelm II having fled to the Netherlands, abandoned by the German High Command and avoiding the Treaty of Versailles which demanded his prosecution, the German public was faced for the first time with the prospect of being able to participate in their government in a meaningful way.
Although by all accounts Weimar Germany had one of the most democratic constitutions in the world at the time, its main drafter, Hugo Preuss, would in 1925 attribute the fundamental weakness of the Weimar Republic to this conflict between the constitution and the traditional, authoritarian civil service[14]. Historian Detlev Peukert notes that the founding of the Weimar democracy was essentially empty; republicanism had essentially been foisted upon Germany through its defeat in the Great War, and that fact lent little legitimacy to the new republic[15]. Jurisprudist and prominent social democrat Gustav Radbruch notes that much of the Weimar government’s actions were often done silently and without much fanfare, failing to produce symbols and rituals that would ease the German public perception of the Weimar Republic[16].
The democratic deficiency also constrained the statesmen who fought a constantly losing battle to stabilize Weimar. Friedrich Ebert, although representing the MSPD, did not have intense ideological interests. Constantly trying to strike a balance in Weimar politics and bring back some semblance of stability and unity to his beloved home, he would face constant attacks from the left as a “traitor to the working class” and from the right as a “traitor to the Fatherland”. While dealing with the uncooperative Allied powers, Ebert would also continue a constant fight against both ardent communists as well as Freikorps and other extreme political elements in Germany. Unfortunately, the immediate chaos and need to quell it would force him set the precedent for the use of the emergency presidential powers clause in article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, using it 134 times in 1924 alone. Ebert would pass away from chronic illnesses in 1925. He would be succeeded as president by the old general of the Great War, Paul von Hindenburg.
The man who would pick up Ebert’s torch as attempted unifier in German politics was Gustav Stresemann[17]. Stresemann, although a monarchist at heart, would form the influential German People’s Party (DVP), a Christian conservative party hostile to socialism and communism. This reluctant attitude in embracing the Republic did not stop him from attempting to bring stability and unity to the fracturing Republic, whatever the cost. During his hundred days as Chancellor in 1923, he would take the first major steps at ending the hyperinflation by instituting the Rentenmark and enacting monetary reforms. He would quash the attempted Nazi Beer Hall Putsch, and begin bringing the states into line. The root of the problem, in his mind, was that the “[German] people, with their scant political education, are wavering between Communism and right radicalism.” Although his government collapsed in November 1923, he continued to do his best to cobble together the Republic as foreign minister until his passing in 1929.
The eventual collapse of the Weimar Republic and Hitler’s Machtergreifung was the eventual culmination of all the factors extant in not just the foundations but also the day-to-day functioning of the Weimar Republic itself. Constant political infighting between and within political factions would escalate to fighting on the streets between paramilitary organizations. There was no love for the Republic amongst its elite, nor amongst the public. While the nation had taken the form of the Republic, at its core people still behaved in accordance with the national-reactionary ideas which had held monopoly since the founding of the Empire. Economic turmoil from the Great Depression (1929-39) would drive even more Germans into the arms of extreme political factions. The election of July 1932 would result in the Nazi party winning with 37% of the vote, making them the largest party in the Reichstag, and a crucial political faction for the conservatives to court the favour of. President von Hindenburg would reluctantly induct the cabinet of Hitler’s coalition, and upon his passing in 1934, Hitler would pass the law that would cement his place as Germany’s dictator.
Blood and Soil
The reinvention of political culture in the aftermath of the Nazis taking power was total in nature. It encompassed every aspect of life – the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda often helmed these initiatives, with departments controlling all forms of mass communication available to the public. It seeped into the halls of academia, with the Nobel-winning physicist Philipp Lenard, a long-time rival of Albert Einstein, forming the movement of Aryan Physics in response to what was viewed as farcical and outright deceptive theoretical physics, called “Jewish Physics”. This process of total control over every aspect of life in Germany was termed Gleichschaltung, or “co-ordination”. According to Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels: “It is not enough to reconcile people more or less to our regime, to move them towards a position of neutrality towards us; we want, rather, to work on people until they are addicted to us, until they realize, in the ideological sense as well, that what is happening now in Germany not only can be permitted, but must be permitted.”[18]
Nazi ideologues understood well the alienation that work under modern capitalism brought. Karl Arnhold alleged that there was a racially-ingrained aversion to “pointless work” extant in Germans, appealing to mystical ancient Germanic ideals of warriorhood and competition[19]. Nowhere was this desire to find some mystical meaning in labour more apparent than in architecture, the best demonstration of a national aesthetic as well as one of Hitler’s pet interests. The Beauty of Labour Program (1934) sought further to help elucidate this aesthetic of meaning in work[20]. While the demands of industrial modernity did not allow for the re-emergence of a strong agricultural peasantry as was constantly glorified, the Nazis certainly did their best to transplant this ideal into modern labour as much as they could.
It is natural that racial superiority was necessary to support this ideal. In the seminal work The Myth of the Twentieth Century[21], Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg asserts that “the Teutons[22] produced all the nations of the West and their creative values has long been recognized as common wisdom,” Further, in language one trawling far-right forums today might find familiar, he presented a “final crisis” to the German people: “Either we rise to purified heights through the revitalization and selective cultivation of this ancient bloodstock, coupled with an acceleration of the will to struggle, or we allow the last vestiges of the Germanic-Western values of civilization and the cultivation of nations to sink in the filthy human flood of the ‘great’ metropolises, to be crippled by the scorching, sterile asphalt of bestialized inhumanity, or to slowly seep away, only to fester like a pestilent germ in the blood of emigrants bastardizing themselves in exile in South America, China, the Dutch East Indies, and Africa.” The rise of urban civilization, in other words, is linked to the undesirable practices of inter-racial procreation; thus, racial purity and the agrarian ideal are inherently linked in Nazi ideology. This is further elaborated by Karl Alexander von Müller, who attributes “the degree of stability, the degree of endurance in the whole fabric of our Volk… to the slow, deliberate nature of the peasants.”[23]
The Fall of Taishō Democracy (1905-1925)
When speaking generally about Japanese history, there tend to be two major periods which are known to the general public. The first would be the Meiji era (1867-1912). The reign of the previous Emperor Kōmei had been marked by increasing political instability in Japan. Triggered by the fateful contact with the United States, Japanese society and its leaders were faced with many of the same decisions which other Asian polities were faced with in dealing with the West. At the time, Japan had isolated itself for nearly 300 years under the Bakufu (幕府) government – the Tokugawa Shogunate which had reigned since the end of the Sengoku Era.
Ascending to the throne in 1867, Emperor Meiji would fling Japan into extreme turmoil almost immediately, eventually restoring Imperial authority and ousting the Bakufu through the Boshin War (1868-1869). He would proceed to modernize Japan out of necessity, destroying the political architecture of feudalism nearly in its entirety. The breakneck pace at which Japanese modernization proceeded under the auspices of Emperor Meiji would create such drastic change that within a span of a generation, the outward appearance of Japanese society would change nearly completely, astonishing many Western trading partners. Even at the time, however, many believed the transformation and modernization to be merely superficial[24].
The other era in the realm of general knowledge is the Shōwa era (1926-1989). The reign of Emperor Shōwa is generally remembered as one marked in its first third by Japanese imperialism and war, the second by a shocked Japan struggling to adjust to the new world it had been thrust into by the United States, and the third by the Japanese economic miracle.
Little is known about the intervening period, the reign of Emperor Taishō. The Taishō era (1912-1926) has garnered far less interest from historians, which is natural when one considers the relatively significant overhauls Japanese society and politics underwent in the two eras bookmarking Taishō. In particular, the overtures towards democracy during Taishō are ill-researched; in 1966, only three books had been published on Taishō Democracy[25]. The general view of Taishō democracy is that the reforms attempted were never sufficient to overcome not only the institutional factors of the Japanese government, but also the economic and political crises of the 1930s. Towards the end, Taishō democracy dies violently, with political violence and assassination of state officials becoming more and more commonplace.
Conservative Modernization and Labour-Repressive Agricultural System
The Meiji Restoration is commonly understood to be the point at which Japan began its modernization. While the restoration of imperial rule is usually dated to 1868, the earnest efforts towards establishing a constitution only really began in 1881 with the constitutional research commission of Itō Hirobumi. The Meiji Constitution would be drafted in secret without public input, promulgated by the Emperor in 1889, and come into effect in 1890. Much of the authority in the government was vested in the Emperor, and we can really see the sort of conservative-reactionary, semi-parliamentary system of government in action by assessing the provisions of the Constitution.
The major institutions of government were designated as a bicameral Imperial Diet (Art. 33-54), a Cabinet of Ministers (Art. 55), a Privy Council (Art. 56), and a semi-independent judiciary (Art. 57-61) [26]. The Imperial Diet comprised of the House of Peers and House of Representatives, with the former being “composed of the members of the Imperial Family, of the orders of nobility, and of those who have been nominated thereto by the Emperor”, and the latter being “composed of members elected by the people, according to the provisions of the law of Election”[27]. Elite and popular interest would be balanced out during the legislative process, although it must be said that given the election laws at the time the popular interests were rather ill-represented since suffrage was given only to males who fulfilled a basic tax requirement. At the same time, the Imperial Diet was still subject to the Emperor, who held the power to dissolve and prorogue it (Art. 7).
The Cabinet of Ministers and Privy Council were appointed by the Emperor, directly answerable to the Emperor, and assisted in the executive function of government. Itō would make an argument that they would be indirectly also responsible to the people, as they were the subjects of the Emperor. The Privy Council, on the other hand, has no powers, and merely served an advisory function. The Imperial Judicature existed in a semi-independent position. Itō believed that an independent judiciary in a Japanese context did not mean that the court was out of the Emperor’s reach, for “the courts of law have to pronounce judgment in the name of the Sovereign”[28], but rather that it was independent from the administrative branch of Imperial sovereignty.
The maintenance of this conservative-reactionary Imperial government would not have been possible without the efforts of the Genrō (元老) and the Cabinet. From 1885 to 1919, seventeen Cabinets were in session; however, there were only nine people who were ever Prime Minister. These nine people, additionally, mostly belong to either the Satsuma or Chōshū clan, the two families of greater nobility who held the main role in restoring the imperial rule of Emperor Meiji[29]; the only one who did not was Saionji Kinmochi, who was nevertheless descended from the hereditary bureaucratic elite in the Tokugawa Shogunate called the Kuge (公家). It was these elderly statesmen who would make most of the decisions in the Empire in the Emperor’s name, and who would initiate the modernization of Japan through the institution of the semi-parliamentary system.
Democratic Failure and The Militarization of Politics
The biggest hindrance to efforts at liberalization and democratization were the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). They had been politically active throughout the Taishō era, as Articles 10-14 exclude the military from civilian control. Article 32 furthermore stated that in the case of a clash between military laws/commands and the rights outlined in the Constitution, military laws/commands would hold precedence. The “active duty rule” was also present, which stated that only an active-duty army or navy general could fill the respective roles of Army or Navy Minister. When combined with the rule which stated that Prime Ministers who could not fill a full cabinet were required to resign, it meant that the military leadership effectively had the power to boycott a civilian government into submission or nonexistence. The IJA would use this loophole in 1912 to boycott the cabinet of Prince Saionji Kinmochi into resignation over a military budget cut in what was called the Taisho Crisis[30]. This military autonomy manifested itself both internally and externally.
In the 1930s, a group of young officers would form a loose group called the Imperial Way Faction, or Kōdōha (皇道派). This organization was led by General Araki Sadao, and sought to recreate the Meiji Restoration in the Showa era by purging the state not only of corrupt individuals, but also of the corrupting influence of liberal democracy that had been introduced during Taisho[31]. This came from the belief that problems of Japanese governance stemmed from a straying from the kokutai; in other words, the Western-inspired modernization of Japan had superimposed a corrupting Western influence upon an essentially good Japanese-ness, from which the people were now removed. The contrasting faction within the military was the Control Faction, or Tōseiha (統制派), who shared the same ideals of national reform and anti-democracy as the Kōdōha; the key points of contention were on the methods of achieving them. Where the Kōdōha was confrontational and sought nothing less than a total spiritual cleansing of Japanese politics by purging oligarchic capitalism and democracy, the Tōseiha believed that cooperation with the same bureaucracy and Zaibatsu capitalists was necessary to maximize Japanese industrial output for the coming total war. These two factions would fade into irrelevance in the aftermath of the failed Kōdōha coup on 26 February, 1936[32], but the imperial spiritualism/mysticism and tradition of insubordination by junior officers continued well beyond the lifespan of these factions[33].
The idea behind the aggressive direct action by the Kōdōha and its impact on Japanese politics and society can be found in the history leading up to the Boshin War, and the Kōdōha idealization of a Showa Restoration[34]. The Kōdōha would model their actions and themselves on called the Shishi (志士) [35], who had prior to the Meiji Restoration engaged in a campaign of stochastic political violence against Shogunate officials and Westerners alike. Thus, with a reactionary military inspired and eager to take direct action against the corrupting influence of Western thought, the Taisho democratization attempt was doomed[36].
In the aftermath of the Kōdōha’s dissolution after the February 26 Incident, the Tōseiha would also lose its raison d’etre. It would, however, achieve its goals to unite the Japanese state, industry, and people in order to achieve maximum efficiency for the total war with China. In its wake would rise the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, or the Taisei Yokusankai (大政翼賛会).
Blood and Soil
The Taisei Yokusankai fulfilled its aspirations of turning Japan into a totalitarian, one-party state with the singular objective of winning the war with China. It infused both approaches by the Kōdōha and Tōseiha. The strength of the Tōseiha approach was materialist, in that the nationalization of strategic industries and other key social groups through the National Mobilization Law allowed Japan to maximize its industrial output[37]. The strength of the Kōdōha approach was ideological, by mobilizing and indoctrinating society through propaganda and establishing institutions at all levels from municipal to national to reinforce these ideas, as will be demonstrated in this section.
There were two influential educational publications which the Japanese government expected its citizens to know and adhere to. These are the Cardinal Principles of the Kokutai (国体の本義) and the Way of Subjects (臣民の道). Where the former sought to elaborate the concept of kokutai to the common man, the latter laid out the expectations of a Japanese citizen’s behaviour.
It is difficult to understand the political and legal contexts underpinning Imperial Japan without understanding the dual concepts of kokutai (国体) and seitai (政体). The term kokutai seeks to crystallize an essence in the national polity. According to Japanologist John Brownlee, “Kokutai, National Essence, the ‘native Japanese’, eternal, and immutable aspects of their polity, derived from history, tradition, and custom, and focused on the Emperor. The form of government, Seitai, a secondary concept, then consisted of the historical arrangements for the exercise of political authority. Seitai, the form of government, was historically contingent and changed through time.”[38] To firmly clarify these ideas in the public sphere, Prince Fumimaru Konoe would commission a team of leading professors for the purpose of distilling and making clear the fundamental concepts of kokutai, as well as its implications, whose findings would later be published in Cardinal Principles of the Kokutai (国体の本義) and circulated throughout the Empire, as well as taught in schools. A common line that is used to reference the kokutai is that Japan has “since the founding of the Empire… been basking under a benign rule of a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal”.
Way of Subjects was divided into three chapters: the first was titled Construction of the New World Order, the second Kokutai and the Way of the Subject, and the third Practicing the Way of the Subject. In the preamble, Way of Subjects would state that “With the influx of European and American culture into our country, however, individualism, liberalism, utilitarianism, and materialism began to assert themselves, with the result that the traditional character of the country was much impaired and the various habits and customs bequeathed by our ancestors were affected unfavourably.”[39] It laid out the need for the entire of Japanese society to actively mobilize for an inevitable spiritual total war to oust these influences.
Interestingly, Way of Subjects compares the Japanese and German experiences. It directly references the “national principle of blood and soil” in a sympathetic light, but compares the systems being used to create this. While the Germans “succeeded in achieving thoroughgoing popular confidence in, and obedience to, the dictatorship of the Nazis, and is adopting totalitarianism,”, the Japanese had their kokutai. It does not further elaborate on the difference between the Nazi totalitarian dictatorship and the benevolent rule of hereditary monarchy it asserts, for this is a presumption found in the Cardinal Principles of the Kokutai.
While the peasantry is not directly glorified in Way of Subjects because – similarly to Germany – modern industry is necessary to wage the sort of total spiritual war that was seen as a necessity, many of the elements outlined here are directly tied to the sort of alienation that was brought about through the modernization process. Where the Germans had sought to bring this about by using aesthetics and propaganda to implant some meaning in industrial labour, the Japanese appealed directly to traditions of loyalty and filial piety towards the Imperial Throne, as well as some vague sense of intrinsic Japanese-ness that had been shrouded by the corruption of the West.
Conclusions
I must return to the rule of man. The rule of man exists beyond the rule of law, and is defined by the arbitrary and absolute rule of an individual or a group of individuals. Strictly speaking, a pure rule of man requires in a sense an anomie – the complete absence of any norms in the social space. As one may realize, it is nearly impossible to achieve a state of complete anomie. It is also nearly impossible to achieve an absolute rule of law, and scholars constantly debate and track the evolving state of the rule of law in societies worldwide today. Thus, it is instructive to view the rule of law and rule of man as two points on a spectrum upon which societies exist.
If the rule of man exists wherever there is a lack of the rule of law, then one must find reason for constant vigilance. It is evidently not difficult for societies to move along the scale, as present experience shows. While we may have previously believed societies with deeply-ingrained democratic and republican institutions to be resistant to a rule of man, the crises experienced within the United States and the European Union teach us that we cannot be complacent. Institutions by themselves are not sufficient to uphold a rules-based order; in the words of political theorist Francis Fukuyama, there is no democracy without democrats[40].
The stories of Japan and Germany in the lead-up to one of the most horrific wars in human experience, while at first seeming to demonstrate that they were tragically doomed to their fate, actually suggest that there may be more hope than we realize. At the point of democratic failure in both these states, they were in fact at a political crossroads. Both were invigorated with liberal energies which were swept away in a tide of reactionary thought. Many accounts of those who lived in Germany and Japan through these periods report that it felt almost like a dream, that they had been caught up in some grand illusion. A grand illusion it may be, but the damage reverberates through history. Many countries exist at some iteration of this crossroads in history at the time of writing, and as parallels to history are drawn and comparisons cast, we must hope that the grand illusion fails to catch on this time.
[1] Fukuyama, Francis. “No Democracy Without Democrats.” In The End of History and the Last Man, 131–40. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
[2] Moore, Barrington. “Revolution from Above and Fascism.” In Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, 433–52. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966.
[3] Eco, Umberto. “Ur-Fascism.” The New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995. https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf.
[4] This is in addition to the two commonly-understood systems of agriculture, the labour-intensive and capital-intensive systems of agricultural production.
[5] Guisinger, Alexandra, and Elizabeth N. Saunders. “Mapping the Boundaries of Elite Cues: How Elites Shape Mass Opinion across International Issues.” International Studies Quarterly 61 (2017): 425–41. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx022.
[6] Alienation is a concept in Marxist literature by which capitalism estranges us from one another. While workers contribute with their labour, their labour is expressed in a privately owned system in which individuals are treated as instruments rather than social beings. Thus, in the words of Kostas Alexos, “work renders a man alien to himself and his own products.”
Petrović, Gajo. “Marx’s Theory of Alienation.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23, no. 3 (1963): 419–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/2105083.
[7] McGuire, Kristin. “Feminist Politics beyond the Reichstag: Helene Stöcker and Visions of Reform.” In Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s, edited by Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt, and Kristin McGuire, 138–52. Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association 2. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010.
[8] Schissler, Hanna. “Die Junker. Zur Sozialgeschichte Und Historischen Bedeutung Der Agrarischen Elite in Preußen.” Geschichte Und Gesellschaft. Sonderheft 6 (1980): 89–122.
[9] Piskorski, Jan M. “Medieval Colonization in East Central Europe.” In The Germans and the East, edited by Charles Ingrao and Franz A. J. Szabo, 27–36. Purdue University Press, 2008. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wq5f2.6.
[10] Muncy, Lysbeth W. “The Junkers and the Prussian Administration from 1918 to 1939.” The Review of Politics 9, no. 4 (1947): 482–501.
[11] Pflanze, Otto. “Bismarck and Parliament.” In Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Volume II, 154–78. The Period of Consolidation, 1871-1880. Princeton University Press, 1990. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zvf42.10.
[12] Showalter, Dennis E. “Diplomacy and the Military in France and Prussia, 1870.” Central European History 4, no. 4 (1971): 346–53.
[13] Berman, Sheri E. “Modernization in Historical Perspective: The Case of Imperial Germany.” World Politics 53, no. 3 (2001): 431–62.
[14] Harmer, Harry. “The Brittle Republic, 1919-25.” In Friedrich Ebert: Germany, 123–46. The Makers of the Modern World. London, United Kingdom: Haus Publishing, 2008. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1qv5qxx.9.
[15] Peukert, Detlev J. K. The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity. Translated by Richard Deveson. New York: Hill & Wang, 1993.
[16] Radbruch, Gustav. Der Innere Weg: Aufriß Meines Lebens. Stuttgart: Wilhelm Köhler Verlag, 1951.
[17] Hertzman, Lewis. “Gustav Stresemann: The Problem of Political Leadership in the Weimar Republic.” International Review of Social History 5, no. 3 (1960): 361–77.
[18] Welch, David. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. London: Routledge, 1933.
[19] Arnhold, Karl. “Sinnloses Arbeiten Ist Undeutsch.” Mensch Und Arbeit, 1936.
[20] Kretschmer, Karl. “Über Die Aufgaben Des Amtes Für Schönheit Der Arbeit.” Die Form, July 1934.
[21] Rosenberg, Alfred. Der Mythus Des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung Der Seelisch-Geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe Unserer Zeit. 3rd ed. Munich: Hoheneichen Verlag, 1941.
[22] Teuton is a term used to reference the Germans. While its most notable use is in the name of the Teutonic Order, the medieval German order of knights who launched Crusades into eastern Europe and eventually turned into the Kingdom of Prussia, it is often used as a term to invoke powerful nationalist and spiritual sentiment, and more generally to refer to the particular militaristic character of the Germans in history.
[23] Müller, Karl Alexander von. “Die Geltung Des Bauern in Der Volksgemeinschaft.” In Vom Alten Zum Neuen Deutschland, 244–46. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1938.
[24] Fukuchi, Isamu. “Kokoro and `the Spirit of Meiji’.” Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 4 (1993): 469–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/2385293.
[25] Takayoshi, Matsuo. “The Development of Democracy in Japan – Taishō Democracy: Its Flowering and Breakdown.” The Developing Economies 4, no. 4 (December 1966): 612–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1049.1966.tb00495.x.
[26] Itō, Hirobumi. Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan. Translated by Miyoji Itō. 2nd ed. Tokyo: English Law School (イギリス法律学校), Chuo University, 1906.
[27] Itō, Hirobumi. “Chapter III: The Imperial Diet.” In Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, translated by Miyoji Itō, 2nd ed., 68–92. Tokyo: English Law School (イギリス法律学校), Chuo University, 1906.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Spencer, David S. “Some Thoughts on the Political Development of the Japanese People.” The Journal of International Relations 10, no. 1 (1919): 49–61. https://doi.org/10.2307/29738326.
[30] Orbach, Danny. “Coup D’etat in Three Acts: The Taishō Political Crisis, 1912–1913.” In Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan, 129–57. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1mmfs0g.12.
[31] Shillony, Ben-Ami. “The Vision of a Shōwa Restoration.” In Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident, 56–80. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973.
[32] The February 26 Incident was an attempted coup by ~1500 Kōdōha supporters who branded themselves the “Righteous Army” and adopted the slogan “Revere the Emperor, Destroy the Traitors”, a direct reference to the slogan used during the Meiji Restoration of “Revere the Emperor, Destroy the Shogunate”. They were neither able to assassinate Prime Minister Okada Keisuke, nor to storm the Imperial Palace, two key goals. The coup had failed by the morning of February 28. Maj. General Hisaichi Terauchi would afterwards purge influential Kōdōha officers, while also opportunistically increasing military control over civilian government.
[33] Drea, Edward J. “Conspiracies, Coups, and Reshaping the Army.” In Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 163–89. University Press of Kansas, 2009.
[34] Shillony, “The Vision of a Shōwa Restoration.”
[35] Orbach, Danny. “Warriors of High Aspirations: The Origins of Military Insubordination, 1858-1868.” In Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan, 8–25. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2016.
[36] Takenaka, Harukata. “The Semi-Democratic Regime, 1929–1932: Crisis and Breakdown.” In Failed Democratization of Prewar Japan: Breakdown of a Hybrid Regime. Stanford University Press, 2014. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqsdxd2.10.
[37] Pauer, Erich. Japan’s War Economy. Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia. London: Routledge, 2014.
[38] Brownlee, John S. “Four Stages of the Japanese Kokutai (National Essence).” In Japan and Asia Pacific in the 21st Century: History, Culture and Policy Issues. Vancouver, British Columbia: Japan Studies Association of Canada, 2000. https://www.adilegian.com/PDF/brownlee.pdf.
[39] Japanese Ministry of Education. “The Way of Subjects.” Japan Times Advertiser, August 1941.
[40] Fukuyama, Francis. “No Democracy Without Democrats.” In The End of History and the Last Man, 131–40. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
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