Imagined Reality, Ordinary People's War, and Social Mechanism
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Volume 15 | Issue 4 | Number 3 | Article ID 5012 | Feb 15, 2017 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus What Was the Cold War? Imagined Reality, Ordinary People’s War, and Social Mechanism Hajimu Masuda Abstract society, with each, in turn, requiring the perpetuation of such an imagined reality to What was the Cold War? Cold War Crucible: maintain order and harmony at home. The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World Exploring such social functions and popular (Harvard University Press, 2015) is an inquiry participation, Cold War Crucible suggests that into the very nature and meanings of the the Cold War was more than an international conflict. It traces the Cold War’sand geopolitical confrontation between the metamorphosis during the Korean War from a Western and Eastern blocs. It was also a social diplomatic stand-off among policymakers to an mechanism for purity and order, which ordinary people’s war at home throughfunctioned in many parts of the world to examining not only centers of policymaking, tranquilize chaotic postwar and postcolonial but seeming aftereffects of Cold War politics situations through containing a multitude of during the Korean War: The Red Purge in social conflicts and culture wars at home. This Japan, the White Terror in Taiwan, Suppression article draws on and extends parts of Chapter 8 of counterrevolutionaries in China, theand 9 concerning Japan’s Red Purge and crackdown on “un-Filipino” activities in the China’s Suppression of counterrevolutionaries. Philippines, and McCarthyism in the United States. Why did such similar patterns of Reconsidering the Red Purge in Japan domestic repression occur simultaneously around the world? Were there any similarities At 3 p.m. on July 28, 1950, thirty-one workers among these repressions? What would happen at Mainichi Shinbun in Tokyo were called to if we were to remove the Cold War lens? What their bosses’ offices, most of them individually, were the implications of such a worldwide and told that they were fired, on the spot. The phenomenon? only reason that they were given was that the news media had an important responsibility in While these events have usually been examined driving out communists and communist separately and are commonly considered sympathizers from the company. Similar aftereffects of the global Cold War, the book re- notifications were conveyed simultaneously at defines these events as parts of a global other major newspapers, such as Asahi Shinbun phenomenon of nativist backlashes—a sort of and Yomiuri Shinbun. This was the beginning of social conservative suppression—that operated the waves of mass dismissals, conducted first to silence various local conflicts that surfaced through General Douglas MacArthur’s directive in the aftermath of World War II. It shows how to remove communists from the newspaper ordinary people throughout the world strove to industry.1 Based on this directive, fifty silence disagreements and restore social order newspaper companies nationwide unilaterally under the mantle of the global confrontation, notified a total of 704 employees that they were revealing that the actual divides of the Cold being terminated. These ranged from major War existed not necessarily between the newspapers like Asahi Shinbun (104 dismissed Eastern and Western blocs but within each out of 5,200 staff), Mainichi Shinbun (49 of 1 15 | 4 | 3 APJ | JF 5,000), and Yomiuri Shinbun (34 of 2,200) to industries on a much larger scale. The first small local newspapers such asNihonkai wave was based on MacArthur’s statement, Shinbun (9 of 90) in Tottori, as well as Shinyo developed in the context of the Korean War and Shinbun (1 of 50) in Matsumoto.2 aimed at picking off “communists,” however vague the meaning of that term might have This wave of mass dismissals in the newspaper been—involved a series of mass dismissals industry then spread to other companies on a which can be justifiably called the Red Purge. much larger scale. In the fall of 1950, roughly By contrast, the following and larger waves of 13,000 people were fired from industries mass firings, all of which were lumped together including coal, steel, shipbuilding, chemistry, as the Red Purge, were carried out based on railways, and mining—a phenomenonthe judgments of each company, targeting not 3 commonly known in Japan as the “Red Purge.” just communists but anyone deemed As the name suggests, these waves of mass “destructive.”5 There was no single order dismissals have conventionally been viewed issued by the GHQ. William Murcutt, chief of through a Cold War lens. The traditional the Economic and Scientific Section, in fact, understanding is that this was a purge of told Robert Amis, chief of the Labor Division in communists, conducted primarily under orders August 1950, that the “GHQ must not be from the U.S. occupation forces. Under such a involved in dismissals.”6 Recalling the presumption, there has not been muchsituations surrounding the Red Purge, Amis discussion of who actually planned and told an interviewer years later: conducted this so-called Red Purge. In the existing literature, the answer has almost been taken for granted.4 It was the Americans. It was It is a mistake to believe a criticism the GHQ and Washington. Their reason for the that I directed the Red Purge. I did Red Purge was, it is commonly argued, to make not begin it. I believe that it came Japan a fortress against the threat of Soviet out from the inside of Japan’s labor expansion in East Asia. By the same token, not unions ... for they wanted to much attention has been paid to who the actual exclude communist factions. It victims were; that they were communists and came neither from the Government communist sympathizers or innocent victims Section (in the GHQ) nor dismissed due to false charges has also been MacArthur; it came from the taken for granted. In short, the Red Purge has Japanese themselves. ... I got been commonly understood as an aftereffect of embroiled by leaders of the the Cold War—an inevitable result of the global management and labor. They often confrontation. invited me to dinner, took pictures, and used it to show that they were However, this grand narrative has prevented us close to me and that I was hoping from inquiring further into the meaning of the to implement the Red Purge.7 Red Purge and the Cold War. Once we raise questions about the Cold War framework itself, the mass firings of 1950 seem more than just a Many historians of the Red Purge have been Red Purge. Rather, they look more like part of skeptical of Amis’s remarks, seeing him as a global phenomenon of domestic purges that feigning ignorance, because scholars have raged in many places during the Korean War. firmly believed in the absolute rule of U.S. To begin with, we need to make a distinction occupation power in Japan.8 This view, of between the mass firings in the newspaper course, has a certain merit; after all, the GHQ industry and those that followed in other intervened at various critical moments, such as 2 15 | 4 | 3 APJ | JF the dismissal of “communists” at newspapers. Take one case as an example: that of Nippon Nonetheless, Amis’s recollection does not seem Kokan (Nippon Steel Tube Company), which like a mere fraud, considering that this was fired 190 workers in the fall of 1950. The when the GHQ gradually lost its special aura in dispute began with an announcement by the occupation of Japan. Over the course of the company president Kawata Shige, on October Red Purge, American officers experienced 23, that he was compelled to discharge workers being ignored and used by Japanese actors, and “who hindered the smooth operation of the many realized, as Valery Burati, a GHQ official company’s business or refused to cooperate 13 in the Labor Division, wrote in a personal with the company.” Even GHQ officials, often letter, that “the Occupation [had] gone to considered operators of the Red Purge, were seed.”9 Japanese politicians and labor leaders alarmed; one staff member in the Labor likewise had been learning about this tendency Division, for example, described this mass 14 and realized that they could negotiate, or even firing as an “abuse of the Red Purge.” As the flatly reject, GHQ “orders.”10 In sum, the large chief of the division, Amis warned the Nippon portion of mass dismissal cases which are Kokan management: commonly considered part of the Red Purge What I have said before is not being followed was, in essence, planned, conducted, and by the management. It seems to me that the maintained through judgments by each management is taking advantage. Concrete company, with each using its own reasoning reasons for dismissal should be given. If and criteria for who should be let go and why. reasons for dismissal cannot be cited correctly, defer the discharge. When a dismissed Local Dynamics of the Red Purge employee does not fall under the reason, he Let us take a look at one long list of criteria, should be returned to his post, and wages 15 compiled by the largest mining company in during his dismissal should be paid. Japan, the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine, to examine The company simply ignored this warning. how diverse the targets of their “Red Purge” were. This list, comprising twenty-two itemized Meanwhile, Ishijima Seiichi, a 27-year-old categories, targeted not only communists, worker at the company’s Tsurumi Plant, wrote communist party members, and those who had a lengthy petition to Amis, asking for help and left or been removed from the party, but also explaining that, although he was an active various “sympathizers” who, for example, had union member at his plant, he had never been a tried to help those who were fired.