Japanese Mass Organizations in Manchuria, 1928-1945: the Ideology of Racial Harmony
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Japanese mass organizations in Manchuria, 1928-1945: the ideology of racial harmony Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Egler, David George, 1937- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 23:36:20 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565382 JAPANESE MASS ORGANIZATIONS IN MANCHURIA, 1928-1945: THE IDEOLOGY OF RACIAL HARMONY by David George Egler A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 7 7 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by David George Egler______________________________ __ entitled "Japanese Mass Organizations In Manchuria, 1928-1945: The Ideology of Racial Harmony"_________________________ be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy_________________________________ Dissertation Director Date As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read this dissertation and agree that it may be presented for final defense. Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense thereof at the final oral examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. PREFACE The role in continental expansion attributed by . i modern East Asian historians to the Japanese army has obscured a number of facets of Japanese imperialism that need further examination. In particular, the role played by civilians in Manchuria in the period immediately before the Manchurian Incident has been largely ignored by We stern-language sources. Manchuria has been regarded as the arena in which Japan's direct efforts to establish an unassailable posi tion on the continent led her to alter the future course of her foreign relations and domestic politics. Such pre cipitous moves as she made in Manchuria resulted in a break with the interlocking system of international treaties, international cooperation, and parliamentary governmental initiative in foreign relations. Following this, the whole system of parliamentary government was laid open to attack from a military and bureaucratic establishment acting as spokesman for totalitarian solutions for a wide range of . Japan's problems. Inevitably, the Manchurian Incident of September, 1931, looms so large in history because it was the single act that set in motion Japan's departure from her former direction and embarkation on a course that was to have a major impact on world history. iii iv Since the Kwantung Army junior officers who executed the act wanted to set a new course, and since the 1930s did indeed present a new course, historians attribute to them and to their military collaborators in Tokyo almost sole responsibility for the expansionism that characterized the decade. The Kwantung Army has received a great deal of attention in various monographic studies. Its internal motives and those of its allies, its dominant personal!- - ties, its struggles with a reluctant Japanese government, and its role in launching the state of Manchukuo all offer insights into the end of Taisho democracy and the beginnings Of what James Crowley has called Japan's "quest for autonomy." The present study explores the motives and aspira tions that were generated in Manchuria not by the army and the Japanese government but by civilian Japanese residents. From roughly the mid-1920s to 1945, a particular kind of imperialist sentiment manifested itself among these civilian Japanese residents. Containing both a measure of idealism and of self-interest, of pan-Asianism and of concern for Japanese rights and interests, of anti capitalism and of reverence for industrial, progress, the thinking of these Japanese was very much colored by the experience of having committed themselves to individual V careers and livelihoods in Manchuria and also to a perma nent presence there. This study, accordingly, traces the process whereby these sentiments began to be expressed in a systematic way, in an ideology and active organization designed to offset Chinese nationalism, to separate Manchuria from China, and even to administer a polyethnic state. This sentiment- ideology was summed up in the the term minzoku kyowa (harmony among races or peoples). The organizations successively founded on it were the Manshu Seinen Renmei (Manchurian Young Mens' League), the Kyowato (Harmony Party), and the Kyowakai (Harmony Association). The present account is not intellectual history, since the substance of minzoku kyowa ideology was rudi mentary, obscure as to precise philosophical origins, and often inclined to slide into the expediencies of propa ganda. It focuses more on the use of ideology in achieving particular ends. Neither, however, is it a theoretical study of ideology, since it mainly examines the organiza tions in question— their successes and failures, their range of activities, their shifts in structure, and the pressures and vicissitudes they encountered. In sum, this monograph attempts to trace the creation and application of minzoku kyowa and to locate the minzoku kyowa movement within the context of Kwantung Army plans for both the Manchurian Incident and for the formation and administration of Manchukuo. It shows how the Kyowakai, beginning with aspirations of becoming a single independent totalitarian political party, was gradually co-opted into the service of the bureaucratic administration of Man chukuo, finally ending up as a virtual arm of the govern ment. In the process, the leading individuals who founded the Manshu Seinen Renmei and conceived its successors, the Kyowato and the Kyowakai, as independent organs were shunted aside and replaced by men favoring assimilation. Seeing a fundamental corruption in the bureaucratization of their organization, many of these original minzoku kyowa ideologues formed an out-group critical of and, in turn, opposed to the Manchukuo government and Kwantung Army power structure. The main points of interpretation which I hope to demonstrate are as follows: 1. There were various forms of separatist feeling in Manchuria among Chinese, Manchus, and Mongols pre dating the Manchurian Incident. The Manchurian Japanese, as articulated through the Manshu Seinen Renmei, had their own version of this argument for separating from China and even for avoiding a total submersion in the Japanese empire. Their prefer ence was for a unique entity governed along pan- Asian (though not necessarily egalitarian) lines. vii 2. This Japanese civilian movement paralleled but was independent of the Kwantung Army, although its ideology and organization were eventually utilized by the Kwantung Army to circumvent strictures placed on military action by a reluctant home government and to cope with a complicated political situation in Manchuria. 3. Non-Japanese collaborated to a degree with resident Japanese in Manchuria to achieve the separation of Manchuria from China. 4. The Japanese made efforts to utilize the multi plicity of ethnic groups in Manchuria not in a divide-and-conquer strategy but in an effort to reconcile all races. This was the essence of minzoku kyowa * This ideology of racial harmony and the organization it spawned were co-opted into the Manchukuo administration after 1932 and became the basis of a major mass organization and mobilization effort by that government. In other words, there was something more to Manchukuo than mere Japanese conquest and rule through Manchu puppets. None of this contradicts in any fundamental way the mainstream historical assumptions about Japanese imperial ism. Rather, my intention is to fill in gaps. General histories rarely mention the Kyowato or Kyowakai nor do viii they deal with Manchukuo other than to stress the sham of its independence. The Manchurian Incident is usually discussed mainly in terms of its dramatic impact on foreign relations and on Japanese domestic politics„ However, by over-concentrating on army conspiracies, the historian runs the risk of making Japanese imperialism into a one dimensional phenomenon without counterplays or controver sies. We must consider more closely the whole Japanese Manchurian experience and especially the struggle and failure to find a pan-Asian framework for dealing with continental peoples. Otherwise the later Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere pops up virtually unheralded and, hence, appears