Comment: Fascism and the History of Pre-War Japan: The Failure of a Concept Author(s): Peter Duus and Daniel I. Okimoto Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Nov., 1979), pp. 65-76 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2053504 . Accessed: 11/01/2013 04:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Association for Asian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Asian Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:29:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions VOL. XXXIX, No. I JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES NOVEMBER 1979 Comment Fascismand the Historyof Pre-WarJapan: The Failureof a Concept PETER Duus DANIEL I. OKIMOTO Old paradigmsnever die; theyjust fadeaway, thoughoften not soon enough. Historians and political scientistshave managed to abandon a numberof misleading descriptiveor analyticalconcepts they had once used in talkingabout pre-warJapanese politics-"liberalism" and "democracy,"for example. But the metaphorof fascismpersists, which is surprising,given the conceptual and empirical difficultiesinvolved. Since the revivalof studies of Europeanfascism in the I96os, therehas been much debate on what the termmeant in its originalcontext. Definitions of fascism come in all shapes and sizes, some preciseand some diffuse,some mutuallycon- tradictory.The broadestof them attemptto associate fascismwith a particular historicalstage in the developmentof industrialsociety. Marxists-among whom thereare deep internecinedisagreements-generally identify fascism as thedictator- ship of monopolycapital drawn by its internalcontradictions into policies of oppres- sion at home and expansionabroad.1 Non-Marxist scholars have advancedsimilar arguments: they suggest that while fascismmay not be an inevitablestage in capitalist development,it does constitutean avenue that some capitalistsocieties follow into modernization.2This developmentalapproach is richlysuggestive, but it suffersthe usual defectsof "stage theories"-rigid periodizationof history, arbitraryassumptions about the "normal"mode ofdevelopment, notions of linearity in development,and vague explanationsof causality. Studies of modernization betrayingsimilar biases have passed fromthe scene, especiallyin politicalscience, where theywere once orthodoxy,and even some of theirprincipal advocates have since reconsidered.3 Some scholarshave attemptedto describefascism in staticterms. Historians like Ernst Nolte, for example, have characterizedfascism as a particularintellectual style,4while otheranalysts have viewed it in termsof its class or social bases,5 or have looked at it simplyas a formof political movement.6One comes away from PeterDuus is AssociateProfessor of History and 3See Samuel P. Huntington, "The Change to Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Change," ComparativePolitics 3, no. 3 (April 197 I): StanfordUniversity. Daniel I. Okimotois Assistant 283-322. Professorof Political Science at StanfordUniversity. 4Ernst Nolte, ThreeFaces of Fascism (New York: 1 Tanaka S6gor6,Nihon Fuashizumu-shi (Tokyo: Holt, Rinehartand Winston, I966). Kawaide Shob6, I960). 5 SeymourM. Lipset, PoliticalMan (New York: 2 See A. F. K. Organski, The Stagesof Political Doubleday, 1959). Development(New York: AlfredKnopf, I965); Bar- 6 JuanJ. Linz, "Some Notes Toward a Compar- ringtonMoore, Jr., SocialOrigins of Dictatorship and ative Study of Fascism in Sociological Historical Democracy(Boston: Beacon Press, I966); and H. A. Perspective," in Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism:A Turner, "Fascism and Modernization," World Readers'Guide (Berkeley: Univ. of CalifomiaPress, Politics24, no. 4 (July I972): 547-64. 1976), pp. 3-12 1. 65 This content downloaded on Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:29:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 66 PETER DuUS AND DANIEL I. OKIMOTO readingmuch of this literaturewondering if the authorsare talkingabout the same phenomenon. Effortsto associate fascismwith a particularclass or social base describeit variouslyas a movementof the "pettybourgeoisie in townand country," "a middleclass movementrepresenting a protest against both capitalism and socialism, big business and big unions," "one of severalgroups of the Mittelstandand the capitalistbourgeoisie," "the small peasantand agriculturallabourers," or "the vast masses of ex-combatants"who foughtin World War I. That leaves in just about everybody. Leaving aside the empiricaldifficulties, the logical problemsinvolved in for- mulating an adequate definitionof fascismare formidable.By drawing narrow definitionalboundaries one mightcapture the experiencesof one particularnational society-Nazi Germany,for example-but only at the cost of leavingno roomto accommodatethe differentexperiences of another society, such as Franco'sSpain. As James Gregor has pointed out elsewhere,it is difficultenough to finda precise definitionthat is broadenough to accommodateboth Italy and Germany.7If, on the otherhand, one draws the boundariestoo loosely,a large numberof cases may be encompassed,but the fitin particularcases will be so imperfectthat the explanatory value of the conceptwill vanish.It could be arguedthat lumping Germany and Italy togetherwith Salazar's Portugalor Quisling's Norwayglosses over differencesso fundamentalas to renderthe definitionmeaningless. In short,if findinga minimal core of characteristicsshared by all fascistcountries in Europe is difficult,then the task is virtuallyimpossible if we tryto include China or Japan or Korea. After surveyingthe scholarlypublications on European fascism,Gilbert Allardycehas come to doubt whethera genericdefinition-even one thatwould apply to Germany and Italy-is feasibleat all.' Some mightdismiss these definitional problems as nominalisthairsplitting, and argue that the real task is to studyJapan in the I930S by comparingit to European fascistregimes. But this approachalso has seriousflaws. Many analystsof Japanese "fascism" have taken pains to point out how the Japanesecase differedfrom the European,and vice versa.Maruyama Masao's influentialessay provides the best such formulation.He pointsout thatin Japanthere was no mass movementand no cult of the supremeleader, but a heavystress on agrarianism,a centralrole formilitary officers,and so forth.9But neitherMaruyama, nor anyoneelse until recently,has pressed on to the obvious conclusion:the Japanesecase is so dissimilarthat it is meaninglessto speak of Japan in the I930S as a "fascist"political system.Some- timesincidental differences add up to an essentialdifference. To compound the problem, therehas been a tendencyin studies of Japanese fascismto conflatelevels of analysis.Attention has been fixedon the macrosocietal level, specificallythe political system,which has been characterizedas "fascist." Implicitly,and sometimesexplicitly, the restof thesociety-the microlevelas well as the macrolevel-is assumed to reflectthe characteristicsof the centralpolitical A. JamesGregor, TheIdeology of Fascism (New Problemof 'JapaneseFascism,"' ComparativeStudies York: Free Press, I969). in Societyand Historyio, no. 4 (July I968): 40I- 8 Gilbert Allardyce, "What Fascism Is Not: I 2. Thoughtson the Deflationof a Concept,"American 9 Masao Maruyama, Thoughtand Behaviourin HistoricalReview 84, no. 2 (April I979): 367-88. ModernJapanese Politics (New York: OxfordUniv. See also George M. Wilson, "A New Look at the Press, I963). This content downloaded on Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:29:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FASCISM AND THE HISTORY OF PRE-WAR JAPAN 67 system.What happensat the microsocietallevel is an extensionof whathappens at the macrosocietallevel: ifthere is an "emperorsystem" or "fascism"at thetop, then there must be a whole seriesof "emperorsystems" or "fascisms"below. In other words, thereis a tacit assumptionof a high degreeof consistencythroughout the political culture.Common sense, on theother hand, tells us thateven in a societyas homogeneousas Japan's,there are wide variationsin valuesand behaviordependent on geographicalor class differences.The neglectof microlevelempirical studies-of small groups, organizations,or communities-has leftus no veryconcrete picture of the lowerlevels of Japanese society in the I930s. To fleshout theabstractions that macrolevelanalyses offer us, we needmore research of the sort that Irokawa Daikichi has done on the I87os and i88os and Kano Masanao has done on the I9IOS and I920s. By highlightingcontradictions and countercurrentsduring the periodsof thejiyliminken movement and of Taisho "democracy,"both have enrichedour sense of thoseperiods and correctedoversimplified aggregate portrayals. This is not to say that therewere no "fascists"in Japan,or that therewere no "fascistmovements" or "fascistideas" about. Fascistsmay have been part of the totalpolitical scene, but onlyas a minorside current.This is evidentfrom the fate of self-designatedor putativefascists and fascistmovements during the I930s. Kita Ikki, Nakano Seigo, Nagata Tetsuzan, and Araki Sadao all have been plausibly