Ultranationalism (Japan)


State ultranationalism or simply ultranationalism, refers mainly to the radical statist movement of the Shōwa period, but it can also refer to extreme Japanese nationalism before and after the Shōwa era.
State ultranationalists use the authority of the state/nation through Tennō as the focus of public loyalty. Other Ikki Kita's "state socialism" or "national socialism" is a representative idea referred to as 超国家主義 in Japan.

History

Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan's political practice had been dominated by statism/nationalism. In the early 20th century, the middle and lower classes, led by Ikki Kita, who were dissatisfied with the control of national resources by the elder, important ministers, old and new Kazoku, warlords, zaibatsu, and political parties heads since the Meiji Restoration, sought radical reforms. They advocated that the representatives of the traditional statism/nationalism be indiscriminately categorized as the culprits of the evils, and that they should be killed one by one to show a break with the traditional statism since the Meiji Restoration. This was a break with the traditional statism/nationalism of the Meiji period. This rupture was most fully manifested when the Tennō began to be viewed not as a symbol of tradition, but as a symbol of change, and the failed mutiny by ultra-nationalist junior officers in 1936 ultimately led to Japan's full-scale entry into the era of Japanese nationalist military government four years later.

Connection to fascism

According to some scholars, Japan, which has a tradition of obedience, cooperation, and solidarity, already had at least a proto-fascist and proto-totalitarian spirit, so unlike Italy and Germany, it was able to adopt a totalitarian attitude without radical change in the late 1930s. Japanese liberal scholars, including Masao Maruyama, saw Japanese state ultranationalism as fascism and referred to it as "Emperor-system fascism".
American historian Robert O. Paxton argues that with the absence of a mass revolutionary party and a rupture from the incumbent regime, Imperial Japan was merely "an expansionist military dictatorship with a high degree of state-sponsored mobilization than as a fascist regime". British historian Roger Griffin, called Putin's Russia and World War II-era Japan "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist".

Analysis by Masao Maruyama

Masao Maruyama, assessed that the Japanese statist/nationalist government model was similar to fascism, but not directly related to state/national-socialism. However, he claimed that ultra-nationalism as Japanese statism was clearly influenced by national-socialism. According to him, the proposal of ultra-nationalism is based on ideal socialism and combines the ideologies of some national-socialism.
According to the methodology of political practice, state/national-socialism is the socialism that the government promotes from top to bottom. Ultra-nationalists, on the one hand, wants the Tennō to accept their radical national-socialist ideology, but on the other hand, it causes problems at a low level and puts pressure on the government to reform. Eventually, Japan entered Japanese nationalism, which is similar to fascism, not a national-socialist state, but 40 years of ultra-nationalism have been a great success.
Japan has been in a state of statism/nationalism and militarism since the Meiji Restoration, but it was this "ultra-" that led Japan to the military path of Japanese nationalism. And this "ultra-" is the Japanese practice of national-socialist ideology.

Ultranationalist organizations and political parties

Post-war

The Liberal Democratic Party, Japanese largest right-wing party, has an ultranationalist faction.

Pre-war

Ultranationalist figures

Events