Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (71 page)

To Araki the internal threat confronting Japan was as serious as the external one. “Having uncritically accepted [Western] culture in everything,” he declared, “we now find we have lost our hold on the autonomous ideals of the Japanese race.” As he spoke the screen flashed to scenes of Western cultural influences that increasingly appealed to the Japanese in the early 1930s—modern couples dancing in Ginza dance halls, strolling hand in hand along busy, darkened Tokyo streets—juxtaposed against shots of imperial troops battling in the freezing cold and stifling heat of Manchuria, schoolgirls writing letters of encouragement to soldiers under the direc
tion of their teachers, worshipers at Shinto shrines, and so forth. Araki denounced dancing, golfing, American movies, women wearing cosmetics and smoking in public, communists—everyone who had succumbed to Western decadence and Western values of individualism, hedonism, and materialism. The alternative to such defilement was traditional consciousness, exemplified in village life, Shinto shrine worship, and military service. The urgent need was to abandon the pursuit of pleasure and accept personal sacrifice and pain in order to accomplish the great national mission.

Throughout the film Araki sought to distill the significance of the recently concluded incident. It was a “providential blessing” that had unleashed the tremendous energy of the Japanese people. But it was also a “warning to us from heaven” to return to the great principles of the “imperial way” that had governed Japan since its founding. Highlighting Araki's words, the screen linked the age of the gods to the present: Takachiho-no-mine, the place where the male and female deities Izanagi and Izanami had descended from heaven, a depiction of Emperor Jimmu's enthronement, Ise Shrine, Kashihara Shrine, Atsuta Shrine, Meiji Shrine, the Imperial Palace at Nij
bashi, and Hirohito's enthronement in 1928.

In the last few segments Araki defined national defense and explained how “spiritual mobilization” could enable Japan to break “the encirclement offensive of the entire world, centered on the League” and symbolized by an “iron ring” surrounding Japan. As he spoke, the film audience heard “Kimigayo” and saw the Sh
wa emperor reviewing troops, mechanized units passing in parade, and warships steaming in review and firing a salute. Araki:

Having asserted that the armed forces incarnated “national virtue,” and manifested the “sacred spirit” of Hirohito by expanding abroad, Araki guided his audience to the main thrust of his entire argument: namely, that Japan must prepare for total spiritual mobilization. “Ninety million people must become one and join the emperor in spreading the imperial virtue. For this we must unite and advance until the very last minute [of the battle]. In this way, we will secure the glory of final victory.” A montage of quick shots shows patriotic businessmen donating aircraft to the army, women receiving military training, motorcycles on the road, the nation industrializing, factory chimneys belching smoke, people walking briskly. Two segments later the camera cuts to the “three human bullets” (
bakudan sany
shi
) departing for the Shanghai battlefront, where they blow up an enemy encampment. A chart shows the elements that produced their bravery, and finally the film shows their gravesites.
¹⁰⁹

As the film moves to a close, the camera evokes a sense of Japan triumphing over adversity. Climbers persevere through storm and snow to reach the summit of a mountain. General Mut
travels to Manchukuo and meets Emperor Pu Yi. A black cloud rises over a map of the distant city of Geneva and moves swiftly eastward to surround Japan. Cheering Tokyo crowds welcome home from Geneva
diplomat Matsuoka, who bows deeply toward the Imperial Palace while another map shows Japan spreading open the iron ring. To round out the film, the departed Emperor Meiji returns through three of his war poems, connoting the need for spiritual mobilization and reminding the audience that nothing great is ever accomplished without tremendous exertion and sacrifice.
¹¹⁰

The army's second consciousness-raising endeavor was the book entitled
Hij
ji kokumin zensh
(Essays on the time of emergency confronting the nation), published in March 1934.
¹¹¹
This work, part of a seven-volume collection, was designed to present the ideas of military and diplomatic experts on all aspects of the “emergency.” The fifteen army contributors—representing many of the core officer group—sought to raise public consciousness about the nature of modern warfare and the dangers confronting Japan. What they mainly conveyed, however, were the lessons that the army had drawn and had failed to draw from World War I.

The preface, by the new army minister, General Hayashi, revealed that the army was still in the grip of the simplistic victory ideology of the Russo-Japanese War. For Hayashi, future war would be an extension of Japan's previous wars though on a much grander scale, requiring total national mobilization. Vice Chief of the Army General Staff Ueda Kenkichi explained that preparing the nation for war meant building up armaments, “uniting politics, the economy, finance, and all other institutions,” and perfecting war leadership.
¹¹²
Other writers equated the development of national power with the mere technical “fulfillment of war preparations.”
¹¹³
None grasped that industrialized warfare at midcentury required a high rate of productivity, mass production, and a vibrant economy unblighted by backwardness in science and technology or by agricultural stagnation. The army leaders' analyses, however, clearly pointed to a coming great bureaucratic reorganization of Japanese society.

General T
j
asserted: “The modern war of national defense
extends over a great many areas.” It requires constructing “a state that can monolithically control” warfare in all of its forms: military, economic, ideological, and strategic. Filled with anti-Western resentment, T
j
dwelt on how the victorious democracies of World War I had waged ideological warfare against Japan. Hereafter Japan must stand erect and “spread [its own] moral principles to the world,” for “the cultural and ideological warfare of the ‘imperial way' is about to begin.”
¹¹⁴
Other contributors to
Hij
ji kokumin zensh
tended “to reduce national mobilization for waging total war to a problem of acquiring resources” for self-sufficiency.
¹¹⁵
Built into the thinking of these military leaders were visions of territorial conquest on the Asian continent and the possibility of war with Britain and the United States.