Kokutairon and Pure Socialism

In September 1905, Kita returned to Tokyo (from home city Sado) at the time of the Hibiya Riots, which protested the Treaty of Portsmouth. The treaty marked an end to the Russo-Japanese War and was externally negotiated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. It contained beneficial terms for Japan's imperialist policies. There was now an international recognition that Japan had influence and control over parts of Russian-dominated China and Korea. Yet activist groups considered these terms a humiliating failure and thus rioted. While Kita agreed with the protester’s aim to secure Japan’s increased international prestige, he disagreed with their values in the Kokutai; which Kita believed "was a tool in the hands of the genro."[2] It was in these circumstances that Kita wrote his first book, Kokutairon and Pure Socialism.

George Wilson summarises this context: "Kita wrote his first book against a background of widespread popular discontent over the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War."[3] The riots marked a rise in violent political uprisings in Japan, a trend that favoured Kita and his radical political ideology.

Kokutairon was Kita's first politically-inspired book and therefore reflects his early political views and alignments. Danny Orbach contends the book reflects Kita's "socialist, secular and rational phase."[4] According to Oliviero Frattolillo, Kita was personally motivated to writing Kokutairon because of the uncritical mindset of his intellectual peers. Frattolillo claims, "Kita was particularly critical of the submissive attitude of certain intellectuals towards the system who obsequiously accepted the acquisition of new theories and new forms of knowledge from the west, translated and transplanted in Japan."[5] He therefore wishes to plainly critique the faults of his society and propose a socialist alternative.

Kita's contextualised political ideology is defined as Shōwa statism, otherwise known as Japanese fascism or Shōwa nationalism. It is a sector of fascism that was often ultra-nationalist and militaristic in nature. It is categorised as a political syncretism, a political alignment that combines sectors from both left and right-wing politics and thus defies a singular identification. Kita was considered one of the great Japanese thinkers and intellectuals in this movement. Kita often took a more socialist and progressive-economic approach than the majority of Shōwa nationalists.

Kita's Kokutairon was influenced by his lecturers Ukita Kazutami (浮田 和民), Ariga Nagao and Abe Isoo at the Waseda University.[6]

Kita's book is essentially a critique of the Meiji government and their interpretation and teaching of the 'kokutai". The kokutai is a concept of imperial sovereignty. During the Meiji period, the popular ideology of kokutairon was formed and disseminated throughout Japan via education reforms that taught constitution, civil codes and the sovereignty of the Emperor. It was this Meiji interpretation and propagation of kokutairon ideology that Kita challenged in his political treatise. Kita's main argument, according to George Wilson, was that socialism and kokutai (as Kita defined it, i.e. a legal social democracy) were one of the same. Danny Orbach contends that Kita's views were heavily influenced by Marxism.[4]

Kita makes a few key arguments which will be summarised below to encapsulate his main thesis, criticisms and plan for the reorganisation of Japan.

Kita's book was rejected by almost every reputable publisher he approached. Many rejected due to the radical fascist ideology expressed, which directly opposed the ideology of their current government and thus endangered potential publishers.[21] Others, such as the Heimin Shimbun, a socially inclined publishing house, rejected it on grounds of its sheer length (1000 pages).[22] Kita's uncle, Homma Kazumatsu, eventually printed 500 copies of the manuscript on May 9, 1906. However, the home ministry of the Meiji Government had banned and removed all copies of Kita's book within 10 days of its publication.[6] Kita only managed to successfully republish parts of Kokutairon over his lifetime. It was only published in its entirety in 1959 by Mizusu Shobo.[23]

Despite its quick removal from the public domain, Kokutairon managed to elicit some response, though none in the way Kita envisaged. Chushichi Tsuzuki summarises the reaction: "His book was welcomed by advanced intellectuals of the day such as Katayama Sen, the prominent economist Fukuda Tokuzo, and Kawakami Hajime."[24] Katayama Sen, as a pacifist socialist, disagreed with Kita's imperialist international approach, yet was otherwise impressed with his socialist perspectives, describing Kokutairon as "probably the greatest work among Japanese writings on socialism."[25] It even illicited the support of prominent economic academics of his day (Fukuda Tokuzo and Kawakami Hajimie). These positive receptions were however halted by an awareness of the inevitable backlash from Meiji authorities, due to its provocative nature.

In 1906 Kita was invited to the Kakumei Hyoronsha group (Revolutionary Review Society), a Japanese socialist group dedicated to encouraging social revolution in China.[22] Tsuzuki suggests that this was a reaction to Kokutairon's publication.

Christopher Szpilman suggests that Kita had purposely filled Kokutairon with emotionally and politically provocative elements in order to evoke an extreme reaction. That it was a plot to gain the attention of Japanese authorities. He states, "Kita constantly had ensured the book would stir extreme emotions by deliberately filling it with insults against the imperial family and various prominent academics.” Szpilman then includes a recurrent phrase in Kita's book to justify his claim.[26] Kita often described the Japanese people as "idiots who had their skulls smashed in by the single phrase bans nikkei (the imperial line unbroken for ages immemorial)"[27]

Kokutairon is now used as evidence for historical investigation of Kita Ikki and his changing political ideologies, evolution of Japanese fascist political thought and of public opinion toward Meiji government.

• Wilson, George (1969). Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki 1883-1937. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Ikki, Kita (1959). "Kokutairon and Pure Socialism." In Kita Ikki Chosakushu (Writings of Kita Ikki), edited by Kamishima Jiro, 1-435. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo.
• Orbach, Danny (October 2011). "A Japanese prophet: eschatology and epistemology in the thought of Kita Ikki". Japan Forum. 23 (3): 339–361. doi:10.1080/09555803.2011.597511.
• Frattolillo, Oliviero (2014). Interwar Japan beyond the West: The Search for a New Subjectivity in World History. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Osedo, Hiroshi (1973). The political thought of Kita Ikki: The logical link between his critique of the national polity and his advocacy of war (Master of Arts thesis). The University of British Columbia.
• Tsuzuki, Chushichi (2000). The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan 1825-1995. New York: Oxford University Press.