Japanese Fascism and the Developement of "Agrarian Reorganization Movement"

Abstract

In prewar Japan, farm villages were the foundation of Japanese Fascism. Peasantry as the middle class was one of the chief carrier of Japanese Eascism. Now, why and how they were mobilized to fascism are an important subject to be cleared. Through this analysis the characteristic of Japanese Fascism will be explained. First, we must think about the class inconsistency among land-owner and tenancy. This inconsistency was more intensified through the Agrarian Crisis. Farm villages were in danger of decline. Decline of agricultural community was immediately the crisis for the governing classes. Then, one side, the State used the police power, and the other side it discribed to dissolve the crisis naturally by execution of "Agrarian Reorganization Movement". There fore, Japanese Fascism didn't destroy landownership, but put it long declaining process. Japanese Fascism included landed farmers-a leading figure in farm village-in its supporter. This is not all of the masses mobilization to fascism. Landed formers were set in the center of this system, and tenants, poor peasants and so on-the major parts of farm village-were settled as the smallest unit of the organization. Consequently landed farmers could exhibit their leadership. This is the contents of "Agrarian Reorganization Movement". Second, the major parts in farm villages which could not reform were calculated as surplus farmhouse by "proper scope argument" because of shortage of land. Tenants and poor peasants emigrated to "Manchuria" to reform as landed farmers. Their farm village was devided into two parts. One was "a base village", the other was "a branch village". The middle peasants, the half-intellectualized and the youth propeled this emigration movement. One of the most important problems of the emigration movement was "the landed farmerism". It was the foundation of the fascism agressive policy. Namely, Japanese Fascism included both rationality and non-rationality. Then it disked the success of masses mobilization and it used to give poor peasants an illusion. Not only the middle peasants but also the poor peasants were the foundation of Japanese Fascism. It was the characteristic of Japanese Fascism.