Japan's Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shintō Ultranationalism (review)

Why did Japan embark upon that fateful war? To a large degree, it was this question that decisively contributed to the founding of Japanese studies in the English-speaking world. The ideological roots of the Japanese pursuit of World War II were sought out in studies completed toward the end of the war or shortly afterward, studies penned by the likes of Ruth Benedict, Daniel C. Holtom, Robert K. Hall, and others. In Japan's Holy War, Walter Skya reexamines the question and gives a clear answer: "radical Shintō ultranationalism," an extreme form of religious nationalism, had by the 1930s won out against supporters of a democratic secular state.

The role of ideology is crucial in the story of Japan's road toward World War II, claims Skya, as only it can explain the "militarization or radicalization of the masses," which "did not occur automatically" (p. 151). Political terrorists of the 1930s invoked the will of the emperor, but this could only be accessed "through interpretations of scripture and by theological formulations" (p. 246), which were offered by the ideologues who are the subject of Skya's book. Their doctrine, while not newly created in the 1930s, was very different from the conservative political thought of the Meiji period. Skya thus argues against common refutations of Japanese fascism that stress the continuity of the institutional framework and ideological legacy of the Meiji period.

Skya amply proves the occurrence of a fundamental change in the outlook of right-wing political ideology in Japan by treating in chronological order important political theorists from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa period. A chapter each is devoted to Hozumi Yatsuka, Minobe Tatsukichi, and Kita Ikki as proponents of a traditional form of conservative nationalism, and to Uesugi Shinkichi and Kakehi Katsuhiko as leaders in the attempt to formulate what the author refers to as "radical Shintō ultranationalism." Skya's point of departure is the Meiji Constitution, which for him "had constructed a political system based on two inherently contradictory ideologies: sacred monarchical absolutism and secular representative democracy" (p. 131). The political history of ideas between the 1890s and the 1930s can be read, says Skya, as a continuing commentary on this fundamental constitutional problem.

Hozumi is portrayed as having articulated the ideal of an ethnic family-state with an absolutist view of the political subject: He clearly belonged to an era before the masses entered politics as a legitimate subject. Minobe, in turn, is important to Skya's argument for having articulated the principal theory of state that became an object of attack by all later right-wing authors—the emperor-as-organ theory. Skya takes care to point out that Minobe never intended to advocate liberal democracy, but that rather his theory "ideologically and legally justified a limited participatory form of authoritarianism" (p. 95). Kita is introduced in a brief chapter mainly to play down his role in the overall scheme of prewar Japanese right-wing thought. As author of the "most massive and thoroughgoing attacks on the ideology of State Shintō in modern Japanese history" (p. 128), Kita was not among those Skya identifies as representatives of the most important ideological force of prewar Japan.

Rather than Kita, it was Uesugi who, in his state theory,¹ fused the recognition of the role of the masses in Japanese politics with a central role for the emperor: "It was the responsibility of all subjects to assist the emperor" (quoted on p. 172). The total "identification of the self and one's own being with the emperor" meant the rejection of the family principle as articulated by Hozumi (p. 183). In this way, Uesugi put forth a genuine totalitarian ideology, which was no longer merely conservative or reactionary, but revolutionary. Yet it was to be a different strand of this extremist philosophy that triumphed in the 1930s, namely, controlled "radical Shintō ultranationalism," the most visible proponent of...