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Chapter 6 Japan and the Problem of Order Postwar Japan occupied a fundamentally different position with respect to the rest of East Asia than did postwar Germany within Europe . Whereas Germany was physically divided among several occupying powers, the United States called the shots in Japan. The Far Eastern Commission, though technically charged with overseeing occupation policy, was subordinated to American desires, and Douglas MacArthur’s in particular, in a way that had no European parallel. Although Japanese politicians could play on American fears of communism , they could not use intra-Allied disagreements as a tool to open up their own political space to the degree that postwar German politicians could. On the other hand, Japan arguably confronted a more permissive international environment than did Germany. China was embroiled in civil war, and then weakened in its aftermath. The Soviet Union was more interested in the disposition of Germany than of Japan. International security concerns were less pressing for the comparatively isolated Japan than for Germany. It is therefore hard to say conclusively whether postwar Japan should, in principle, have had greater freedom of action (because China and the Soviet Union were preoccupied with other matters) or less freedom of action (because the United States was so intimately involved in Japanese affairs). In any case, it is clear that there were also many similarities in the two countries’ positions. Both were subject to extensive purges of the prewar leadership, some of whom were brought before war crimes tribunals. At the Nuremberg trials, twenty-four Nazi officials were indicted for launching an aggressive war, for war crimes, or for crimes against humanity. Twelve of these were sentenced to death. In Tokyo, twenty-eight political leaders were tried for similar crimes, and seven (including Hideki Tøjø) were sentenced to death.1 A sweeping campaign was carried out in Germany to identify and remove Nazis from positions of power, to demilitarize the country, and to break up the economic cartels that were believed to have contributed to Germany’s military might. Similarly, in Japan, officials sympathetic to the 111 112 Cultures of Order wartime regime were removed from all levels of government, the military was dismantled, and plans were set in motion to destroy the large business conglomerates (zaibatsu) that had dominated Japan’s war industry. In both countries, occupation officials forbade new investment in industries closely related to war potential. Some naively imagined that the defeated powers could be reconstituted as predominantly agrarian societies. Ironically, agriculture quickly emerged as a problem rather than a panacea. In the aftermath of the war, both Germany and Japan suffered profound economic dislocations. Decommissioned troops returned to food shortages, inflation, and unemployment. In these two major industrial powers, the war’s aftermath brought cases of death from starvation.2 Political parties on the left organized rapidly. A May Day rally in 1946 mobilized five hundred thousand people to demonstrate in front of the imperial palace in Tokyo, followed by “a second massive wave of protests . . . on May 19, which had been designated ‘Food May Day.’ ”3 Under these trying circumstances, occupation authorities set about the task of maintaining order and introducing more democratic forms of governance. Out of a combination of shock at their defeat, revulsion as the worst excesses of their own governments’ policies were revealed, and the intense object lesson of foreign occupation, German and Japanese citizens embraced a new pacifism that rejected both their wartime ambitions and any military means of attaining them. Thomas Berger has documented the extent to which this postwar sentiment grew to form the basis of a robust antimilitarist ideology.4 In making the case that the wartime and early postwar experience gave rise to new security cultures in these two countries, Berger emphasizes their basic resemblance to one another. There is much evidence to support Berger’s point of view. Postwar Germany and Japan shared so much that it would be astonishing were their postwar paths to diverge too soon or too sharply. While this chapter does not take issue with Berger’s assessment of ideological convergence at the level of popular opinion, it will argue that German and Japanese politicians ultimately adopted very different strategies for securing political order at home and abroad. In general, of course, they confronted the same strategic possibilities. Directive approaches to order, emphasizing their own leadership, were clearly excluded by postwar realities. From among the remaining possibilities, as earlier chapters have shown, German politicians consistently preferred the institutional-commissive strategy of...

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