Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan

7. Hirohito’s First Adviser: Count Makino Nobuaki

• 7 Hirohito’s First Adviser: Count Makino Nobuaki Makino Nobuaki (1861–1949), along with Saionji Kimmochi (1849– 1940) and Kido Kòichi (1889–1977), is generally acknowledged as one of Emperor Hirohito’s most important prewar advisers. In terms of Japanese domestic politics the first two have been called “liberal constitutional monarchists.”1 They sustained and sometimes pushed the young sovereign to support progressive politics. Makino and Kido were in a position to do this because of their proximity to the crown prince and emperor officially; Saionji had an unofficial but no less important position in the body politic. Makino was imperial household minister (1921–1925) and lord keeper of the privy seal, that is, the emperor’s political adviser (1925– 1935). Saionji, the last “elder statesman” (genrò), was counselor of the emperor from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s. Kido, in contrast to the other two, has been called a “traditionalist” by at least one prominent historian;2 he was lord keeper of the privy seal from 1940 to 1945. All except Kido spent a great deal of time overseas before attaining their respective positions of influence. The journal written by Saionji’s secretary , Kido’s diary, and the record of his testimony before the Tokyo war crimes trials have been studied extensively.3 For this reason Makino will be examined here, using his diaries and other contemporary accounts, to show the character of his political convictions and his influence on Hirohito. 140 • Hirohito and War Makino and Japanese Liberalism Ambassador Joseph Grew called Makino a “moderate” in contrast to the militarists in the 1930s.4 More recently, at least one modern Japanese scholar, Nakamura Masanori,5 has called him a “liberal.” It seems appropriate, then, to comment here on his reputation in the light of early modern Japanese liberalism. Liberal thought in Imperial Japan, especially as applied to the imperial institution, was rather different from the tradition bearing the same name in the West.6 Makino was a man of Meiji at home in the high circles of society. Germaine Hoston’s description of liberal Meiji elites fits him well: [They] held firmly to distinctions among classes and had limited faith in the ability of commoners to rule themselves. In addition, the appeal of the emperor as a symbol of the body politic standing in a special paternal relationship with his people constrained the views of Meiji liberals on the proper constitution of the Japanese polity.7 Like others of similar standing and background, Hoston continues, Makino “departed from the tenets with which we have identified political liberalism in two major respects.” Not only did loyalty to the throne crimp his “commitment to the contractualist notion of a polity based on popular sovereignty,” but many also had difficulty in applying the principles of liberalism “to the liberation of nations from foreign [Japanese] rule.” The latter aspect was less pronounced in Makino’s case, but it colored his feelings about Japan’s position among the nations of the world. Moreover, though regarded a liberal by many of his contemporaries, he was not as liberal as certain Taishò critics of the political system. These liberals, together with the Marxists, “aspired to the fulfillment of the promise of a bourgeois-democratic revolution contained in the Meiji Restoration.” Advocates of liberalism as a political philosophy, they stood for “academic freedom, universal suffrage, and liberalization of restraints on education imposed by the kokutai orthodoxy.”8 Makino’s thought and actions differed sharply from this purist liberalism . As we shall see, these departures and the constraints noted earlier shaped his political convictions and his influence on Hirohito. In effect Makino’s loyalism coincided nicely with the tenets of the history and ethics taught to the crown prince at his school, and it contributed greatly to Hirohito’s conception of his role as emperor in prewar military decision making. Hirohito’s First Adviser • 141 Background, Career, and Political Persuasion Makino Nobuaki (Shinken) was the second son of Òkubo Toshimichi (1832–1878). His original name was Òkubo Shinyû (Nobukuma). His was a leading bushi (samurai) house in the fief of Satsuma (present-day Kagoshima), and his father Toshimichi played a leading role in the Meiji Restoration of 1868. At an early age Nobuaki was designated heir to the ruling house (daimyò) Makino of Mikawa (present-day Aichi). The connection between the two houses was from the time of his greatgrandfather , whose daughter married...