1. The Meiji society

Upon the abolition of the noble status of the samurai class, a new social hierarchy was built and the country was reclassified into the following social classes: nobles(kazoku), former samurai (shizoku and sotsu), farmers, merchants and artisans (heimin), and eventually the outcasts as ordinary citizens.

After the Meiji Restoration and the decision to modernize Japan, Japan entered a phase of rapid industrial development.  It turned Japanese society into one that resembled Western society in many ways.  On the one hand was the establishment of large businesses and sometimes large business conglomerates (zaibatsu) such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, on the other hand industrialization brought about a host of problems to Japan as in European countries, such as pollution and terrible working conditions, especially for female workers.  Also as in Europe, a social gap developed between working class and middle class women, both of whom used to work in the past.  Now the latter were retreating back to home (oku-san). 

In the Meiji era (1868-1912), there were contrasting conceptions of the family, including what constituted the relationship between men and women.  A pragmatic adoption of Western style civil law to reverse the unequal treaties sometimes clashed with conservative concerns to preserve traditional Japanese values such as loyalty and filial piety.  Despite a conservative interpretation of the family (ie) from the lawmakers, there were social movements that championed a more enlightened and more Western version of modern womanhood.

• Debate over the values represented by the new civil law.

  • The views of Hozumi Nobushige and Yatsuka over the preservation of loyalty and filial piety through new definitions of the ie and the father's responsibilities.
  • Champions of Ryosai kenbo (good wife, wise mother)
  • Champions of homu (home with romantic overtone).
• The Civil Code was called the "samuraization of Japanese families" because it implemented practices of samurai families to all Japanese families. 

Like the new constitution, a new educational system was deemed by the Meiji government as central to its reform. The French school district system was adopted and many primary and secondary school districts were drawn up. Also, like the constitution, the educational system was to set the values to be instilled in the students. In 1890, the Rescript on Education emphasized the kokutai (Japan's national polity) as embodied in the emperor. As Westernization was legalized and implemented in Japan, it only sharpened the existent debate over values.

Shintoism, the most ancient religion in Japan, originated as primitive animism that worshipped spirits in nature. After the Meiji Restoration, emperors were also more and more worshipped as Shinto deities and enshrined. By creating a list of national divinities, the newly remodeled Shintoism accentuated the importance of the emperor and the nation over the local regions.

The newly remodeled Shinto religion had a hierarchical structure, with the Ise shrine at the top (for sun goddess Amaterasu, where the three imperial regalia, sword, jade, and mirror, were placed), the imperial shrines and the Yasukuni Shrine (for the war dead, built 1869) next, and shrines for local deities at the bottom.

The death of Emperor Meiji in 1912 marked the beginning of a new era in Japanese history, when Japan had abolished its unequal treaties with the Western powers and entered into a consumer society.  Politics remained conservative, as only 1 per cent of Japanese were eligible to vote and most were shut out of politics.  Traditional values persisted in the modern era, one example being the  junshi (ritual suicide) of General Nogi Maresuke and wife following emperor Meiji.(any one interested in the contradictions of values can read Natsuma Soseki's novel Kokoro, where he actually discussed Nogi's death.)  The old confrontations between the conservative Satsuma and Choshu clique and the liberal elements continued, but there was greater tendency of compromise.  Society continued to be marked by the juxtaposition of the old and the new, but compared with the 19th century, there was more popular support for Western values in politics and society.

2. Japan in the Taisho Era.

Upon the death of emperor Meiji, the eldest son of the deceased emperor became the next emperor. Emperor Taisho (1912-26), however, suffered from various mental and physical diseases which could have been the result of inbreeding. Because of his illnesses, many state affairs were taken over by his eldest son Hirohito, the regent prince, including a tour of Europe in 1921. When Emperor Taisho died in 1926, Hirohito became Emperor Showa but did not conduct the imperial ceremonies of succession until 1928 to give time for national mourning.

Emperor Hirohito, whose rule spanned more than half of the twentieth century (1926-89) and who witnessed Japan's military imperialism and post World War II economic expansion during his rule, was a good testimony to modern Japanese history: both its opportunities and its dilemmas.

a. Taisho democracy

The Taisho era (1912-1926) is usually characterized as Taisho Democracy. Taisho democracy was characterized by a greater emphasis on consumerism, including of Western culture (e.g. jazz, movies) and material goods, and a more open minded look on things, e.g. journalist Yoshino Sakuzo and his relatively open criticism of the autocracy of the government, calling for greater political representation given to the people. Political parties, once banned by the genro in the 1880s, received rapid development in the Taisho Era, too.

Development of Japanese political parties

At the beginning of the constitutional government, the Japanese genro tried to prevent political parties from forming because they wanted politics to be directed from only one direction, the genro. But as time went on, they themselves started forming political parties because they realized without parties, they could not make the two houses of the Diet and the cabinet work effectively to generate and enforce legislation, since these branches of government were unrelated and each reported separately to the emperor.

• 1896, Ito Hirobumi, a genro prime minister and chief drafter of the constitution, hired Itagaki Taisuki, the Rikken Jiyuto (liberty) president, to be his home minister. Similarly, another genro prime minister, Matsukata, appointed Okuma, head of the Shinpoto (progressive) party, as foreign minister in 1896. In 1898 Itagaki and Okuma merged into Kenseito, the constitutional party.  Anticipating it to win a decisive victory in the lower house, the genro named Okuma Prime Minister. 
• In 1900 Ito and 111 members of the Kenseito formed the  Rikken Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional Government).  Ito was initially its president, and then 1903 Saionji Kinmochi, the youngest genro, assisted by politician Hara Kei.
•  In face of Ito's party, Yamagata supported Katsura Taro as his candidate for PM (1901-06) and won support of the House of Peers.
• Seiyukai and Katsura had to compromise.  and Katsura and Saionji alternated as PM till 1913.
• 1913 Katsura formed the rikken Doshikai (Constitutional Association of Friends, later Kenseikai 1916, and Rikken Minseito, 1927)
• Hara Kei, president of Seiyukai and professional politician, now prime minister (1918).

So, the two major political parties in Japan in the first half of the 20th century were:

• Seiyukai (Association of Friends of Constitutional Government): founded in 1900 by Ito Hirobumi, in the lower house to obtain support. Later developed close links with the bureaucracy.
• Minseito, a party created in the 1920s through the merger of two other parties. The chief rival to Seiyukai in the Diet.

As political parties, they were founded to ease the operation of the Diet by unifying views within each house and between the two houses (similar to our political parties). But they never developed into grassroots parties and catered to powerful local interest groups in return for votes.

Even though political parties existed in early 20th century, it was the 1924 election that led the Kenseikai and the Seiyukai parties to capture almost all seats in the lower house, so the genro (statesmen) had to acquisce to the appointment of Kato Takaaki, head of the majority Kenseikai, as prime minister. Before then, Hara Kei, head of the Seiyukai Party, also a professional politician, had been voted into the prime minister's office in 1918 because of rice riots and popular pressure on reform. But professional politicians taking that position still remained a rarity as most of the time, the position was taken by members of the genro. Kato's assumption of prime ministership led him to the law giving men 25 years and above with a steady income the right to vote in 1925, a stupendous step of progress in Japanese politics.

Prospect of universal male suffrage and political radicalization:

1925, the Diet passed Universal Manhood Suffrage Act (first implemented in 1928), sponsored by Kato Takaaki and his Kenseikai (constitutional association) party. It allowed the political left to pursue their goals in the framework of parliamentary politics.

New parties in anticipation of universal male-suffrage:

• Labor-Farmer Party, 1926.
• Japan Labor-Farmer Party, 1926. improvement for laborers and farmers.
• Socialist People's Party, 1926.
• Japan Communist Party, 1922, banned as illegel. Went underground.
  

b.Conservative backlashes:

The growth of political liberalism was against a background of rising political ferment. After the WWI boom, Japan in 1920s was developing industrially but faced many problems. After 1918, prices for rice and silk dropped drastically. Meanwhile, tenant farmers tried to reduce rent. Workers also demanded higher wages, better working environment, and non wage benefits (company housing, profit-sharing bonuses, and health care schemes).

The Hara cabinet, which in 1919 gave a more lenient interpretation of the Public Order and Police Act of 1900 that allowed "peaceful" unions and strikes, encouraged the development of unions. Unions and union members increased drastically and became more confrontational.

Examples of strikes:

1921, Tokyo Muslin Company.
1921, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi shipyards in Kobe.
1927-28, Noda Soy Sauce Company in Chiba Prefecture. The management succeeded in banning the union.

Conservative backlashes:

• Assassination of Hara Kei, professional politician and prime minister who arranged for Hirohito to go and tour Europe in 1921.
• Conservative definition of politics as defending the kokutai (national polity) through obedience to the emperor.
• Consequently, sharpened confrontation between the state, the Communists and those against the kokutai (national polity). The latter were punishable by death (used to be lese majeste charges, a charge against those who blasphemed the emperor, which amounted to firing from jobs or sometimes prison terms.) In 1933, 18,000 dissidents were arrested, mostly Communists, virtually wiping out the Communist movement.

d. economic downtowns and failed financial policies

Between the 1910s-1930s, Japan underwent several phases of rapid development. The first phase was in 1914-19, when demand for goods during World War I boosted Japanese export. After the war was over, the international demand for goods dropped, dragging not only Japanese economy, but the economies of most countries in Europe and America, down. Despite this, Showa economy still managed to grow between 1920 to 1928, although more slowly. To compound the problem, the Japanese government also made a terrible mistake in financial policy: to get Japanese economy back to the gold standard in 1929. Although this policy was no longer practiced by most countries after 1945, it was customary for many countries to link their currency to a value represented by a certain amount of gold to maintain the stability of the currency and avoid inflation (cheapening of the money). The downside of this policy (gold standard) is that when a country is in a weak economy, it is helpful to have a cheap currency to boost export, which would enable a country's goods to undercut other countries' through cheaper prices. Masataka argues that Japan got back on the gold standard at the worst possible time in 1929, when the whole world sank into an economic depression and consumer purchasing power dropped drastically. The gold standard prevented Japanese goods from becoming cheap by preventing the Japanese currency to get cheaper. This worsened Japanese economic woes.

b. the polarization of the rural and urban economies

What added to the Japanese economic problems was the polarization of the rural and urban areas, when the poverty of the farmers, caused by both government policy to use farms to subsidize industrial development through more taxes on the former, and dividing the farmland into too many small lots, led to the farmers' frustrations with the government. The problems of the nation were not adequately addressed by the political parties, which were eager to "bribe" the voters with promises of local construction in return for votes.

The problems with the Japanese countryside and the indifference of the politicians to the plight of the farmers fueled extremism in the military whose members largely came from the countryside. Although the state did try to relieve the countryside of its difficulties in the 1930s, it came too late.

c. Japanese imperial expansion and the post-World War I international environment

Japanese expansion in Asia, which started in the 19th century following the state policies of modernization, was undertaken in an age of active Western expansion into China. In particular, Russian expansion led to its takeover of large quantities of Chinese territories in the 19th century, including the acquisition of Vladivostok, and various other border regions between China and Russia. The building of the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok (1890s) furthered Russian penetration into Manchuria. Russian activities in China and Korea clashed with Japanese intentions to expand to these regions.

Like European countries, many in the Japanese government turned expansion into a systematic goal, for security, national pride, resources for industrialization, settlement of overpopulation, and markets for manufactured goods. These goals were often intertwined.

The Japanese government dominated by political parties sought to make itself a member and friend of the European countries. Despite its request for the former German colony of Shangdong Province in China, it abided by the decision of the Paris Peace Conference (1919) to return it to China. Japan's representative to the Washington Naval Conference (1921) and Nine power Treaty (1922) was Shidehara Kijuro, from the Kenseikai-Minseito coalition, who was bent on peace and cooperation with the West.

Many in the Japanese government, however, were distrustful of a friendly relationship with the West. The Pan-Asianist group that argued Japan should build an Asian colony were strengthened in their view by the discrimination by the West: in 1895 over Liaodong Peninsula, a Chinese peninsula that Japan took in 1895, which Russia, backed by France, and Germany, asked Japan to return to China, but which Russia took over once returned to China, and in 1919 over Shandong Peninsula, former German colony in China that Japan wanted to take over after World War I, a request that Britain and the U.S. turned down because of growing Chinese nationalism, and clause of racial equality, which Japan requested to be written into the Peace Treaty of 1919, but was not.) Therefore although the Japanese government on the whole was friendly to the West after World War I, many in Japan, both in the army/navy and government, were skeptical to the new internatioanl order proposed by the West: peace based on cooperation and collective security. The pacifists in the government failed to move the radicals. and the international economic depression pushed many to favor the army's policy of aggressive military expansion in China to boost Japanese economic growth.

Therefore, although after World War I, the U.S. tried to build up a world of peace, many Japanese in the army/navy viewed it with skepticism and were determined to pursue the traditional diplomacy of imperial expansion and power politics.