Imperial Rule Assistance Association
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This article is missing information about the merging of all political parties into the association before the 1942 Japanese general election, military influence and lengthier comparisons to the Nazi Party and National Fascist Party. (March 2021) |
Imperial Rule Assistance Association 大政翼贊會Taisei Yokusankai | |
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Red White | |
Anthem | Taisei Yokusan no Uta[11] |
Imperial Rule Assistance Association | |||||
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Japanese name | |||||
Kana | たいせいよくさんかい | ||||
Kyūjitai | 大政翼贊會 | ||||
Shinjitai | 大政翼賛会 | ||||
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The Imperial Rule Assistance Association (
Origins
Based on recommendations by the
Konoe proposed originally that the Imperial Rule Assistance Association be organized along national syndicalist lines, with new members assigned to branches based on occupation, which would then develop channels for mass participation of the common population to "assist with the Imperial Rule".[13]
However, from the start, there was no consensus in a common cause, as the leadership council represented all ends of the political spectrum, and in the end, the party was organized along geographic lines, following the existing political sub-divisions. Therefore, all local government leaders at each level of village, town, city and prefectural government automatically received the equivalent position within their local Imperial Rule Assistance Association branch.[14]
Ideals
Prior to creation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, Konoe had already passed the
.Labor unions were replaced by the Nation Service Draft Ordinance, which empowered the government to draft civilian workers into critical war industries. Society was mobilized and indoctrinated through the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement, which organized patriotic events and mass rallies, and promoted slogans such as "Yamato-damashii" (Japanese spirit) and "Hakkō ichiu" (All the world under one roof) to support Japanese militarism. This was urged to "restore the spirit and virtues of old Japan".[15]
Some objections to it came on the grounds that kokutai, imperial polity, already required all imperial subjects to support imperial rule.[16]
In addition to drumming up support for the ongoing wars in China and in the Pacific, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association helped maintain public order and provided certain public services via the tonarigumi neighborhood association program.[17] It also played a role in increasing productivity, monitoring rationing, and organizing civil defense.
The Imperial Rule Assistance Association was also militarized, with its members donning khaki-colored uniforms. In the last period of the conflict, the membership received military training and was projected to integrate with the Volunteer Fighting Corps in case of the anticipated Allied invasion.
Development
As soon as October 1940, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association systemized and formalized the Tonarigumi, a nationwide system of neighborhood associations. The 6 November 1940 issue of Shashin Shūhō (Photographic Weekly Report) explained the purpose of this infrastructure:
The Taisei Yokusankai movement has already turned on the switch for rebuilding a new Japan and completing a new Great East Asian order which, writ large, is the construction of a new world order. The Taisei Yokusankai is, broadly speaking, the New Order movement which will, in a word, place One Hundred Million into one body under this new organisation that will conduct all of our energies and abilities for the sake of the nation. Aren't we all mentally prepared to be members of this new organization and, as one adult to another, without holding our superiors in awe or being preoccupied with the past, cast aside all private concerns in order to perform public service? Under the Taisei Yokusankai are regional town, village, and tonarigumi; let's convene council meetings and advance the activities of this organization.[18]
In February 1942, all women's associations were merged into the Greater Japan Women's Association which joined the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in May. Every adult woman in Japan, excepting the under twenty and unmarried, was forced to join the Association.[19]
Likewise, in June, all youth organizations were merged into the Greater Japan Imperial Rule Assistance Youth Corps (翼賛青年団, Yokusan Sonendan), based on the model of the German Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers).[5]
In March 1942, Prime Minister
The Imperial Rule Assistance Association was formally dissolved on 13 June 1945, around three months before the end of World War II in the Pacific Theater. During the Allied occupation of Japan, the American authorities purged thousands of government leaders from public life for having been members of the Association. Later, many of them returned to prominent roles in Japanese politics after the end of the occupation on 28 April 1952 by the Treaty of San Francisco.
Leaders
No. | Leader (birth–death) |
Portrait | Constituency or title | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Fumimaro Konoe (1891–1945)
|
House of Peers | 12 October 1940 | 18 October 1941 | |
2 | Hideki Tojo (1884–1948)
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Military (Army) | 18 October 1941 | 22 July 1944 | |
3 | Kuniaki Koiso (1880–1950)
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Military (Army) | 22 July 1944 | 7 April 1945 | |
4 | Kantarō Suzuki (1868–1948)
|
Military (Navy) | 7 April 1945 | 13 June 1945 |
Election results
House of Representatives
Election | Leader | Seats won | Position | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|
1942 | Hideki Tojo | 381 / 466
|
1st | Government |
Notes
- JSTOR 2383896.
- ^ ^ 東京會舘編『東京會舘いまむかし』(東京會舘、1987年)、pp.159-162
- ^ 婦人団体を統合、婦道修練を目指す(『朝日新聞』昭和15年6月11日夕刊)『昭和ニュース辞典第7巻 昭和14年-昭和16年』p428 昭和ニュース事典編纂委員会 毎日コミュニケーションズ刊 1994年
- ^ ja:米田佐代子 [in Japanese]. "大日本婦人会 だいにほんふじんかい". Encyclopedia Nipponica. Shogakukan. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-820260-1.
- ISBN 1-85728-595-6.
- S2CID 155046186.
- ISBN 0393041565.
Conservatives such as Hiranuma Kiichiro, who served as prime minister for eight months in 1939, objected that the proposed totalitarian IRAA was nothing but a "new shogunate" that would usurp the power of the emperor's government, and Japanists declared that the national polity, the hallowed kokutai, already united the emperor with subjects who naturally fulfilled their sacred obligation to "assist imperial rule." On a more mundane plane, senior officials within the Home Ministry feared the loss of bureaucratic turf and complained that the proposed network of occupationally based units would interfere with local administration at a particularly crucial time in the nation's history.
- ISBN 9780824832001.
.2 All existing political parties "voluntarily" dissolved themselves, replaced by a single authorized political body, the ultranationalist Imperial Rule Assistance Association.
- ^ Edward J. Drea, The 1942 Japanese general election: political mobilization in wartime Japan (Lawrence: Center for East Asian Studies University of Kansas, 1979), 145.
- ^ "大政翼賛の歌 / Taiseiyokusan'nouta / Anthem of Taisei Yokusankai - With Lyrics". Archived from the original on 28 April 2021.
- ^ Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation, page 351
- ^ Sims, Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000, p. 220
- ^ Duus, The Cambridge History of Japan, page 146
- ISBN 0-07-030612-5
- ISBN 0-393-04156-5
- ^ Aldus, The Police in Occupation Japan: Control, Corruption and Resistance to Reform, page 36
- ^ David C. Earhart, Certain Victory, M.E. Sharpe, 2008, p.142, citing Shashin Shūhō
- ^ Modern Japan in archives, the Yokusan System, http://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha4/description15.html
- ^ Stockwin, Governing Japan: Divided Politics in a Major Economy, page 22
References
- Aldus, Christop (1999). The Police in Occupation Japan: Control, Corruption and Resistance to Reform. ISBN 0-415-14526-0.
- Duus, Peter (2001). The Cambridge History of Japan. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-23915-7.
- Sims, Richard (2001). Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-23915-7.
- Stockwin, JAA (1990). Governing Japan: Divided Politics in a Major Economy. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-72802-3.
- Wolferen, Karel J (1990). The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-72802-3.
External links
- Media related to Imperial Rule Assistance Association at Wikimedia Commons