UC Berkeley

In my dissertation I analyze how Japanese radicals, both socialists and nationalists, responded to the Russian Revolution in the crucial period from 1917 to 1925. I argue that Left and Right ideologies in Japan were defined during these years, and that this process must be viewed within the larger framework of the changing nature of the Russian Revolution and the advance of communist ideology and its Soviet agents into the North East Asian region.

During 1917-1925 the Japanese socialists split in their understanding of the Russian revolution into anarchists, national socialists, and Bolsheviks. Anarchists, by far the most popular movement among the radical intellectuals and workers until 1923, believed the revolution's goal was individual liberation and destruction of the state. National socialists maintained that the Russian Revolution was about building a strong Russian nation-state based on the principles of national self-determination, national values, and nationalized property. The distinction between national socialists and the radical right wing therefore was never clear, and most often both groups shared the same people and same sponsors. Finally, Japanese Bolsheviks created in 1922 the Japanese communist party, which, I argue, was communist largely in name. The most thorough Japanese Bolsheviks did not accept the principle of a vanguard party of "professional revolutionaries" until the mid-1920s, did not support the abolition of the imperial institution, and did not discuss the abolition of private property.

The radical right wing, and particularly the pan-Asianists, who form the focus of my project, saw the Russian revolution as an alternative modernity project. They argued that Japan, inspired by the Russian example, must develop an alternative, non-Western (i.e. non-White) vision of modernity, based on Asian history and values. I argue that in the early 1920s Japanese pan-Asianists were inspired by internationalism the Russian Bolsheviks proclaimed, and worked on democratic anti-colonial liberation movements. As Soviet Russia advanced in North Asia and gained power in Chinese politics, Japanese Asianists changed their opinion of Russia, from ally to enemy, increasingly aligning themselves with the Japanese imperial interests and actions in Asia.

The goal of the dissertation is to move beyond the preconceived definitions of Left and radical Right, and expose the fluid and often interchangeable nature and ideology of the Japanese Left and Right. New ideologies, although sharing many features with contemporary radical movements in Europe, were defined by the perceived stage of Japanese society vis-à-vis the rest of the world (e.g. Asia, Russia, the advanced West), and by the perceived dangers the new geopolitical situation in East Asia presented.