Premodern Ideas “kokutai” as Essential Elements of Modernization in Japanese Historical Process

Kimura Takashi

doi:10.21638/spbu13.2019.404

Authors

Kimura Takashi Kyoto University, Yoshida-Nihonmatsu, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2019.404

Abstract

Modernization in historically later developed countries is an amalgamated process, where all its elements must be analyzed both as a whole picture and as variety of its components. Early Japanese Marxists thinkers, scrutinizing political systems that emerged after the Meiji revolution, found traces of so-called “feudal remnants” in the public consciousness of people. These “remnants” still make modern researchers to question the role of the elements in Japanese modernization. Modernized state should be not only sovereign, but also be a nation state “kokumin kokka”, therefore it is worthwhile to look upon the prehistory of the creation of the first Japanese constitution “Dainipponn teikoku kenpoo” (1889), which reflected the national ideas “kokutai”. It is also necessary to analyze a number of socio-political reasons that entailed the issuance of an imperial decree addressed to the soldiers “gunjin chokuyu” (1882) and the imperial speech on public education “kyouiku chokugo” (1890). These documents along with the constitution contained the ideas of “kokutai”, which represented the element of the feudal world. Under the right conditions, a nation is born and develops on its own, but when the historical prerequisites and conditions do not form, it is necessary to create them artificially. At the end of the 19th century Japan faced the similar situation. In 1925, the Chian iji-ho Law of Public Peace Preservation was published, in its first article the word kokutai could be found, however it does not contain a definition of this term. In 1932 and in 1936, military putsches occurred, it should be noted that participants of these accidents were ardent supporters of the “kokutai” ideas. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese government conveyed the intention to adopt the Potsdam Declaration under one condition, namely the preservation of the “kokutai”, thereby they extended the existence of the kokutai ideas until the surrender of Japanese empire.

Keywords:

kokutai ideas, modernization in Japan, nation-state, inner politics, constitution

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