Chương 127: Japanese Contradiction, Chinese Thoughts and American Idealism.
On April 17 of 1927, Wakatsuki Reijirō became the paramount leader of the Japanese dictatorship, which ruled the Empire of Japan at the time.
This marked the end of the dictatorship led by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
State control passed from the IJN elders, to a bureaucrat (still supported by the IJN, but it is important to mention that Wakatsuki Reijirō was the first leader of this government without a military background himself), who intended to carry out a political opening.
We can divide the Wakatsuki Reijirō rule into two different time periods, one is the period of 1927-1931 and the other is the period of 1932-1937.
The period of 1927-1931 was marked by the fight against Tanaka Giichi (who would die in 1929) and the Imperial Japanese Army.
While the period of 1932-1937, was marked by the signing of the Naval Club Pact, secret agreements between the top military officials and bureaucratic representatives for the return to a civilian regime in Japan.
The Japanese government barely had the political-economic resources to sustain many of the measures of repression or reconstruction proposed years ago, leading to the need for greater 'commitments' to transparency and openness as time went on. A process that was relatively vague or slow ("A turtle crawling towards freedom").
There were several dilemmas, especially between the conservatives (who believed that the reforms were going too fast) and the reformists (who considered the reforms as 'vague alternatives', limited to the most basic).
Leading to public loss of trust, problems in the bureaucratic apparatus and its control over administrative matters, and increasingly public discussion or dissidence by citizens.
In this context, a situation of 'dual power' had been established between the Japanese government (IJN) and the Japanese people.
The IJA tried on certain occasions to seize power from the IJN, but they were unable to capitalize on this situation adequately and were eventually subdued.
The people of Japan have nicknamed Wakatsuki Reijirō's government, the Times of Crucial Victory.
In various places, Japanese worker movement began to reassert itself after years of oppression on workers organisation.
'Production control' was developed (resulting from new strikes and labor unions), to put pressure on their employers and the government.
"The workers, instead of striking and holding up production, locked out their employers and took over the operation of the establishment.
While the owners were considering the union demands or carrying on negotiations for a settlement, the workers continued to produce, buy and sell, without permitting company officials either voice in the enterprise or access to the premises.
After settlement, usually with a full victory for the workers, the plant was turned back to the management."
-US State Department official about the Japanese 'Production control'.
The process essentially allowed workers to sell their production directly on the market, bypassing their employers and other public-private involved officials.
6000 miners from Takahagi (Ibaraki, near Tokyo) initiated this type of process during their search for better pay, working conditions and criticism of the government that was problematic for the working class.
It got to the point that these miners, growing in number, chase down the Japanese police and almost occupy entire ministry buildings like the ones of Transport and Commerce.
The Ministry of Commerce had no alternative but to allow the creation of these workers' markets that sold their production freely, without the intervention of employers or bureaucrats. Since there was literally no way to stop them at that moment.
As a concept it doesn't sound bad, but it was an example of the important divisions and weaknesses that the country suffered.
The 'political commissars', militias and other militant anti-government institutions of the population practically ran free in various places, putting an end to the idea of a centralized or sovereign national government in the archipelago.
An important example occurred when news of the success of the Takahagi miners spread across the country.
In Hokkaido, miners took complete control of the mines of the old zaibatsu Mitsubishi Group (三菱, founded in 1870 by Yatarō Iwasaki) and created the first People's Court.
The People's Courts were essentially courts outside the judiciary at the time, were the workers that took control put senior company officials (and others related to their crimes) on trial as war criminals.
A crucial time regarding the seizure and change of power, which ended in 1937.
Today Japan is still a complex country, it may seem unified from the outside, but it is still full of various power struggles from within and there are various dualities (the 'legal' market and the black market are good examples of this duality) .
Kochia (summer cypress) from Ibaraki, in autumn, when they take a vivid red.
Chinese Schools of Thought.
"Do you want the Wolf to annex China?" - Example of Anti-Communist poster during the early Republic of China.
1928-1938 was defined as a moment of political struggle between the different members of the united front of the Republic of China (consisting mainly of Liao Zhongkai's KMT and the Communist Party of China or CPC).
It makes sense, since it was the period after the last civil war and there was a process of political reorganization (which included national and international agents having a presence in Chinese politics), which facilitated these events.
The most notorious consequence of this is the emergence of Chinese Trotskyism, but people ignore that Chinese Trotskyism itself is the genesis of important divisions and tendencies within China, after the 1940s-1950s (when Chinese Trotskyism becomes 'rooted' in Chinese society).
What experts today call China's Seven Schools of Thought (七流派 or Qī liúpài).
These are in a certain sense, heirs of the social, cultural, economic and political struggle of Chinese Trotskyism after the decade of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Decades that once again saw the Republic of China/Southern China in infighting and great national humiliation.
The School of Marxism of the Republic of China (wich integrates the fields of Marxism studies, ideological and political education from different departments of the Nanjing University), describes the Seven Schools of Thought as the next: Neoliberalism, Democratic Socialism, the New Left, Eclectic Marxism, Traditional Marxism, Revivalism and MT-Chen Duxiu Thought.
This doesn't take into account factions-parties or particular persons (which would expand the different features, characteristics or opinions of each trend), but serves as guide for the foreigner to understand Southern Chinse division and actual situation.
Neoliberalism.
Ideology, economic theory and policy proposal of the monopolizing capitalist classes. This theories and policies are the so-called "four de -or- izations":
*De-regulation of the economy: Neoliberalism maintains that only a 'free' market is capable of achieving the best result, so you have to get rid of economic planning and the distribution of resources by the state, since otherwise the enthusiasm of the "economic man" would be 'killed'.
*Privatization of the economy: The public resources should be privatized, and the market should be run by the private-owned enterprises - Neoliberalism tends to reduce public sectors, state-owned sectors and institutions to the minimum, or none.
*Liberalization of the economy: Neoliberalism claims that free choice should be the most essential principle of economic and political activities - So a person should have the right to possess personal property and carry out free trade, consumption and employment. But at the same time this ideology denies the free flow of the labor force.
*Personalization of welfare: It stands against building a welfare state and improving the welfare of the laborers.
Democratic Socialism.
Term that rather describes the ideological systems of social democratic parties, socialist parties, labor parties and Socialist International.
Democratic Socialism is a 'capitalist reformist' ideological trend, so it believes that socialism can be realized without changing the capitalist private ownership, claiming that the principal structure of the means of production ownership is not the criterion for judging the nature of a society.
Due to this, the Democratic Socialist trends actually rejects the goal of Communism and proposes to fight for a system with social justice, liberty, democracy and world peace through the bourgeois' rationality and ethic principles, such as freedom, equality, justice and mutual assistance, etc.
Democratic Socialism believes that Marxism-Trotskyism is not the only guiding ideology, and proposes a rather 'pluralist' world-view of guiding ideologies (the diversity of Socialist thoughts. Due to this Democratic Socialism in China advocates for a greater multi-party system and rejects the principle of Democratic Centralism (in the process this wipes out the working-class nature of the trend).
The New Left.
The New Left is the 'theorical immature' trend, formed since the early 1960s among college students and young people in China (probably here we are talking about some of the movilized youth during the time due to new policies in the Republic of China), and oversea-Chinese students.
The New Left is rather a loose group of intellectuals, who try to influence academia and politics by catching the eye of the public through various means (mostly articles in journals or in the Chinese web space).
Many in the New Left have overseas study experience and some are still living abroad.
Eclectic Marxism.
The Eclectic Marxism is an ideological trend in China, that mixes totally opposite viewpoints without principle, since it doesn't differentiates the principal and secondary contraditions and rather juxtapose them.
Some of the eclecticists speak highly of the basic theories of the Western Economics, regarding selfishness as the human nature and fully supporting the hypothesis of economic man for Egoism (so here human beings "selfishness" could leads to social collaboration and an increase of public welfare).
It lays one-side emphasis on efficiency and completely neglects justice.
Traditional Marxism.
The "Orthodox Marxism" or Traditional Marxism, was developed in Western Europe in the 1840s when capitalism has undergone a long development over there.
Now in China this ideological trend has some local characteristics:
*It forcefully criticized some wrong ideological trends, like Neoliberalism, Democratic Socialism and Eclectic Marxism.
*However some of the criticisms, are overdone. This is the so-called "Great Criticism" (da pipan), were senior scholars have done more than enough criticism but produce little-to-no innovation, due to not following the new resources both from home and abroad.
**Approve the key practices of the Republic of China during the 40s-60s.
**Emphasizes the work of Engels and Lenin.
Revivalism.
Revivalism, also called the "Worship of Ancient Classics and Styles" advocates for governing the country with the ideas from such traditions as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism (restore the ancient systems, customs and ideas in an attempt to achieve "cultural identification" or "cultural recreation").
Marxism-Trotskyism-Chen Duxiu Thought (MT-Chen Duxiu Thought).
From 1927, when Lev Trotsky was sent to China from the Russian Empire (in what became essentially an exile), the technocratic and urban-proletarian intelligentsia made an effort to sinicize Marxism-Trotskyism, as it broke away from Marxism-Leninism (synthesized by the European Socialist Union) and Russian Stalinism.
It is in this way that Chen Duxiu and his ideological allies-heirs created Marxism-Trotskyism and Chen Duxiu Thought (some times called "Innovative Trotskyism" or Chinese Trotskyism / Chen Duxiu Thought), which was specially composed after 1938.
This trend rejoices at inheriting Chinese thought, "from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen", as they say.
The political, scientific and academic cadres of this tendency for a long time developed or remained in line with the CPC Central Committee, and within them unified "foreign", "indigenous" and "Marxist" dogmas ("Marxism, Trotskyism and their sinicized versions, are the principal and the dominant force-ideology to modernize China through innovations").
Affecting the development and teaching of various events within the Republic of China (an example is that the study of proto-Marxism increased in Chinese history).
In this trend the World conditions are regarded as background, the national conditions as the ground, Marxism is the body, ancient Chinese learning is the 'root' and China as a whole should "synthesize and innovate" thanks to the scientific model of MT-Chen Duxiu Thought. Something that is easier said than actually done.
Poverty and political meetings in the Republic of China in the 1940s-1960s.
Civil and military problems in the Republic of China during the 1970s and 1980s.
American Idealism.
"It does not matter how abusive the US is to its own population, no matter how many 'peaceful protestors' Washington tear gas on, no matter how ubiquitous the repression and surveillance is, no matter how many millions we cage, the smug moralizing must never cease. We must keep the Beacon To The World act up, forever"
"After total war can come total living"
Pollution means production!, true Fordist and Neo-Fordist spirit.
(OOC: Found on reddit. This is a edit of a Union Pacific poster, I just think is fun).
The definition of 'values' is quite broad, there are different types of values that have different connotations or meanings depending on the context.
And also we must add, in reality the ethical, cultural and social (or other) values that exist in the different human organizations are the results of a process.
They are somewhat moldable and will inevitably change, although they always maintain certain influences or origins, everything will depend on the conditions in which the aforementioned values are developed.
We can say that the so-called "[US] American values" began with the Revolution of the 13 Colonies, which gave the nascent nation a set of particular ideas or principles.
But we must take into account that this happened around the 1770s and 1780s, American culture and therefore its values have undergone important changes, although they have certain influences inherited from the revolutionary period.
The most modern set of "[US] American values" actually originates from much of the 20th century. In a process that we can divide into 3 main stages:
*First Fordist government (1916-1928).
*The Crack and the problems (1933-1937).
*The heirs of Ford (from 1938 to WW3, to the post-WW3 period in the 1940s, to the 1960s).
[1929-1932 does not fall within this period, since it was rather a temporary 'stop', there was no fundamental change and in reality it was simply the prelude to the last straw that broke the camel's back.]
In the early Fordism, America had come out of the relatively disastrous Second Great War (see the occupation of New England) and was suffering from the economic consequences produced by Free Silver and the Great Depression (originated in 1903 after economic bubbles generated during the times of the Fashoda war).
In this context, while we must obviously criticize many of Ford's actions, he brought about a series of important changes that affected the culture of the United States of America long after his death.
Initially there was an important set of ideas and 'optimism', which eventually evolved into a part of the American Ideal and Exceptionalism.
Early Fordism was the breeding ground that decided future developments and in one way or another is an important foundation for modern American culture.
The industrial complex as we know it saw its birth, American mega-structural projects developed, city planning took major leaps, the cult of the Founding Fathers, extreme individualism, extreme consumerism, the great division of the countryside and the city, and more, are heavily influenced by the government of Henry Ford I (which in turn was influenced by earlier ideas or movements).
Consequences of course, mostly unexpected by Ford himself.
But his heirs, or Neo-Fordists, had a great influence in planning them and putting them into action.
One of the great examples of the cultural effects of Fordism is the creation of hive/anthill cities and the rural-urban divide.
The Fordist government practically forgot about the rural environment, which during these times suffered from the consequences of the Free Silver policy, environmental changes (creation of the American savannah in various areas and of course natural disasters) and poor agricultural practices, which led to events such as the Dust Bowl.
Much of the rural population began to exodus to the cities and people returning from the war found themselves wanting new homes, finding a space in the first cities planned by the Fordist government.
Giving a start to a particular culture within densely populated American cities and the influence of large corporations or great men in them, the so-called 'abandonment of the countryside' and more.
How were Americans able to develop such a culture?
In part it is simple, the first decades of the 20th century were a time of extreme polarization and finally when one side won, this polar extreme decided the course of American mainstream culture.
Ford saw the creation of extreme divisions between the rich and the poor, the extreme right and the extreme left, the city and the country, etc.
One of the hive/anthill cities of the United States.
The loss of family income and other socio-economic conditions have generated 'lost decades' for certain environments, where there are precarious and informal settlements that grow excessively/overcrowd around or within the America's large cities.
New York City, most populated city in the US (with a city area population of 13.96 million people, and a urban area population of more than 37 million people).
Past imagination of the 'Future' are called today "Retrofuturism"...The thing is that not even in the American future you can escape of Fordism.
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