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A Paradox: the Red Purge Has Made Japan a Law-Abiding Nation

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Abstract

The main research question addressed in this paper is the following: What are the consequences of the purge of the communists and their sympathizers for the development of postwar Japanese society during the Allied Occupation (known as the Red Purge)? According to conventional wisdom, the Red Purge was an illegal and unfair suppression regarding the freedom of speech and a threat to the very survival of democracy in Japan. Surveying previous works on the Red Purge demonstrates that not a single work discusses any constructive aspect of the Red Purge. Criticizing this trend in the historiography, Thomas French correctly pointed out that these previous works tended to neglect or undervalue violent and aggressive behaviors of the Japanese Communist Party and its militant policy after mid-1949. This paper goes a little further, trying to find, if any, constructive aspects of the Red Purge. My hypothesis is that the Red Purge had many destructive and biased measures, but it was paradoxically a necessary evil to help establish a law-abiding Japanese society. The architects of the Red Purge, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the Japanese government, and corporate executives, were careful not to violate the constitution or labor laws when they executed the Red Purge. They established an important precedent that they had to act in accordance with the constitution and laws. In a paradoxical way, going through the Red Purge actually made Japan a law-abiding country in the long run. This paper tests the validity of this hypothesis.

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Notes

  1. McCarthyism and other anti-communist movements around the world at this time are part of the global phenomena. Masuda Hajimu, “Hitobito no nakano Reisen: Sozo ga Gurobaru na Genjitsu to naru toki,” [The Cold War among the Ordinary People: When Imaginations Became the Reality of the World] Ritsumeikan kokusai kenkyu 31(5) (2019).

  2. This economic assistance financed the provision of industrial raw materials, and it was limited to one country, not regional economic aid.

  3. Hosei Daigaku Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo, Nihon Rodo Nenkan [Japan’s Labor Almanac] Dai 24 shu (Vol. 24) (Jiji Tsushinsha, 1951); https://oisr-org.ws.hosei.ac.jp/images/research/dglb/rn/rn_list/rn1952-715.pdf (accessed on 29April 2021); Hosei Daigaku Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo, Nihon Rodo Nenkan [Japan’s Labor Almanac] Dai 24 shu 1952 version (Jiji Tsushinsha, 1951); https://oisr-org.ws.hosei.ac.jp/images/research/dglb/rn/rn_list/rn1952-711.pdf (accessed on 29 April 2021).

  4. Ruriko Kumano, “Anticommunism and Academic Freedom: Walter C. Eells and the “Red Purge” in Occupied Japan,” History of Education Quarterly 50(4) (November 2010).

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  1. Kobe Women’s Junior College, 4‑7‑2, Nakamachi, Chuo‑ku, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

    Yoneyuki Sugita

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Sugita, Y. A Paradox: the Red Purge Has Made Japan a Law-Abiding Nation. East Asia 38, 353–371 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-021-09365-y

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