Ikki Kita

In this Japanese name, the family name is "Kita".

Kita Ikki
Kita Ikki (北 一輝, Kita Ikki)
Born	Kita Terujirō (北 輝次郎) April 3, 1883(1883-04-03) Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, Japan
Died	August 19, 1937(1937-08-19) (aged 54)
Occupation	Author
Language	Japanese
Nationality	Japanese
Education	Waseda University
Period	1906–1919
Subjects	Political philosophy
Notable work(s)	An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (日本改造法案大綱, Nihon Kaizō Hōan Taikō) 1919

Ikki Kita (北 一輝, Kita Ikki, 3 April 1883 – 19 August 1937) was a Japanese author, intellectual and political philosopher who was active in early-Shōwa period Japan.

Background

Born on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, Ikki Kita’s real name was Kita Terujirō (北 輝次郎). He audited lectures at Waseda University in Tokyo, and while a student, was attracted to socialist ideas, meeting with many influential figures in the early socialist movement in Japan. This movement was, however, full of "opportunist" and other statist currents. The Shakai seisaku gakkai, or Japanese social-policy school, followed their authoritarian and statist, Bismarckian and von Schmollerian German forebears in arguing for, as well as being very practical in, their implementation of extending state controls from above—including the social insurance policies that were adopted by Bismarck to prevent any further expansion of the mass-revolutionary socialist party in late 19th-century Germany.

Ideology

The socialism that Kita espoused in his early period was a nationalism brand of socialism (or right-wing Romantic anti-capitalism) that had nothing in common with any Marxian notions of "socialism from below".

Kita was also attracted to the cause of the Chinese Revolution of 1911, and became a member of the Tongmenghui (United League) led by Song Jiaoren. He traveled to China to assist in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.

However, Kita was also interested in the radical right wing. The right-wing, ultra-nationalist Kokuryukai (Amur River Association/Black Dragon Society), founded in 1901, was part of a current that has a history traceable back to the Genyosha (Deep Ocean Society/Genkai Straits Society) of 1881, founded by Tōyama Mitsuru. Tōyama, with many contacts in the Japanese establishment over a period of fully half a century, in turn claimed to be the rightful successor to Saigo Takamori, who pushed for Japanese expansion to the Asian mainland in the early Meiji era.

Kita—who held views on Russia and Korea from almost a decade earlier that were already remarkably similar to those espoused by the Kokuryukai—was sent by that organization as a special member, who would write for them from China and send reports on the ongoing situation at the time of the 1911 Xinhai revolution. In his book on Kita, George Wilson tries to play down or deemphasize all such matters.

Kita's article called "Tut-tut, those who oppose the war [with Russia]" showed he had little time for "those idiots" who opposed the Russo-Japanese war. In addition, Kita's first book, the Kokutairon book (the one purportedly on "pure socialism"), was banned upon publication. Some have argued from this to assert that Kita must have been deemed a radical threat from the left to the government. However, the case of Uchida Ryohei's anti-Russian book Roshiya bokoku ron (On Decaying Russia) was also subjected to a ban upon its appearance, five years prior to Kita's own suppression by the authoritarian Meiji state. The government had a predilection for banning books, irrespective of whether they stemmed from the right or from the left of the political spectrum.

By the time Kita returned to Japan in 1919, he had become very disillusioned with the Chinese Revolution, and the strategies offered by it for the changes he envisioned. He joined Okawa Shumei and others to form the Yuzonsha, an ultranationalist organization, and devoted his time to writing and political activism. He gradually became the leading theorist and philosopher of the right-wing movement in pre-World War II Japan.^{[citation needed]}

Right-wing socialism

Kita first outlined his philosophy of nationalistic socialism in his book The Theory of Japan's National Polity and Pure Socialism (国体論及び純正社会主義, Kokutairon oyobi Junsei Shakaishugi), published in 1906, where he criticizes Marxism and a working class-oriented socialism as outdated and instead relies on an exposition of evolutionary theory that owes much to Social Darwinism (Kita explicitly states in this book that Mencius is the Plato of the East and that Plato is to be preferred to Marx, both of which chime with the national socialism/Confucianism from above concept, but also with the state authoritarianism that Karl Popper objected to in Volume One of his Open Society and Its Enemies). Kita's second book is entitled A Private History of the Chinese Revolution (Shina Kakumei Gaishi).

Ultranationalism

His ultra-nationalism appeared in various articles he penned from 1903 to 1906, while he was still based on Sado. It reappeared in his last major book on politics, An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (日本改造法案大綱, Nihon Kaizō Hōan Taikō), first published in 1919, and republished in 1923. The common theme to his first and last political works is the notion of a national polity (Kokutai), through which Japan would lead a united and free Asia (pan-Asianism). Under his later plan, a military coup d'état would usher in a more-or-less totalitarian regime based on direct rule by a strong and powerful leader, such as the Emperor, who would suspend the Constitution and radically reorganize the Diet to be free of "malign influence". The new "National Reorganization Diet" would nationalize certain strategic industries, impose rather minimal limits on individual wealth and private property, enact a land reform to benefit the farmers, and thus strengthen Japan to enable it to liberate Asia from Western imperialism. This was termed the Showa Restoration.

Historians argue about what Kita's political stance was. Taken at face value, he appears to have created a hybrid of fascism, state socialism or "socialism from above", agrarianism, and militarism. Although his writings call for Japan to liberate Asia, he also calls for Japan to embark on overseas expansion due to increasing population pressures.

Japan's population has doubled in 50 years, and if expansion continues at this pace we will have to feed at least 250 million people a century from now on, which means that we will be forced to acquire more territory.

This blend of seemingly-opposed philosophies and contradictory goals was reflected in various forms throughout early Shōwa-period Japan. This eclectic blend is one of the reasons why Kita has been hard to understand. Some have argued that this is one of the reasons why it is next to impossible for historians to agree on Kita’s political stance, though Nik Howard takes the view that Kita's ideas are actually highly consistent ideologically throughout his career, with relatively small shifts in response to the changing reality he faced at any given time.

Arrest and execution

Kita’s Outline Plan, his last book, exerted a major influence on the Japanese military—especially the Imperial Japanese Army factions who participated in the failed coup of 1936. After the coup attempt, Kita was arrested by the Kempeitai for complicity, tried by a closed military court, and executed.

In Fiction

• Ikki Kita is a major character in the historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Aramata. In the novel, he is also portrayed as a shaman who is deeply devoted to the Kegon Sutras.
• Kita appears in manga artist Motoka Murakami's Showa-era epic Ron.

See also

• Sadao Araki
• Seigo Nakano
• Shōwa Restoration
• Japanese nationalism
• Japanese literature

Further reading

• Tankha, Brij (2006). Kita Ikki And the Making of Modern Japan: A vision of empire. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental. ISBN 9781901903997. OCLC 255304652. 
• Kamal, Niraj (2003). Arise, Asia! Respond to white peril. Delhi: Wordsmiths. ISBN 9788187412083. OCLC 51586701. 

External links

• Martial Law —a movie about the life and death of Kita Ikki