The Library of Social Science is pleased to present a four-part essay series by renowned Japanese  scholar Brian Victoria, examining the motivations behind the actions of Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins--and specifically how a dangerous interpretation of Mahayana and Zen Buddhism could be used to justify political violence.

As part of the Library's ongoing exploration of the psychological roots of genocide, terrorism, and violent nationalism, this essay series will take you to the deeply divided prewar Japan of 1932, where forces loyal to the emperor Hirohito and the promised Showa Restoration sought a brutal and desperate end to the Zaibatsu and Taisho democracy.

How could meditation and compassion be used to support bloodshed? How did the willingness to kill and die for an ideal pave the way for the Japan of WWII? Brian Victoria's exciting series of publications for LSS continues our search for the roots of collective forms of violence.

Brian Victoria, author of Zen Terror, Zen War Stories, and Zen at War, is a well-known authorspecializing in Japanese  history, a career professor, and Buddhist priest of the Soto Zen sect--giving him a unique perspective on the intersection between Zen Buddhism and nationalist violence.

Brian holds a Master's in Buddhist Studies from Komazawa University in Tokyo and a PhD in Religious Studies from Temple University. His distinguished career has taken him around the world, including teaching positions in Japanese language and culture in the United States and Australia. Since 2013, a fellowship with Oxford University's Center for Buddhist Studies and at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. Brian Victoria's work on Japanese militarism represents the highest standard of scholarly rigor and expertise.

Zen Terror in Prewar Japan by Brian Victoria To view Brian's wikipedia page click here. Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin For information on ordering through Amazon, PLEASE CLICK HERE. Zen Terror in Prewar Japan completes the trilogy detailing how Zen Buddhism gave rise to terrorism. Exploring the role of Inoue Nissho - the leader of the terrorist group of right-wing ultranationalism in prewar Japan, Brian Victoria sheds light on how the dark underbelly of a religion known for its promotion of peace was used to justify violence.  REVIEWS Brian Victoria masterfully describes how peace-practicing Zen Buddhism was utilized as an ideological weapon for justifying terrorist acts in prewar Japan, fervently supporting Japan’s emperor system ideology. The book is not just an historical study but also a dire warning of the danger that, if abused, a peace-loving religion can be exploited to rationalize violence. — Yuki Tanaka, author of Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II I am delighted to draw attention to the work of Brian Victoria. His expertise in Zen Buddhism comes both from intensive study of the Japanese sources and from his many years of personal experience. In both areas he has devoted himself to finding the truth and to conveying it with unflinching honesty and lucidity. His bold statements and candid judgments are supported by unambiguous evidence and deserve to be pondered on by all who care about Buddhism and have humane values at heart. — Richard Gombrich, Boden Professor of Sanskrit Emeritus, University of Oxford

INTRODUCTION TO THE FOUR-PART SERIES

Inasmuch as Japan and Germany and Italy were allies during WWII it is easy to assume their internal dynamics and ideologies were similar. True, each country can be described as a totalitarian state. But there were significant differences. There was no "Fūhrer" or "II Duce"--like figure in Japan exhorting the people to die in the wars their countries initiated.

There was, however, an "emperor." Was emperor Hirohito in control of wartime Japan or only a puppet of the military? This series begins with an examination of this question, but goes on to explicate the important role played by Zen Buddhism in wartime japan, i.e. its promotion of "compassionate killing," an ideology that also served as a foundational element of domestic terrorism. 

PART I: Japan Surrenders-the Coverup Begins

Readers familiar with the writings of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will recall he said: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” Although not the first to express sentiments like these, Kissinger certainly guided American foreign policy accordingly. Viewed from this vantage point, President Trump’s current “America First” slogan is but the latest expression of this long-standing US policy, just as it is the policy of many nations. 

August 15, 2020 marks the 75^th anniversary of Japan’s surrender, bringing an end to WWII, the bloodiest conflict in human history. Surprisingly, events in the immediate aftermath of WWII provide ample proof of the accuracy of Kissinger’s words.

For example,  “Operation Paperclip” quietly brought approximately 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, many of them Nazis, to the US. Why? Because the US sought to employ their technical skills in its postwar Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, a nation that only a few months earlier had been its wartime ally and "friend."

What is less widely known is how this same logic played out in postwar Japan and throughout its former empire. For example, Unit 731 carried out covert biological and chemical warfare research and development in Manchuria. The human experimentation had been responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Imperial Japan. 

Nevertheless, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Occupation Forces, secretly granted immunity from prosecution to the physicians of Unit 731, including their unit leader, Lt. General Ishii Shirō, in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare and data from human experimentation.

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, tried the Japanese unit members it had captured during its invasion of Manchuria. The Soviet trial took place in Khabarovsk in December 1949, but the US refused to acknowledge the trials, branding them communist propaganda. 

By far the most senior Japanese to be given immunity from US prosecution at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was the person who signed the order for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Emperor Hirohito. So blanket was Hirohito’s immunity that his very name, let alone any question of his war guilt, could not be mentioned in testimony during the war crimes tribunal. Instead, total blame for the war was placed on senior military personnel beginning with Maj. General Tōjō Hideki, Prime Minister of Japan at the time of Pearl Harbor.

The fact that Tōjō was never the ultimate power in Japan is amply evidenced by the fact that he was forced to resign as prime minister on July 22, 1944, more than a year before Japan’s surrender. Needless to say, this could not have happened to Hitler--since there was no one in wartime Germany who had the power to force Hitler to step down. In Japan, on the other hand, there was – the emperor.

So successful was the American Occupation’s coverup of Hirohito’s wartime role that it was not until the publication of Herbert Bix’s groundbreaking book, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2000) that the historical facts of the emperor’s central role in launching and conducting the war came to light.

As a result, even today large numbers of Japanese continue to place blame for the war on “militarism” (J. gunkokushugi), regarding the emperor as a peace-loving monarch forced by evil military leaders to accede to the war effort. Moreover, it was thanks to Hirohito’s brave decision, despite military opposition, that made it possible for Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945, thereby saving Japan and the Japanese people from the suicidal policies of their military leaders. 

In addition to Bix’s work, my own recent publication, Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin reveals just how fraudulent this thinking is. Inoue Nisshō, a close aide to then Prime Minister Konoe Fumimarō, described the emperor’s role as follows:

Once Konoe became prime minister [in June 1937] things changed. No matter what the issue, Konoe first sought the emperor’s consent. It was only after the emperor gave his approval that a policy was implemented. Government administered directly by the emperor came about in this way. (emphasis mine).

In addition, immediately prior to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hirohito refused to allow Imperial Prince Higashikuni to become prime minister after Konoe’s resignation on October 16, 1941. The emperor didn’t want a member of the Imperial family to be in a public leadership role during the war with the US. Hirohito feared that, in the event Japan lost the war, the entire imperial institution, including his own position, might be abolished by the victors. For this reason, and unlike Hitler, Hirohito preferred to direct the war from behind the scenes, through secretive wartime imperial conferences, all the while maintaining the public façade of a reigning, but not ruling, constitutional monarch, though a divine monarch nonetheless.      

The postwar US coverup was designed to aid America in suppressing the powerful and growing Left in Japan--while incorporating the country into America’s anti-communist crusade. Intended or not, it had the secondary effect of preventing a thorough war-related soul-searching on the part of either Japanese elites or the Japanese people as  a whole, especially concerning issues of war responsibility and war guilt. This in turn allowed the same prewar and wartime family political dynasties and associated corporate conglomerates like Mitsubishi and Mitsui to continue to rule Japan, extending even to the present. 

At the same time, it made possible the stationing of approximately 50,000 US troops with their bases in Japan, primarily Okinawa, even now, seventy five years later. Today, as in the past, the main target of these bases is China and, secondarily, North Korea. Including Japan, the US now has more than 400 American military bases encircling China with missiles, bombers, warships and nuclear weapons. As one US strategist stated, American bases form “the perfect noose.”

Yet, as the Black Lives Matter protests in today’s US reveal, sooner or later the truth about a nation’s past comes out. What will happen when the Japanese, especially its youth, finally come to know the truth about the centrality of Hirohito’s wartime role, a truth that has been hidden from them due, in no small part, to a US initiated coverup? Will they continue to assent to being a critical part of America’s anti-China ‘noose’? Yes, as Kissinger opined, it is true that a nation has no permanent friends or enemies. But in the naked pursuit of its narrow national “interests” is honesty and morality of no concern to the US.