Kita Ikki

Ideology

At age 23, Kita published his first book in 1906 after one year of research – a massive 1,000-page political treatise titled The Theory of Japan's National Polity and Pure Socialism (国体論及び純正社会主義). In it, he criticized the government ideology of Kokutai and warned that socialism in Japan was in danger of degenerating into a watered down, simplified form of itself because socialists were too keen on compromising.

Theories of Japanese Politics

Kita first outlined his philosophy of nationalistic socialism in his book The Theory of Japan's National Polity and Pure Socialism, also known as Kokutairon and Pure Socialism (国体論及び純正社会主義, Kokutairon Oyobi Junsei Shakaishugi), published in 1906, where he criticized Marxism and class conflict-oriented socialism as outdated. He instead emphasized an exposition of the evolutionary theory in understanding the basic guidelines of societies and nations. In this book Kita explicitly promotes the platonic state of authoritarianism, emphasizing the close relationship between Confucianism and the "from above" concept of national socialism stating that Mencius is the Plato of the East and that Plato's concept of organizing a society is far preferable to Marx's.

Kita was highly critical of the State Shinto imperial cult. He argued that the dominant idea which considered the return of imperial rule under the Meiji Restoration to be a return to an eternal and unchanged Japanese mode of governance was false, and instead described it as the "Meiji Revolution". By emphasizing the difference between the different eras of imperial rule, Kita argued that the function of the Emperor should change once again to be one of a representative of the whole people, owning all agricultural land, mountains, forests, stocks, shares, enterprises worth over ¥10 million in capital, properties over ¥1 million in value, and lands over ¥100,000 in value and managing these on behalf of the nation. In order to effectively meet the needs of the people, a new legislative chamber directly communicating with the Emperor would replace the House of Peers with universal male suffrage and ability to run for office. Kita also called for the ability to criticize the notion of the kokutai, as the Emperor was only one element of Japanese society with the other being the people. As such, the people had to right to disobey the Imperial Rescript on Education.

Engagement with the 1911 Revolution

Kita's second book is titled An Informal History of the Chinese Revolution (支那革命外史 Shina Kakumei Gaishi) and is a critical analysis of the 1911 Revolution.

Attracted to the cause of the 1911 Revolution, Kita 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 far-right. The right-wing, ultranationalist Kokuryūkai (Amur River Association/Black Dragon Society), was founded in 1901. Kita—who held views on Russia and Korea 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.

By the time Kita returned to Japan in January 1920, he had become disillusioned with the 1911 Revolution, and the strategies offered by it for the changes he envisioned. He joined Ōkawa Shūmei and others to form the Yuzonsha (Society of Those Who Yet Remain), an ultranationalist and Pan-Asianist organization, and devoted his time to writing and political activism. He gradually became a leading theorist and philosopher of the right-wing movement in pre-World War II Japan.

Toward the reorganization of Japan

His last major book on politics was An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (日本改造法案大綱, Nihon Kaizō Hōan Taikō). First written in Shanghai but banned in 1919, the book was published in 1923, by Kaizōsha, publisher of the magazine Kaizō, which was censored by the Government. The common theme to his first and last political works was the notion of a national policy (Kokutai). Through correct kokutai, Japan would overcome a coming national crisis of economics or international relations, lead a united and free Asia, and unify world culture through Japanized and universalized Asian thoughts. This would prepare for the appearance of a sole superpower, which would be inevitable for future world peace. It thus contained aspects associated with the doctrine of pan-Asianism.

According to his political program, a coup d'état would be necessary as to impose a more-or-less state of emergency regime based on a direct rule by a powerful leader. Due to the respect that the Emperor enjoyed in the Japanese society, Kita identified the sovereign as the ideal person to lead this program. The Emperor would suspend the Constitution, form a council, and radically reorganize the Cabinet and the Diet. Diet members would be elected by the people, to be free of any "malign influence". This would make the true meaning of the Meiji Restoration clear.

The new "National Reorganization Diet" would amend the Constitution according to a draft proposed by the Emperor. Kita laid out the measures to be enacted in the Constitution:

• Limits on individual wealth, private property, and assets of companies.
• Establishment of national entities to be operated by the government like the Japanese Government Railways.
• Land reform: all urban land would become municipal property.
• Abolition of the kazoku peerage system and the House of Peers.
• Abolition of all but fundamental taxes.

The Constitution would guarantee male suffrage, civil liberties, the right to property, the right to education, labor rights, and human rights.

The Emperor would remain as the representative of the people, while privileged elites would be displaced. The armed forces would be further empowered so as to strengthen Japan and enable it to liberate Asia from Western imperialism.

Kita asserted Japan's right as an "international Proletariat" to conquer Siberia, the Far East, and Australia. (The people of these areas would haved the same rights as Japanese.) He saw this as necessary to solve the problems of international trade which caused social issues in Japan.

Kita's political program was to establish state socialism as a fascistic "socialism from above", to unite and strengthen Japanese society. Japan was to achieve the independence of India and support the Republic of China, preventing China's partition like Africa, in the name of Asian unity. Another goal of his program was for Japan to rule a great empire including Korea, Taiwan, Sakhalin, Manchuria, the Russian Far East, and Australia.

After the 1926 succession of Emperor Shōwa, this program was termed the Shōwa Restoration.

On foreign policy

He wrote a "petition" on foreign policy after the Mukden Incident. He strongly opposed a war against America, which was a popular opinion at that time, because the British Empire would join the war and the Japanese navy would not defeat them. He also thought China and the Soviet Union would join the war on the side of America. His proposal was that Japan should form an alliance with France and combat the Soviet Union. He thought that an alliance with France would contain the British Empire, and that Japan and France shared Anti-Russian sentiment because the Russian Empire had not paid massive debt to France.

Critical reception

Fumimaro Konoe detested Kita's influence on the military, stating that his "so-called right-wing is nothing more than communists wearing the garb of the kokutai — and consciously entertains plans to take things as far as a communist revolution."

Walter Skya notes that in On the Kokutai and Pure Socialism, Kita rejected the Shintoist view of far-right nationalists such as Hozumi Yatsuka that Japan was an ethnically homogeneous "family state" descended through the Imperial line from the goddess Amaterasu Omikami, emphasizing the presence of non-Japanese in Japan since ancient times. He argued that along with the incorporation of Chinese, Koreans, and Russians as Japanese citizens during the Meiji period, any person should be able to naturalize as a citizen of the empire irrespective of race, with the same rights and obligations as ethnic Japanese. According to Kita, the Japanese empire couldn't otherwise expand into areas populated by non-Japanese people without having to "exempt them from their obligations or ... expel them from the empire." One of his religious inspirations was the Japanized Lotus Sutra.

His younger brother Reikichi Kita, political philosopher who studied for five years in the US and Europe and was a member of the House of Representatives, later wrote that Kita had been familiar with Kiichiro Hiranuma, then Chief of the Supreme Court of Justice, and in his paper in 1922 he had fiercely condemned Adolph Joffe, then Soviet Russian diplomat to Japan.

This eclectic blend of imperialism, socialism and spiritual principles is one of the reasons why Kita's ideas have been difficult to understand in the specific historical circumstances of Japan between the two world wars. Some have argued that this is also one of the reasons why it is hard for the historians to agree on Kita's political stance, though Nik Howard takes the view that Kita's ideas were actually consistent ideologically throughout his career, with relatively small shifts in response to the changing reality he faced at any given time.

According to economist Michio Morishima, many of Kita's domestic policies, namely the abolition of the peerage system, removal of the Genrō and Privy Council, abolition of the House of Peers, and reform of the election laws were actually carried out, sometimes in a more radical fashion than Kita had proposed, while Japan was under the GHQ. He also described Kita's notion of the Emperor as being similar to the average Japanese in the present day. Thus, Morishima describes his domestic policies as being hardly dangerous or politically extreme. However, Morishima also stated that those who followed Kita's ideas in the 1936 coup were the ones who had "spurred Japan into war with America".

Esperanto proposal

In 1919 Kita advocated that the Empire of Japan should adopt Esperanto. He foresaw that 100 years after its adoption the language would be the only tongue spoken in Japan proper and the vast territory conquered by it according to the natural selection theory, making Japanese the Sanskrit or Latin equivalent of the Empire. He thought that the writing system of Japanese is too complicated to impose on other peoples, that romanization would not work and that English, which was taught in the Japanese education system at that time, was not mastered by Japanese at all. He also asserted that English is poison to Japanese minds as opium destroyed Chinese people, that the only reason it did not destroy Japanese yet was that German had more influence than English and that English should be excluded from the country. Kita was inspired by several Chinese anarchists he befriended who had called for the substitution of Chinese for Esperanto at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Arrest and execution

Kita's Outline Plan, his last book, exerted a major influence on a part of the Japanese military—especially in 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.

Main works

• Kokutairon and Pure Socialism (國體論及び純正社會主義, Kokutairon oyobi junsei shakaishugi)
• An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (日本改造法案大綱, Nihon kaizou hoan taiko)
• History of Chinese Revolution (支那革命外史, Shina kakumei gaishi)

In fiction

• Ikki Kita is a major character in the historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Aramata. In the novel, he is also a Buddhist shaman who is deeply devoted to the Kegon Sutras.
• Kita appears in manga artist Motoka Murakami's Shōwa-era epic Ron.
• Kita is a secondary character in Osamu Tezuka's Ikki Mandara.
• Kita (portrayed by Hiroshi Midorigawa) figures in the plot of Seijun Suzuki's 1966 film Fighting Elegy.
• Yoshida Yoshishige's film Coup d'État (1973) of Japanese New Wave cinema depicts Kita's life during the 1920s up to his death.
• In Yukio Mishima’s novel Spring Snow, Kita’s writings figure in the reading of the most intellectual of the main characters, Honda.

As for Honda, he could never be quite at ease unless there were books within easy reach. Among those now at hand was a book he had been lent in secret by one of the student houseboys, a book proscribed by the government. Titled Nationalism and Authentic Socialism, it had been written by a young man named Terujiro Kita, who at twenty-three was looked upon as the Japanese Otto Weininger. However, it was rather too colorful in its presentation of an extremist position, and this aroused caution in Honda’s calm and reasonable mind. It was not that he had any particular dislike of radical political thought. But never having been really angry himself, he tended to view violent anger in others as some terrible, infectious disease. To encounter it in their books was intellectually stimulating, but this kind of pleasure gave him a guilty conscience.