Episode 545 – The Extreme Right in Postwar Japan, Part 1

Facing Backward Podcasts

This week’s footnote: the first of two parts on the postwar extreme right. This week, we’re mostly focusing on the extreme right in the first few decades of the Cold War, and in particular on the story of Akao Bin and his Aikokuto. How did a convicted socialist end up as one of Japan’s foremost violent anticommunists–and how did his ideas shape a new reality for the postwar right?

Sources

Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo

Jo, Gwan-ja. “The Revival of Japanese Right-Wing Thought and the Coincidental Coolaboration of the Left and Right.” Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies 1, No 1 (2015)

A 1986 Chicago Tribune story on Akao Bin.

UPI press coverage of Akao Bin in the 1980s.

Images

Akao Bin in 1942 at the time he entered the House of Councilors.

Akao Bin in 1986.

A rally by the Aikokuto in Tokyo. Date unknown.

Akao Bin in the offices of the Aikokuto. Note the portrait of the Meiji Emperor behind him.

Akao Bin and his followers doing a gesture that is in no way problematic.