The Showa Era was a time of demographic change, financial ruin, and postwar recovery. Throughout the era, citizens of Japan lived through an era of nationalism and empire, then famine and poverty, and finally social progress. While this narrative of Japan’s progress is typically told from the perspective of those who lived in a major city, the experience of those who lived in rural area was vastly different, as will be explored in this article.
While Meiji Era industrialization contributed to immense population growth of 100% from 1868 to 1940, smaller cities, unable to attract industrialist investment, struggled to keep up with the major metropolitan areas of Kanto and Kansai (E. Britannica). As a rapidly developing country established itself on the world stage, many of those in smaller cities and rural areas still felt as if they were being overworked by an “authoritarian state” and saw the economic framework they were a part of as being highly similar to that of the landlord system of years past (Balatchandirane). The World War Two experience of these smaller cities, such as Shibata in Niigata Prefecture where Yoshiaki Tsukada was raised, contrast with that of the much larger, industrialized aforementioned urban areas. “We had air raid drills, but never experienced an air raid” says Tsukada, who was in primary school at the time. While Shibata was not a target of Allied Bombings during the war, Tsukada’s memories of the war would have been much different if he had lived nearby in Nagaoka, which on August 1, 1945 was bombarded by 125 B-25 aircraft.
While the physical damage dealt by the outcome of the war varied between urban and rural areas, one element of the Showa era which could be seen as uniform across all areas is the propaganda machine which the nationalist government promulgated. Emphasizing the retention of traditional Japanese values in the face of an increasingly interconnected world, the Japanese Ministry of Education in the mid 1930s created a curriculum which pushed the idea of Kokutai, a concept similar to the European idea of body politic. Kokutai professed that the emperor was the original founder of the country, and that he was the descendent of the sun goddess Amaterasu. “I thought he was a special person. Almost a god or a person above the cloud” says Tsukada. “During the World War 2, "glorious history" of Japan was emphasized. “We were told that Japan and its allies are "good" countries ,which are trying to free people from "bad"countries.” In order to justify its aggressive imperial agenda to its people, Japan invoked a historical argument.
During the war, however, worsening conditions weakened the resolve of the population, which shrunk by 4% during the course of the war (The Geography of Wartime Demographic Change). While the Soviet intervention and the Atomic bombings were central to the end of the war, Encyclopedia Brittanica contends that food shortages diminished any remaining ounce of national strength. “As a child, I suffered most from shortage of food.” Says Tsukada. “There was not enough rice and it was rationed. We had to eat potatoes or pumpkins in its place. Many other items were rationed.” As Japan’s war machine screeched to a halt, the human cost of the ongoing conflict became ever more apparent.
The collapse of imperial authority and the transition to occupation was seen by many as being equally dramatic as the horrors of war. After the decision was made internally to accept the Potsdam Declaration from the allies, many members of the military refused to accept this outcome. On August 15, several military officers launched a coup against the war high command, and went on to ransack the imperial grounds, searching for the recording of the acceptance of terms of surrender (Kyodo News). Unable to find it, the rebels left, unsatisfied, and the recording, now known as the Gyokuonhoso was broadcast. The broadcast, the first to include a recording of the emperor, was delivered in Bungotai, an older form of Japanese, which made it hard for many common people to understand. “I did not understand the whole thing, because of the poor quality of the broadcasting and the difficulty of the language used, I understood that Japan lost the war” says Tsukada. After the broadcast, many people gathered in the streets in silence, stunned that the figure that they had become so accustomed to worshiping had just declared the defeat of the country in a war everyone was sure would be won.
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