# Ultranationalism (Japan)

State ultranationalism or simply ultranationalism (超國家主義 or 超国家主義, Chōkokkashugi; lit. "ultra-statism"), refers mainly to the radical statist movement of the Shōwa period, but it can also refer to extreme Japanese nationalism before and after the Shōwa period.
State ultranationalists use the authority of the state/nation (国家) through Tennō as the focus of public loyalty. Other Ikki Kita's "state socialism" or "national socialism" (国家社会主義) is a representative idea referred to as 超国家主義 in Japan.

## History

Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan's political practice had been dominated by statism/nationalism, and in the early 20th century, the middle and lower classes, led by Ikki Kita, who were dissatisfied with the control of national resources by the elder, important ministers, old and new Kazoku, warlords, zaibatsu, and political parties heads since the Meiji Restoration, sought radical reforms and advocated that the representatives of the traditional statism/nationalism be indiscriminately categorized as the culprits of the evils, and that they should be killed one by one to show a break with the traditional statism since the Meiji Restoration. This was a break with the traditional statism/nationalism of the Meiji period. This rupture was most fully manifested when the Tennō began to be viewed not as a symbol of tradition, but as a symbol of change, and the failed mutiny by ultra-nationalist junior officers in 1936 ultimately led to Japan's full-scale entry into the era of Japanese nationalist military government four years later.

## Connection to fascism

Japanese liberal scholars, including Masao Maruyama, saw Japanese state ultranationalism as fascism and referred to it as "Emperor-system fascism" (天皇制ファシズム, Tennōsei fashizumu).
American historian Robert O. Paxton argues that with the absence of a mass revolutionary party and a rupture from the incumbent regime, Imperial Japan was merely "an expansionist military dictatorship with a high degree of state-sponsored mobilization [rather] than as a fascist regime". British historian Roger Griffin, called Putin's Russia and World War II-era Japan "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist".

### Analysis by Masao Maruyama

Masao Maruyama, assessed that the Japanese statist/nationalist (国家主義) government model was similar to [European] fascism, but not directly related to state/national-socialism (国家社会主義). However, he claimed that ultra-nationalism (超国家主義) as Japanese statism was clearly influenced by national-socialism. According to him, the proposal of [Japanese] ultra-nationalism is based on ideal socialism and combines the ideologies of some national-socialism.
According to the methodology of political practice, state/national-socialism is the socialism that the government promotes from top to bottom. Ultra-nationalists, on the one hand, wants the Tennō to accept their radical national-socialist ideology, but on the other hand, it causes problems at a low level and puts pressure on the government to reform. Eventually, Japan entered Japanese nationalism, which is similar to fascism, not a national-socialist state, but 40 years of ultra-nationalism have been a great success.
Japan has been in a state of statism/nationalism (国家主義) and militarism (軍国主義) since the Meiji Restoration, but it was this "ultra-" (超) that led Japan to the military path of Japanese nationalism. And this "ultra-" is the Japanese practice of national-socialist ideology.

## Ultranationalist organizations and political parties
### Post-war

* Greater Japan Patriotic Party (1951–present)
* Tatenokai (1968–1970)
* National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party (1982–present)
* Nippon Kaigi (1997–present)
* Zaitokukai (2007–present)
* Japan First Party (2016–present)
* Conservative Party of Japan (2023–present)
The Liberal Democratic Party (1955–present), Japanese largest right-wing party, has an ultranationalist faction.

### Pre-war

* Black Dragon Society (founded in 1901)
* Kokumin Dōmei (1932–1940)
* Tōhōkai (1936–1945)
* Imperial Rule Assistance Association (1940–1945)

## Ultranationalist figures

* Shinzo Abe
* Bin Akao
* Naoki Hyakuta
* Yoshio Kodama
* Hideaki Kase
* Nobusuke Kishi
* Ikki Kita
* Fumimaro Konoe
* Yukio Mishima
* Shūmei Ōkawa
* Makoto Sakurai
* Ryōichi Sasakawa
* Hideki Tojo
* Ryōhei Uchida
* Otoya Yamaguchi

## Events

* October incident (1930–1931)
* March incident (1931)
* League of Blood Incident (1932)
* May 15 incident (1932)
* Military Academy incident (1934–1935)
* February 26 incident (1936)
* New Political Order [ja] (1940)
* Kyūjō incident (1945)
* Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma (1960)
* Sanmu incident (1961)
* Mishima incident (1970)