Socialism & Ecology in Japan-Look back to '47

[TRox51 at aol.com]

Brad DeLong's analysis of Asia is breathtaking in its simplicity and refusal 
to face facts. I don't know how the word 'fascist' crept in here but I 
certainly never used it to describe Japan post-47. There is not a single 
historian I know of in Japan or the US, be they liberal, conservative, 
leftist or rightist, who doesn't believe there was a right turn in the US 
occupation of Japan in 1947 and 1948 that threw US support to the most 
reactionary elements of Japanese society and deeply undermined local 
democracy. Perhaps he has suddenly found something that John Dower, Gabriel 
Kolko and other people of intelligence and courage have missed. DeLong likes 
to put words in people's mouths, such as his claim that I argue that 'Kim Il 
Sung's dictatorship was the legitimate regime for all Korea.'  I have said 
time and time again that Kim Il Sung and the communist opponents of Japanese 
rule certainly represented a legitimate alternative to Syngman Rhee and his 
government of collaborators with Japanese colonialism (tens of thousands of 
South Korea farmers, workers and students felt the same way and joined the 
anti-US, anti-Rhee resistance in the late 1940s). I have also said the the 
communists in Korea were far from monolithic - Kim Il Sung didn't consolidate 
his power in the North until the mid-1950s, when he rather ruthlessly 
eliminated the so-called Yenan faction that had fought with the Chinese Red 
Army and the South Korean faction that he blamed for their failures in 1950. 
Brad, why don't you just put your cards on the table and say you support the 
US policy of backing rightist gangsters in S. Korea and a right-wing 
capitalist elite in Japan? That was how the Cold War unfolded in East Asia in 
the late 1940s.
Tim Shorrock

In a message dated 7/2/00 3:17:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU writes:


> Subj:  Re: Socialism & Ecology in Japan-Look back to '47
>  Date:    7/2/00 3:17:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>  From:    delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU (Brad De Long)
>  Sender:  owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>  Reply-to:    lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>  To:  lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>  
>  >  > After which things went rather well, at least as far as real wages
>  >>  and personal liberties were concerned.
>  >>
>  >>  To speak of U.S. post-WWII reconstruction policy in Japan as a
>  >>  fascist coup seems to me to miss most of the point...
>  >>
>  >>
>  >>  Brad DeLong
>  >
>  >What is the point then ? Can you be a little more specific ? Personnaly I
>  >don't think what Tim wrote is missing any point. Well, maybe calling the 
US
>  >support to fascists a counter-revolution is a little too much since there 
> was
>  >no revolution going on at this time
>  
>  Fascist counter-revolutions produce fascist regimes. Japan since 
>  World War II has not been a fascist regime. As a society and a polity 
>  Japan has many flaws, but they should not lead one to ignore that 
>  Japan is the most developed and most prosperous (save perhaps for 
>  Singapore) society in Asia, and the most democratic.
>  
>  To claim that Japan since World War II has been "fascist" makes as 
>  much sense as to claim that Kim Il Sung's dictatorship was the 
>  legitimate regime for all Korea, or to claim that I am a racist.
>  
>  
>  
>  Brad DeLong
>  
>  
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>  Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 12:12:56 -0700
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>  From: Brad De Long <.delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU>
>  Subject: Re: Socialism & Ecology in Japan-Look back to '47
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