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Paper short abstract:

This talk illustrates how a rightwing socialist, and self-proclaimed ‘Stalinist,’ Tsukui Tatsuo (1901-1989), recast imperial anticommunism and wartime commitment to the New Order into postwar admiration for Mao Zedong’s radical reconstruction of the ‘New China’

Paper long abstract:

At the height of the Cold War, Chinese Communist leaders, frustrated with the failures of Japan’s socialist movement to promote the campaign to normalize diplomatic relations, shifted their attention to courting the Japanese Right. In the mid-1950s they turned to the infamous ex-imperial propagandist, Tsukui Tatsuo (1901-1989), to lead highly orchestrated tours of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC). These tours became a rite of passage among ex-soldiers and nationalists for whom the building of a powerful nation-state on anti-Western and anti-capitalist lines held great appeal. This talk illustrates how a rightwing socialist, and self-proclaimed ‘Stalinist’ like Tsukui, recast imperial anticommunism and wartime commitment to the New Order into postwar admiration for Mao Zedong’s radical reconstruction of the ‘New China’

A prodigious self-promoter, suspected by the CIA of being a conduit for the flow of money from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to Japan, Tsukui brokered his knowledge of the ‘New China’ and connections with revolutionary leaders such as Zhou Enlai, to politicians and businesses across the country. In newspapers, books, and lectures, he contrasted the nationalism and statism of the Chinese Communist Party with the subservience of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) to the Soviet Union. The Chinese Revolution, Tsukui declared, was not a communist revolution but a Leninist and nationalist revolution, led by a vanguardist elite dedicated to national cohesion and mobilizing the masses for modernization. Invoking notions of cultural unity, racial kinship, and geographical proximity, Tsukui lavished praise on the CCP as the true heirs to Japan’s prewar mission of Pan-Asianism. As this talk demonstrates, enthusiasm for the ‘New China’ reveals a wider course among the Japanese Right, deepening our understanding of transwar political culture, and the post-imperial 1950s when the People’s Republic of China became the crucible of Japanese thinking about their state and society.