T0163: The Coexistence of Freedom and Constraint in Ideological Control: Theatre, Ritual and Slogan in Prewar Shōwa Japan

T0163

The Coexistence of Freedom and Constraint in Ideological Control: Theatre, Ritual and Slogan in Prewar Shōwa Japan

Convenor:: An Mei Hu (Kyoto University)
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Chair:: Natsumi Fujii (Waseda University)

Format:: Panel

Section:: History

Short Abstract

Focusing on prewar Shōwa Japan, this panel explores how systems of censorship and control operated as mediating devices that sustained the coexistence of freedom and constraint in linguistic, theatrical, and ritual practices.

Long Abstract

This panel seeks to reconceptualize ideological control and censorship in prewar Shōwa Japan as a dynamic process shaped by the interactions of multiple actors. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Japan simultaneously introduced the Peace Preservation Law (1925) and universal male suffrage, institutionalizing a governing strategy that combined ideological control with expanded political participation. Taking this late Taishō–period political framework as its point of departure, the panel examines how interactions and influences unfolded from the late 1920s through the 1930s, spanning central state policymaking and the activities of non-state actors.

The first paper investigates movements critical of theatrical censorship during the era of party cabinets in the early Shōwa period. Focusing on the rise of proletarian theatre, it analyzes how censorship practices were transformed and how relationships among theatrical organizations were reconfigured. With particular attention to the Hamaguchi cabinet, it demonstrates that censorship functioned not merely as a mechanism regulating stage content, but also as a political apparatus shaping the possibilities of critique and solidarity among those subjected to it.

The second paper examines the political culture of left-wing movements following the March 15 Incident of 1928, when intensified repression sharply limited their actions. It explores how funerals and commemorative performances for the deceased became distinctive modes of ideological expression. Centering on the case of proletarian writer Kobayashi Takiji, this paper elucidates the tension between the pursuit of ideological freedom embedded in the rhetoric of mourning and the police repression that sought to curtail it.

The third paper focuses on the slogan “Japanese Spirit” (Nippon seishin), promoted as a guiding principle of ideological policy. It analyzes how this concept was employed in programs, from the mid-1930s onward, designed to induce ideological conversion (tenkō), examining interpretive encounters between officials and ideological offenders.

In sum, this panel reframes state ideological control not as a linear, one-sided process of repression, but as an internally diverse system and an interactive process involving the responses and reproductions of the censored, as well as subsequent regulation and reassessment. Through theatre, ritual and slogan, it elucidates how “freedom” and “constraint” coexisted in prewar Shōwa Japan.

Abstract in Japanese (if needed)

本パネルは、演劇・儀礼・標語という三つの媒介的装置の検討を通じて、昭和戦前期日本における思想統制と検閲制度を、複数の主体が関与する多層的かつ動態的な過程として捉え直すことを目的とする。第一報告では、昭和戦前政党内閣期におけるプロレタリア演劇の出現が、演劇検閲の運用と演劇界の諸集団関係をいかに変化させたのかを検討する。第二報告では、プロレタリア作家の小林多喜二の事例を中心に、左翼運動団体は葬儀や追悼劇といった独特な手段で思想宣伝を行った政治文化を検討する。第三報告では、1930年代半ば以降の思想犯の転向指導において、当局者と思想犯の双方が「日本精神」という標語の解釈を介していかに向き合ったかを検討する。

Accepted papers

Productive Censorship: Freedom and Constraint in Language, Theatre, and Ritual in Prewar Shōwa Japan

An Mei Hu (Kyoto University) Ryosuke Washizawa (Kyoto University) Natsumi Fujii (Waseda University)

The Rise of Proletarian Theatre and Selective Enforcement in Theatre Censorship: The Tokyo Metropolitan Police under the Hamaguchi Cabinet

Natsumi Fujii (Waseda University)

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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how proletarian theatre reshaped theatre censorship in early Shōwa Japan under party-cabinet governments. Using contemporary criticism of theatre censorship as a lens, it asks how proletarian theatre altered enforcement practices and reorganized relations among theatre groups.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how proletarian theatre reshaped theatre censorship in early Shōwa Japan (1926–1931) under party-cabinet governments. Using contemporary criticism of theatre censorship as a lens, it asks how proletarian theatre altered enforcement practices and reorganized relations among theatre groups. Focusing on the Hamaguchi Cabinet (1929–1931) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (Keishichō), it argues that theatre censorship not only regulated performance content but also functioned as a tool of governance that conditioned the possibilities of protest and solidarity for those subject to censorship.

Under the Tanaka Cabinet (1927–1929), theatre censorship operated in a repressive mode tied to ideological policing, including outright performance bans on proletarian productions. Enforcement also tightened for commercial and non-proletarian theatre, provoking criticism and protest among practitioners, writers, and cultural figures.

Hamaguchi-era theatre censorship did not simply become more “tolerant” or more “severe.” It shifted toward selective, differentiated enforcement. For commercial theatre, censors often adopted a relatively “tolerant” posture and signaled room for negotiation. For proletarian theatre, by contrast, authorities often avoided formal bans while applying exhaustive script scrutiny—often involving the Special Higher Police (Tokkō)—and imposing extensive cuts and revisions that hollowed out political meaning and pushed productions toward de facto prohibition.

A key mechanism was the coexistence of two kinds of “experts” within theatre censorship: entertainment-section officials who presented themselves as theatre specialists, and Tokkō officers specializing in ideological repression. This division of labor encouraged non-proletarian practitioners to believe that “the entertainment censors can be reasoned with,” while enabling effective suppression of proletarian theatre. The paper shows how this arrangement reproduced fractures among anti-censorship voices within the theatre world, hindered broader solidarity among them, and allowed the government to claim respect for “freedom of speech” while pursuing targeted repression. By analyzing theatre censorship as practice rather than merely as legal rules, the paper argues that the rise of proletarian theatre did not simply turn theatre censorship into an extension of ideological policing; rather, it drove theatre censorship under the Hamaguchi Cabinet toward a mode that justified itself while sustaining divisions within the theatre world, in step with party-cabinet governance that invoked “freedom of speech.”

Abstract in Japanese (if needed):

本報告では昭和戦前政党内閣期 (1926–1931) における演劇検閲批判運動を手がかりに、プロレタリア演劇の出現が演劇検閲の運用をいかに変化させ、演劇界の諸集団の関係をいかに組み替えたのかを検討する。特に浜口雄幸内閣期に焦点を当て、検閲が上演内容を規制する制度に止まらず、被検閲者側の行う検閲批判や連帯の可能性をも左右する政治的装置として作用した過程を明らかにする。以上から、プロレタリア演劇の出現が演劇検閲を単に「思想警察化」させたという理解にとどまらず、浜口内閣期において、検閲を正当化しつつ分断を組み込む運用へと転換させたこと、そしてそれが「言論の自由」を掲げる政党内閣期の統治構造と連動していたことを提示する。

Representing the Comrade’s Body within Proletarian Culture in the Early 1930s: Kobayashi Takiji’s Funeral at the Tsukiji Little Theatre

An Mei Hu (Kyoto University)

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Paper short abstract

Using the case of the proletarian writer Kobayashi Takiji, this paper examines how mourning rituals functioned in mass mobilization and political representation within proletarian culture in early 1930s Japan, focusing on funerals and commemorative drama as mechanisms for ideological dissemination.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how mourning rituals functioned as instruments of mass mobilization and political representation within proletarian culture in early 1930s Japan, with a particular focus on the funeral of Kobayashi Takiji. While Kobayashi’s literary imagination—particularly following the publication of Kani Kōsen (1929)—has been extensively discussed, far less attention has been paid to how his death was politically depicted and represented as “victim” and “comrade” through mourning rituals.

On 20 February 1933, Kobayashi was arrested in Tokyo by the Special Higher Police while he was engaging in activities related to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and subsequently died as a result of torture. In response, the JCP planned a Rōnō-sō (Funeral by the Workers’ and Peasants’) at the Tsukiji Little Theatre, which was prohibited by the police on public security grounds. Despite the ban, more than one thousand mourners gathered at the theatre on 15 March to commemorate him.

I argue that the funeral transformed Kobayashi’s body into an emblematic “comrade,” a discursive process that in turn enabled it to function as a key instrument of leftist political mobilization through party flyers and newspapers, while simultaneously becoming an object of surveillance and repression by state authorities. By analyzing both proletarian cultural discourse and administrative records, this paper demonstrates how mourning rituals became contested spaces in which political solidarity and state power directly confronted one another.

Rather than treating the March 15 incident as an isolated episode, this study situates Kobayashi’s funeral within a broader process of memorialization that contributed to subsequent crackdowns on socialist and communist movements. In doing so, it highlights the role of mourning rituals in shaping proletarian culture in tension with the dominant national culture of prewar Japan.

Abstract in Japanese (if needed):

本報告では、警察による統制・検閲が強化された1920年代後半から1930年代前半にかけて、日本共産党やナップなどの左翼運動団体が、言論思想の表現空間を拡大するためにいかなる大衆動員の戦略を構想していたのかを検討する。とりわけ、プロレタリア作家・小林多喜二の事例を中心に、彼の死が「犠牲者」や「革命同志」として表象され、葬儀や追悼劇といった追悼儀礼を通じてプロレタリア文化の象徴となっていく過程を明らかにする。さらに、こうした弔いのレトリックを媒介とする思想表現に対する警察の認識や取締りの過程も分析する。以上の分析を通じて、追悼儀礼が昭和戦前期の左翼運動において果たした政治文化的役割を解明する。これにより、弔いという民俗的慣習をプロレタリア文化と結び付けて捉える視点を提示し、思想統制研究に新たな示唆を与える。

Ideological Offender Rehabilitation and the “Japanese Spirit” (Nippon seishin)

Ryosuke Washizawa (Kyoto University)

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Paper short abstract

In 1933, the government endorsed the undefined slogan, “Japanese Spirit,” as a guiding principle for ideological policy. This study examines how officials and ideological offenders filled this empty concept in rehabilitation programs, revealing its mediating role in ideological conversion.

Paper long abstract

In previous research, the presenter has conceptualized a group of terms symbolizing the spiritual and national distinctiveness of Japan—such as the “Japanese Spirit” (Nippon seishin), the “Imperial Way” (Kōdō), and the “Yamato Spirit” (Yamato damashii)—as “Japanist slogans,” and has examined how, in Japanese discourse of the 1930s, when these slogans were widely shared, they functioned as mediating devices through which individual claims were legitimized and assigned social and national positioning. This presentation focuses on the fact that the most representative of these “Japanist slogans,” the “Japanese Spirit,” appeared with particular frequency in programs of ideological conversion (tenkō) for ideological offenders, a frontline site of ideological control.

In 1933, when the “Japanese Spirit” began to circulate widely, the government officially endorsed it as a national guiding principle for ideological policy. This endorsement, however, was essentially vacuous, as it lacked any concrete definition. From the mid-1930s onward, the “Japanese Spirit” came to be actively promoted in programs of ideological conversion for ideological offenders. For example, between 1935 and 1937, the Japan Culture Association—a cultural organization established under the leadership of the Ministry of Education—conducted “Japanese Spirit” training seminars for individuals involved in cases of ideological offenses (thought crimes) involving elementary school teachers, and collections of participants’ reflections on these seminars are extant. In addition, in the implementation of the Thought Criminals Protection and Probation Law enacted in 1936, the Ministry of Justice positioned the “Japanese Spirit” as a criterion for judging the success or failure of ideological conversion.

The meaning of the “Japanese Spirit” that emerged in these contexts was by no means self-evident. Officials promoting conversion and ideological offenders responding to them confronted one another as interpretive agents through the shared yet indeterminate term “Japanese Spirit.” By examining what kinds of meanings each side invested in this otherwise empty concept, this presentation aims to elucidate the mediating function that the slogan “Japanese Spirit” played in the practical context of ideological conversion. This inquiry should also contribute to a broader understanding of the discursive conditions of Japan at the time, when such “Japanist slogans” proliferated.

Abstract in Japanese (if needed):

報告者は、日本の精神・国柄の特殊性を象徴する用語群を〈日本主義的標語〉として捉え、それらが1930年代日本の言論において個々の主張を正当化し社会的・国家的な位置づけを与える媒介として機能した様を研究してきた。本報告は、代表的標語である「日本精神」が、思想犯転向指導という思想統制の最前線で頻繁に用いられた点に注目する。1933年に政府が思想対策の国家的指導原理として具体的な定義を伴わないまま公認した「日本精神」は、1930年代半ば以降、文部省や司法省による転向指導の現場で積極的に標榜されることとなる。当局と思想犯の双方が、それぞれ解釈の主体として「日本精神」にいかなる意味内容を充填したのかを検討することで、思想統制における「日本精神」の媒介的機能を明らかにする。