On the question of America entering the war I shall say this. People argue that America is a democracy, America has the White House. I say: slavery was abolished there half a century ago. The anti-slave war ended in 1865. Since then multimillionaires have mushroomed. They have the whole of America in their financial grip. They are making ready to subdue Mexico and will inevitably come to war with Japan over a carve-up of the Pacific. This war has been brewing for several decades. All literature speaks about it. America’s real aim in entering the war is to prepare for this future war with Japan. The American people do enjoy considerable freedom and it is difficult to conceive them standing for compulsory military service, for the setting up of an army pursuing any aims of conquest a struggle with Japan, for instance. The Americans have the example of Europe to show them what this leads to. The American capitalists have stepped into this war in order to have an excuse, behind a smoke-screen of lofty ideals championing the rights of small nations, for building up a strong standing army.

I seen both here and on reddit that some people seems to have wrong impressions about the origins of Pacific War. So here’s the short quote of Lenin predicting it and attributing it solely to the natural developemnt of imperialism (described elswhere in the same article), almost quarter of century before it even started. As you can see, everything went exactly like he predicted.

  • SovereignState
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    161 year ago

    Japan is oft compared 1:1 to Nazi Germany, with good intentions I feel, but undeniably a major reason for their descent into full-blown fascism was caused by the arrival of Perry and the systematic forceful opening-up of their economy to western domination as well as the western influx of Western cultural ideas regarding race and methods for promoting imperial subjugation. Their governments obviously weren’t outstanding or anything before then, but Japan’s inclusion in the fascist-imperialist bloc can be traced back to Amerikan and western intervention, and the extractivist nature of their relationship with the west that led to justified worries about food shortages etc. being co-opted in support of the fascist-imperialist cause. A major reason they continue to exist as the largest security threat to peace in the Pacific today is because their fascists were then rehabilitated (with approval from Amerikan occupiers) post-war while the peaceful labor and communist movement’s leaders were exiled, imprisoned, and/or outright executed.

    This history cannot be meaningfully equivocated with the Nazi’s revanchist motivations, although of course both were fascist, imperialist and borrowed tactics and facets of ideology from one another. None of it excuses the horrific brutality the Japanese led against the Koreans, Chinese and other groups. It does help explain why they came about – Japan is a beast of the West’s own creation, just like the Nazis.

    • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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      1 year ago

      Yeah. To add:

      Japan descend to imperialism is pretty straightforward story. Japan, unlike most other countries, had a ruler (Hideyoshi) who realized what exactly is happening, and aided with beneficial situation and weakness of imperialists in XVI century, imposed harsh, most likely too harsh isolation. But they laid the tradition of resisting colonialism (along with other less pleasant consequences of isolation like incredible chauvinism).

      Fast forward to the end of Edo period, you see that the arrival of western imperialists shaken the country to the core. It was bakufu who realised they need to modernise or be colonised, while their opponents were at first rabid traditionalists and isolationists. Only after they tasted the might of modern military firsthand, they realised they have no chance, so they modified their ideology and in consequence of their victory the unprecedented modernisation occured.

      And here it goes spiralling downward. Japan entered the world in the second half of XIX century, the period of most rampant colonialism and complete right by might realpolitik in the region, so they needed strong military to resist imperialists. Which means industry. What’s worse, Japan lack the resources to be largely self sufficient industrialised country. All those coupled with capitalism resulted in the speedrun basically omitting large parts of the usual capitalist development straight to the imperialism and conquests.

      It don’t make them any less scummy, but when they entered on the capitalist road, they could not do anything else, alternative was becoming colony, which happened anyway after they lost the war, again showing that the treat was very real entire time. Modern history of Japan is great example proving Marx and Lenin theory, especially since it have so many abnormalities but still followed pefectly in the results.

      • KiG V2
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        21 year ago

        In many ways this IMO does parallel Nazi Germany, with how the rough peace terms following WW1 led to Germany being forced to make a choice between socialism, fascism, or being an impoverished vassal. I wonder if socialism could have been a choice for the Japanese, too?

        • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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          1 year ago

          Not a chance. Just look at how the power changed hands during the Meiji revolution - aristocracy got literally abolished by law and the resistance wasn’t even much. Question is, who exactly was behind that move so it passed so easily unlike in Europe? I mean of course it was bourgeoisie and the progressive part of aristocracy but for that change to be so radical the power of bourgeoisie, despite legally being second lowest caste, was overwhelming at the time. And the feudal aristocracy was so incredibly rotten that only like 1% of them really participated in the strife of bakumatsu era.

          Then we have another feature of bourgeoisie power that Lenin mentioned multiple times when commenting on the february revolution Lvov government - not only bourgeoisie needs to be dragged to power by the radicals of other classes (in Russia it was proletariat in 1905 and 1917, and in more backwards Japan it was radical part of aristocracy*), but it tends to get backwards to monarchy - like Lvov flirted with Romanovs and Japanese installed new aristocracy modelled after european.

          Question about socialism here is “who would fight for it?” back then. Answer is, no one. Proletariat obviously didn’t exist in primitive feudal country, and peasants were hoplessly backward serfs - to illustrate this, the example of radical peasant movement that existed in the period was… Shinsengumi - the peasants who shat on the caste system, broke the law but instead of seeking liberation they became the death squad for the shogunate - opressed had only the ambition to became the opressors (and chosen the losing side).

          *Again, strikingly similar to how Lenin describe the three revolutionary periods in Russia when the leading class changed - the nobles, the intelligence and the proletariat. Japan got their bourgeois revolution between first and second period, while Russia was firmly in the third one for all three revolutions of 1905 and 1917.

    • SovereignState
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      71 year ago

      Should also be said that the seeds of systemic homophobia were planted during the Meiji restoration as well, and legislation only became systematically homophobic due to westernization efforts, just as in China. Add it to the list of shit western involvement fucks up.

  • @Shrike502
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    121 year ago

    Wonder if that means we’re underestimating the establishment’s planning horizon

    • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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      81 year ago

      Not really. He explains it in the same article earlier, that it’s just how imperialism works.

      • KiG V2
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        21 year ago

        Little bit of both IMO. Both its natural tendency but also, I believe a few of the ruling class are genuinely smart albeit psychopathic strategists, who efforts might be the small thing that prolongs capitalism’s self destruction longer. Although said evil geniuses working behind the scenes would even, IMO, be yet another predictable and natural tendency of capitalism.

        • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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          01 year ago

          Yes that was his point, that those people are of course personally responsible, and that capitalism and imperialism isn’t a force of nature, but it is a force of society.

  • Bury The Right
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    1 year ago

    The US never ended it’s policy of Manifest Destiny. After the Native Americans were subdued effectively wiped out they continued on to Hawaii and the Philippines. After they defeated Japan they immediately already began going after Korea, China and Vietnam where communist resistance finally stalled their expansionism (hence their particularly intense hatred of communism, bourgeoisie governments like was Japan’s can be more easily enticed/coerced into betraying their populations and becoming vassals) and leaving us where we today with the US’s cold war against China.