The Anti-Suffrage Movement in the UK

In the study of the suffrage movement, historiographical focus has remained on individuals such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett. This focus on notable individuals and the dramatic actions of the suffragettes means that one aspect of this history has been largely under-researched: the anti-suffrage movement. The anti-suffrage movement was prominent throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century and was supported by high-profile individuals including the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, and Octavia Hill, the co-founder of the National Trust. Contesting women’s right to vote and gaining both opposition and support, the anti-suffrage movement is an important historical event.

Isabel King explains.

An anti-suffrage postcard. Source: LSE Library, available here.

Why did the anti-suffrage movement develop?

The fight for women’s right to vote, otherwise known as the suffrage movement, began in the 1870s, and was a popular and well-supported movement by the early 1900s. Millicent Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) had both garnered great support and attracted a lot of attention to the cause. However, lack of media publicity and the slow-paced nature of the suffrage fight led the suffragettes to adopt the motto ‘deeds not words’ and they began a more militant approach to campaigning. The emergence of the anti-suffrage movement coincided with this increased militancy, as more and more people started to fight back against the idea of women voting.

Why did people oppose women’s suffrage?

Much of the negative sentiment towards women’s right to vote was focused on issues of ‘gender reversal’. In the early 20th century, there were strict gender roles – men went out to work and were responsible for financial and political decisions, while women stayed at home and took on domestic duties and childcare. Many people involved in the anti-suffrage movement were concerned that allowing women to participate in politics would result in a breakdown of these gender roles as women would spend too much time focusing on their political opinions and neglect their families. The concern over women entering the ‘masculine’ sphere of politics was intensified by the suffragettes’ ‘masculine’ militant campaigning. As well as worries surrounding the conflation of domestic and political spheres, some opponents simply thought women were not capable of making political decisions.

Anti-suffrage postcards

One of the main ways that supporters of the anti-suffrage movement spread their message was through postcards – a very popular method of dissemination in the early twentieth century. There were several features of anti-suffrage propaganda that appeared consistently. The postcards often focused on the subversion of gender roles, the physical and mental ridicule of women, the incitement of violence towards women, and fearmongering an imagined future. Postcards would warn people about how women would neglect their duties as mothers, how women were too stupid and weak to be politicians because of their maternal, feminine instincts, and would often threaten women who wanted the vote.

Did these postcards have much of an impact on the anti-suffrage movement? It’s difficult to tell, because though they were widespread and popular, so was suffrage propaganda. In fact, satirical postcards created by supporters of women’s suffrage often used anti-suffrage tactics in reverse to ridicule their opponents and gain support. Where anti-suffrage propaganda may show women who were interested in politics as embittered spinsters, postcards created by suffragettes showed women in as independent, but in ‘feminine’ contexts such as being a good wife and mother, but also involved in political activity. These tactics were used to emphasise that being feminine and a feminist were not mutually exclusive. These postcards and other anti-suffrage propaganda give us a lot of insight into the deep-rooted issues that women involved in the suffrage movement, and their supporters, faced during the struggles for women’s voting rights.

Why is the anti-suffrage movement not as well-known?

Many people won’t have even heard of the anti-suffrage movement, let alone been taught about it. Why? This is most likely because, put simply, the anti-suffrage movement (at least in the UK) just didn’t last. World War One had a large role to play in this – when the men went to war, and the women took over their jobs while they were away, women showed how capable they were of doing ‘masculine’ tasks. Following the war, the majority of women were expected to leave the roles they had filled during the war years as men returned, but socially, nobody could (successfully) deny women’s worth anymore. The war had shown that what anti-suffragists had been saying was wrong. Women had been doing men’s jobs, during a war no less, and still maintaining their family units and domestic duties. So, with women’s capabilities highlighted, and the ever-growing support for the suffrage movement across the country – from both men and women – the anti-suffrage movement began to suffer greatly. While groups such as the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage continued to fight against the enfranchisement of women, once the Representation of the People Act 1918 had been passed – granting propertied women over the age of 30 the vote – it was clear that the anti-suffrage movement was a lost cause. A lot more change was to come for women, but the first step been taken.

Although it isn’t studied as much, or as well-known, the anti-suffrage movement was hugely significant. Looking at it allows us to see why people were concerned about women getting the vote and the obstacles that suffragists and suffragettes encountered along the way. Analysing opposition to the suffrage movement and the way in which those fighting for the vote rose above it highlights the great success of women (and their supporters) in the years leading up to 1918, without whom, millions would not be able to vote today.

What do you think of the importance of the anti-suffrage movement? Let us know below.

References

Linda Fleming, ‘Understanding the Opposition: The Anti-Suffrage Movement in Scotland’ https://womenssuffragescotland.wordpress.com/main-sections/understanding-the-opposition-the-anti-suffrage-movement-in-scotland/

Julia Bush, ‘The anti-suffrage movement’ (2018) https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/the-anti-suffrage-movement

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kedleston-hall/features/no-votes-thank-you---lord-curzon-of-kedleston-and-the-anti-suffrage-movement

https://historyoffeminism.com/anti-suffragette-postcards-posters-cartoons/

Lauren Alex O’Hagan, ‘Contesting Women’s Right to Vote: Anti-Suffrage Postcards in Edwardian Britain’, Visual Culture in Britain, 21:3 (2020) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14714787.2020.1827971

A Brief History of Policy Towards Minorities in China

Minority groups in China have frequently found their way into the news cycle in the last several decades and especially in the last few years.  These issues are not new and have their roots in the major changes in the way China organized itself over a century ago.  Despite the massive Han majority, China is not an ethnically homogeneous country and has had to continually address issues of cultural and ethnic diversity.  Integration of ethnic minorities into China has ranged from open embrace to violent resistance for much of the 20th century.  What follows is a quick history of minority policy in China that has led to some of the contemporary issues that make their way into the news cycle.

Jonathan Moody explains.

A Uyghur prince. Source: Tilivay, available here.

The Qing Dynasty

To find the roots of contemporary minority policy, we must travel back to the end of the Qing dynasty.  The Qing stormed their way into power in the 17th century and succeeded in both conquering the Ming Empire and expanding the borders and influence of their empire to encompass the vast majority of East Asia and large sections of Central Asia.  On a map, the Qing Empire is a giant but drawing geographical borders around historic political entities with contemporary map standards can be deceiving and is often more of a reflection of modern ideas of the way states look. The Qing, like their predecessors and many contemporary political institutions of the time, was an empire and not the modern version of a state that much of the world lives under today. ‘Modern states’, while obviously not all the same, have embraced a high degree of political uniformity (i.e. passports, laws, national militaries , etc.) within set boundaries that often border other politically autonomous states.  Unlike a modern state, territories under Qing control could vary vastly in how they were governed or exactly how much control Beijing was able to wield and the line between Qing territory and non-Qing territory was not always clear.  For example, most eastern parts of the empire were full provinces with viceroys and the full application of the Qing law while in the peripheries (Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, etc.), Beijing would give titles to local leaders and rely on these leaders to keep the peace.  Beijing’s involvement was not uniform in many of these areas but, in general, Qing law and influence was limited to almost non-existent depending on the place.  Also, unlike many states today, uniformity of political control was not a main priority.  Attempts to make periphery areas into full provinces only happened at the tail end of the dynasty from fears of outside influence and most of the periphery was highly, if not completely, autonomous.  This loose or lumpy system was by no means utopian but for most of the life of the empire, it worked to both bolster the dynasty’s political power in the center and co-opt potential threats in the periphery to become nominal allies.

Modern China

When the Qing fell, the Republic of China claimed these disparate territories and pursued bringing them into the fold of a new modern state that had stronger centralized control over its territory.  Part of state creation for the early republic was determining who was a member of a Chinese nation-state and what their position was in that state.  For many outside of China, words like Chinese people and Chinese language can be deceptively oversimplifying in the diversity they cover.  The majority ethnic Han population is classified as a single ethnicity but many Han dialects are mutually unintelligible and there is plenty of cultural diversity across the Han regions.  The non-Han ethnic groups speak a variety of languages (Tibetan, Mongolian, Uyghur, etc.) and have their own cultural diversity as well.  One of the problems faced by the early Republic of China was how to incorporate the politically and ethnically diverse empire of the Qing into a state that did not want to continue the loose relationships of the past, especially when regions like Tibet and Mongolia rejected any political connection with the Republic and pursued a more independent path. The Republic, under the Kuomintang (KMT), eventually embraced a policy that there was only one ethnicity in China, the zhonghua minzu. The zhonghua minzu were compared to a tree where the Han were the trunk and other ethnicities were merely branches that grew from the Han tree.  The KMT dominated Republic of China avoided questions of diversity with this program and embarked on Sinicization programs to teach the branches how to embrace their true national identity.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the other hand, took the exact opposite approach, especially early in the life of the party.  With a combination of Marxists/Leninist/Stalinist ideologies and later time spent among non-Han communities, the CCP rejected notions that Tibetans or Mongolians were nascent Hans and promised recognition of various ethnic groups and specialized policies for these ethnicities.  The party even embraced the idea of self-determination for these regions early on but backtracked by the time they took power in 1949. Self-determination gave way to fostering patriotic minority identities that allowed for a non-Han identity loyal to the state.  

CCP

After 1949, the CCP adopted an approach to minority populations that had strong Soviet influences (i.e. titular or recognized nationalities/ethnicities) and was aimed at incorporating these people into a modern socialist state while allowing varying degrees of autonomy in specified national minority areas.  Much of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first century can be seen as a mixture, and at times conflict, between hardline and accommodationist approaches.  Accommodationists have advocated a slow and welcoming approach to minorities by offering special benefits, at times with the opposition from some of the Han population, to convince hesitant minority populations that inclusion in the PRC is more beneficial than independence.  These policies have included exemptions from the one-child policy and preferential placements in the competitive university process.  Hardliners have been less sympathetic toward differences and have advocated an approach that has little space for dissent and exemptions. Many of the issues we see today have been as a result of hard liners pushing policies that take a more forceful approach to minority incorporation.

Most countries today have consider ethnic diversity and how to include different populations in one political entity. China is no exception and has been dealing with this issue with varying levels of success. The issue of minorities in China very much stems from a change in the way the state was organized and how different groups fit into this modern vision of a state. This change in state organization and vision renegotiated looser affiliations and has led to many of the issues that make their way into the news today.

What do you think of minority policy in China? Let us know below.

Further reading

Goldstein, Melvyn C., and Gelek Rimpoche. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2007.

Khan, Sulmaan Wasif: Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy. China's Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Westad, Odd Arne. Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750. Basic Books, 2015.

The Second Sino-Japanese War and its Legacy: A National Trauma and a Family Tragedy

I was 12 when I went to my great-grandfather's grave in Anhui province, China. Buried under thick undergrowth, the stone coffin bespoke of age with discolouration and cracks. My mother told me that he was a hero, and I didn't know that until I saw the exhibition at a nearby pavilion, detailing his deeds.

Here Jiaxin Liu explains his family’s story amid the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai in 1937.

Born to a well-to-do family in 1919, my great-grandfather came of age when the Japanese invaded China during World War 2. The Chinese theater was brutal — the Japanese broke through Chinese defense with their technological prowess and committed some of the most unspeakable atrocities. The Yangtze region — where Anhui was situated — was quickly subjugated, and my great-grandfather became a personification of resistance as he led his forces in guerilla battles throughout the countryside. He threatened Japanese control, and a bounty of 8,000 yuan was administered for his capture, dead or alive. In 1942, my great-grandfather was betrayed, resulting in a protracted torture session that resulted in death. Refusing to surrender, my great-grandfather was strapped to the tiger chair, repeatedly whipped, and had his shoulder pierced by screws. It was a storybook sacrifice, and he was memorialized as a local martyr whose valor should be emulated by future generations.

Invasion

Tense relations characterized the war's prelude as a result of Japanese imperialist policy and weakening Chinese authority from civil strife. After controlling Manchuria, the Japanese launched a full scale invasion of China in 1937 after a skirmish at the Marco Polo Bridge. Beijing and Tianjin soon fell, and Chiang Kai-Shek—then leader of the Republic of China (ROC)—declared a full-on resistance movement. The Japanese responded by sieging Shanghai, where they encountered heavy air, sea, and naval opposition as the best Chinese troops were stationed there. Failing to achieve air dominance, the battle dragged on for 3 months until overwhelming Japanese firepower overtook the Chinese, who were often poorly equipped with small arms. Nanjing was next, where a brutal massacre of civilians revealed the utmost depravity of mankind. Yet, advances stalled as the Japanese had insufficient manpower to take over key inland cities such as Chongqing, and the mountainous terrain of Western China provided the natural setting for guerilla warfare as the Chinese decided to "trade space for time", engaging in a war of attrition. This was not easy—concurrently, the ROC were battling the Communists, and the temporary alliance of the Second United Front to fight against the Japanese was tenuous at best. My great-grandfather was under the Communist's wing, and there was little cooperation as he conducted raids on an independent scale. It was a messy period in China's history, one that was characterized by internal and external strife. However, like our nonchalance towards ongoing wars in Yemen and Ethiopia in comparison to the Russo-Ukrainian war, most modern audiences in the West are unfamiliar with this immense conflict. Behind Russia, China accrued the greatest number of war casualties, yet people only hear of Bulge and Dunkirk, not of Nanjing or Shanghai.

Animosities towards the Japanese ran deep after the "Asian holocaust" the Japanese committed in China, most notably expressed in the Rape of Nanking, where the Imperial Japanese Army massacred more than 200,000 civilians. Looting, rape, and mass burials were characteristic behaviours of the "Kill All, Burn All, Loot All" policy of Emperor Hirohito. My great-grandfather's death was a personal anecdote that revealed the ultra-aggressive militarism and coercion which dominated Japanese rule. Such hatred is entrenched—to this day, my grandmother is unable to shake off an innate disaffection towards the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War has embedded deeply into the Chinese psyche. Being the last major foreign invasion to take place in contemporaneity, older generations can personally recount this "darkest age" of Modern Chinese history. In a wider context, it was a climatic coda to the Century of Humiliation — a period of foreign interference in Chinese affairs — that tore down a 5,000 year tradition of imperial dynasties. In a sense, the Second Sino-Japanese war ushered in the conscience of Modern China. China had to become a modern nation subscribed to the Western-centric international order, not a civilization that believed in its unequaled superiority of being the "middle kingdom of the universe". The brutal Japanese invasion was the latest in a string of wake-up calls that made the Chinese question their fall from grace. It was an unforgettable lesson.

Turning

By 1939, the tides had turned with Chinese victories at Changsha and Zaoyi. The aftermath of the victory left China's economy in shambles and civil war between the Nationalists and Communists continued. The Communists, who won the heart of the populace with their indefatigable tenacity of grassroots mobilisations, drove the Nationalists to Taiwan, and the conflict remains till today. Their dominance could not have been possible without the Sino-Japanese war, and the invocation of this pivotal event remains etched in state propaganda and TV shows.

The Chinese victory has recently passed its 77th anniversary on September 3rd. The newer generation worries more about housing prices and job opportunities rather than death by gunfire. To many of my younger cousins in China, Japan is viewed positively with its huge cultural influence of anime and manga. Times change, and so do perceptions. Yet, the horrors of war—while distant—materializes itself in those late-night conversations I had with grandparents. In their trembling tone, they narrated a life much different from ours: instead of seeking to thrive, they merely wished to survive. My paternal grandfather remembered peeking from behind a bush at a Japanese execution of the village elders. My maternal grandfather told me of air raids that seemed like armageddon. The war left an indelible mark on Chinese history, and even people like me, more than half a century after the war, can obtain a first-hand account. Its subtle influence should be preserved, and it is now my generation’s duty to remind posterity that peace is not an a priori condition we take for granted, but an outcome we should work towards.

What do you think of the impact of the Second Sino-Japanese War? Let us know below.

Biography

My name is Jiaxin, and I am currently residing in Singapore. I am passionate about history, especially cultural history, as well as interactions between civilizations. In my free time, I enjoy playing strategy games such as Europa Universalis IV, as well as playing sports and going to the gym.

The Industrial Revolution: Shaping American History

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in America, and it had many important and lasting impacts. Here, Andrew Kim considers some of the most important themes: inequality, the power of big companies, and gender issues.

A Ford Model-T assembly line in the early 20th century.

After the Civil War came the Industrial Revolution, which changed the way that America functioned in many ways. Before this time period, the majority of Americans lived more localized lives, producing much of their own food and goods. However, with the rise of industrialization, people began moving away from farms and into cities. Along with the rise of industrialization came the rise of big corporations and businesses, which took advantage of people working these new factory jobs. People were paid little and had very poor working conditions. Because pay was so low, many women and children also worked in these factories. This led to the emergence of reform movements to improve the quality of American life. By 1920, these movements achieved better working conditions for the working class, supervision of business typhoons, and monumental strides in women’s rights.

Inequality

With the rise of industrialization came the growing gap between the rich and poor. While the rich indulged in elaborate and excessive riches, the working class suffered some of the worst living and working conditions. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, detailed these awful working and living conditions through the experiences of a man named Jurgis, who worked in a meat packing factory. Almost everyone in Jurgis’s family was forced to work, often from early morning to late at night in hazardous conditions without any breaks. Clara Lemlich, also an author and women’s rights activist, brought attention to this issue in an article she wrote about the conditions of a shirtwaist factory, stating that the young girls that worked there would work a total of 13 hours with only a half an hour break. Under these working conditions, it is no surprise that many people died in factories. And not only were these working conditions terrible, but after work, many people would come home to poor living conditions as well, furthering mortality rates. Jacob Rilis, a Danish-American journalist and social activist, documented these poor living conditions in a photograph he took of two newsboys sleeping fully clothed on the ground of the pressroom where they worked. In the end, these people and countless other reformers and activists would bring enough attention to the issue to bring about reform laws for workers, including minimum wage, industrial accident insurance, child labor restrictions, and improved factory regulation.

Industrialization also made big companies extremely influential and powerful, and they were often able to avoid regulation by the government, often by making deals with corrupt government officials. Andrew Carnegie, a mogul of the steel industry, negotiated a deal with the railroad companies in order to lessen transportation costs, which angered farmers. Many people saw how corporations could influence the government and were motivated to do something about it. People began advocating that railroads and banks be operated by the government instead of private corporations, because they were services of the people, and not big businesses. Reformers used many different methods to limit the power that corporations had over the government including referendums, primary elections, and recalls. Eventually in 1913, the 17th amendment was passed, stating that each state would have 2 senate votes, and each senator could hold office for six years. Because of the efforts of the reformers and activists, people were able to regain their voice in government and prevent corporations from taking over.

Gender

In the late 1800s, there was a big inequality gap between men and women; women lacked the human rights that men had, and were treated as lower than men. Women were not allowed a voice in almost every aspect of life, from government, to home life, to religion, to education. Elizabeth Stanton, a women’s rights reformer, advocated for women's rights by detailing the limitations women faced in the Declaration of Sentiments in 1846, which was largely ridiculed after its release. However, by the 1900s, the purposes and plans of the National Women’s Association were represented by 26 states, and in places like Alabama, more and more women sought an education, as written in the Southern Workman, monthly journal published by the Hampton Institute Press. In the 1920s, women celebrated a huge victory with the signing of the 19th Amendment, which legalized women’s suffrage.

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in America. With the tremendous growth of large corporations and subsequent government corruption came the necessity for regulation and reform for the protection of the rights of the American people, which perhaps brought to light the question of women’s rights. These movements certainly shaped the trajectory of American society for years to come, and also made way for future revolutions and reform, including the Civil Rights Movement.

What do you think of the American Industrial Revolution? Let us know below.

The Age of in Reform in Japan and Ryokichi Minobe

One of the defining characteristics of Japan has been the consistency of its national politics, which since 1955 has been almost continuously dominated by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Here, Vittorio Trevitt looks at this in the context of Ryokichi Minobe.

Ryokichi Minobe in 1967.

In most liberal democracies, voters have become accustomed to alternations in power between parties of diametrically opposed ideological persuasions. This feature of democracy is alien to Japan, where there have been only two occasions since the first LDP government (originally from 1993-94 and again from 2009-2012) when opposition parties were able to form administrations. Neither of them, however, succeeded in breaking the LDPs long-term stranglehold over national politics. But on a regional and local level a different picture has often existed, where opposition figures have on multiple occasions held sway. Such a trend was particularly prevalent during the Sixties and Seventies, when several prefectures and councils elected progressive reformers dedicated to policies of reform and innovation often different from those pursued by the hegemonic LDP.  One of the most important of these was the governor of Toyko, Ryokichi Minobe.

A socialist of the Marxist tradition, Minobe had previously served in various government positions while also working as an economics professor. He became a known television personality, with a popular economics show where he discussed economic issues in an accessible way for people, while also conveying a positive image. When an election was held in 1967 for the position of Tokyo governor, Minobe stood as an independent candidate backed by the Socialist and Communist parties, winning a plurality against the LDP-backed incumbent. Minobe was the first progressive governor of the country’s leading metropolis to be elected to this post, one he would hold for the next 12 years.

Power

Minobe’s ascension to power, as historic as it was, was not a unique phenomenon. Instead, it was a reflection of the electorate’s appetite for fundamental change after decades of LDP rule. During the Sixties and Seventies more than 200 mayors supported by a socialist-communist alliance were elected, with more than 50% of Japanese by the end of Sixties already living under either a progressive mayor or governor, or even both. Progressives presided over measures such as the establishment of new social security benefits and (in the case of Kawasaki) compensation for victims of pollution, while also fighting successfully for the right to increase taxes on corporations; one that all local governments came to enjoy.

The rise of the Left on a local and prefectural level was in many ways the LDP’s own making. In the decade following its formation, the LDP had presided over a strong economy together with big rises in living standards. Nevertheless, they failed to prevent problems such as city overcrowding and pollution, while also failing to overcome deficiencies in housing, public transportation, and facilities for child care and the elderly. These contradictions provided fertile ground for reformers to build electoral support and tackle these problems headlong. In a speech he made following his election as governor, Minobe highlighted these contradictions by noting that ownership of TVs and electric washers existed alongside unpaved streets, an incomplete sewage system and cases of drinking water being shut-off. This was the situation that Minobe inherited; one that his administration offered the hope of rectifying. The legislative environment was favourable for Minobe, who had the benefit of working with a reformist majority made up of left-wing parties in Tokyo’s legislature. This included not only members of the Socialist and Communist parties, but also the Democratic Socialists (a moderate progressive force) and Komeito; a religious Buddhist party that supported improvements in amenities and welfare services, amongst other goals. This provided a strong basis for Minobe to put his ideals into practice. Free municipal transport passes and medical care for those aged 70 and above were introduced (the latter measure being one that other localities would subsequently adopt), together with nurseries for mothers at work, allowances for children and facilities for handicapped residents. Pensions were also expanded, while efforts were made to elevate conditions in Sanya, a slum area in Tokyo, with more up-to-date flophouses constructed and better waste collection. An emergency shelter for separated wives with children in the process of divorce was also established; the first of its kind in Japan.

Living standards

These programmes reflected Minobe’s belief in the universalistic “civil minimum system,” in which facilities existed that were essential for the maintenance of minimum living standards for citizens. Much of Minobe’s reform agenda focused on environmental matters, with pollution control standards adopted that were more stringent than those in place nationally. He also backed national legislation in 1970 that led to the introduction of 14 ordinances aimed at tackling pollution in the Tokyo area. “Pedestrian paradises” were also set up, in which cars were barred from some of Tokyo's major shopping and amusement areas on Sunday afternoons; an initiative which improved air quality for Tokyoites. In addition, pay was increased for welfare institution workers, the rights of sanitation workers (a discriminated against group) were improved, and a training school was set up to help senior citizens make a living past retirement. Government sponsorship of race tracks was also brought to an end, reflecting Minobe’s view of gambling being an unofficial tax on poor individuals. Minobe also believed in getting people involved in decisions that affected their lives, conversing directly with residents in town hall meetings in the belief that Tokyo’s residents could become managers of their own city.

Minobe’s reforms had an impact on the LDP, who introduced on a nationwide basis several of the measures that Minobe and fellow progressives across Japan had inaugurated. When Tokyo’s government announced plans in 1971 for free medical care for children who had cancer, the national administration adopted its own plan. Two years later, the national government introduced new entitlements including indexed pensions and free medical care to the over-70s. Kakuei Tanaka, the prime minister who presided over these policy decisions, interpreted Minobe’s victory as a reflection of people’s frustration with overcrowding in big cities, and his government also initiated laws making it hard for large plants to be constructed in metropolitan areas while incentivising firms to locate new manufacturing facilities in the countryside. Arguably, the LDP’s decision to introduce several of the social programmes launched by local progressives on a nationwide basis was a reflection of their realisation of the electoral implications that such schemes could have on their incumbency. Indeed, it enabled the LDP to overcome the challenge that local progressives posed to them, who had taken the initiative in tackling issues concerning welfare and the environment. It also demonstrates how far Minobe’s influence, and by extension that of his progressive counterparts across Japan, went beyond local and regional boundaries in shaping that country’s social and economic development. Minobe was also a popular figure. When re-elected four years later, he did so with 65% of the vote and three-quarters of the electorate casting a ballot; a record at that time.

Historic continuity

It is arguable that Minobe’s agenda represented a historic continuity with the reform efforts of past leftist leaders, the lasting impact of which reverberated throughout Japanese society. During the Twenties and Thirties Japan was led on two separate occasions by the liberal Kensekei and Rikken Minseitō parties. Although the former presided over a tough law allowing for individuals that the government viewed as subversive to be imprisoned, and the latter for carrying out economic austerity during the Great Depression, they nevertheless delivered tangible results for ordinary citizens in the passage of visionary measures including a widening of the franchise, factory reform, health insurance, and legislation aimed at helping tenant farmers. Similar reforms were carried out under the socialist-led coalition of Tetsu Katayama that briefly led Japan in 1947, such as the granting of organisational and collective bargaining rights to workers and a Ministry of Labor which promoted the rights of not only workers, but also those of women and children in postwar Japan. The policy agendas of Minobe and other local progressives were part of this reform tradition in Japanese history, and offered the prospect of the Japanese Left replacing the LDP as the dominant force in national politics. But this was not to be.

The one factor that helped stem the progressive tide was the 1973 oil shock, which saw Japan’s Gross National Product fall for the first time since the war. This lowered the rise of tax revenue for local governments, which in turn limited the ability of progressives to fund imaginative reforms. Bureaucrats and the LDP rallied against welfare, associating it with societal problems including crime and divorce, and progressive local governments were criticised by the LDP “for throwing around money for welfare.” Such scaremongering helped conservatives score major gains locally. During the late Seventies several progressives either stood down or were defeated, replaced by figures from the political Right. Although Minobe was elected to a third term in 1975, he did so by a narrow margin. His tenure also had its shortcomings. Reflecting his belief in popular democracy, Minobe espoused a “philosophy of the bridge,” vowing that he wouldn’t construct a bridge if it faced opposition from just one resident. Although there were instances of local policy decision making working well, this philosophy had unfortunate consequences. Public housing projects, for instance, were delayed in the face of opposition from certain residents, with cuts in the number of new homes built despite the need for the latter in the face of a housing shortage. In a way, Minobe’s own ideas backfired and worked against his own agenda. In 1977, Minobe lost his majority in the Tokyo legislature, and two years later the LDP and Komeito teamed up to prevent a Socialist-Communist candidate from winning that year’s gubernatorial election. The following year only four opposition figures were left that held the post of governor. The golden age of local progressivism in Japan, which for a time seemed likely to usher in a new dawn in national politics, had finally ended.

Although Minobe and his fellow progressives failed to replicate their electoral successes nationally by becoming a viable, long-term alternative to the established LDP, the fact that they achieved so much on behalf of their communities is not only indicative of the pivotal role that local reformers have played in changing Japan for the better, but it also gives an idea of what the Japanese Left can accomplish if it were to attain national power. The growth in income inequality in recent years, together with surveys showing widespread public dissatisfaction with the existing democratic system, offers fertile ground for such a seismic shift in Japanese politics to take place. For Japanese progressives who hope to achieve their aims of electoral victory and a more egalitarian society, the Minobe era is a model worth emulating.

What do you think of Ryokichi Minobe? Let us know below.

Murders in a Nazi Prisoner-of-War Camp - And Canada's Last Mass Execution

Here Nathan M. Greenfield tells us about his book: Hanged in Medicine Hat: Murders in a Nazi Prisoner-of-War Camp, and the Disturbing True Story of Canada's Last Mass Execution (Amazon US | Amazon UK).

Medicine Hat railway station in the early 20th century.

On 5 March 1946, 16-year-old Joyce Reesor played truant from her high school in Medicine Hat, Alberta –to watch the end of what would ultimately be six of the most unique trials in Canadian history.  In each, a German POW, some former Afrika Korpsman others who had belonged to Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe, stood on trial for his life for the killing of two other POWs, one in 1943 and one in 1944.  The denouement of Rex v. Werner Schwalb that Reesor witnessed – Judge Howson’s saying of the ancient words, “and shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul”–was hardly a surprise.  Hamstrung by the lack of character witnesses, defence attorney Louis S. Turcotte declined to mount a defence, and had been reduced to sniping at the case presented by Alberta’s deputy attorney journal, H. H. Wilson, QC, who appointed himself crown prosecutor.

Turcotte landed a few blows, successfully arguing on the first day for the case against the three POWs accused of killing Private August Plaszek in 1943 to be split into separate trials.  He forced the pre-war lawyer Hans Schnorrenpfeil to growl “Nein” when pressed on his previous statement that he had actually seen the men secreted behind a screen in a POW hut whose job it was to take down the testimony of men being interrogated for treason against Germany.  He led the court through a mind-numbing excursus on whether Boden meant clay or earth, which Howson ended by declaring, “ ‘clay’ is earth and earth is ‘clay’ ” and Plaszek was struck in the head by a large clod wielded by a POW.

Camp 132

But in the end the six men on the jury believed the story that began with around 5 p.m. on July 22, 1943, Private Reginald Back of the Veterans Guard saw a man waving a white cloth and running toward the warning wire of Camp 132. But no soccer ball had bounced out of bounds. No one was playing soccer when Back looked down from his perch in Tower No. 7. Rather, he saw that the man waving the white cloth was being chased by hundreds of angry, shouting inmates. Once the desperate POW crossed the warning wire, his pursuers halted, knowing that without white flags they risked being shot. To ensure that the mob respected the boundary, Back ostentatiously aimed his rifle.

From their vantage points on Towers 7 and 4 respectively, Back and Sergeant Frederic C. Byers struggled to make out which of the prisoners was being dragged backward away from them, and the faces of the two men who were doing the dragging.

The tower guards could see Plaszek being taken toward the west recreation hall. Back called the guard room asking for scouts to return to the enclosure, make their way to the recreation hall and free the man.  Byers also called the guard room with the same request. In an effort to deter the four men manhandling Plaszek, Back called the sentries in Tower No. 6 and ordered them to fire shots over the men’s heads, but for reasons unknown, the men in this tower did not follow Back’s orders. After ten minutes, with no sign of the scouts re-entering the enclosure, Back called the guard room again. By this time, he “felt the man would be dead because of the delay.”

The first senior POW to hear of what happened to Plaszek after he was dragged to the recreation hall appears to have been Dr. Nolte, who saw “a body hanging by the west wall.” The rope had been passed around the victim’s neck twice and drawn so tight it cut into his flesh by about an inch. After pushing his way through the crowd, Nolte felt for a pulse but “found no sign of life” and ordered Plaszek’s body to be cut down.

Plaszek’s body was a horrible sight. Said Royal Army Medical Korps Captain W. F. Hall: “[The] face of the deceased was very swollen—the tongue was sticking out slightly and there was blood from the nostrils and mouth and also from the back of the head.”

*****

As would be true during their investigation of the killing of Dr. Karl Lehmann on DATE, the RCMP and Military Intelligence faced something approaching a wall of silence enforced by the camp Gestapo; when the cases were broken after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Canadian authorities discovered that Lehmann’s murder had been ordered by the Gestapo.  Slowly, however, POWs came forward and the RCMP charged men with Plaszek’s murder and the four men charged with killing Lehmann.  One of the key pieces of evidence against Adolf Kratz was his swagger: another was boast after the killing, as he ate a hard-boiled egg “The egg tastes that much better because I have helped hang a traitor.”  Lehmann’s killers had each signed a confession, which provided little more than a tied ribbon at the end of the story of the bloody killing of a fellow Afrika Korpsman.

*****

In the end, for killing Plaszek, one man was found innocent and two guilty, this second being Schulz.  Just before the trap door opened and his body fell, he called out, “My Fuhrer, I follow thee.”  The four men charged with killing Lehmann were hanged on 18 December 1946, the last mass hanging in Canadian history.

Today

Now an appellate court would almost certainly declare each of these trails a mistrial. We need look no further than the contentious use of evidence of homosexuality by both the Crown and the defense, each an POWs sexual past in an attempt to shake the jury’s belief in the evidence he presented: perhaps the most egregious statement being “Let us step a little deeper into the mire” in defense attorney Rice’s questioning of Wilhelm Wendt, who had been camp 132’s Man of Confidence, i.e., the leader of the POWs and, secretly, a lead Nazi.

Even in the context of 1946, the trials and their outcome are highly debatable.  As was argued in detail in the appeal of the convictions for killing Lehmann, the trials took place in the wrong venue. Both the War Measures Act and the Geneva Convention called for such important charges to be adjudged in military –not civilian – court.

Notwithstanding Judge Howson’s statement from the bench, “I am of the opinion that the land comprised in the Prisoner of War Camp, No. 132, at Medicine Hat, is part of the Dominion of Canada,” things were not the clear cut.  Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war remain under the military law of their home army, which is why the Convention recognizes the right of a POW to try to escape when his home army makes that a duty, as both the German and British military codes did.  The Convention also recognized that, for example, in the case of POW Camp 132, German military law prevailed within the wire.  Accordingly, once, following the failure of the Bomb Plot in 1944 Hitler gave the order to liquidate traitors, German soldiers in Canada had reason to consider themselves bound to do so: Lehmann was suspected of treason (and, in fact, did give Canadian authorities information).  Indeed, in a similar case in South Africa, the judge ruled against the death penalty saying that the German POWs feared for their lives if they did not carry out the orders of their camp’s Gestapo.

Nathan’s book is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

The Italian Front in World War One

When conjuring up images of the First World War one may visualize the iconic and murderous trenches of the Western Front. Or perhaps the epic dogfights fought between intrepid pilots in rickety machines when aircraft was only in its infancy.  But the global nature of the war witnessed fighting on a massive scale from the frigid waters of the North Sea to the scorching deserts of the Middle East and the mountains of the Alps where. In the Alps close to 700,000 Italians and half as many Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) combatants would ultimately lose their lives in a brutal meat grinder in which combat was at times the not even the most dangerous contender.

Brian Hughes explains.

An trench of the Austro-Hungarian Army at the peak of the Ortler in 1917.

On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary thus abandoning her initial neutrality. It had been nine months since the largest war in European history had begun, starting in August of 1914 when the other Great Powers of Europe, Great Britain, France, and Russia (The Entente) went to war against Germany and her ally Austria-Hungary (The Central Powers) in a complicated yet lethal system of alliances with one of the main aims of the Entente being to check the rising power of Germany on the continent. Italy, like the other belligerent nations, entered the war with the goal of “reclaiming” regions inhabited by Italian speaking peoples such as the Trentino in the Alps and Trieste on the Adriatic Coast, then in the possession of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy had only been unified as a cohesive nation in 1861, the first time in which they entire peninsula had coalesced under one government since the Roman Empire. The Entente hoped that by opening a brand-new front especially one so close to the heartland of Austria-Hungary would significantly relive the immense pressure in which the Central Powers had been administering to their foes in the Eastern and Western Fronts respectively.

Italy’s initial plan at the start of war was to begin a major offensive through the mountains of the Trentino in the Alps. Their objective was simple. Utilizing an overwhelming advantage in manpower the massive army would slice through the undermanned and poorly equipped Austro-Hungarian defenses like a hot knife through butter. Exploiting the gaps created by the enormous offensive thrust, the Italians would not only quickly retrieve the much sought-after Trentino region but simultaneously open roads to Ljubljana in present day Slovenia and Vienna, the Imperial Capital. But not everything went according to plan.

For starters, the Italian Peninsula is not ideally poised for offensive military operations to her northeast given that the mountain ranges of this region are amongst the highest in Europe. This gave the Austro-Hungarian defenders a significant advantage in that they could subsequently negate the numerically superior adversaries. Another factor was the lack of combat experience in the Italian Armed Forces. Prior to the outbreak of World War One Italy had fought a series of colonial wars in Africa against the Ottoman Empire. These engagements were comparatively small and drastically differed in men, material, and terrain now present on the Italian Front. This, combined with the outdated and draconian leadership within the Italian Army embodied especially by Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna would yield disastrous results.  It seemed that the Italian High Command did not seem to notice or comprehend the brutality in which industrialized warfare enabled horrific carnage in France, Belgium, and the Eastern Front throughout the first year of the war. In addition to this, recent Central Power successes in Galicia enabled additional troops with valuable combat experience to be moved to the new front.

War at altitude

Prior to the 1984 Siachen dispute between Indian and Pakistani troops battles had for the most part never been waged in as high of altitudes such as in places like the Julian Alps of the Italian Front where peaks rise to an average height of 1300 meters. When fighting in these conditions an enemy’s bullet or stray shell could sometimes be less deadly than the environment itself. Soldiers had to contend with avalanches, rockslides, frostbite, freezing temperatures, and razor-sharp rocks to name just a few of the appalling hazards do not present in other theatres of the Great War. In order to tactically operate under these harsh conditions both Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies fielded units of specially trained Mountain soldiers who maintained the proper skills for conducting warfare in the mountains. The Alpini, on the Italian side were formed in 1872 and were the oldest “mountain corps” in the world. Recruited from the towns and villages along the Italian Alps, the Alpini were adept climbers, skiers, and hunters who were familiar with the latest innovations in mountaineering equipment and could sustain themselves for prolonged periods of time in hazardous mountainous surrounding as often they found themselves perched upon dangerous precipes and slopes in which they had to bivouac. The Habsburg Army confronted the Alpini with their own specially trained mountain corps knowns as the Alpen Kaiserjager. Like the Alpini, these men were recruited from mountainous regions throughout the Empire such as the Carpathians, Tatras, and Balkans. Heroic clashes and counter attacks between these elite units would become a trademark of the war.

The Isonzo (Soca) River Valley would become the major geographical focal point of the conflict, witnessing twelve major Italian Offensives all of which yielded horrific casualty rates. Once again, the Italian High Command did not seem to notice or even care about the difficulties exasperated by the terrain and poor quality of their troops. These murderous offensives would eventually culminate in October 1917 at the Battle of Caporetto, one of the deadliest battles of the Great War in which a combined Habsburg-German army valiantly resisted and ultimately routed a major offensive push by the newly equipped and colossal Italian Army. Caporetto would ultimately be the worst defeat suffered by the Italian Army throughout the war. Roughly 280,000 prisoners were taken in addition to the mass desertions of near 350,000 and some 40,000 killed or wounded.

Recovery

Despite these detrimental setbacks the Italians remarkably recovered. Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna would ultimately be sacked and was replaced with General Armando Diaz. The war would continue for another year until eventually the Habsburg Army who had held out for years undergoing unimaginable stress and demoralization from near constant shelling, hunger, cold, and the despair of losing friends and comrades would lay down their war weary arms. The last major chapter of the Italian Front occurred on October 23, 1918, in which finally a massive Italian artillery barrage accompanied by an equally formidable offensive finally routed the Austro-Hungarian army forcing an armistice on November 3rd, 1918.

World War One displayed loss of life and unimaginable suffering not yet seen in the course of human history. Despite the inconceivable numbers of men, animals, and materials lost the Italian theatre remains to this day one of the more obscure fronts as ultimately it became yet another stalemate in which old fashioned commanders ordered suicidal charges indifferent to the casualty rates just as on the more famous Western Front. The major difference being the terrain in which the soldiers fought. Instead of the mud in Flanders tit was the snows of the Alps where countless numbers of young men from all over Europe fought, died, and now rest under the placid valleys and dazzling peaks of one of the most beautiful corners of the continent.

What do you think of the Italian front in World War One? Let us know below.

Sources

Websites 

Siachen dispute: India and Pakistan’s glacial fight - BBC News

Caporetto, Battle of | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1) (1914-1918-online.net)

Books 

Gooch, John: The Italian Army and The First World War Cambridge University Press

Macdonald John: Caporetto And The Isonzo Campaign and Sword Military 

Thompson Mark The White War Life and Death on The Italian Front 1915-1919 Basic Books 

Sweet Home Chicago: Migration and Music in Post-War America

The music of early post-war America has become synonymous with one style: Rock ‘n’ Roll. However, it was The Blues that was key in creating Rock ‘n’ Roll. Here, Matt Austin looks at migration and music in post-war America.

Muddy Waters in 1978. Source: Jean-Luc Ourlin, available here.

It is one of the great narratives of American History: The post-war boom. Following the Second World War, the United States enjoyed rapid, almost limitless, economic development. With Europe reeling from the devastation of war, the United States industrialised quickly to respond to the demand for wartime production. It therefore found itself in a far stronger economic position than prior to the war, to the extent that it was able to pull itself out of the Great Depression, which had ravaged the country throughout the 1930s.

As outlined by Sarah Pruitt, factory production, which had proven to be essential to the war effort, quickly mobilized for peacetime, rising to the needs of consumers.(1) This newfound ability to produce on a mass scale contributed to a post-war boom that was entirely consumer driven. Those who had saved money during the war now had an unprecedented amount of expendable income and as such, the opportunity to purchase affordable houses, cars, clothes and leisure activities, including of course, records.

The music of early post-war America has become largely inseparable with one style: Rock ‘n’ Roll.(2) The rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll and its youth revolution has come to dominate the narrative surrounding the development of music in this period. However, it is often overlooked that it was in fact a different genre that experienced an incredible transition, incorporating styles that would later feed into the vastly more popular Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Blues.

The Blues

As is a frequent consequence of wartime, an increased demand for production results in an increased demand for labour. This was certainly true of the Second World War in the United States, with a large increase in rural to urban migration, most notably among African Americans. This took place against the backdrop of The Great Migration, a period between 1910 and 1970 in which 6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to urban centres in the Northeast, Midwest and West.(3) The demand for labour created by the First World War had initially resulted in considerable spikes in migration,(4) whilst the Second World War created a “second wave” of wartime migration, in which a further influx of migrants moved north seeking to ditch the fields for the factories.(5) Isabel Wilkerson identifies the importance of this decision, noting that: “it was the first time that the nation’s servant class ever took without asking.”(6)

The African Americans who made the trip carried with them what little belongings they had, but more importantly than possessions, they brought a culture that had been cultivated in the rural South. With it they brought their “outdoor” music to urban centres, such as New York or Chicago.(7) These cities subsequently saw a huge rise in street performers, with many notable Bluesmen beginning their careers busking on street corners, such as the Mississippi born influence of the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Reed. It is important to note, however, that the big city was not a complete unknown to Southern Blues musicians of the early 20th Century. For musicians during this time, it was expected, as was industry standard, that records were to be made in the North, with many performers having to make the pilgrimage to record in Chicago or New York, among them “Father of the Delta Blues,” Charley Patton. This northern exposure even extends to the fact that the seminal 1928 recording “It’s Tight Like That” by Georgian born Tampa Red, is often referred to as the first “city” blues, with its style anticipating much of what would follow in later decades.(8)

Difference

Nevertheless, there was however something different about the Blues of the post-war era. Even Tampa Red’s style, although ahead of its time, had a distinct rural quality. The post-war Blues was new, exciting, and revolutionary. These are characteristics it owes to one word: amplification. It is not certain how or when the decision was made to transition from acoustic from electric guitar, but it was a seamless, almost overnight phenomenon, as if the guitarists of the North woke up in the morning and decided to go electric. Francis Davis suggests that the amplification and big beat added to the Blues of the post-war era may have been a necessary response to the roar of the big city.(9) Muddy Waters, upon his arrival in Chicago in 1943, was one such musician to quickly make the transition from acoustic to electric, reasoning that “couldn’t nobody hear you with an acoustic”, against the overpowering noise in the city’s overcrowded clubs.(10)

This created an ever-growing disparity between the music of the rural South and its harder, faster, rougher contemporary in the urban North. What marked this emerging style as clearly different to its elders lay with the increased urgency and flamboyance of its guitar playing.(11) Possibly the greatest example of this can be heard in Elmore James’ 1951 hit, “Dust My Broom”. A tribute to his Delta predecessor Robert Johnson’s 1937, “I believe I’ll Dust My Broom”, in adopting an electric guitar and a slide, Elmore James unknowingly went on to create one of the famous riffs in The Blues.(12) Despite being recorded in Mississippi, James’ version has become emblematic of big city Chicago Blues and more importantly as a symbol of the transition from acoustic to electric, from rural to urban. Only a mere fourteen years separate these songs, yet they sound worlds apart.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Elmore James was not one of the quarter million African Americans to migrate to Chicago in the 1940s. Rather, upon completing his military service during the war, he returned home to Mississippi. Following early success with a handful of hits, he followed the music and made the move north in the early 1950s. His legacy has endured as a founding influence on the Chicago Blues scene and it is clear why, when listening to the up-tempo, heavy beat of his 1961 “Shake Your Money Maker”, for example. He may have had his start in the delta, but like many of his contemporaries, his style heralded in a new era of popular music; a new era of African American culture.

The Blues is a genre that takes its influence from the everyday troubles faced throughout life. However, one of the most surprising elements of the post-war Blues is an incredible lack of reference to its musician’s surroundings in the industrial North. Despite its new and upbeat style, the music of artists such as Muddy Waters was evocative not of a day spent working in the train yards and factories, but of one in the fields.(13) Guitar mentor Lynwood Perry notes that the Blues of the North was played to dance to, but the Blues of the South possessed a deeper message, telling of the many troubles in life.(14) Where the post-war northern blues truly stand out, is that it ultimately contained elements of both. Not only did it rely on a fast-paced pounding style that would lay the groundwork for Rock ‘n’ Roll, it also had a nostalgic quality to it, an echo of the Southern Country Blues on which many of its artists had been raised. No track better exemplifies this than Muddy Waters’ 1948, “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, with the B-side, “I Feel Like Going Home.” The latter track, with its rather unsubtle title, sent those who listened to the record back home to Mississippi, if only symbolically.(15) This was, in fact, as suggested by Davis, as close to a return trip as many African Americans would have wanted to take.(16) It is certainly true that life was better to Northern migrants than those in the southern states, a notion long held before the Second World War. Giles Oakley states that many compared the pilgrimage North to the Flight Out of Egypt.(17) This homage to the bible would present the North as the Promised Land, an opportunity to escape racial segregation and intimidation in the South.

Tough life

Life in the North however, was not easy. Muddy Waters, despite possessing a highly trained ear and a knack for the guitar, had made the journey for work. And for a black uneducated southerner in 1940s Chicago this meant one thing: hard, manual labour. He possessed no illusions as to his chances of music stardom, and whilst he may have held such fantasies deep in the back of his mind, he ultimately took the first job he could find at a train yard. This was, after all, the last era of American popular music in which its stars were neither youthful, or naïve. They had experienced largely ‘normal lives’ up until that point, as the early Chicago Bluesmen had, after all, moved north for opportunities, and whilst they would certainly have been confident in their abilities (why else would Muddy have packed his guitar?), they were under no illusion that success was not guaranteed.

This is in no way to belittle the efforts of those breaking into the music world in the following decades, a feat that has and will be never be easy. However, the few months spent by Elvis Presley as a truck driver, or George Harrison as an electrician cannot compare to years spent in the fields and factories. This is what arguable gave the big city Blues its distinct, inexhaustible style.

The Second World War modernised America and its musical styles. The Blues was especially not immune to change as a consequence, the transition from field to factory made the slow country blues of the rural South seem even further detached from the pounding electric blues of the urban North. It was the war that brought them there, and the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf carried with them not only their guitars on their backs, but also the dream of a better life. They took their early influences and adapted them to the harsh backdrop of the urban North and like the cities they now called home, the Blues became fast-paced, loud, and most importantly, inescapable. They were the country’s first Rock stars, a statement that is inclined to make the most devout Blues fans wince, but the decision to amplify the sound of the rural South in the urban North would ultimately place the Blues on a rapid, irreversible path towards its sudden explosion as Rock ‘n’ Roll, the phenomenon that would change the face of American popular music.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

1 Sarah Pruitt, “The Post World War II Boom: How America Got Into Gear,” History, accessed 12/08/22, https://www.history.com/news/post-world-war-ii-boom-economy#:~:text=After%20years%20of%20wartime%20rationing,war%20to%20peace%2Dtime%20production.&text=Collection%2FGetty%20Images-,After%20years%20of%20wartime%20rationing%2C%20American%20consumers%20were%20ready%20to,war%20to%20peace%2Dtime%20production.

2 Robert Palmer, “The 50s: A Decade of Music That Changed the World”, Rolling Stones, accessed 12/08/22, https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-50s-a-decade-of-music-that-changed-the-world-229924/.

3 “The Great Migration (1910-1970)”, African American Heritage, National Archives, accessed 12/08/22, https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration.

4 “America: The Story Of Us”, Episode 8: Boom, History, 2010, accessed 12/08/22.

5 Mike Evans, The Blues: A Visual History (Atglen: Schiffer Publishing, 2014), 82.

6 Ibid, 83.

7 Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2019), 240.

8 Francis Davis, The History of the Blues: The Roots, The Music, The People (Boston: De Capo Press, 1995), 138.

9 Ibid, 181

10 Ibid, 179.

11 Ibid, 198-199

12 Gerard Herzhaft, Encyclopedia of The Blues (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992), 442.

13 Davis, The History of the Blues, 181.

14 Evans, The Blues: A Visual History, 14.

15 Davis, The History of the Blues, 180

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid, 180-181.

The Red Menace – Britain’s Communist Scare of the 1920s

Three decades before McCarthyism made its name in the USA, Britain experienced her own version of a “Red Scare” in the 1920s. The British press and the Conservative Party went through strenuous efforts to convince the British public that the Bolsheviks were trying to gain a foothold in Britain and advance the Communist cause. Steve Prout explains.

UK Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald with Christian Rakovsky, Head of the Soviet diplomatic delegation, in 1924.

Post War Britain

The political demographics in Britain had changed in the interwar years. The electorate had expanded to include all males under the age of twenty-one. Many had fought in the war and were returning home to a land promised “fit for heroes” which did not materialise. All women over thirty were now eligible to vote for the first time.

These changes had made their impacts on the long-established two-party dominance of the Liberals and Conservatives in British politics as the Labour had now emerged as a credible political party. They began their first government in 1924 much to the surprise of everybody even the party itself. Alarmists were claiming that socialism was gaining a damaging foothold consequently were opening the doors to Bolshevism. The right wing-controlled media would try to ensure the public believed that this was the reality.

The economy was now becoming under pressure and the post war boom was starting to wane exacerbating already tense industrial relations. Strikes were regular and union membership was growing. The mining industry was feeling the adverse effects of competition from the German and Polish mines who had now challenged British exports in the European market. It gave further concern to the already nervous Conservatives

Socialism was new to the British and its intention were not completely understood. Being as the Russian Revolution was still fresh in people’s minds the combined efforts of the press and Conservatives would blow the picture out of all proportion, but what was happening in Britain was as remote as it could get from the recent events that happened in the USSR.

The Conservative and the First Labour Government

The success of the Labour Party’s first election victory that came as a surprise to everybody including the Labour Party itself and so began this fabrication. The Conservatives stirred up anti Soviet hysteria that they could connect to the Labour Party and thus damage their image. They had plenty of material to exploit and mould into the fearful image they wanted to project. This is what we would call today “Fake news” but it did have its effect.

The new Labour Government immediately attracted unflattering quotes and Churchill, true to literary form, offered no restraint himself by announcing that “The enthronement of a socialist government is a serious national misfortune”; elsewhere on the same topic the Chairman of the Leeds and Yorkshire Bank clearly expecting a blooded coup stated, “now is the time for unflinching courage.” Their fears were completely unfounded.

Labour in fact kept to the mainstream path of politics and the status quo of British politics remained unviolated. By the time Labour had achieved office the members that were of a Trade Union affiliation comprised less than half (98 out of 191). Furthermore their membership was no longer exclusively working class - middle and upper classes had also joined their ranks. For a myriad of reasons many viewed old guard politicians as the reason for the cause of the Great War which still remained unforgiven and left deep scars in every village and town in Britain.

Another subtle fact also ignored by the antagonists was that Labour also actively avoided recruiting communists into their ranks, a fact the press chose to overlook. Only two MPs, Walther Newbold and Shapurji Saklatvala, for a short amount of time were on the benches in the House of Commons. The former quickly lost his seat and his enthusiasm from communist ideals. In fact, they repeatedly refused Communism in both the Party and the Trades Union Congress.

Even if Labour were a radical party, they did not command a majority in Government to bring any change about as they depended on the support of the Liberals to vote in their favour in the House of Commons. The reality was Labour also lacked experience, and the economic and political picture of this period was one that required stability not radicalism so in effect they were realists. As MacDonald would remark they were “in office but not in power. “

Labour’s early recognition of the USSR in 1924 created another furore. So did the financial negotiations on trade that ensued but came to no fruition. The Labour Government in fact showed no favouritism to the USSR. The talks of a loan to the Soviet Union were subject to certain conditions, one being the satisfaction of the war debt owed to Britain. There was an idea of opening British goods to the Soviet market that would help Britain’s floundering economy. There was nothing in these negotiations to indicate a blossoming friendship.

Much to the media’s silent disappointment, there would be no socialist revolution.

The Russian Revolution and its aftermath

The USSR was still augmenting its post revolution position and was far too weak economically and militarily to even consider further communist expansion beyond its borders. She was still recovering from losing a succession of wars with Poland where she ceded ninety percent of her lucrative industrial lands. She was isolated with no dependable allies, the exception being the Rapallo Treaty with her former and future adversary, Germany.

This did not stop the British press - it was determined to manufacture a threat and another opportunity came along in the form of a fake document called the Zinoviev letter purported to be from Moscow ordering underground communist sedition in Britain. It coincidentally appeared and was published while MacDonald’s first Labour government was in office. The incident was more akin to a damp fuse than a major incident. Taylor terms it “a puzzle of no historical importance” and it did not actually cause the demise of the first Labour Party. Its authenticity was questioned by the King himself, but it did not reach the public ear and it would have been too late for his words to have any impact.

Internally the USSR had a multitude of problems meaning her energies had to be focused on these issues, namely the famines which resulted in Lenin appealing for help from the wider world. Lenin even contemplated on back-pedalling on some of his communist policies to introduce a limited degree of private enterprise to combat the economic devastation. Any talk of worldwide revolution within the ranks in the USSR was purely fanciful words expressed only by the deluded and the wishful thinking idealists. The media had to look elsewhere and further afield that place was in China.

The Chinese Uprisings

In March 1927, another opportunity was seized upon by the media. In Nanjing, China local soldiers began looting the British, US and Japanese embassies in what was known as the Chinese Uprisings; six foreign nationals were killed two of whom were British which resulted in an immediate demand for retribution. The media immediately saw this as tangible evidence of a Red Menace showing its hand and threatening British interests. Meredith Atkinson summed up the anti-Soviet hysteria spread at the time by comparing it with the crusades of previous centuries: “All Holy wars fade into insignificance beside the fanatical Jehad of the Red International.” This was an exaggeration.

The Comintern (a Soviet backed international organisation founded in 1919 to expedite the spread of communism) was no tangible threat anywhere and it played little part in the unrest in China. The disquiet was more down to Britain’s application of her imperialism that resulted in unequal commercial and trading terms. Nationalistic fervor rather than any communist intent was the underlying driving force all along and Britain was seeing this grow in her possessions around the globe, namely Iraq, India, Ireland, and Egypt. The truth was that the British failed to recognize the changing times and an Empire that was becoming untenable to maintain.

The typical British response was to use force to re-impose their authority as they did in Iraq and Ireland failing to realise that their own heavy-handed suppressive ways did nothing to calm the discontent or arrest the Empire’s decline - if anything it accelerated it.

The Home Front and the aftermath of the General Strike

The judiciary, law enforcement and the government all but abused their positions to suppress any communist presence or opinions. Britain had only recently become a proper more inclusive democracy in the early part of the century with expanding the electorate, but it appeared people could still be persecuted for their political beliefs if it were not palatable with the newly elected Conservatives.

The Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks whom HG Wells described at the time one as somebody who “represents the absolute worst element in British political life” was particularly energetic in these endeavours. Hicks was renowned for his ruthless persecution of members of the British Communist Party. In 1925 he would be instrumental in the imprisonment of twelve individuals just based on their political beliefs, one of who was Harry Pollit, the General Secretary of the British Communist Party.

This antipathy was evident in his early political career when he called Kier Hardie a “leprous traitor.”  Hickson was a strange and contradictory individual who on the one hand was a firm supporter of the female vote but on the other could discard democratic ideals.

The General Strike of 1926 for all its grand scale and disruption only resulted in four thousand arrests out of millions of strikers. There was minimal property damage and Churchill's forebodings of mass violent action and sedition failed to happen as only a thousand of those arrested served a prison sentence. The strike was unsuccessful and did not require the use of any governmental emergency powers. The desire revolution never existed in mind or body of the people or the strikers, but this did not stop Churchill trying his best in being typically provocative by labelling British workingmen as the enemy. Bellicose and true to form he used a newly founded British Gazette to loudly promote this distorted view. His attitude during the strike was one of a minister being on a war footing and demanding an “unconditional surrender” of the strikers rather than seeing it as a genuine protest with genuine grievances and concerns

Attitudes in 1925 emanating from the Trade Unions were about negotiation, as AJP Taylor remarked, and were not about Bolshevism. Incidents of striking by 1925 were only a tenth of what they were in 1921, further pointing to evidence that any intensity was diluted. Most union leaders did not see class war as a tool for change. The old class arguments were outdated and were replaced by more progressive attitudes. Ernest Bevin in fact wanted to work with the employers to bring change.  The press of course continued its antagonistic line unnecessarily.

Conclusion

The Red Menace incident was an isolated piece of British history that was forgotten amid the headlining events that shook Europe between the two world wars and the. It is interesting and frightening how the British government could easily meander around the judicial and democratic ideals to deal with opposing political views for a threat that was essentially contrived by themselves.

Had this have been a decade later in the 1930s then there would have been some justification for a Red Menace as the USSR executed its purges, intervened in Spain, and allied itself to the Nazi Regime in 1939. Even so, this does not excuse the political suppression at home or abroad.

The inter war years do have their interesting aspects as we see how Britain came to terms with the changes following the First World War and how she behaved in the build up to the second.

What do you think of Britain’s 1920s communist scare? Let us know below.

Now, read Steve’s article on Britain’s relationship with the European dictators in the inter-war years here.

References

Ariane Knusel -British Conservatives, the Red Menace and Anti-Foreign agitation in China 1924-1927 – Cultural History 2013- Edinburgh University Press

AJP Taylor – English History 1914-1945 – Oxford University Press

Extracts from Chronicles of the Twentieth Century – Longman -1987

Jonathan Dimbleby -Barbarossa: How Hitler Lost the War – Penguin Books 2021

Collaboration: The Foreign Forces who helped to build the Japanese Empire

During the 1930s and into World War 2, the Japanese Empire was expanding its reach. Here. Felix Debieux returns and looks at five foreign forces who helped the Japanese from China, Myanmar/Burma, indigenous Taiwanese people, Inner Mongolia, and India.

Wang Jingwei, leader of the Reorganized Government of the Republic of China.

While domination is a core aspect of all empires, most empire builders would not have succeeded without establishing collaborative links with the populations they aimed to subjugate. The Roman Empire, for instance, closely collaborated with local elites who effectively did the Empire’s dirty work. Likewise, the establishment of collaborative relations with indigenous elites formed a vital part of the maintenance of the British Empire. Meanwhile, historians have tended to locate people’s responses to Nazi domination on a scale between outright resistance at one pole, and active collaboration at the other. While the reasons for collaborating are very broad – opportunism, coercion, necessity, ideology – the fact remains that all empires have relied on at least some degree of collaboration.

The Japanese Empire is no exception to this rule. Indeed, even before the decision was taken to bomb Pearl Harbour, intelligence officers across the Empire had been working hard to cultivate links with nationalists, freedom fighters and independence movements who Tokyo thought could help realise its expansionist objectives. To the people of Asia, Japan propagated an image of itself at the helm of a so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere – an imagined bloc of self-sufficient Asian nations freed from the shackles of the Western powers. Like all empires which came before it, Japan found that there were collaborators across the continent who were willing to fight under the banner of the Rising Sun in hopes of one day achieving independence. At the same time, Japan learned quickly that its outnumbered military would have to rely on collaborators for policing, guard duty, insurgency, infiltration and for sheer manpower in some of the war’s most important operations.

The five examples provided here are by no means exhaustive. However, they are enough to illustrate the key role which collaborators played in Japan’s war effort.

Collaborationist Chinese Army

It might come as a surprise to learn that China, the country that perhaps suffered the most under Tokyo’s expansionism, provided the largest contribution of soldiers to the Japanese Empire. The origin of these collaborationist forces can be traced back to as early as 1937, when the occupying Japanese established local police and fighting forces to tighten their hold over the country. By 1940, these were combined into what was formally known as the Reorganized Government of the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei. A long-term rival of China’s generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Wang is typically remembered as a traitor of the anti-Japanese resistance – and not without good reason.

On March 30, 1940, Wang became the head of state for the Reorganised National Government. Later that year, Wang’s puppet government signed the “Sino-Japanese Treaty”, which contained a wide range of economic, political and military concessions. This collaborationist relationship was solidified when Wang visited Tokyo in June 1941, where he gave a public radio address. Wang’s broadcast praised the Japanese Empire, pledged to support Japan’s fight against communism and Western imperialism, criticised the government of Chiang Kai-shek and, crucially, affirmed China’s subordination to Japan.

In terms of military support, the new collaborationist Chinese army had by 1943 pledged forty-three divisions – approximately 500,000 men – to the Japanese Empire. Of the 500,000, the only men which Japan considered reliable and combat-ready were those assigned to Wang’s 30,000 strong guard division, and the army of his close associate, Zhou Fohai. Most of the collaborationist forces fell under the command of former warlords, whose loyalty was doubted by both Wang and his Japanese overlords. As such, they were not provided with expensive modern weaponry, and they were trusted with only a limited role in the war effort. Indeed, the bulk of the collaborationist soldiers found themselves assigned to anti-partisan operations or to the defence of military installations. While unglamorous, this had the benefit of freeing up Japanese forces and enabling them to carry out offensive operations elsewhere.

What became of the collaborationist Chinese forces? Very few units remained loyal to the fragile Reorganised National Government, which was unable to survive the surrender of its Japanese master in 1945. Among those which continued to serve the government were the Central Military Academy cadets, who attempted to fortify Nanjing before internal skirmishes broke out. Most of the collaborationist units, however, peacefully surrendered to – and eventually joined - Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang forces. Some would even go on to distinguish themselves during the Chinese Civil War.

Burmese National Army

Unlike China, the Japanese Empire paid little attention to Burma before 1940. This changed, however, when Staff Officer Keiji Suzuki was given the task of devising Japan’s strategy for South East Asia. Suzuki would later come to be known as the “Japanese Lawrence of Arabia” for his advocacy of Burmese independence from the British Empire. This reputation began in 1940, when he convinced the nationalist Aung San to allow Japan to train his followers for espionage and guerrilla warfare. On 28th December 1941, the Burmese Independence Army was officially founded and aided the Japanese conquest of the region. The army played an important role in rallying support from the local Burmese population, its numbers swelling to 23,000 men by May 1942.

As the Japanese experienced in China, foreign auxiliaries could be of questionable effectiveness. Indeed, the Burmese Independence Army was disorganised, lacked experience, and had not been trained for regular warfare. Its soldiers not only committed atrocities against Indian forces and Burma’s ethnic minority groups, but they also suffered heavy casualties in their struggle against the British Army. Furthermore, the army proved difficult for the Japanese to control once its goal of independence had been achieved.

Indeed, in August 1943 the campaign against the British ended and Burma declared itself an independent nation. Almost immediately, tensions boiled between Tokyo and Burma’s nationalists over the question of independence. Aung San now commanded more than 15,000 trained and well-equipped light infantry under the newly reconstituted Burmese National Army, but was dissatisfied with the limited sovereignty granted to Burma by the Japanese. Not wanting to back a losing side, Aung San opened independence talks with the British which ultimately led to a merger with Allied forces. When in March 1945 the Burmese National Army was ordered to confront the Allied advance into central Burma, the time had come to switch sides. The National Army rallied yet another nation-wide rebellion, turning against their Japanese occupiers by cutting off supply lines and seizing control of huge swathes of territory. Just as Japan had used Burmese forces to weaken the British, Aung San used the Japanese in his country’s struggle for independence, abandoning the alliance when it no longer suited his goals.

Takasago Volunteers

Not to be confused with ethnic Chinese Taiwanese volunteers, the Takasago were indigenous Taiwanese peoples recruited into the Imperial Japanese Army. Also known as Taiwanese aborigines, the Takasago had been the target of a Japanese policy of cultural assimilation ever since Taiwan’s annexation in 1894. Of great interest to the Japanese was the deployment of the Takasago in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of South East Asia, sweltering conditions seen as more suited to the hunter-gather culture of the Takasago than their Japanese counterparts. Indeed, the Takasago volunteers were renowned for their jungle survival abilities, and training therefore focused on insurgency, infiltration, demolitions, camouflage, and guerrilla warfare more generally.

In the build-up to the Second World War, the Japanese military recruited somewhere in the range of 1,800 to 5,000 young men from friendly indigenous groups. Initially, the Takasago were assigned to transport and supply units. However, the gradual deterioration of Japanese forces necessitated an increasingly important role for the Takasago. Indeed, volunteers were deployed across the frontlines of the Pacific theatre. In the Dutch East Indies, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines, units made up entirely of Takasago volunteers served with distinction in ferocious clashes with the Allies.

One particularly notable contribution of the Takasago to the Japanese war effort was a daring suicide attack on a US landing strip in Leyte, Philippines, which consisted of fifteen officers and forty-five enlisted Takasago volunteers. The greatest embodiment of Takasago bravery and dedication, however, surely belongs to Teruo Nakamura. Nakamura goes down in history as the last soldier of the Japanese Empire to formally surrender in 1974. Incredibly, Nakamura spent almost twenty solitary years in the jungles of Indonesia, before being lured out of hiding by searchers who waved the Japanese flag and sang the country’s national anthem.

Inner Mongolian Army

Among the earliest supporters of the Japanese Empire were the nationalists of Inner Mongolia. Their relationship with the Japanese can be traced back to the 1920s, and to talks which followed the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1932. Believing that an alliance was the surest way to secure his people's freedom from China, the ambitious Prince Demchugdongrub elected to side with the Japanese. In 1939, Demchugdongrub was rewarded with leadership over the puppet state of Mengjiang. Eventually, however, the prince had little choice but to submit to the incorporation of Inner Mongolia into the Japanese-run Reorganised Government of China. Submission to China, even to a China dominated by Japan, must surely have pained the prince. Given the historic poor performance of Mongol troops, however, Demchugdongrub had no choice but to acquiesce.

Indeed, it is doubtful the Mongol army could have broken free of Chinese rule without Japanese backing. In 1936, for example, Demchugdongrub suffered a catastrophic defeat in an ill-conceived attempt to expand into northern China. Heavy casualties were suffered again during a joint Japanese-Mongol offensive at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War just a year later. Despite being reorganised several times, the effectiveness of the Mongol army was extremely limited. By 1945, the army consisted of four light infantry divisions, two calvary divisions and three Chinese brigades totalling 10,000 men. Yet a lack of training and modern equipment hindered the army’s combat readiness and manoeuvrability. It had no mobile or heavy weaponry, and was armed with only a pitifully small stock of field artillery, light machine guns, and antiquated rifles. Unable to serve as much more than an auxiliary force, the Mongol army met its end when in 1945 the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, brushing aside the few units which tried to resist.

Indian National Army

Distinct among Japan’s auxiliaries is the experience of the Indian National Army. Unlike the territories ruled (directly and indirectly) by Tokyo, the Japanese Empire did not conquer India, and did not envision the Indian subcontinent as part of its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan, however, could not ignore the fact that Britain’s resistance to its territorial ambitions depended heavily on Indian soldiers. Nor could Japan pass up the opportunity to undermine Britain’s presence in South East Asia by supporting various factions of Indian nationalists.

Prior to 1941, Japanese intelligence officers made contact with Indian nationalists exiled in Thailand. Once British resistance in Burma and Malaya had crumbled, a campaign was launched to recruit Indian POWs. Simultaneously, Japan raised an Indian National Army under the command of Mohan Singh, and established a Bangkok-based Indian Independence League under the Bengali Rash Behari Bose. Unfortunately for Japan, the League was reluctant to take direct military action against Britain without an explicit order from the Indian National Congress. While this was no doubt a setback for Japan, the League was not the only influence it held over Indian nationalism.

One such influence was Japan’s relationship with the radical nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose, whose anti-British credentials were well-known to the Japanese. Indeed, the nationalist returned to Asia from Nazi Germany in 1943 having helped the Wehrmacht to establish the “Tiger Legion”, a force of around 4,500 Indian POWs and expatriates in Europe intended to topple British rule in India. Bose came to terms with the Japanese, and declared the independence of a Singapore-based Provisional Government of Free India in October 1943. The army at its command consisted of three lightly armed infantry divisions totalling approximately 40,000 men. A small number of volunteers were even sent to Japan for aviation training.

In terms of service, the Indian National Army participated in the 1944 Indian Offensive, one of the last major Japanese offensives of the Second World War aimed at the Brahmaputra Valley. While the army’s 1st and 2nd divisions saw heavy fighting in Arakan and Imphal, their wider objective – to advance into the Northern Indian Plains and spark a guerrilla conflict – did not have the desired effect. An anticipated mass defection of Indian soldiers serving the British Empire never took place, and the Japanese offensive was eventually pegged back. Nevertheless, the Indian National Army continued to fight alongside the Japanese in Burma until the end of the Second World War.

What do you think of the foreign forces who helped the Japanese Empire? Let us know below.

Now read Felix’s article on Top Secret World War 2: Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and their Submarine Trade Missions here.

Further reading

Fighting for the Empire – Meet Japan’s Foreign Volunteers of WW2, Florian Heydorn, 2019.

Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian allies, 1931-45. Volume 1: China and Manchuko, Philip S. Jowett, 2001.

Collaborators with Imperial Japan, Wikipedia.

Collaborators and National Memory: The Creation of the Encyclopedia of Pro-Japanese Collaborators in Korea, Jeong-Chul Kim and Gary Fine, 2013.

The Imperial Japanese Army’s Takasago Volunteers, Glenn Barnett.

Collaborationist Chinese Army.

The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence 1942-1945, Peter Ward Fay, 1994.

Burma Independence Army.

The Puppet Masters – How Japan’s Military Established a Vassal State in Inner Mongolia, Florian Heydorn, 2017.

Resistance and Collaboration in Hitler's Empire, Vesna Drapac and Gareth Pritchard, 2017.