BOOK DATA
Original Title: 北一輝的日本特色社會主義《日本改造法案大綱》（1919）: 全新中文翻譯 •經典章句集注
English Title: IKKI KITA’S OUTLINE PLAN FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF JAPAN (1919)
NEW CHINESE TRANSLATION, INTERLINEAR ANALYSIS, AND COLLECTED COMMENTARIES
Author: Ikki Kita (北一輝), Ryota Nakanishi
ISBN: 978-988-76066-7-3
Language: Chinese
Publisher: Ryota Nakanishi
(January 24, 2025)
IKKI KITA (1883-1937)
Ikki Kita's “AN OUTLINE PLAN FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF JAPAN” (written in 1919 and published with deletions and a change of title in 1923) was the programmatic document for the Showa Restoration Revolution (1936). This is equivalent to the Communist Manifesto (1848), the program for the proletarian revolution.
He was a Japanese revolutionary who straddled both China and Japan. His theory of social revolution with Japanese characteristics was a reflection on and synthesis of Western left and right ideologies, the Meiji Restoration, the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, anarchism, Marxism, etc. What is Ikki Kita? Or what is Ikki Kita's thinking? “Nichiren Shoshu” plus “socialism” plus “Japanese nationalism”? This formula is superficial.
From the perspective of the 21st century, Ikki Kita's revolutionary ideology is:
Under the fascist/imperialist society of the Emperor of the Empire of Japan at that time, an opposition pan-Asianist, pro-Chinese intellectual had the wisdom to advocate social change and effectively influenced the military, which strongly promoted the exploration of people's reforms and revolutions. This is a socialist ideology with Japanese characteristics.
It is believed that if political censorship had been less strict or non-existent at the time, the genre and ideological elements used by Ikki Kita would have taken on a different appearance and developed differently. Under the specific social conditions of a particular historical period, the influence of historical constraints on the formation of ideas is indeed great and inevitable. Another point to note is that, because he lived under the social system of the time, it is unclear how much of his ideology was dependent on the system itself and how much was a personal ideological reaction.
The existing social system and national policies at the time did not belong to Ikki Kita personally, but only Ikki Kita's personal opinions and reflections on them. Therefore, the existing national policies and systems at the time cannot be rashly applied to Ikki Kita without review. Another important principle when reading is that Ikki Kita is affirming Japan after the transformation, not the situation in Japan at the time before the transformation.
One mistake made by Ta Kung Pao when they translated the book during the Republican period in 1932 was that Ikki Kita had no intrinsic connection with the Manchurian Incident, and the book did not become a national program at all. The only event in history that this book (1919) and Ikki Kita influenced was the 226 Incident (1936). In terms of some of its common measures, it can also be said to have partially influenced the post-war democratic reforms and the Japanese Constitution.
Kita’s wisdom and dialectical thinking are a profound reflection on previous world-renowned social thought. He also had a keen and nuanced understanding of the characteristics of Japanese society and national issues at the time. Under the seemingly extreme surface of the institutional faction, he was correctly regarded as an anti-establishment figure at the core of the system. This should never be lost in the shallow, “sectarian” political correctness of mindless radical prejudice and the culture of automatic labeling, which can easily lead astray from the alternative thinking proposed by Kita, which is still valid today.
In terms of its class nature, Marxism belongs unilaterally or comprehensively to the working class, while Kita's socialism is of course not Marxism or communism. It belongs to both the petty bourgeoisie and the working class (small and medium-sized enterprises, peasants, workers).
In terms of its revolutionary path, the former is a mass of people who consciously organize class actions under the guidance of vanguard political groups, while the latter mainly carries out social transformation through military coups and national military governments. However, as the failed Showa Restoration showed, junior officers from the countryside and the peasantry started the armed coup from the bottom up. Therefore, Kita's revolutionary ideology was a combination of bottom-up and top-down, not just bottom-up. The most historic uprising in Japan at that time was the 226 Incident (an attempted 'Showa Restoration Revolution' in 1936).
As Japanese history knows, some of the democratic measures advocated by Kita in this book were implemented during the post-war democratic reforms promoted under the occupation of the United States military. In other words, the Constitution of Japan includes some of Kita's ideas (such as anti-corruption, anti-monopoly, anti-racial discrimination, the rights of the working class represented by the eight-hour workday, women's human rights, prisoners' human rights, universal suffrage, universal and free compulsory education, etc.).
How could fascism want universal suffrage? How absurd! These people's democratic measures directly contradicted the deluded label of the so-called 'godfather/teacher of fascism' (in this way, Kita was made the scapegoat for the real fascist forces). The writer completely rejected such automatic labels. The term “militarism” was not used by the militarists themselves, but by their critics, in both Chinese and Japanese. This is also a historical fact.
Ikki Kita's socialism with Japanese characteristics, OUTLINE PLAN FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF JAPAN, is a critique of Taisho Democracy and socialism based on the Japanese populist position, as well as a critique of Japanese capitalism. The book discusses in detail Japan's political, economic, and social problems and proposes solutions to these problems.
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