THE KOKURYUKAI (BLACK DRAGON SOCIETY) AND THE RISE OF NATIONALISM, PAN-ASIANISM, AND MILITARISM IN JAPAN, 1901-1925

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The author is grateful for valuable feedback received from members of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) research project "Relationship and Networks of Social Groups in Japan during the Interwar Period" (2003-2006), the organizer of the project, Prof. Inoki Takenori, and from the anonymous reviewers of this journal. I also owe a great debt to Christopher W. A. Szpilman and Roger H. Brown for reading earlier drafts of this article.

INTRODUCTION

In January 1946, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan issued a list of "certain political parties, associations, societies and other organizations" that were to be dissolved on the basis of the "Undesirable Organizations" directive.¹Among the twenty-seven organizations²listed was the Kokuryukai, translated as the "Black Dragon Society" and identified as a political association (seiji kessha or seisha³) founded in 1901.⁴In late 1946, a document entitled "The Brocade Banner: The Story of Japanese Nationalism," issued by the Civil Intelligence Section of SCAP, identified the Kokuryukai as the cradle of the Japanese nationalist movement and a central organization in its later development.⁵

In pre- and postwar journalism and scholarship, Western commentators generally agree that the Kokuryukai had a decisive influence in Japanese politics before 1945 and in particular played a key role in maneuvering Japan into war against the United States and Britain. The identification of the association as a potential threat to Western influence in Asia goes back to the early 1920s.⁶However, hysteria over the influence of the Kokuryukai reached a climax in the United States and Britain during the later years of World War II. Although some might dismiss such scaremongering as war propaganda, this sort of polemic did much to influence the direction of later research on the Kokuryukai. A typical wartime article on such organizations appeared in the Milwaukee Sentinel in January 1942; over two-and-a-half pages, the newspaper grabbed readers' attention with the headline "Japan's Black Dragons - Our Truly Hellish Arch-Enemy" and rumors about the society's objectives including a plot "to kill (Charlie) Chaplin."⁷

Figure 1.

Article on the Kokuryukai in the Milwaukee Sentinel, Jan. 1942.

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The article...