Ikki Kita - Ideology

Ideology

The socialism that Kita espoused in his early period was a nationalist brand of socialism (or right-wing Romantic anti-capitalism) that had nothing in common with any Marxian notions of "socialism from below".

Kita was also attracted to the cause of the Chinese Revolution of 1911, and became a member of the Tongmenghui (United League) led by Song Jiaoren. He traveled to China to assist in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.

However, Kita was also interested in the radical right wing. The right-wing, ultra-nationalist Kokuryukai (Amur River Association/Black Dragon Society), founded in 1901, was part of a current that has a history traceable back to the Genyosha (Deep Ocean Society/Genkai Straits Society) of 1881, founded by Tōyama Mitsuru. Tōyama, with many contacts in the Japanese establishment over a period of fully half a century, in turn claimed to be the rightful successor to Saigo Takamori, who pushed for Japanese expansion to the Asian mainland in the early Meiji era.

Kita—who held views on Russia and Korea from almost a decade earlier that were already remarkably similar to those espoused by the Kokuryukai—was sent by that organization as a special member, who would write for them from China and send reports on the ongoing situation at the time of the 1911 Xinhai revolution. In his book on Kita, George Wilson tries to play down or deemphasize all such matters.

Kita's article called "Tut-tut, those who oppose the war " showed he had little time for "those idiots" who opposed the Russo-Japanese war. In addition, Kita's first book, the Kokutairon book (the one purportedly on "pure socialism"), was banned upon publication. Some have argued from this to assert that Kita must have been deemed a radical threat from the left to the government. However, the case of Uchida Ryohei's anti-Russian book Roshiya bokoku ron (On Decaying Russia) was also subjected to a ban upon its appearance, five years prior to Kita's own suppression by the authoritarian Meiji state. The government had a predilection for banning books, irrespective of whether they stemmed from the right or from the left of the political spectrum.

By the time Kita returned to Japan in 1919, he had become very disillusioned with the Chinese Revolution, and the strategies offered by it for the changes he envisioned. He joined Okawa Shumei and others to form the Yuzonsha, an ultranationalist organization, and devoted his time to writing and political activism. He gradually became the leading theorist and philosopher of the right-wing movement in pre-World War II Japan.