Memories of War/ Wars of Memory

In the early postwar period, around 1945-1950, public war memories had not yet taken shape; at that time, even the term “Hiroshima” did not wear a special meaning, as it did later, nor did it evoke particular emotions for many people in Japan. It was in slightly later years, around 1950-1953, the time of the Korean War, that memories of war suddenly sprouted up like mushrooms after a rain. At this initial stage, when dominant versions of narratives had yet to be formulated, indeed, various memories and stories cropped up. Alongside the antiwar and pacifist thinking that more or less characterized postwar discourse concerning the war and defeat, far more conservative memories, often sympathetic to wartime sentiments, and in support of Japan’s immediate re-armament, appeared frequently.

This paper explores such a fluid moment when public efforts to make sense of war evolved on a large scale for the first time since the end of the war. It examines how such diverse memories of the war appeared, how dominant versions took shape, and what kinds of politics were involved. In particular, this paper looks into series of campaigns in local and national elections in 1952 and 1953, the first set of elections since the end of the U.S. occupation, in which candidates often utilized and modified narratives of war.

Through examining electoral campaigns, this paper shows how such grassroots-level story-making contributed to shifts in national politics, such as the formation of Japan’s defense strategy, later quite simply (and mistakenly) called as the “Yoshida Doctrine.” In sum, this paper analyzes the interplay between memories and politics, inquiring into how a particular political situation molded specific types of stories to make sense of the past, and how such memories framed politics in postwar Japan.