AHC/WI: The Japanese monarchy gets removed from power after WW2

Maybe, without the Emperor traveling around the country and calm downing the people, as he did in the OTL, the GHQ and its puppet government, potentially, could have accumulated enough hatred and hostility, multiplied by famine crisis and economic failure to the point that people would begin to think like, perhaps those militarists were correct to accuse the Americans for conspiring a genocide against the Japanese race after all. And indeed, in this scenario, the GHQ essentially has abrogated their own words of "The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people".



If we are to drop out the militarism from the anti-American politics, then surely the communism would be the only remaining valid card here. The post-war Japan was a fertile ground for left-wing politics, and many militarists had no problem in identifying and re-branding themselves as socialists. If the circumstance allows the monarchists to accept abolition of the Japanese monarchy as a fait accompli, what's there to stop the communists from attacking the GHQ's hypocrisy and span the wheel of nationalism, opening up the recruitment pool to former monarchists.

But how could the abolition of the monarchy be accepted as a fait accompli? On this thread, it has been claimed by those arguing the implausibility of republicanism, that the abolition of the monarchy would send Japanese society into convulsion, as a huge part of the population would be horrified at hearing the Emperor is no longer a god. But now you seem to be saying that, for a large number of people, the reaction would just be "Well, if he's not god anymore, I guess I'll just vent my anti-Americanism by joining the Communists".
 
Maybe, without the Emperor traveling around the country and calm downing the people, as he did in the OTL, the GHQ and its puppet government, potentially, could have accumulated enough hatred and hostility, multiplied by famine crisis and economic failure to the point that people would begin to think like, perhaps those militarists were correct to accuse the Americans for conspiring a genocide against the Japanese race after all. And indeed, in this scenario, the GHQ essentially has abrogated their own words of "The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people".
Why exactly Hirohito being out of the picture would lead to failure in the food supply? In OTL the occupation was a pretty smooth affair exactly because the USA was able to relief much of the demand for war torn Japan, not everyone got the food their need but enough did for the SCAP to run things smoothly, and I did say that Hirohito did help legitimize things to an extend, but I don't see why he would so vital as everything would fall apart without him.

If we are to drop out the militarism from the anti-American politics, then surely the communism would be the only remaining valid card here. The post-war Japan was a fertile ground for left-wing politics, and many militarists had no problem in identifying and re-branding themselves as socialists. If the circumstance allows the monarchists to accept abolition of the Japanese monarchy as a fait accompli, what's there to stop the communists from attacking the GHQ's hypocrisy and span the wheel of nationalism, opening up the recruitment pool to former monarchists.
Indeed, the Communists and other left-wing associates were the few elements in Japanese society untainted by the militarists, the Empire had either imprisoned or got rid of them earlier, hence why because at the beginning of the occupation SCAP employed several of them as only them had some moral high ground to run the country, you can as Katayama the first post-Empire PM was a Socialist and the "partnership" between the Occupation Forces and the left would remain somewhat until the great realignment following the Korean War.

Well, the nature of the war's end and America's occupation of Japan would be fundamentally different, since ensuring the safety of the Emperor was a condition of Japan's surrender. If the US demands a trial of the Emperor, Japan would refuse to surrender, prompting at least one more atomic bombing. Hirohito could then willingly give himself up and become a martyr, which would cause lasting bitterness with the occupying forces among ordinary Japanese. Even then, the US would probably still allow a relative to assume the throne. Completely removing the Imperial family would alienate too many people in the Diet, and the US would have a hard time finding center-right groups to cooperate with them - those that do will surely be unpopular and provide fuel for anti-American elements.

In the end, I doubt Japan would ever be able to "rise again" and challenge the US, but they would certainly cause a big headache at a time when the US would begin to be very concerned with the political future of most of East Asia.
Japan surrendered unconditionally. Hirohito had no guarantee on his own head after the fact, let alone on his throne, the decision came entirely on McArthur, not Japan.
 

thorr97

Banned
Okay... how about Hirohito get assassinated by either some frenzied JCP member or an enraged IJA officer? This, after Japan had surrendered the US had already occupied Japan. The fault for the assassination wouldn't fall on the Americans but rather the Communists or an already disgraced military. Perhaps say, it was a bombing that took out Hirohito and enough of his family members to make his lineage a dead end.

The US occupation force then decides to push for a post-monarchist Japan as its starting point. The Japanese people could mourn the Emperor all they wanted at that point and order would still be maintainable for the US even without him as the Americans remodeled Japan as they wished.
 
Okay... how about Hirohito get assassinated by either some frenzied JCP member or an enraged IJA officer? This, after Japan had surrendered the US had already occupied Japan. The fault for the assassination wouldn't fall on the Americans but rather the Communists or an already disgraced military. Perhaps say, it was a bombing that took out Hirohito and enough of his family members to make his lineage a dead end.

The US occupation force then decides to push for a post-monarchist Japan as its starting point. The Japanese people could mourn the Emperor all they wanted at that point and order would still be maintainable for the US even without him as the Americans remodeled Japan as they wished.
An emperor's death or abdication isn't enough to do away with monarchy. He's replaceable, and indeed various factions tried to get replace him. The institution itself has to be abolished for this to work.
 
Why exactly Hirohito being out of the picture would lead to failure in the food supply?

Removing or retaining him would not change the historical food supply problem, but removal of the Japanese monarchy, which the institution has been the cornerstone of Japan's nation-building efforts since the Meiji Restoration, would potentially change the society's perception at the GHQ's action.

In OTL the occupation was a pretty smooth affair exactly because the USA was able to relief much of the demand for war torn Japan, not everyone got the food their need but enough did for the SCAP to run things smoothly, and I did say that Hirohito did help legitimize things to an extend, but I don't see why he would so vital as everything would fall apart without him.

I'm sure that the food supply was not enough for those 500,000 protesters in Tokyo, May 1946.


After this, the GHQ had to threaten the government to suppress "excesses by disorderly minorities" or the occupation force would intervene to "control and remedy such a deplorable situation". When then PM Shidehara Kijuro resigned and another government by Yoshida Shigeru was installed, after yet another GHQ shenanigan involving Hatoyama Ichiro, the GHQ tried to improve food supply by importing foods from America, but initially there simply was only so much food available, and the continued inflation and scarcity of food facilitated dissents throughout the winter of 1946-1947 when the government had to rely on the GHQ to block a planned general strike that was supposed to involve some 5 million workers, the numbers estimated by the organizers themselves.
 
But how could the abolition of the monarchy be accepted as a fait accompli? On this thread, it has been claimed by those arguing the implausibility of republicanism, that the abolition of the monarchy would send Japanese society into convulsion, as a huge part of the population would be horrified at hearing the Emperor is no longer a god.

Never said that is the likely turn of events. But in my point of view, this largely would depend on how communists would react to the turn of events, not monarchists. The underlying agency of the Japanese monarchism is nationalism and collectivism. The Emperor represents the unity and integrity of the nation, and breaking this is bad, not because the Emperor is god, but because it breaks the nation as well. Hence the dissolution of the Japanese monarchy represents a crisis in the Japanese identity as a nation, to the monarchists. With Hirohito executed, the value of the Japanese monarchy as an unifying institution is damaged in the most destructive way, very much so, and under this scenario convincing monarchists that communism is the only force that can drive out the GHQ and reconstruct the Japanese identity wouldn't be a hard affair.

But now you seem to be saying that, for a large number of people, the reaction would just be "Well, if he's not god anymore, I guess I'll just vent my anti-Americanism by joining the Communists".

The above scenario, however, is not the only way that could convince people to flock into communism. As I said, without the Emperor traveling around the country and calm downing the people, the post-war radicalization can only accelerate.
 
It should be noted that MacArthur wasn't the one who came up with the idea of keeping the Emperor and wasn't the only one supporting the idea. It's very possible that even if someone else had been the SCAP, you would still see the same result. Also, it wasn't like there was only two option here. Forcing Hirohito to abdicate but keeping the imperial system was one of the options seriously considered.

Also, if the imperial system had been demolished, it is unlikely that you would have seen reactions like some predicted. By the end of war, popularity of emperor had been dropping and in some immediate post-war opinion polls Japanese showed quite high levels of dissatisfaction with the mperor. Many soldiers also felt betrayed that after years of fighting for the Emperor, all their efforts were suddenly for naught. It is difficult to predict how this would affect Japanese politics. The Communist party might become more energized if they feel sharing same goals than the occupation. They were after-all very supportive of the occupation during its early days and Americans also generally had a positive attitude towards them initially. This could help to continue this honeymoon period for little longer. OTOH, you can get also a reaction from the right where some might become more anti-American. I could see this dividing the Japanese right-wing to some extent, as there would be those more nostalgic towards the imperial system and those who would prefer to get over the issue and concentrate on other stuff.

Japan surrendered unconditionally. Hirohito had no guarantee on his own head after the fact, let alone on his throne, the decision came entirely on McArthur, not Japan.

You could argue that there was an element of *wink* there. Americans intentionally wanted to keep the issue somewhat blurry in order to encourage Japanese to surrender but still leave their options open. That's why they always repeated that the future form of government in Japan should be established by the "freely expressed will of the Japanese people" as the Potsdam Declaration said and Byrnes put it when the Japanese inquired what the future of imperial system would be if they surrendered. Privately American officials did sometimes question the unconditionalness of surrender but in practice they did call all the shots of course. It should be noted that originally the Potsdam Declaration was supposed to be more clear about the future of imperial system but was made intentionally fuzzier on that regard by adding that part about "freely expressed will" and removing references to the Emperor.

Interestingly, when first US forces landed in Japan, they had order not to interfere with the imperial system but also not to protect it, for example in the event of popular revolt. This attitude was quite quickly abandoned though as occupations are difficult to run if people are rioting though.
 

thorr97

Banned
An emperor's death or abdication isn't enough to do away with monarchy. He's replaceable, and indeed various factions tried to get replace him. The institution itself has to be abolished for this to work.

Agreed. And that'd be the advantage of Hirohito's assassination. The US wouldn't be responsible for it but could take advantage of it by simply declaring the institution of monarchy to be at an end in post-war Japan.

It'd be just the sort of hard stop that could allow for a clean break thereafter. The Emperor's order for peaceful surrender and cooperation with the US would still be in effect. The US would not have been the one to eliminate the Emperor. Any other member of Japan's aristocracy who might have a legitimate claim to the throne would not be THE Emperor the Japanese people were familiar with.

Such a situation would be the perfect time for the US to declare the monarchy in Japan to be a dead end and thus direct a new course for that nation.
 
Agreed. And that'd be the advantage of Hirohito's assassination. The US wouldn't be responsible for it but could take advantage of it by simply declaring the institution of monarchy to be at an end in post-war Japan.

It'd be just the sort of hard stop that could allow for a clean break thereafter. The Emperor's order for peaceful surrender and cooperation with the US would still be in effect. The US would not have been the one to eliminate the Emperor. Any other member of Japan's aristocracy who might have a legitimate claim to the throne would not be THE Emperor the Japanese people were familiar with.

Such a situation would be the perfect time for the US to declare the monarchy in Japan to be a dead end and thus direct a new course for that nation.
Akihito was born in 1933 and he isn't some random member of the aristocracy. His father's death would mean is ascension.
 
The big issue with Japan retaining its monarchy is that it was a big factor in retaining the country's stability after the war basically wrecked the country. Removing the Emperor, even in an unconditional surrender, would have left the country unstable and potentially open to disruption.

The Japanese people needed the Emperor and his family to stay; centuries if not millennia of tradition and Emperor-worship had been ingrained in the Japanese collective psyche. Even during the brutal century of the Sengoku Jidai, the Warring States Period, when the Emperor was just a figurehead, nobody wanted to claim the title of Emperor; everyone wanted the title of Shogun. While being Shogun had considerably more power, claiming the title of Emperor was basically claiming to be a god; it just wasn't done. Even during the Meiji Restoration, the whole revolution centered around keeping the Emperor as proof of legitimacy, as the Japanese people would never follow anyone but him. Removing him and his family would have been a massive shock and disrupted if not destroyed Japanese society.

You'd have either massive revolts and rebellions against the Allies once things calmed down a bit, and the country would basically be listless and uncertain, needing a new system (one that would most likely be untested and distrusted by the Japanese) to guide them.

You'd need a PoD somewhere in the Dark Ages or some time before Christ.

I think a lot of the analysis of the role of the Emperor after WWII stinks of total Orientalism. In general, any statement about any East Asian group that has the term "thousand years" or "millennia" is probably going to be trash. There was a large movement in the country that sought to end the monarchy - the Japanese Left was remarkably powerful after WWII, partly because they had anti-war creds (and the country, from far-left to far-right, was by then pretty united on the idea that the Pacific War was a terrible idea.) I mean, it'd be viewed as utterly bizarre to make that kind of prehistorical psyche analysis that wasn't Asian. Someone trying to explain modern German or Italian political culture by citing the Battle of Teutoberg would be laughed out of the room, but it's somehow viewed as natural to do it to non-Westerners.

Anyways, the average Japanese peasant isn't going to take up arms to "restore" the Emperor if the Americans declared a Republic or something. That's pretty absurd considering the fact that Emperors have been constantly defeated in history without the peasantry really caring. Even in 1869, the average Japanese person didn't rally behind the Meiji Emperor during the Boshin War.

That being said, abolishing the monarchy does have a serious political effect insofar that it permanently alienates the American occupation forces from Japan's non-socialist political class. Broadly speaking, the conservative political class of post-WW2 Japan (which eventually became today's LDP) overlaps very strongly with the conservative political class of pre-WW2 Japan (the Minseito and Rikken Seiyukai). Which happened largely because Japan's aggressive wars wasn't really driven by its civilian politicians at all (some resisted, most went along with the flow of nationalist, but few really drove them), so they were the natural people to run the country after the war. So yeah, a Japan where the postwar political class was deeply unhappy with the USA would be a very different place. It would certainly make the occupation more difficult when most of the locals who know how to run things are deeply unhappy with the occupation.
 
On this thread, it has been claimed by those arguing the implausibility of republicanism, that the abolition of the monarchy would send Japanese society into convulsion, as a huge part of the population would be horrified at hearing the Emperor is no longer a god.

Which is a strange claim to make, since Japanese society was already going through massive convulsions as a result of the sheer scale and comprehensiveness of it's defeat. 1945-50 was a period of societal self-abasement by the Japanese in reaction to the defeat and the revelation that came from it. Everything was being questioned and I mean everything: morals, traditions, religions, philosophy, art, behavior, politics... nothing seemed sacred for a moment. There was all sorts of crazy societal, religious, and political cults and movements of basically anything and everything. The position and status of the Emperor included.
 

thorr97

Banned
Akihito was born in 1933 and he isn't some random member of the aristocracy. His father's death would mean is ascension.

Okay, so by '45 Akihito would be all of 12? The Japanese people would have no real connection with him. At least none on the same level as they did with Hirohito.

Thus, if Hirohito is assassinated at about that time then it'd be the perfect time to simply declare the whole monarchical system to be at an end in Japan. It being a thing of the past and one which was part of the insanity that brought such ruin and disgrace upon the Japanese people. "The Emperor is dead and with him died the monarchy!" could be the rallying cry and justification.
 
For me, post-war did well enough that I think it was for the best he remained. After all, Japan is rich, democratic, non-militaristic and well run. Maybe it would do somewhat better if the emperor was removed but it is more likely to have done worse. We know what happens if the emperor was not removed, things turned out well.

We don't know what would have happened if he was removed and the chances are that things will be worse simply because it is hard to see how much better things could have gone post-war with Japan all things considered. Things went so well that it is mostly downhill from OTL. If the emperor escaped justice that is a small price to pay.
 
Bringing up Italy is an interesting point because Victor Emmanuel III only abdicated after the war but the monarchy was removed by popular vote. Him keeping his kingship was part of the surrender deal and is therefore not inconsistent with allied policy in Japan. The Italian monarchy was very unpopular, because of VE3's association with Mussolini. Leopold III of Belgium had a similar problem, but the monarchy survived when he abdicated in favor of his son. Republican sentiment was just all too high to allow me VE3 to pull off the same gambit.

The king in Belgium remains an important unifying element on a bifurcated state. The can be said that Italy is the only monarchy to have ended by World War II in Western Europe.

For an Eastern example, see Thailand, where the king, holding similar near god-like position, fled the country in the face of a facist government and returned after the war.

As Hirohito was shielded from blame, by everyone, the outcome cannot be viewed as surprising.
 
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Hirohito's abdication, for all intent and purpose, suggests that the Japanese monarchy has accepted its own responsibility for losing the war. Which runs directly against the idea of using the Japanese monarchy to legitimize the reconstruction, let alone the welfare of the Imperial Household, hence a big no-no to the GHQ if MacArthur wants to retain the monarchy to begin with, they'd might just abolish the monarchy and be done with it, because in this scenario the Japanese monarchy just committed a political suicide and made itself far, far less useful to the American interests.
 
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