Destruction and Rebirth: The Showa Period of Japan 1926-1989
Sun: Written by Takahisa Furukawa
Translated by Zhang Lin
Published by Zhejiang People's Publishing House
Recently, the Zhejiang People's Publishing House translated and published "Destruction and Rebirth: The Showa Era of Japan (1926-1989)" by Japanese historian Takahisa Furukawa (1926-1989) (the original Japanese book is titled "History of Showa", Chikuma Shobo, 2016). As I began to read the book, I flashed a little wonder: Why translate and publish the Showa history of this Mesozoic scholar born in 1962? On the less well-known than the historian Masayasu Hosaka's "Lessons in Showa History" (Asahi Publishing House), and on the popularity of the historian Kazutoshi Hando's "Showa History" (Hirasha). But when I started to turn the page, I was attracted by the author's academic sincerity and academic courage. After spending a few days slowly reading it, I felt that the most meaningful thing about this book was that it did not cater to the tastes of Japanese readers who were cultivated by Sima Liaotaro, and did not give up the truth of history in order to revive historical memory. Compared with the various versions of the Showa history in Japan, the author thinks that Furukawa's Showa history is obviously a height of reason, a height of conscience, and of course a height of the authenticity of life.
How to prevent the emergence of historical defeatists
The so-called showa history inevitably involves the "15-year war" that invaded China. For the victims and victims of that war, Japan and the Japanese were undoubtedly the perpetrators of evil. If we follow the usual post-war approach, with its sincere "confession" and the pious "apology" of politicians, we may be able to clean up the historical sentiment. But the complexity of the problem lies in the fact that the Japanese also paid a terrible price in that war, especially the two atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the day-and-night air raids on Tokyo, and the tragic pain and death encountered by the Japanese made them feel and emotionally think that they were also "victims". This is just as the historian Yoko Kato asked in his book Why did the Japanese choose war: Why do the Japanese consider themselves "victims"? One reason, Kato argues, is that "the state cannot even tell the families of the fallen soldiers when and where they lost their lives" (see page 304).
Of course, the logical premise here cannot be reversed - the victim is the aggressor, and the perpetrator is the aggressor. The problem is that even if the perpetrators, the Japanese, accumulate national feelings, the accumulation of national feelings will constitute a collective historical memory of post-war Japan. The difficulty lies in the fact that the collective historical memory cannot face the "victim memory" of the victims of the victimized countries. How to deal with this collective historical memory, that is, how to rationally write the Showa history of this war. Because complex historical memories (such as the memory of the atomic bomb, the memory of the great air raid, the memory of manchurian escape, etc.) cannot be explicitly stated, then it is bound to complete the denial and distortion of the past in the most dangerous way in the history writing, presenting another kind of cursed absurdity and hateful people. So we read the Showa history written by most Japanese scholars so far, and although there is a buffer or a sustenance for the national sentiments of their own country, it may be the second and third or nth victims of the victims of the victim countries. It is as if with the establishment of monuments and memorials, the appearance of the dead has become the appearance of history. If the repetition of history is the inertia of history itself, then the recurrence of history is a problem at the human level, and it must be that people's judgments are affected by the perspective and presence of the present. But history is by no means a mere superficial cycle. When people are still in the apparent consciousness that is not "déjà vu", the danger of "doing it again" is far more dangerous than the original state. This is also the terrible part of history. Therefore, this is also a sentence that historians with conscience have repeatedly warned good people: "People, I love you, but you must be vigilant." "But posterity is often the defeatist of history."
How to prevent the emergence of historical defeatists? An important working procedure is for historians to keep the bottom line and write real history. This is also the value of our reading of Furukawa's Destruction and Rebirth.
The So-Called "Red Line" in the Study of Japanese History
First, look at Furukawa's writings about the invasion of China. For example, writing about the Nanjing Massacre, this is the most eye-catching place in the history of Furukawa Showa. In the third chapter, "The War Years: 1937-1945," Furukawa simply uses the text of the "Nanjing Massacre" as a subtitle. On December 13, 1937, after the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, "in the end, a tragedy that would make people feel sad just by writing down" occurred." Here, Furukawa unabashedly writes the figure of "300,000 people." He wrote: "The Japanese army occupying Nanjing slaughtered at least tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians, and if you count the events that occurred in the process of attacking Nanjing, the total number of Chinese killed by the Japanese army may reach 300,000, which is the Nanjing Incident, also known as the Nanjing Massacre." (p. 122) Furukawa's significance in finally writing the number of "300,000 people" killed in his own historical monograph is the first person in japanese historiography today, and its significance cannot be underestimated.
Memorial Hall of compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre of the Japanese Invasion of China Image source: Visual China
If there is also a so-called red line in the study of Japanese history, then the number of people killed in the Nanjing Massacre is a tacit red line. Throughout the various Showa history works published in Japan, most of them are handled in the text of the "Nanjing Incident", and even the words "Nanjing Massacre" are hidden, let alone written in the number of "300,000 people killed". For example, in the sixth chapter of the Showa History (Pingfansha), a historical writer named the first person to study Showa history in Japan and who died in January this year, he discussed the "Lugou Bridge Incident" and the "Nanjing Incident" in the sixth chapter of the Showa History (Pingfansha), and the subtitle of the latter was "There was indeed a 'Nanjing Massacre', but..." Hanto thought "But"What?" Although there were "a large number of 'massacres' and various incidents after the Japanese army entered Nanjing," "it is not credible to say that 300,000 people were slaughtered, as the Chinese say, and when they were tried in Tokyo." The academic slipperiness of Hanto is evident here. Compared with Furukawa, the height of conscience is suddenly incomparably clear. There is also Qin Yuyan, a scholar specializing in modern and contemporary Japanese history, who wrote as early as 1986 the book "The Nanjing Incident - The Structure of the Massacre" (Chuo Kodansha). In the compositions of "Holocaust - Negation" and "300,000 / 400,000 - Fiction", he chose the latter. He even ridiculed Chinese known for the artistic exaggeration of "three thousand white hairs", so on this issue he took "40,000 people" and said that they were killed. Although he also believed that the various "mass massacres" of the Japanese army in Nanjing were an unshakable fact, he "deeply apologized to the Chinese people as a member of the Japanese." He also firmly believes that "without such an understanding, there will be no way to talk about japan-China friendship in the future" (ibid., p. 244). However, in another book, "Conspiracy History" (Xinchaoshe, 2012), Qin Yuyan wrote in his diary on December 4, before the fall of Nanking: "Both Japan and the Soviet Union used China as a battlefield, and all that can be imagined is that China has become a victim." (Ibid., p. 172). Here, Qin skillfully hooked up on the Soviet Union to show that this was not an isolated phenomenon of Japan.
Judging from what I have read, in Japan, the number of people killed in the Nanjing Massacre is 300,000, one is the historian Takahisa Furukawa, and the other is the novelist Haruki Murakami (see "Assassination of the Knight Commander"). Of course, some people will say that numbers are always cold and always abstract, and sticking to numbers snubbs historical emotions and indifferents the freshness of individual life. But the problem is that historical research must first give numbers, first give abstractions, and then it can be embodied and vivid. For example, first of all, the Number of 6 Million Jews Slaughtered by the Nazis, first of All, the Number of 300,000 Chinese Massacred by the Japanese Army, and then later people will read history, shock and marvel at this number at the same time, evoke an irrepressible historical emotion, and consciously pursue the historical truth little by little, a little, a little, a paragraph, piece by piece, one by one, to warn future generations that historical tragedies cannot be repeated. And that's what Furukawa did.
No more ambiguous, no more ambiguous, no more frivolous history
Summarizing Furukawa Takahisa's historical writing, the most impressive thing is to use a "clear at a glance" brushwork to restore the historical truth of the time, so that history becomes no longer ambiguous, no longer ambiguous, no longer frivolous. Although this kind of writing also sacrifices the richness and uncertainty unique to history, and it is sometimes boring to read, it restores real historical emotions and historical memories. For those of us who are victims of war victims, reading Furukawa's Destruction and Rebirth has a taste of "relief" and a sense of belated comfort. Unfortunately, there are too few such historians in Japan.
More importantly, in Japan, as the last generation of the war period faded away, a crisis also emerged. Those who have no horror memories of catastrophic warfare may meander into similar dangerous territory. The philosophical phrase of history that "repeats the mistakes of the past" is "history repeats itself." Therefore, in this uncertain era, we need scholars like Takahisa Furukawa who constantly sound the alarm to future generations.
Japanese thinker Yuzo Mizoguchi, who died in 2010, looked forward to the formation of a "common knowledge" in the Japanese high school community. The author thinks that the book "Destruction and Rebirth" is an effort and a result. This book can be introduced and published in a timely manner, and it also shows a vision and wisdom. Reading this book by Chinese readers is, in a sense, also a process of sharing "common knowledge". (The author is a scholar of culture in Japan and a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Integrated Culture at the University of Tokyo)
Author: Jiang Jianqiang
Editor: Jiang Chuting