Kokutairon and Pure Socialism
In September 1905, Kita returned to Tokyo (from his home city of Sado) at the time of the Hibiya Riots, which protested the Treaty of Portsmouth.
George Wilson summarises this context: "Kita wrote his first book against a background of widespread popular discontent over the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War.
"[4] According to Oliviero Frattolillo, Kita was personally motivated to writing Kokutairon because of the uncritical mindset of his intellectual peers.
Frattolillo claims, "Kita was particularly critical of the submissive attitude of certain intellectuals towards the system who obsequiously accepted the acquisition of new theories and new forms of knowledge from the west, translated and transplanted in Japan.
Kita's Kokutairon was influenced by his lecturers Ukita Kazutami [ja] (浮田 和民), Ariga Nagao and Abe Isoo at the Waseda University.
During the Meiji period, the popular ideology of kokutairon was formed and disseminated throughout Japan via education reforms that taught constitution, civil codes and the sovereignty of the Emperor.
[4] Kita makes a few key arguments which will be summarised below to encapsulate his main thesis, criticisms and plan for the reorganisation of Japan.
[7] Kita radically proposes that this is the only ideology that will allow human society (merely one species within the animal kingdom) to prosper in the struggle for survival.
The final, idealised form of state structure is described by Osedo: "Thirdly, there was the system in which the majority, declared equal to one another, constitute the supreme organ.
[12] Essentially, Kita believed that under the Meiji regime, the emperor held too much power and prestige in a society that distinguished themself as a democracy.
Kita's definition of 'true' kokutairon ideology is neatly expressed in his book:"The present kokutai is not that of the age in which the state existed for the monarch's benefit, as his possession.
"[14] The economic and legal sectors of Meiji society were inherently contradictory - one clung to tradition and the other, social democracy.
Furthermore, Kita's solution to class struggle would be to introduce universal suffrage and enforce a system of election for representatives in the Diet.
[19] Others, such as the Heimin Shimbun, a socially inclined publishing house, rejected it on grounds of its sheer length (1000 pages).
However, the home ministry of the Meiji Government had banned and removed all copies of Kita's book within 10 days of its publication.
Chushichi Tsuzuki summarises the reaction: "His book was welcomed by advanced intellectuals of the day such as Katayama Sen, the prominent economist Fukuda Tokuzo, and Kawakami Hajime.
Christopher Szpilman suggests that Kita had purposely filled Kokutairon with emotionally and politically provocative elements in order to evoke an extreme reaction.
[24] Kita often described the Japanese people as "idiots who had their skulls smashed in by the single phrase bans nikkei (the imperial line unbroken for ages immemorial)"[25] Kokutairon is now used as evidence for historical investigation of Kita Ikki and his changing political ideologies, evolution of Japanese fascist political thought and of public opinion toward Meiji government.
