Occupation Policies in Japan - Essay Example

Rachna Jalan Academia-Research English 8 January 2008 Occupation Policies The Purges The purge took place when Japan was under the supervisionof the United States from 1949 to 1951 (“Economic Reconstruction”). The Red Purge was actually a series of random layoffs adopted by government agencies and corporations with the objective of dictatorially dismissing from the workplace those workers who had been unilaterally branded ‘Red’ (“Economic Reconstruction”). “Because the target went well beyond communists and the suppression of the Japanese Communist Party to include democrats and labour-union activists, the event directly called into question the foundations of the freedom and democracy guaranteed by the Japanese constitution” (“Economic Reconstruction”).

Among the victims, which included administrative reorganization, corporate organization, public school teachers and staff, university faculty, private firms and public servants, those who were targeted the most were the national civil servants and officials of regional public organizations under the pretext of ‘administrative adjustment’ during the first phase, and among workers at private corporations during the third phase (“Economic Reconstruction”). More than 20,000 employees from both classes were addressed as being ‘Red’ and purged from their workplaces and were consequently acknowledged as social failures (“Economic Reconstruction”).

In the broadcast and newspaper industries umpteen numbers of employees were purged (“Economic Reconstruction”). The lay-offs were uncompromising where employees were straightforward given dismissal notices without any concrete ground (“Economic Reconstruction”). They were directed to be eliminated from their workplaces by a mentioned time and were absolutely prohibited from ever entering into the company area (“Economic Reconstruction”). The restriction of the editorial rights to the administrative managers and editorial managers commissioned by them was further squeezed by the purge, in effect suppressing the right to express (“Economic Reconstruction”).

In this pro-corporate assault the labor unions were crushed becoming yellow unions (“Economic Reconstruction”). It went on adding insult to the injury of the purged employees by way of stripping them of union membership (“Economic Reconstruction”). Although the purge was insistently followed as part of the anti-communist policy of the Occupation, actually it was nothing but a conflict between labor and capital (“Economic Reconstruction”). The impact of purge was so strongly felt that these kinds of tendencies were being observed in almost every industry and individual firm (“Economic Reconstruction”).

MacArthur’s personal impact on Occupation policies On 6th June, 1950, General MacArthur wrote a letter to Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru appealing for the purge of members of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party from public service (“Economic Reconstruction”). In the letter, MacArthur’s declaration, “To such end the Japanese Government is specifically enjoined in the Potsdam Declaration to ‘remove all obstacles to the strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people’”, brought a deep personal impact on Occupation policies (“Economic Reconstruction”).

He further expressed, “The guiding philosophy of this phase of the Occupation has been protective, not punitive” (“Economic Reconstruction”). On July 18, Yoshida Shigeru received another letter by Macarthur who straightforward demanded suspended publication of the principle element of the Japanese Communist Party, Akahata (Red Flag) as well as the publication of any successor newspaper (“Economic Reconstruction”). This letter assumed the position of a legal document enforcing red purge in the media (“Economic Reconstruction”).

The GHQ authorities stressed to consider the letter as far more superior to any other law and the instructions it comprised constituted a ‘directive’ instead of an ‘order’ (“Economic Reconstruction”). As a result of Macarthur’s letter, the Labour Division at GHQ called meetings with management and labour union representatives from different industrial fields made it clear that ‘red’ did not indicate all members of the Communist Party, insisted on a ‘prudent response’ and completely followed a course of political opportunism (“Economic Reconstruction”).

The government was observed to ‘exclude communists and others from public office’ as per the decisions reached by the cabinet while the Labour Ministry kept pushing all firms to ‘expel destructive communist elements’ (“Economic Reconstruction”). Major Economic Reforms of the Occupation Extensive economic reforms were observed in the land and industrial sectors (“Japan Under American Occupation”). Japan had a strong rural world whose countryside according to the Allied force, was saved from communism movement (“Japan Under American Occupation”).

This force claimed that it created a new rural world from a tenant farmer situation to freeholder one thereby completely eliminating Landlordism (“Japan Under American Occupation”). Among the industrial reforms the influence of four chief Japanese businesses, the Zaibatsu (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda) were lessened (“Japan Under American Occupation”). On 24 November 1945, a memorandum entitled “Elimination of War Profits and Reorganization of National Finance” was issued by GHQ straightaway directing the Japanese Government to impose a tax on wartime profits and cease wartime compensation with the intention of controlling the economy by restricting inflation and at the same time aiming at its demilitarization (“Japan Under American Occupation”).

Works Cited “Economic Reconstruction”. Modern Japan in archives. 9 Jan. 2008. . “Japan Under American Occupation”. Empereur.com. 9 Jan. 2008. .