urban capitalism, were beginning to advocate vague but definitely radical programs to better the economic status of the underprivileged peasantry.
These tendencies grew slowly and almost unnoticed during the 1920’s, as the new generation of younger officers was developing. Then in the early 1930’s, the blatant militarism, fanatical nationalism, and anti-liberal and anti-democratic prejudices of the younger army and navy officers, and of other reactionary groups, swept over Japan in a sudden, startling reversal of the dominant trends of the 1920’s. Big business, with more or less active support from the urban middle classes, had been the first successor of the Meiji oligarchy. Now it was pushed aside by the militarists, with the noisy backing of ultra-nationalistic societies and the tacit support of the rural population.
The basic reason for this reversal of political and social trends was, of course, the gradual rise to influence of the younger officer group along with other nationalistic and militaristic elements. But the time and speed of this reaction against democracy, internationalism, and freer social forms were to a certain degree determined by influences from outside Japan. For one thing, the world-wide disillusionment with democracy, which followed the democratic triumph of the First World War and contributed to the creation of fascist totalitarian regimes in many parts of the world, did not go unnoticed by the Japanese. Many of them were impressed by the vaunted “superiority” of totalitarian governments and their points of similarity with traditional Japanese concepts of authoritarian rule.
Another outside influence was the world-wide