Professor Brian Victoria of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, United Kingdom, argues that history in Japan was deliberately suppressed by the American occupation forces after 1945, who wanted a capitalist leader to serve as a fortress against Soviet communism in Asia.

Winners get to write history, and they often choose to do so by omitting several truths. By drafting their own narratives, whole nations and generations grow up unknPreview (opens in a new tab)owingly reinforcing biases and systemic injustice. Driven by economic elites, the case of national socialism during the Shōwa Restoration in Japan is a good example of how economic interests once again manipulated narratives and wrote their own preferred history. Professor Brian Victoria of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, United Kingdom, delivered a keynote titled ‘The Shōwa Restoration in 1930s Japan: True National Socialism’ in which he offered a radical re-examination of pre-war Japanese history, challenging the standard post-war narratives regarding the Shōwa Restoration and the role of Emperor Hirohito.

The presentation dismantled what he termed the ‘big lies’ that have obscured the true nature of Japanese militarism and the world’s understanding of national socialism. Professor Victoria argued that German National Socialism, regarded worldwide as the original or ‘true’ national socialism, was essentially a ‘fake’ ideology. While the Nazi party adopted the rhetoric of socialism, promising to break the ‘bondage of interest’ and nationalise corporations, they ultimately aligned themselves with the German capitalist class. He pointed to figures like Gustav Krupp, who supported Hitler not because he believed in socialist reform, but because he saw the Nazis as a vehicle for rearmament and a bulwark against the threat of communism.

In contrast, Professor Victoria posited that the National Socialist movement in Japan was a ‘genuine’ ideology, deeply rooted in the economic suffering of the agrarian class. In the 1930s, 44% of Japanese farmers were landless, living in crushing poverty. Families were forced to sell their daughters to pay debts to wealthy landowners. Many of the young officers of the Imperial Japanese Army came from these impoverished peasant backgrounds and were radicalised by this suffering. Unlike their German counterparts, these officers were true believers in the teachings of Kita Ikki, the intellectual father of Japanese national socialism, whose ‘true’ national socialism ideology was established in his book ‘An Outline Plan for the Reorganisation of Japan’ published in 1932, before Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. He advocated for the nationalisation of wealth, radical land reform, and the restoration of direct imperial rule to bypass the corrupt political and industrial elites, which has inspired the ‘Shōwa Restoration’ in its original intention.

In photo: Professor Brian Victoria of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, United Kingdom, at KAMC/MediAsias2025

Professor Victoria presented a detailed analysis of the February 26 Incident of 1936, which he reframed not as a mere mutiny by disgruntled militarists, but as a failed revolution intended to trigger the Shōwa Restoration. The rebels’ goal was to restore absolute power to Emperor Hirohito, believing that as a benevolent ‘father’ to his people, he would naturally implement the socialist reforms necessary to alleviate the suffering of the poor. However, Professor Victoria argued that this belief was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Emperor’s position. He challenged the ‘big lie’ propagated by the post-war occupation authorities that Emperor Hirohito was a powerless puppet controlled by the military. Emperor Hirohito, Professor Victoria argued, was a capitalist, ‘the richest man in Japan,’ holding massive shares in the major zaibatsu—the industrial and financial conglomerates—owning vast tracts of land, and whose economic interests and power restoration were directly threatened by the young officers’ calls for land reform and wealth redistribution. Professor Victoria recounted the pivotal moment when Prince Chichibu, the Emperor’s younger brother and a sympathiser with the national socialists, pleaded with Emperor Hirohito to help the suffering troops. Emperor Hirohito’s cold refusal marked the death of the movement. To Professor Victoria, the Emperor’s order to suppress the uprising was not to save democracy, but to protect the capitalist order and his own wealth.

He argued that this history was deliberately suppressed by the American occupation forces after 1945, who wanted a capitalist leader to serve as a fortress against Soviet communism in Asia. This, Professor Victoria stated, is the foundational lie of modern Japanese history, one that continues to obscure the class dynamics that drove the nation to war, and the world’s distorted understanding of the national socialism ideology that existed in Japan before the Nazi Germans’ version as we know it.

Japan’s Forgotten National Socialists | Brian Victoria

Watch below – In this interview, Dr Brian Victoria reflects on his research into the Shōwa Restoration movement in 1930s Japan, challenging long-standing narratives about Emperor Hirohito’s role in the lead-up to the Asia–Pacific War. He discusses how national socialism emerged in Japan prior to Nazi Germany, why its reformist origins were suppressed, and what these historical distortions mean for understanding responsibility, democracy, and the risks of militarism in Japan today.

Banner image: National Museum of Denmark, Unsplash