SNA (Tokyo) — From 1934-1936, Keisuke Okada became the second consecutive moderate admiral to serve as prime minister, though on a weaker political footing than his predecessor. Still, he managed to stay on top of the situation until Imperial Army radicalism led to a violent uprising by junior officers.

Transcript

On July 8, 1934, Keisuke Okada became prime minister of Japan.

He was a moderate Imperial Navy admiral replacing a moderate Navy admiral as Japan’s premier. He was noted for his good sense of judgment and his impoverished personal economic status.

Okada aimed to lead the country much in the same manner as had his predecessor, Makoto Saito, and he attempted to form another national unity government.

However, the Constitutional Association of Political Friends decided that it preferred to go into opposition at this point. The party was annoyed that it had been passed over for leadership again even though it possessed a strong majority in the House of Representatives. They may also have sensed that the new administration had a weaker political footing than its predecessor.

Working with other conservative and military figures, the party soon went on the attack, making life uncomfortable for the Okada administration.

The most notable avenue of such attacks was to try to take advantage of an extreme rightwing campaign being waged against the political theories of Tokyo University Professor Tatsukichi Minobe, an intellectual ally of the Cabinet, hoping to trigger Okada’s resignation.

The rightwing campaign created a lot of noise, and it succeeded in having Minobe’s writings banned, but the Okada Cabinet simply issued a statement rejecting Minobe’s theories and remained in place.

The larger political problem—as had become customary at this point—was turmoil caused by the Imperial military.

In part this was about the Imperial Army’s further aggressions in northern China, but even more notable was the intensification of factional rivalries within the Army itself.

This reached a dramatic peak in August 1935 when a member of the Imperial Way Faction walked into the Army Ministry office of Lieutenant General Tetsuzan Nagata and cut him down with a sword. The nation was shocked and Army Minister Senjuro Hayashi resigned to take responsibility.

Despite such incidents, the political atmosphere in Japan remained strongly pro-military, and of course Okada himself was an Imperial Navy officer, though a relatively moderate one.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of 1936, Japan withdrew from the naval arms limitation agreements it had been a part of for nearly a decade and a half. Around the world, Great Powers were boosting military budgets and engaging in an arms race.

Frustrated with their inability to bring the Okada Cabinet down, the Constitutional Association of Political Friends passed a “no confidence” motion, leading to general elections in February 1936.

For Okada, this turned out to be a triumph. The pro-government Constitutional People’s Government Party outperformed the opposition, promising to strengthen his political position going forward.

But his celebration lasted less than a week. On the morning of February 26, 1936, junior Imperial Army officers led about 1,500 soldiers in a violent coup attempt, aiming to reshape Japan into an anti-capitalist society devoted to serving the Emperor.

The rebels quickly seized central Tokyo and sent murder squads against those they perceived to be their enemies. Among those they succeeded in brutally killing in the first hours were two former prime ministers, Korekiyo Takahashi and Makoto Saito.

Okada was also on the kill list, and rebel soldiers entered the prime minister’s residence and shot him dead—or at least they thought they had. In fact, they had shot and killed the prime minister’s brother-in-law, whom they had mistaken for Okada. The prime minister himself was hiding nearby in a closet.

After his very close brush with death, Okada remained out of sight in the following days.

The Japanese political establishment was divided in their opinions about the military uprising. Some were very sympathetic to the young Army officers’ goals and others felt it was a rebellion that needed to be crushed. Days went by with confusion about what would happen next.

The fate of the uprising was decided by Emperor Hirohito himself. He was appalled at the murder former Prime Minister Saito and the others, and from the beginning he insisted that the Army coup needed to be put down firmly.

The Emperor’s insistence on this course of action was devastating to coup-plotters’ hopes, as service to the Emperor was supposedly at the center of their cause.

Navy troops began landing and other parts of the Army mobilized tanks and other forces to suppress the coup. After a few days, the young Army officers saw which way the political winds were blowing and they surrendered, putting an end to the crisis.

This time, the consequences were heavy: seventeen of the young Army coup leaders were eventually executed.

But the prime minister was also done. Heartbroken at the loss of his brother-in-law and two of his closest political allies, Keisuke Okada resigned on March 9, 1936. He had served one year and 246 days in office.

Okada lived for nearly two more decades and became one of the bravest antiwar voices within the senior levels of the Japanese government.

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