Emil Lederer: Review of Militarism in Japan, by Kenneth W. Colegrove (1937)

Emil Lederer’s book review assesses Colegrove’s account of Japanese military supremacy while questioning whether its political documentation adequately explains that supremacy. The review moves from praise for the book’s sources, through an examination of military power and civilian weakness, to two unresolved questions about social conflict and the causes of expansionism. Its central distinction is between establishing who governs Japan and explaining the economic and social conditions behind Japanese policy.

Lederer values Colegrove’s use of original Japanese political literature, newspapers, and periodicals, which makes otherwise inaccessible evidence available to readers unable to read Japanese. Yet the compression of this material into a short study has costs. Particular movements and personalities receive some detailed treatment, but the reader otherwise encounters numerous facts without a fully developed account of their relationships. Lederer distinguishes the changing surface of political events from the persistent distribution of power underneath them.

The book’s strongest achievement is its demonstration that the military services exercise authority far beyond military affairs. Army pamphlets, listed in the appendix and quoted in the study, document their claim to direct national policy:

This is well established by the long list of Army pamphlets, given in the Appendix, and quotations from these pamphlets which prove again that the military is not only a state within the state with its own policy, but the state, assuming the lead in all decisive questions.

The movement from “a state within the state” to “the state” captures the review’s account of military predominance. The army is not merely an autonomous institution competing with civilian authorities; it takes the initiative on decisive matters. Lederer accordingly asks whether economic interests, cabinets, or political parties have ever provided an effective counterbalance. Colegrove’s evidence leaves that question difficult to answer conclusively, but suggests that resistance to military demands has been temporary.

Lederer reads constitutional arrangements as an expression of this established power relationship. The army possesses a governmental position alongside the civilian government, which remains the weaker partner. Parliamentary budgetary rights impose no substantial restraint on military expenditure. “Dual government” therefore describes an unequal relationship: military leaders may remain in the background or temporarily yield to civilian authorities and influence behind the throne without surrendering their predominance. Policies in Manchuria and China, and withdrawal from the League of Nations, exemplify decisions undertaken by the military even against cabinet wishes.

Having accepted this institutional account, Lederer challenges an explanation centered on influential individuals. He questions whether figures such as Count Saionji and Finance Minister Takahashi truly checked military power:

Is Japanese policy a struggle between personalities, or not rather between social groups, as indicated by the popular fascist movement, which enlists the support of the masses?

The question shifts attention from elite political maneuvering to the social forces supporting authoritarian politics. Lederer does not supply a developed account of those groups; he identifies what remains unexplained when political conflict is described chiefly through personalities.

His second question concerns expansionism. Is it simply the ambition of a military faction seeking Asian domination after victories over China and Russia, or does it respond to deeper pressures that would also confront a pacifist government? Lederer suggests that such a government could address these difficulties through cooperation with Russia and China. But cooperation would conflict with inherited ideas sustaining Japan’s state and social structure. The alternative is thus conceivable, yet constrained by more than military ambition alone.

The review’s concluding judgment preserves both Colegrove’s documentary achievement and its explanatory limits:

This book does not solve these enigmas, but it does make it clear that we shall never understand the Far Eastern situation unless we understand the basic economic and social problems of Japan.

For Lederer, the book establishes military dominance more securely than it explains its foundations. The review’s relevance lies in that distinction: understanding regional conflict requires connecting governmental power and foreign policy to domestic social relations, rather than treating expansion as the isolated product of powerful personalities.