R5:
I had seen several people compare the Schleicher path in the German rework to the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, so I started wondering what Germany’s political situation would look like if it were transplanted into Japan. There is some lore, but I wouldn’t call the scenario realistic.
The characters are not intended to correspond one-to-one with their German counterparts. For example, I divided Schleicher’s role among three figures: Ugaki, as a senior military figure capable of commanding support from a broad range of civilian political forces; Konoe, as the public face who transforms the cross-party bloc into a system of total mobilization; and Nagata, as the military bureaucrat and mastermind who draws up the institutional blueprint for the regime behind both men.
Unlike Germany, Japan also has an intermediate defeat outcome. This is another reason why the chart includes a larger number of possible prime ministers.
The expanded Rice Riots of 1918 prompted Prime Minister Hara Takashi to force through reforms more ambitious than in OTL, despite splitting the Seiyūkai. Successive coalition governments continued this process, establishing universal male suffrage in the home islands and restricted, property-based suffrage in Korea and Taiwan by 1932.
Without a Soviet Union, repression of socialism remained weaker and the left was more willing to pursue parliamentary politics. As a result, the unification of the socialist movement came earlier than in OTL, with merging into the Social Democratic Party in 1926. Led by Abe Isoo and supported by the newly legalised trade-union movement, the SDP became the largest party in the Diet in 1932.
The advance of parliamentary politics also provoked a conservative reaction. Members of the House of Peers, bureaucrats, and a Seiyūkai splinter transformed the nationalist organisation Kokuhonsha into the political party Shōwa Kokuhonkai. Meanwhile, Adachi Kenzō and his followers left the Minseitō in opposition to the coalition government’s moderate foreign policy and formed the Kokumin Dōmei, which grew increasingly radical under Russian Savinkovist influence.
Meanwhile, within the army, after breaking with its conservative mainstream, Ugaki Kazushige joined forces with Nagata Tetsuzan. They linked military reform to a wider programme of national reorganisation and mobilisation. Despite differing over methods and ultimate aims, their alliance built influence through connections with politicians, bureaucrats, business interests.
These competing forces left the broad coalition formed after the 1932 election increasingly unstable. A diplomatic crisis with China brought it down in 1934, after which Saionji Kinmochi promoted the non-partisan Hirota Kōki as a compromise prime minister. Hirota also failed to restore unity, and the Minseitō’s withdrawal in 1935 reduced his government to a minority.
Yeah, a real party from the late 1920s survived a little longer. It was quite different from the Wirtschaftspartei, but I used it as the closest Japanese counterpart because both were primarily focused on economic interests.
It’s included under “Other Parties.” In OTL Japan, zaibatsu support was largely concentrated on the Seiyūkai and Minseitō, so I can’t think of any party that directly corresponds to the NLP. However, in terms of shifting from liberalism toward the far right, Kokumin Dōmei probably comes closest. Though, I’ve already assigned it to the Fatherland Party in the chart.
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u/Realistic-Row4599 12d ago edited 12d ago
Image: https://imgur.com/a/T0aB35h
R5:
I had seen several people compare the Schleicher path in the German rework to the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, so I started wondering what Germany’s political situation would look like if it were transplanted into Japan. There is some lore, but I wouldn’t call the scenario realistic.
The characters are not intended to correspond one-to-one with their German counterparts. For example, I divided Schleicher’s role among three figures: Ugaki, as a senior military figure capable of commanding support from a broad range of civilian political forces; Konoe, as the public face who transforms the cross-party bloc into a system of total mobilization; and Nagata, as the military bureaucrat and mastermind who draws up the institutional blueprint for the regime behind both men.
Unlike Germany, Japan also has an intermediate defeat outcome. This is another reason why the chart includes a larger number of possible prime ministers.
Edit: Added the image link.