Japanese Marxism of the 1930s: Criticism of State Ideology

The article discusses the Marxist criticism of state ideology in Japan in the 1930s. For this purpose, three author positions of the most prominent thinkers of the time are given. The politician Katayama Sen asserts the idea of the inevitability of Japan’s entry into the war as a way  of relieving social tension due to the economic crisis. The leading theorist of Marxism, Tohsaka Jun, criticizes the dominant ideology of Japanism, which he defines as spiritual fascism, based on the doctrine of militarism. And his associate Kodzai Yoshishige wrote on the dichotomy of the ideology of war and the psychology of peace.

Keywords: Japanese philosophy, Marxism, interwar period, state ideology, Katayama Sen, Tosaka Jun, Kozai Yoshishige.