- 著者
-
井上 敬介
- 出版者
- 公益財団法人 史学会
- 雑誌
- 史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.117, no.6, pp.1122-1143, 2008-06-20 (Released:2017-12-01)
The objective of the present article is to investigate the activities of the (Rikken-) Minsei Party (1927-1940) under Japan's national consensus governments of the 1930s, especially its extreme opposition to the claim that the will of the people was being usurped, leading to its refusal to form a government. To begin with, the author examines the process by which the Party decided upon a national consensus platform under the leadership of Wakatsuki Reijiro 若槻礼次郎. The Party's two main factions, led by Wakatsuki and Kawasaki Takukichi 川崎卓吉, respectively, reacted violently to the claim that that they had usurped the will of the people and chose to abandon any effort to form a partisan government. This claim came from the movement to reduce the sentences of the conspirators involved in the 15 May 1932 assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi by a group of young naval officers, which held the Minsei Party responsible for the London Arms Limitations Treaty of 1930. On the other hand, the opposition faction formed within the Party by Ugaki Kazushige 宇垣一成 and Tomita Kojiro 富田幸次郎 took charge of movements to activate the party politics within the Diet and promote cooperation between the public and private sectors in attempts to find a way to form a Minsei Party government. Then the discussion turns to the efforts by Ugaki to form a new party from within after Wakatsuki stepped down in August 1934, followed by a wavering in the Party's national consensus line, and finally the establishment of such a platform under the leadership of Machida Chuji 町田忠治. The new party movement ended in failure after Ugaki's refusal to stand for party chairman, resulting in the election of Machida. Then leadership of the public-private sector cooperation movement was assumed by Kawasaki, while Tomita abandoned efforts to form a government. The 19^<th> party elections of 1936 pitted Tomita's call for partisan politics against Machida and Kawasaki's appeal for national consensus, as the Machida-Kawasaki line emerged victorious, from which time on, the Minsei Party made no further effort to form a partisan government in the world of Japanese politics following the 26 February 1936 coup d'etat attempt.