총력전시기 日本의 農民과 農本主義

Japanese Farmers and Agrarianism in the Total War Period

There are two conflicting views of Japanese farmers and agrarianism between 1930 and 1945. One tries to see them as anti-urban and anti-western and argues that they provided a breeding ground for Japanese fascism. The other, however, argues that their anti-urban attitude was weak, and many of them had a strong yearning for the urban culture and urban life style. This paper tries to look at how the Japanese farmers who became dispossessed and alienated in the process of industrialization and urbanization developed agrarianism in their efforts to elevate their economic and social status by examining the daily records of farmers rather than those of propagandists of agrarianism. Japanese farmers found their pride in both the war and the emperor, the supreme values of the time. They began to have a strong sense of belonging as a member of modern Japanese state. The mobilization policies of the total war period took full advantage of these circumstances. Government officials, however, tried to portray the Japanese farmers as loyal subjects who carried out government instructions faithfully and silently. They had little interest in farmers’ voices for lessening and dissolving widening economic and cultural gaps between cities and villages. Therefore, discontent to the present situation never stopped. This paper also points out that agrarian consciousness was not always anti-modern or anti-urban. Agrarian consciousness tried to distinguish both the urbanization and industrialization which caused the degrading of the mind and the urban culture. We find modernity and innovation in their consciousness. ‘Anti’ of anti-urban and anti-western agrarianism reflected this aspect.