Sho Konishi, Anarchist
Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern
Japan. Harvard East Asian Monographs #356.
2013.
The back-cover describes
the book: “Mid-nineteenth century Russian radicals who witnessed the Meiji
Restoration saw it as the most sweeping revolution in recent history and the
impetus for future global progress. Acting outside imperial encounters, they
initiated underground transnational networks with Japan. Prominent intellectuals
and cultural figures …… pursued these unofficial relationships through
correspondence, travel, and networking, despite diplomatic and military
conflicts between their respective nations.” It “uncovers a major current in
Japanese intellectual and cultural life between 1860 and 1930 that might be
described as ‘cooperatist anarchist modernity’—a commitment to realizing a
modern society through mutual aid and voluntary activity, without the
intervention of state governance. These efforts later crystallized into such
movements as the Nonwar Movement, Esperantism, and the popularization of the
natural sciences.” This 411-page book is indeed an admirable scholarship of
history research with 31-page bibliography of archives and special collections,
newspapers, journals, and other serials, books, articles and unpublished papers
in Japan, Russia and the U.S. From the
point of Japanese history research, I only want to find Chinese characters
(kanji) of original Japanese in the Index, since one spelling in English usually
corresponds to different kanji or meaning and it is easy now to print out kanji
in a book.
The book starts like a
novel. “In 1861, in the little port town of Hakodate, one of the several cities
recently opened by the Japanese government to foreigners, an American captain
bustled about his ship, preparing for a dinner party that would ring in the
arrival of a new cosmopolitan era in Japan.” (p.1). Here the American captain
introduced to his honored guest Consul General I. A. Goshkevich (1814-75), the
head of Russia’s first diplomatic mission to Japan, his compatriot Mikhail
Bakunin, who had escaped from Siberia after over ten year’s imprisonment and
exile, riding piggyback on the newly opened Vladivostok-Hakodate shipping
route. The author states: “The chance meeting in 1861 between Consul General
Goshkevich and Bakunin in revolutionary Japan represents the beginning of an
anarchist vision of progress founded on principles of mutual aid in Japan that
would color Japanese intellectual and cultural life for well over half a
century.” (p.3). While Bakunin left
Japan soon without any publicity and never came back again, six decades later,
a blind Russian youth, the Esperanist poet Vasili Eroshenko’s being deported
caused nationwide disturbance (Chapter 5 Translingual World Order: Language
without culture). This is a dramatic nonfiction. “Foreign Minister archives
show that the state considered this blind bard and composer of poems and
children’s stories one of the most dangerous foreigners inJapan.”
(p.285). “When Arishima and Akita asked police why Eroshenko was to be
deported, arguing that he ‘is a mere poet,’ the police replied, ‘Yes, in fact,
that is precisely what is wrong with him.’” (p.293). I noticed Eroshenko when I
was under threats from various Japanese governmental agencies since I organized
democratic and human rights activities in Japan to protest the Tiananmen
massacre in 1989. In 1992 when I was
beaten in Tokyo by a Chinese agent, who was hired by National Kobe University
as a Law professor because of his betrayal of our Chinese students in Japan, I
reported to the Tokyo police and received 4-5 hours investigation from uniform
and secret polices. They promised me “justice” because “Japan is a rule-by-law
country.” However, after several weeks of non-action, I went to the police
station again and was told that there was no record of my report. Furthermore,
I was warned not to pursue this case anymore, because otherwise I would be
charged and deported.
On the other hand, the author
states: “In macro historical perspective, the Russian culture presence in Japan
from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century was, for interpretive
purpose, comparable to that of the Chinese culture presence in the intellectual
life of Tokugawa Japan before 1860 and the American cultural presence in the
intellectual life of Japan after the Asia-Pacific War.” (p.5). These statements
are really bold enough. However, interesting though, the stories of Lev
Mechnikov (Bakunin and Herzen’s comrade) in Japan (Chapter 1 Revoliutsiia meets
Ishin:
The emerging Vision of Cooperatist Civilization) or Arishima Takeo, who
sponsored Osugi Sakae’s Europe trip nonetheless was not regarded an anarchist
(Chapter 4 The History Slide), or Konishi Masutaro who translated the Chinese
classical Lao Zi’s Daode Jing (Tao te ching道德经, the Way)
to Russian (Chapter 2 Anarchist religion: Translation and conversion beyond
Western modernity) do not convey such a tremendous anarchist influence. The
author frequently mentions Lev Tolstoy as “the most translated author,” however
Tolstoy’s popularity was the same in the world and not due to his anarchist or
religion thinking.
To defense, the author
further explains: “The phrase ‘anarchist history’ here does not mean simply a
history about anarchists. Rather, it expresses a view of modern global history
as simultaneously existing, multiple imaged and lived ideas of progress, or
‘modernities’ absent teleological and hierarchical ordering.” (p.6). It is also problematic that the author
frequently utilizes some people’s writings as “historians” authority, such as
“Historians have long defined anarchy…” (p.9), “Similarly, historians have
described anarchism in Japan as a reactionary impulse against the Western
civilizational order, expressing an emotional preoccupation with ‘traditional’
and ‘conservative’ moral and spiritual values threatened by the West.” (p.9-10). In fact, from this judgment, the author
accuses James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of
Upland Southeast Asia as “the Western modern conceptual framework that has labeled anarchism in the
first place.” (p.10). From the frequent
uses of “anarchist Kropotkin” or “anarchist theorist Kropotkin” (not just
“Kropotkin”) we can feel that the author is not familiar to anarchist history
per se.
Being not a professor
supervising this Ph. D dissertation (the author has to summarize each chapter to
guide readers not to get lost), I have less interest in the book’s goal stated
as: “Examining cooperatist anarchism as an intellectual foundation of modern
Japan, Sho Konishi offers a new approach to Japanese history that fundamentally
challenges the ‘logic’ of Western modernity. It looks beyond this foundational
construct of modern history writing to understand people, practices, and
cultural expressions that have been forgotten or dismissed as products of
anti-modern nativist counter urges against the West.” As a comparison, James C. Scott’s book provided
a more consistent perspective to guide much richer contents. If you are not
familiar to Japanese or Russian modern history, it is better to directly read
other materials specifically on Japanese anarchism, such as Kotoku Shusui,
anti-war movement in that period. That said, “’cause I know there is strength
in the difference between us and I know there is comfort where we overlap.” It is certainly welcome to see the cultural anarchist account reviewing modern
Japan alternatively.
Jing Zhao
September 23, 2014
US-Japan-China Comparative Policy
Research Institute
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