
The Uyoku dantai are Japanese ultranationalist far-right groups, famous for their propaganda sound trucks, their denial of Japanese war crimes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, and their xenophobia against Chinese, Russians, and Koreans.
History[]
Origins[]

Japanese ultranationalism originated in 1880s Kyushu, then a poor fishing and coal mining region. Kyushu was home to a large community of disgruntled ex-samurai, many of whom had taken part in rebellions against the new social order. The discontent of these soldiers was exploited by patriots and politicians critical of the new regime's corruption and disregard of tradition, and the city of Fukuoka developed into a breeding ground for anti-government thought, becoming the center of a new militarism and patriotism in Japan. Fukuoka-born Mitsuru Toyama's Dark Ocean Society, founded in 1881, recruited disgruntled ex-samurai who longed for the old feudal order, government subsidies for samurai, expansion abroad, and authoritarianism at home, and the society, also known as the Genyosha, took part in a wave of assassinations of liberal politicians, the suppression of labor unrest in Kyushu, and the harassment and murder of liberal and democratic activists during Japan's first, and bloodiest, national election in 1892. The Genyosha inspired the formation of patriotic societies such as the Blood Pledge Corps, the Loyalist Sincerity Group, the Farmers' Death-Defying Corps, and the Association for Heavenly Action, and instigated Japan's intervention in Korea by assassinating Empress Myeongseong in 1895. Some groups were supported by wealthy patrons, while others financed their work through an array of crimes often associated with the yakuza: gambling, prostitution, racketeering, strikebreaking, blackmail, and control of labor recruiting, entertainment, and street peddling. The secret societies attracted the bosses of local tekiya and bakuto groups, and began a process that a hundred years later would continue to blur the distinction between gangsters and rightists in the minds of the Japanese.
Yakuza/rightist nexus[]
Initially, the more traditional yakuza groups had no real ideology and seemed to stand at some distance from the Genyosha and its successors. However, the similarities among them were very strong, as all of them shared a mystical worldview that worshipped power, resented foreigners and foreign ideas (especially liberalism and socialism), revered a romanticized past, observed Shinto as the core of their belief systems, and deified the emperor as a living Shinto god. Equally important was structure, as they were traditionally organized along rigid oyabun-kobun lines and used similar ceremonies to tighten hose ties. Many ultanationalist groups were often nothing more than gangs of violent thugs whose "patriotic" purpose tended to be as much financial as political. Ultimately, these social patterns produced irtually identical politics among most rightists and gangsters. Local gang bosses - whether they controlled dockworkers, street stalls, or village politics - realized that the entire basis of their authority was threatened by left-wing attacks on traditional society. With the emergence of a noticeable left and labor movement at the turn of the century, this understandable fear among the oyabun made them easy converts to the new ultranationalism. Among the groups that yakuza founda ppealing was a successor of the Genyosha called the Kokuryu-kai, or the "Amur River Society", founded in 1901 by Toyama's right-hand man, Ryohei Uchida. This society effectively succeeded the Genyosha and instigated the successful Russo-Japanese War, which led to the conquest of Manchuria. In 1919, Toyama founded the Dai Nippon Kokusui-kai (the "Great Japan National Essence Society") as a federation of 60,000 gangsters, laborers, and ultranationalists who engaged in a wave of assassinations of liberal politicians during the 1930s (including two prime ministers and two finance ministers), openly partnered with the Seiyukai Party against the Minsei Party's own yakuza wing, the Yamato Minro-kai, and even elected gang bosses to the Diet.

The varied yakuza and strong-arm gangs continued to contribute men and muscle to the patriotic cause, with yakuza gangs cooperating with the military by participating in "land development" programs in Manchuria and China. The yakuza assisted the government's Opium Monopoly Bureau in its dual job of making money and weakening public resistance by fostering drug addiction, making $300 million a year from its narcotization program in China. The traditional yakuza gangs also expanded their financial bases at home, organizing the laborers along Japan's waterfronts. In Kobe, yakuza gangs, like Home Minister Takejiro Tokunami's labor bosses and their construction gangs, gathered up groups of otherwise unemployable men and sold their labor cheaply to longshore firms in need of docile, unskilled workers. So lucrative was this racket that various oyabun fought over contracts and territories. The Kobe group that emerged victorious was the Yamaguchi-gumi, led by Kazuo Taoka, who would transform his waterfront gang into the largest yakuza syndicate in Japan, reaching a peak of more than 13,000 members in 36 of Japan's 47 prefectures.
World War II[]
The Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 changed life radically for the Japanese mafia, as the Japane'se love affair with the far-right and the yakuza came to an abrut end. The wartime government moved as far to the right as big business and the Imperial Japanese Army wished, no longer needing the rightists or gangsters as an independent force. Upper-echelon rightists either worked for the government or were imprisoned, and yakuza were forced to either put on a uniform or serve time in prison. Kazuo Taoka was among those imprisoned, and he passed his time reading books about Toyama and the Dark Ocean Society. Toyama died in 1944 at the age of 89, but he lived to see Japan conquer much of Asia and the Pacific. His influence would live on through innumerable gangster-rightist organizations, and, two generations later, his portrait adorned the walls of nearly all rightist offices and of many yakuza ones as well.
Post-occupation resurgence[]
Following the end of the Allied occupation of Japan, many Japanese right-wingers were fearful of a leftist move toward power. In early 1952, Minister of Justice Tokutaro Kimura called together a group of influential rightists to discuss the future, pleaing for his colleagues to call together men with common beliefs to fight desperately against the rising Japanese Communist Party. His colleague Nobuo Tsuji responded by suggesting that there would be nobody who would risk their lives but gamblers, racketeers, and hoodlums, as they risked their lives for their bosses. Tsuji estimated that, if money were available, he could organize a special attack unit of criminals. He believed that the number of bakuto, tekiya, and gurentai was several million, and that he could recruit 200,000 reliable, dedicated anti-communist fighters. Kimura proclaimed that if 200,000 "courageous persons" could be gathered, Japan could be saved.

Preparations were soon made to launch a 200,000-man force known as the "Patriotic Anti-Communist Drawn Sword Regiment", with the "Japanese Youth Guidance Association" being used as a front group. Kimura sought to reinstitute the rightist/gangster nexus from inside the Japanese government, and also sought to do so during the American occupation. His success was due in part to the same SCAP policy that let the crime boss Yoshio Kodama and other prewar ultranationalists back out on the streets and into elective offices and corporate boardrooms, and Kimura swept across the nation and organized postwar Japan's first alliance of gangsters and rightists. However, Kimura was removed from office later in 1952 after Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida grew worried of the US' potential response to the creation of a yakuza army, and the Drawn Sword Regiment plan was scuttled. However, the yakuza remained highly influential, and the 1950s saw the deep-seated conservatism of the rural Japanese and the legal, economic, and physical force directed by the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and the far-right keep the Japanese Communist Party from power.

At the same time, yakuza-linked right-wing leaders Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa emerged as major powerbrokers in Japanese politics. Sasakawa, allied with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and East Asian dictators Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai-shek, established the World Anti-Communist League, as well as the All-Japan White Collar Workers' League. By the late 1970s, Sasakawa controlled the allegiance of 8 million Japanese, both from far-right groups, and from traditionalist institutions such as karate federations and sword dancing groups. Kodama and Sasakawa exerted enormous influence over the LDP and had a say in the naming of cabinet ministers, with Kodama himself overseeing the rise to power of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi in 1957. Kishi returned to center stage a whole galaxy of prewar rightists and yakuza allies such as Ichiro Kono and Bamboku Ohno, Kono (Kodama's sworn brother) serving as Agriculture Minister and Ohno serving as Secretary-General of the LDP. In 1963, Ohno publicly addressed a gathering of Kobe yakuza, revealing his mob ties. From 1957 to 1960, Kishi strengthened the position of the far-right in the LDP and fostered antipathy to the constitution, and Kono and Kodama's protege Yasuhiro Nakasone rose in the ranks with the help of Kishi and his criminal allies, ultimately becoming Prime Minister himself in 1982.
Anpo Protests[]

The Anpo Protests
During the Anpo Protests of 1960, over 300,000 rightists were mobilized to support the LDP against the left-wing student activists, and the yakuza-rightists engaged in street brawls with the protesters and killed a coed student, Michiko Kanba, during particularly fierce clashes on 15 June. By the early 1960s, the Zen Nippon Aikokusha Dantai Kaigi (All-Japan Council of Patriotic Organizations, or Zen Ai Kaigi) had quickly grown into the leading Japan-wide federation of rightist groups, with a total membership of over 150,000 and 440 groups. In subsequent leaders, Zen Ai Kaigi provided both political theory and political muscle to the right, and many of its ventures were under the direction of Kodama and his close allies. It was led not only by Kodama, but also by veteran ultranationalist leaders Tatsuo Amano (who led an abortive coup in 1933), Kozaburo Tachibana (who was involved in the prewar assassination of a prime minister), Tadashi Onuma (the murderer of Finnace Minister Junosuke Inouye), Ryoichi Sasakawa, and Giichi Miura. Zen Ai Kaigi later split into smaller groups, including the Nippon Jiyu Shugi Renmei and the Seishi-kai. From 1963 to January 1965, Kodama founded the Kanto-kai to serve as a federation of Tokyo-area gangsters with an anti-communist mission, but the federation fell apart after fifteen months due to competing interests.

However, by the mid-1960s, everything seemed to turn Kodama's way, as not only top LDP figures, but business, professional, and even academic people paid him honors with their presence. Kodama served as a bridge between the gangs and the echelons of legitimate power, and, in July 1964, the national Mainichi Shimbun published an exhaustive fourteen-part series on the underground gangs and their relation to aboveground power. At the same time, the Yamaguchi-gumi, under Kazuo Taoka, began to expand into the Tokyo era, incurring the wrath of the Inagawa-kai by expanding into Yokohama. The two sides engaged in gang warfare on the streets of Yokohama, threatening Kodama's dream of anti-communist unity. He facilitated an expedient alliance between Taoka and the Korean boss of the Tosei-kai, Hisayuki Machii, and a truce was ultimately called between Inagawa and Taoka, with Taoka accepting a limitation of no more than ten men in the Yokohama area. At the same time, Taoka evaded the restriction with the help of rightist and Kodama rival Seigen Tanaka, co-founding the "League for the Stamping Out of Drug Traffic" and promoting it in both Kansai and Kanto. Taoka used some of Tanaka's connections in Osaka and found allies in President Masatoshi Matsushita of Rikkyo University and Masako Hika, head of the Kansai Housewives Association, and they together publicly demonstrated against drug use. Taoka then sent his men to Tokyo in October 1963 under the guise of fighting the drug menace. The police and public grew suspicious of a notorious crime syndicate vowing to stamp out drug traffic. In November 1963, Tosei-kai member Haruo Kinoshita shot and seriously wounded Tanaka, architect of the campaign, as Taoka had forced the Korean gang into an isolated position in Tokyo by alienating them from their other allies. Machii immediately made up for the assassination attempt by committing yubitsume and giving Tanaka a large apology bribe.
Lockheed scandals[]

A New York Times report on the Lockheed bribery scandals
In 1976, the breaking of the Lockheed bribery scandals created a political crisis in Japan, derailing the yakuza-rightist nexus' long-standing dominance of Japanese politics. The scandal led to Kodama's downfall, and he died of a stroke in 1984 before he could be convicted. His death did not put an end to the "black mists" of Japanese politics, however, and questionable payments and mob connections continued to stretch far and wide among Japan's elected officials. It became the case that little or no political advantage was gained in Japan by publicly fighting the yakuza. In rural areas, yakuza served as LDP campaign chiefs, heading the local nokyo (agricultural cooperative), the construction companies (who employed the rice growers), and controlled hundreds of votes through the blessing of the local construction company. In the big cities, the yakuza presence became a fact of life during election time, as yakuza were widely employed as fundraisers, bodyguards, and campaign workers.
LDP politicians and the Yakuza[]

Local yakuza bosses brought crowds to political rallies, provided security, and also provided "extra" v otes on election day in exchange for access to the nation's leading politicians and legitimacy. Aizu Kotetsu boss Tokutaro Takayama bragged that he provided 30,000 votes to elect a prefectural governor, and that he himself represented 4,000 votes. Prime Minister Tanaka was invited to the wedding of Kazuo Taoka's son in 1974, Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira was photographed talking with a yakuza boss over drinks at a party during the late 1970s, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu was photographed shaking hands with a well-known racketeer in 1984, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori served as a go-between for the bride and groom at a 1996 wedding reception for the son of a former godfather (his own Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa resigned months later after being accused of having ties to the leader of a rightist group), Democratic Socialist Party leader Keigo Ouchi was caught on film visiting a top Inagawa-kai boss in his district during election time in 1990, JSP Dietman Kenichi Ueno was joined by a Sumiyoshi-kai boss on a three-week summer's tour of Africa and Europe that same year, Minister of Labor Akira Ono (son of Banboku Ono) raised $435,000 in campaign funds from a Yamaguchi-gumi loan sharking group from 1980 to 1982, LDP chief cabinet secretary Rokusuke Tanaka admitted in 1976 that a former gangster of the Kusano-gumi ran one of his campaign groups, LDP Dietman Kazuki Motomura attended a 1986 New Year's party hosted by the Dojin-kai of Kyushu (with Dojin-kai boss Isoji Koga leading a shout of three banzai cheers for Motomura), LDP Dietman Juichiro Tsukuda attended the funeral service of a noted gangster in 1970 and offered Sumiyoshi-kai lieutenant Takashi Jo a job in 1981. Similar tales of political corruption and mob connections appeared through much of Japan, and Japan's "black mist" also operated in smaller towns and cities, allowing for the yakuza to exercise enormous influence over local politics. The yakuza also punished lawmakers who failed them, strangling a Shimizu city councilman to death in 1977 after he failed to repay millions of yen he had borrowed from them to win reelection, and yakuza beat a 47-year-old Saitama Prefecture town councilwoman with an iron rod in 1997 for opposing sales of boat racing tickets.
The Yakuza in Politics[]
Ever since Mitsuru Toyama's Dark Ocean Society blurred the distinction between gangster and rightist in the late 19th century, the yakuza organized their gangs into political parties. Even during the Allied occupation, yakuza bosses ran for office in communities where they wielded power. "Tokyo's Al Capone" Kinosuke Ozu garnered 12,000 votes in a 1947 bid for the Diet, and, in 1952, the oyabun of the Asano-gumi was elected to a city council seat in an Inland Sea city in Okayama Prefecture. In 1980, a Yamaguchi-gumi boss ran for the Diet, campaigning to halt drug abuse across the nation. Yakuza candidates occasionally won office, with the 41-year-old Sadaoka-gumi oyabun Eiji Sadaoka, a convicted murderer, being elected to the city council of a town outside Nagasaki in 1975, checking in with the largest number of votes in that town's election. Several days later, Sadaoka was arrested for drug trafficking.
The yakuza were far more interested in maintaining the status quo to continue their assorted underworld pursuits, and a survey of yakuza political views by criminologist Kanehiro Hoshino found that more than 50% supported the LDP. However, there was a strong, very conservative bent to those the yakuza supported, invariably supporting right-wing politicians who were staunch anti-communists and highly nationalistic. Yakuza-allied candidates blocked regulatory reforms on yakuza-dominated industries such as longshoring, construction, and moneylending. Zen Ai Kaigi claimed thousands of followers and scores of affiliated offices into the 21st century, exacting money from leading corporations in Japan such as Japan's leading banks Fuji, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sanwa, and Sumitomo, financial brokers such as Daiwa, Nikko, Nomura, and Yamaichi Securities, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Steel, and the Iwatate Road Company. Rightist groups carried on an old tradition among the gangs, as, because they were tax-free and not targeted by anti-gang laws, they served as a convenient front for yakuza activities. By 1992, more than half of the country's 1,400 ultranationalist groups (with 22,000 members) were yakuza front organizations, with the major syndicates all having affiliated rightist groups. During the 1980s, one group in Gifu Prefecture boasted an LDP Dietman as an "adviser", and, in Ehime Prefecture, several prefectural assemblymen served as advisors to a rightist group.
The rightist gangs, staffed by yakuza and others on the criminal fringe, became a common sight in Japan's major cities, notoriously violating the public peace. They became known as helmet, battle fatigue, and sunglasses-clad agitators who darted about town in steel-plated trucks sporting military banners and flags adorned with the Rising Sun, blaring martial music in all directions, calling for strident anti-communist measures, repeal of the constitution, a military buildup, and restoration of the dignity of the "Japanese race". The yakuza used the uyoku dantai for odd jobs such as collecting protection money from recalcitrant nightclub operators, and gangs rented sound trucks and crews for $1,000 a day and harassed targets of their choice. In 1986, Sasakawa admitted that, "Today the far-right wing isn't what it used to be. For the last fifteen to sixteen years, they've all been gangsters." Among then was Kusuo Kobayashi of the Sumiyoshi-kai, who ran his own paramilitary troop that trained each month on the streets of Tokyo, engaged in drug dealing, extortion, and gambling, and threatened to assassinate the Prime Minister should the wealth gap become great. In 1971, the rightist novelist Yukio Mishima committed seppuku at a military base after calling for a coup. From 1980 to 2000, ultranationalists were respondible for scores of attacks on politicians, journalists, and businessmen who wrote or spoke critically about the emperor system, wartime responsbiility, or the far-right.
Following the end of the Cold War, the ultranationalist movement was forced to shift its thinking, targeting Russia and China, and viewing the United States with suspicion. Rightists intimidated a Korean winner of the 197 Akutagawa Prize for literature into cancelling her book signings, threatening to bomb her, and, that same year, showings of a film on the Rape of Nanking were cancelled due to rightist protests and the slashing of a film screen by a knife-wielding rightist. In 1988, Nagasaki mayor Hitoshi Motoshima suggested that Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for World War II, leading to a man barging into the city hall with a gasoline container before being arrested. Two months later, a knife-wielding rightist was stopped before attacking the mayor, and, in March 1989, shots were fired at the city hall. In January 1990, a rightist shot Motoshima in the back, nearly killing him. In 1971, a Fukuoka yakuza boss sent Prime Minister Sato a pistol and 175 bullets and asked him to kill himself because he allegedly allowed policemen to be killed, let students storm the Imperial Palace, and let the leftists cause trouble for the Emperor. In 1992, a right-wing protester slit his stomach on Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's doorstep after Miyazawa approved an imperial visit to China. That same year, a rightist charged into the LDP headquarters, shot out a window, and demanded that Miyazawa dissolve his scandal-plagued government and resign. Two years later, shortly after Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's resignation, a gunman approached him from behind and fired into the ceiling of Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel to protest Hosokawa's admission of Japan's role as a World War II aggressor. In 1991, LDP powerbroker Shin Kanemaru's home was firebombed due to his soft stance on North Korea. In March 1995, ultranationalists firebombed the Japan Socialist Party main office and crashed a gasoline-soaked car into the Diet gates, and, eight months later, a gasoline-packed van rammed the main gates of the Diet as the new legislative session began. In 1997, another rightist crashed his van into the gront gate of Kochi Prefecture Governor Daijiro Hashimoto's home in retaliation for Hashimoto questioning whether Japan should keep the song "Kimigayo" as Japan's national anthem. In 1989, Kokuyu-kai leader Hakobu Konishi sent his severed little finger to Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita to protest political coruption. The liberal Asahi Shimbun paper suffered several rightist attacks, including the murder of one of its reporters in 1987.
The underworld also stridently supported a remilitarized Japan, clamoring for a rapid buildup of Japan's armed forces. The ultranationalists pushed for confrontation with a nuclear north Korea and a belligerent China, and, by the 1990s, the Japan Self-Defense Forces ranked third worldwide in military spending, behind only the United States and Russian militaries, and fielded 243,000 active troops and 270 aircraft. By the 21st century, fears of a full-scale ultranationalist revival in Japan were remote, as even conservatives conceded that the yakuza would be in the vanguard of such a revival. Opposition parties and the liberal wing of the LDP wielded enough power to block any truly outrageous demand from the far-right, and the public generally viewed rightist methods with distaste. In addition, most yakuza gangs continued to use the rightist cause primarily as a front for other activities, and their political influence was felt foremost in terms of money and self-interest.