Process And Reasons For The Abolition Of Japanese Chōnaikai After War

There were two kinds of meaning of the word of “chōnaikai”.Broadly speaking,chōnaikai was the administration in cities.“Gachigyōji Machi” which existed inSengoku period of Japan and “Toshiyori” and “Gonin Gumi” which were two majoradministrations of Jokamachi in the Edo period were regarded as predecessors ofchōnaikai by the public.In a narrow sense, chōnaikai which was used in this essaryrefers to the regional grass-roots administration that was established in1940s by theJapan government. The administration was established in communities of all levels ofcities in Japan for mobilizing the whole society to serve the national war ofaggression, which assisting the government for administration as its primary tasks.As the grass-root organization of Taisei Yokusankai（Imperial Rule AssistanceAssociation）①, After controlled by the government in organization and operation andthe chōnaikai that established during the Second World War became a powerful toolto carry out grass-root governance for the government. Then the cabinet officeexplicitly stipulated that the president of chōnaikai should be appointed by the head oflocal government and the chōnaikai shall be under the governance of localgovernment in all aspects. The government used the chōnaikai to start propaganda ofmilitarism in all aspects of daily life to incited the pubic to serve the war. For furthercontrolling the ideology of the public, organizations as military policeman andsecurity police monitored the public’s ideological trend while captured politicaloffender.The president of chōnaikai nearly became a dictator that carried out politicalrepression on the public and developed anti-democratic autocracy, which caused ahuge harm on the life and mentality of the people.On October1945, the allied forces led by America carried out a large-scaledemocratic reform.Because of the lack of knowledge of the chōnaikai in the earlyperiod of their occupation, the allied forces adopted the strategy of carrying outindirect governance through the existing administrations of Japanese goverment. Theythought the chōnaikai could maintain the stability of grass-roots in Japan. AS a result,the chōnaikai survived under the management of the cabinet office and it was incharge of a great deal of post-war work. However, after a specific investigation on chōnaikai, the GHQ①understood that chōnaikai was the grass-root organization ofTaisei Yokusankai of fascist group in war-time, while known its essence of militarismand anti-democracy. By the first election of House of Representatives after war, GHQfound the existence of chōnaikai would significantly hinder the progress of Japan’sdemocratic reform. Meanwhile, the democrats in Japan disclosed the maleficencedone by the chōnaikai and proposed to GHQ for the abolishment of chōnaikai.Besides, conflicts between the public and chōnaikai further forced GHQ to firmbelives to abolish the chōnaikai. Under the synthetically influences of all these factors,GHQ thoroughly abolished chōnaikai on system, organization and personnel to ensurethe achievement of Japan’s democratization.