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Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies

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Momotaro as Proletarian: A Study of RevolutionarySymbolism in Japan

Satoru Aonuma

To cite this article: Satoru Aonuma (2014) Momotaro as Proletarian: A Study of RevolutionarySymbolism in Japan, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 11:4, 382-400, DOI:10.1080/14791420.2014.959452

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2014.959452

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Momotaro as Proletarian: A Study ofRevolutionary Symbolism in JapanSatoru Aonuma

This article discusses the ideological working of Momotaro, a popular Japanese folktalein which an imaginary hero liberates his people from evil demons in a distant land.During the 1930s and 1940s, this folktale was used by the imperial authorities to justifythe war against “demonic Anglo-Americans.” Little known is that the same storywas also appropriated by Japanese orator-communists challenging imperialism andwar capitalism. The article critically examines how the folk hero acquired “classconsciousness” and became proletarian, critiquing the dominant ideology.

Keywords: Folklore; Japanese Rhetoric; Marxism; Proletarian Literature; RhetoricalSubversion

Insofar as a writer really is a propagandist, not merely writing work that will beapplauded by his allies, convincing the already convinced, but actually movingforward like a pioneer into outlying areas of the public and bringing them the firstfavorable impressions of his doctrine, the nature of his trade may give rise tospecial symbolic requirements.—Kenneth Burke1

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young andthe old, by men as well as women, even by children.—Ho Chi Min2

Satoru Aonuma (MA, the University of Iowa; Ph.D., Wayne State University) is Professor of Rhetoric andCommunication at Tsuda College, Japan. An embryonic idea of this article was presented at the 1992 SpeechCommunication Association (now National Communication Association) Annual Convention. The authorwishes to thank the anonymous reviewers of the journal for their constructive feedback as well as Mark H.Wright for fine-tuning the author's use of language. Unless otherwise specified, all the translations from originalJapanese sources to English in this article are the author's; all the Japanese names are transcribed in westernorder, i.e., given name followed by family name. This article is dedicated to the late Michael Calvin McGee, thelate Robert James Branham, the late Tamotsu Todd Imahori, the late Bruce E. Gronbeck, and Professor EmeritusRoichi Okabe, without whom the author is not what he is. Correspondence to: Satoru Aonuma, Department ofEnglish, Tsuda College, 2-1-1 Tsuda-Machi, Kodaira, Tokyo 187–8577 Japan. Email: aonuma@tsuda.ac.jp.

Communication and Critical/Cultural StudiesVol. 11, No. 4, December 2014, pp. 382–400

ISSN 1479-1420 (print)/ISSN 1479-4233 (online) © 2014 National Communication Associationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2014.959452

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Introduction

As a carrier of public morality, folktale makes a powerful persuasive discourse.3 Withits wide and easy accessibility, its ideological utility is time-tested. In early-twentieth-century Germany, the Third Reich appropriated folklore and mythic narratives topromote the Nazi’s ideology and its theory of a master-race. To celebrate andstrengthen Bolshevism, the Soviet government solicited folk legends and heroic songsfrom the collective-farm workers.4 This was also true in Japan from the latenineteenth through early twentieth centuries, the time when the symbolic power offolklore was “the very cornerstone of the country’s political structure.”5 During theperiod when imperialism and, by extension, war capitalism constituted the country’sdominant ideology, the imperial regime adopted one folktale called Momotaro(Peach Boy) and exploited its rhetorical power.

Momotaro is the name of an imaginary folk hero. He was so named, as he wasmiraculously born out of a peach (momo); together with his loyal companions(a monkey, a dog, and a pheasant), Momotaro took the divine mission to conquerevil demons in a distant land and saved his village. This benign folktale was pickedand appropriated by the imperial authorities in need of rhetoric when their Empirewas at war with the West. As John Dower coined the term “Momotaro Paradigm,”the story became an epitome of Japan’s waging of the Holy War in the name of Asianliberation: the war against the Western colonists and the creation of the GreaterAsian Co-Prosperity Sphere.6 Based on this folktale, many artifacts were created forpropaganda purposes; these include Momotaro No Umi No Arawasi (Momotaro’s SeaEagle) and Momotaro, Umi No Shinpei (Momotaro, God Warriors of the Sea), twoanimation films produced under the supervision of the Navy Ministry, featuringMomotaro as a commanding officer and his animal followers flying Zero-fightersover the island of demons, i.e., Hawaii.7

Approximately at the same time, however, there existed different versions ofMomotaro that challenged imperialism and war capitalism. 8 Kunio Yanagita, a notedJapanese folklorist, contended that folktale is a genre that empowers common people:oral tradition teaches them practical, social knowledge; studies of folklore therefore arethe scholarship of resistance.9 In the mid-1920s, JapaneseMarxists and left intellectualslaunched a revolutionary literary front called the Proletarian Literature Movement,organizing a nationwide politico-cultural opposition to the imperial-capitalist regime.In this Movement, Japanese “orator-communists”10 hailed Momotaro, the imaginaryfolk hero, to work for their political cause. They criticized the powers that be and wereengaged in agitation and propaganda or agitprop for revolution, making the storyof Momotaro a brilliant rhetorical work of proletarian counter-discourse. Namely,Momotaro was not only a collaborator of the imperial regime but also part ofrevolutionary symbolism.

This article will delineate a rhetorical enactment of the folk narrative in the lattersense, i.e., Momotaro as proletarian, at the height of Japanese imperialism and warcapitalism. Engaging the analysis, the article attempts to make a modest contributionto studies of modern Japanese rhetoric. Japan has been proven to possess a rich

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tradition of rhetoric. While the larger body of scholarly literature is now available,however, most of the previous studies, with a few exceptions,11 have focused mainlyon the working of discourses of power, e.g., speeches and writings of national politicallarders,12 prominent opinion leaders,13 Emperor,14 teachings of a dominant religion(e.g., Buddhism),15 and official policy pronouncements,16 virtually ignoring a varietyof dissenting discursive practices that have existed in the country’s history. This istruly unfortunate, given that Japan has a strong tradition of grassroots uprisings, civilunrest, and other forms of political dissension. It is a country where protests andother mass movements have traditionally been “a means of expressing populargrievances.”17 Particularly since the implantation of Marxism onto its soil, words anddeeds of the political left have continued to play a significant role in shaping thenation’s political culture.18 Any fuller understanding of the actual working of rhetoricis incomplete without taking into account the existence of historically situateddissension and struggle. By examining this folktale-turned revolutionary symbolism,this articles wishes to shed light on a significant missing part of the politico-rhetoricalhistory of a nation-state once erroneously depicted as a “rhetorical vacuum.”19

Perhaps more importantly, this article seeks to extend critical rhetorical scholarship,particularly the one that deals with the relationship between Marxism and rhetoricaldiscourse. In the English-speaking world, the working of symbolic power that madehistory has been extensively studied by rhetorical scholars.20 Among them, issuesregarding what rhetorical strategy left revolutionaries could/should employ havegenerated a contentious debate.21 Against this backdrop, this article will highlightrhetorical subversion, one viable tactic available to orator-communists and the politicalleft. Revolutionary symbolism does not need a new language; “a new language, if it is tobe political, cannot possibly be ‘invented’: it will necessarily depend on the subvertinguse of traditional material.”22 Ideological change is a symbolic conversion. When weemploy symbolism rhetorically and ideologically to do the work, we change the internalstructure of that symbolism as well as its relationship with other signs and discourses.In such rhetorical operation, we most likely locate “the potential to change … the‘present’ ideology.”23 Thus, as James Aune suggested, the contemporary American leftcould steal the language of family values from the conservative, refurbish it, and use itfor left politics.24 Most likely, however, strong objections will be raised by theconservative against this rhetoric. Rhetorical subversion does not always go smoothlyas “various different classes … use one and the same language. As a result, differentoriented accents intersect in every ideological sign. Sign becomes an arena of the classstruggle.”25 I submit that Momotaro-as-proletarian should be understood as oneparticular instance of such ideological struggle. By critically exploring how the Japaneseleft in the early twentieth century attempted to fight the dominant ideology byrecreating, refurbishing, and retelling the popular folktale, an attempt will be made toextend the ongoing scholarly discourse on Marxist rhetorical strategy outside theNorth American and European contexts.

Following the Introduction, the article offers a synopsis of the historical develop-ment of Japanese Marxism and the Proletarian Literature Movement26 in whichMomotaro-as-proletarian emerged. It then proceeds with an analysis of the proletarian

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remaking of this folktale as a form of rhetorical subversion, explicating how thepopular folk hero became a proletarian hero (and anti-hero) during the heyday ofthe country’s capitalism and imperialism. The article concludes the analysis byreminding critical communication scholars of the historical significance of thisrhetorical dissension in modern Japan and suggesting that they pay more attentionto internationalization and global solidarity of rhetorical dissension.

Marxism, Proletkult, and the Proletarian Literature Movement

The year 1868 marked the birth of a modern empire on the Japanese archipelagos. Itwas also the dawn of the country’s economic industrialization/militarization. Takingover the country’s sovereign authority from the Shogunate, the imperial regimebegan aggressively engaged in transforming Japan into a modern industrial economyas well as a military power. By the 1910s, Japan had become the world’s leadingexporter of textiles; there also was a drastic increase in steel, copper, and coalproduction, as well as other heavy industries such as railroads, arms production, andshipbuilding. Especially after winning two wars against China (1894–5) and thenRussia (1904–5), Japan recognized itself, and became recognized by other majorWestern powers, as a newly emerging competitor in the world of colonialism,imperialism, and war capitalism.

At the same time, with its rival powers, Japan also experienced its share of theproblem during this period: “The introduction of an industrial economy in Japan …brought with it the labor problems of the West.”27 Namely, at the height of itsindustrialization, Japan saw a drastic increase in labor disputes, strikes, and other formsof organized unrest involving angry workers. While the regime succeeded in turningthe country into a major world power, its aggressive modernization policy ran counterto the people’s wants and needs; whereas, the country itself became richer and stronger,the people became poorer and economically less secure. “Despite official disfavor,frequently manifesting itself in arrests, interruptions of meetings, suspension ofpublications, and dissolution of organizations, a number of leaders emerged whodevoted themselves to the organization of trade unions and political groups.”28

It is these politico-material conditions that gave rise to Japanese Marxism. Itsorigin dates back to when Shusui Kotoku and Toshihiko Sakai, two progressivejournalist-writers, encountered Marx and Engels and began translating their works.29

A portion of their Japanese translation of the Communist Manifesto appeared in1904; two years later, the full Japanese version came out. Equally important is therole played by Sen Katayama, a US-educated Christian socialist and the publisher/founder of Rodo Sekai (Labor World), the country’s first trade-union journal.30

Seeking to represent the interest of the working people in the political arena, Kotoku,Katayama, and other activists founded the Social Democratic Party. In 1906, theyorganized another socialist party, i.e., the Japan Socialist Party, taking a more radicalturn and instigating more direct actions such as strikes and sabotage in the country’smajor industrial sectors.

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As Japanese labor turned to socialism and became more politically involved, itinvited severe governmental repression. Many of the activists were arrested or wentunderground. Some, including Kotoku, were executed by the authorities; othersescaped overseas and sought political asylum, including Katayama who went back tothe United States. In retrospect, this was a significant turning point in the historicaldevelopment of Japanese Marxism: While in the United States, Katayama and hisgroup were contacted by the Communist International or Comintern and, against thebackdrop of the successful Russian Revolution, they became convinced of thesuperiority of Lenin’s interpretation of Marx, i.e., scientific socialism, and becamepart of the international Bolshevik movement.31

Soon, across the Pacific, Marxism was smuggled back into the country and(re)implanted onto its soil, enabling intellectual and literary socialism to flourish. Inthe late 1910s, intellectual and scholarly writings of Japanese Marxists began to appearnot only in their own underground periodicals but also in general publications.Curiously enough, the authorities then were inattentive to the “non-political” works ofsocialists and Marxists, e.g., creative writing, scholarly treatises, etc., for “[s]ocialistliterature was generally regarded by the state as being akin to ‘yellow journalism’—undeniably obstreperous but, for the most part, relatively harmless.”32 During the1920s, the quantity and quality of their works became almost equal to that inGermany.33 In the words of Masao Maruyama, a noted post-WWII intellectual,Marxism “[swept] through the Japanese intelligentsia like a whirlwind,”34 making it“hard to find an intellectual who did not broadly agree with Marx’s basic diagnosis ofthe problems of capitalist society.”35

Against this politico-intellectual climate, the Japan Communist Party was inaugu-rated in 1922. As the one and only Bolshevik vanguard in Japan, it was less a merepolitical party than a political “organization.” Namely, under the Comintern’sdirection, its primary goal was “the political education of the working class and thedevelopment of its political consciousness.”36 And to achieve that goal, literary-mindedMarxists, as well as some communist sympathizers among literary circles, participatedin the “battlefield of cultural practice,”37 commencing the Proletarian LiteratureMovement and seeking to create the distinct proletarian culture or Proletkult. “Theproletarian state must educate thousands of first-class ‘craftsmen of culture,’ ‘engineersof the soul.’ This is necessary in order to restore to the whole mass of the workingpeople the right to develop their intelligence, talents, and faculties.”38 As Kiyoshi Aono,a leading figure in the Movement, wrote:

The Proletarian Literature Movement is an ultimate collective activity wherebyalready committed proletarian, that is, “socialist-proletarian,” artists seek to helpother [would-be] proletarian fellows acquire the teleological consciousness ofsocialism. This is where the significance and the necessity of the Movement lie.39

With Bungei Sensen (Literary Front), a journal devoted exclusively to the publicationof proletarian literature, they established the Japan Proletarian Literary Arts Leaguein 1925. Going through some factional disputes within the League, it was laterreformed as the All Japan Federation of Proletarian Arts and Senki (Battle Flag), the

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Federation’s official journal, became their primary literary outlet during the late1920s and early 1930s.

Distributing creative writing that carried politico-educational messages, those whoparticipated in the Movement were largely under the Comintern’s directive andnecessarily abided by the idea of “socialist realism,” the one and only literary genre forthe international proletariat. Emphasizing objectivity and scientific truth, thisBolshevik dictum demands proletarian artists of “truthful (pravdivyi), historicallyconcrete representation of reality,” while “truthfulness (pravdivost) and historicalconcreteness of artistic representation of reality must (or should) be combined with thetask of ideologically remaking and training the labouring people in the spirit ofsocialism.”40 As such, it denounced and rejected impressionism, cubism, and other“unrealistic,” “untruthful,” and “imaginary” forms of artistic expressions as “bour-geois” and “decadent.”

At the same time, among these Marxist writers and intellectuals were those whodid not necessarily subscribe to the idea of socialist realism. This is particularly trueduring the early phase of the Movement when the Comintern’s dicta were not sodogmatically imposed. More specifically, these unorthodox Marxists called for“literary populism” that should supplement the realism, for scientific and objectiverepresentation of reality alone would have limited rhetorical appeal: It is simply notso interesting to the mass readership. Similarly, they maintained that Proletkultshould be more inclusive and more widely accessible across generations and diversesocial strata. Accordingly, they advocated that an equally significant generic emphasisshould be put on the “imaginary, fanciful, and fairy,” as a counterpart of the real,scientific, and objective, in literature and other artifacts that should create necessaryconditions for revolution to come:

[I]s it really true that Marx and Engels avoided “the politics of dreaming,” the socialpoetics of anticipatory imagination? Can one separate the ideal from the real in ascientific fashion? Is it possible to mobilize people to fight oppression without afuture “state of affairs” for consciousness to fasten on? Scattered throughout theMarx/Engels oeuvre are numerous references to life in communist society. And theseanticipatory imaginings function as an ethical normative standard of the trulyhuman by which to judge the failings of class society. Which is to say, utopian visionsof communism are presented as powerful critiques of actually existing capitalism.41

It is crucial to recognize the co-existence of these two different genres when we areto understand the status of children’s literature and the rhetorical deployment offolklore in the Proletarian Literature Movement. Just as Burke, these literary Marxistsin Japan understood the role that “adult education”42 should play in the creation ofproletarian hegemony; as such, they wrote novels and other forms of realisticliterature for the would-be proletarian adult readership. At the same time, they alsorecognized the need for educating those who were, more or less, ideologicallyinnocent; they found in many younger readers, i.e., school children, anothersignificant group of potential comrades. With the belief that “the writers of children’sliterature, with the consciousness of socialism and anti-capitalism, should liberate[our] children from the evil of the time,”43 they launched a series of politico-

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educational offensives through their literary works. In June 1927, “Chisai Doushi(A Little Comrade),” a column for primary and middle school children, started toappear regularly in Bungei Sensen. Also, Shonen Senki (Battle Flag Junior), a collectionof proletarian literary works written for the same readership, began as a supplementto Senki in 1929, and it soon became a separate periodical. It is in this politico-historico-cultural situation and in the literary-generic pendulum between realism andthe politics of dreaming that we see Momotaro make a political turn.

Momotaro as We Ordinarily Know Him

Momotaro is undoubtedly among the most popular (and perhaps the most favorite)folk heroes in Japan. The story of his conquest had been featured in everystate-authorized, grade school level textbook for Japanese language instruction until1945, the year WWII ended. Even today, most Japanese know the story as abedtime story, in a picture book series, or even from cartoons and comics.44 Whilethere are some variances, the following is a typical version most Japanese peoplewould tell to an English-speaking audience when asked what the story is like:

Once upon a time, there lived an old couple in a small village. One day the old wifewas washing her clothes in the river when a huge peach came tumbling down thestream. The old woman brought the peach home and cut it up to share with herhusband. To their great surprise, a healthy baby boy came right out of the peach!The old couple said, “Let’s name him Momotaro (Peach-boy) as he was born froma peach.” They brought him up with love and care.

Momotaro grew up rapidly into a strong boy. One day, he said to the old couple,“Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I am going to fight and kill evil demons.” The oldcouple made some millet dumplings for Momotaro to take with him.

As Momotaro walked toward Demon’s Island, a dog approached him and said,“Hello, Momotaro, can I have one of your millet dumplings, please?” “You can, ifyou come with me to fight and kill bad demons,” said Momotaro.

Then, as Momotaro and the dog went further on, a pheasant came up to themand said, “Hello, Momotaro, can I have one of your millet dumplings that you’recarrying around your waist?” “Sure you can, if you come with us to fight and killbad demons,” said Momotaro.

As the three went on, a monkey showed up and said, “Hello, Momotaro, can Ihave one of your millet dumplings from around your waist?” “You sure can, if youcome with us to fight and kill bad demons,” said Momotaro.

Thus, Momotaro with the dog, pheasant, and monkey as his companionscrossed over to Demon’s Island. As soon as they arrived on the island, red demonsand blue demons attacked them, shouting, “What are you here for, you cockypeople? We’ll knock you out!” The pheasant pecked at demon’s heads, the monkeyscratched their faces, the dog bit them on the leg, and Momotaro swung his swordat them. “We’re sorry, so sorry. We won’t harm anyone any more. So please forgiveus.” The demons begged and surrendered. Then they offered many treasures toMomotaro.

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Momotaro brought the treasures home where the old couple were waiting, andthey lived happily together from that day on.45

Reading Momotaro With Marx

Unlike Momotaro-as-we-ordinarily-know-him, Momotaro-as-proletarian lived onlyfour years. In 1927, as the first proletarian version, Kiyoshi Eguchi’s “Aru Hi NoOnigashima (One Day in the Land of Demons)” appeared. Subsequently four otherswere published in 1929: Soichiro Imajiri’s “Shin Momotaro Banashi (A New Story ofMomotaro)”; Mitsuo Sakanashi’s “Sonogo No Momotaro (Momotaro’s Later Life)”;Heihachi Kuroita’s “Momotaro Seibatsu (The Conquest of Momotaro)”; and NobuoMitsunari’s “Menboku Wo Tsubushita Hanashi (A Story of Losing Face).” The finalproletarian Momotaro, Mutsuo Honjo’s “Oni Seibatsu No Momotaro (Momotaro’sConquest of the Demon),” was published in 1931.

Among these proletarian recreations of the story, two versions in particulardeserve our attention: one by Eguchi and the other by Honjo. As the first proletarianversion, Eguchi’s Momotaro was published in the October and November 1927 issuesof Akaitori (Red Bird), a monthly periodical for grade school pupils founded andpublished by Miekichi Suzuki, a noted writer of children’s literature and a championof child innocentism (dousin shugi), an educational philosophy that values freedomand innate creativity of children and is critical of governmental control over schooleducation.46 Honjo’s final version appeared in the May 1931 issue of Shonen Senki,another monthly for the same readership published by the All Japan Federation ofProletarian Arts, the premier organization for Marxist writers and artists under theCommunist Party’s/Comintern’s influence. My analysis in what follows will focus onthese two works. As the two authors marshaled their brilliant literary techniques toincorporate Marxism into the story, subverting and turning it into a piece ofrevolutionary symbolism, their works should highlight the rhetorical power offolktale for political and ideological purposes. At the same time, reading the first andthe final proletarian versions of the story in tandem should provide an interestingcomparison and contrast in terms of generic requirements for, as well as historical-situatedness of, this folktale-turned revolutionary symbolism. In one version,Momotaro was characterized as a hero of Bolshevik revolution. In the other version,the same folk hero was depicted as the arch enemy of the working people, i.e., a cold-blooded imperialist-capitalist.

Momotaro as Capitalist/Imperialist

As the first proletarian recreation, the storyline of Eguchi’s Momotaro47 is basicallythe same as that of the standard version: With help from his three loyal animalcompanions, Momotaro, a miraculous boy, bravely took on a mission of conqueringdemons in a distant land. A glance at the story, however, would instantaneously alertus to the strong presence of Marxist ideological critique. Specifically put, what makes

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Eguchi’s version proletarian is the distinct vantage point from which he constructedthe story, i.e., the story is narrated from the perspective of the demons Momotaroconquered. This completely reverses the role that each character is assigned to play:Momotaro as the exploiter and the demons as the exploited.

Eguchi’s story begins with a description of the demons’ life. In an island far distantfrom the human world, a tribe of demons lived peacefully. One day, they held afestival at a shrine located at the top of a rocky mountain. Except for the aged andbabies, all the other demons gathered at the shrine away from their village.Meanwhile, old demons were enjoying basking in the sun; they were at the southcoast of the island, guarding the gate and babysitting infants. Suddenly a pheasantflew over the gate, and then came a monkey climbing the wall and opening the gatewithin. Through the gate, a baby-faced boy came in:

“Attention, you demons! I am Momotaro, the number one in Japan. To conqueryour land, I come all the way across the sea from Japan. Now the battle isdeclared!” So Momotaro shouted, brandishing a sword in front of the demons.48

The old demons did not get frightened, however. To capture the young human boy,they moved forward instead of surrendering or escaping. It was Momotaro who wasappalled and frightened. He was too naïve to think that he could have easily conqueredthe demons without actually engaging in combat, expecting that showing a sword as athreat would do the job. Having realized that he was dead wrong, Momotaro screamedout of fear and ran away, not even having a chance of turning back.

Back to the beach where his boat was anchored, Momotaro called his dog. Soon adog as gigantic as an ox came out from the boat, and Momotaro came back to the gate,this time setting his dog on the demons. The dog assaulted the demons with its sharpteeth and strong jaw, while Momotaro sat down just watching the fight. The olddemons bravely fought back, but unfortunately they were powerless against his giganticdog and soon surrendered. Momotaro commanded one of the demons to open theirstorehouses and expropriated all of their treasure. Moreover, he captured some babydemons and brought them back to Japan as souvenirs. Later in the afternoon, theyoung demons came back from the festival and found that Momotaro had “invaded”their land. They became furious about things he did in their absence, but, sinceMomotaro and his followers were already gone, there was nothing they could do.

Then several years later, a curious news story came into the land of demons fromthe human world. It was about Momotaro. Since brave Momotaro conquered theatrocious evils in the distant land, so went the news, the human race, especiallypeople in Japan, admired him as a god-like figure, worshiping his pictures andsinging songs about his brave mission. There was no mentioning of his sneak attack,the old demons, and his “kidnapping” of the baby demons; nor was there anymention of the dog, the monkey, and the pheasant who did all the work. Havingheard of this, the demons recalled their furies of several years ago, and one afteranother they started to accuse Momotaro of being a “wimp (yowamushi),” a “liar(usotsuki),” and “sneaky (zurui).”49 Trying to calm down his angry fellows, however,one old demon who survived Momotaro’s invasion interrupted the talk:

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“This talk of fury gets us nowhere. That is the way of life in the human worldanyway.” [Another demon replied:] “But that’s unfair, isn’t it? Those who workhonestly aren’t entitled to receive a reward, and only sneaky folks can take thelion’s share? It that really the way it is in the human world? If so, then, I’m sure theland of demons is a much better place, for here everyone lives peacefully, workshonestly, and cooperates with each other.” And another old black demon, with alow-toned voice showing his conviction, replied: “Yes, it certainly is. Life in thehuman world is really worthless. We are the luckiest to be able to be born and livein the land of demons.” Having heard his words, all demons eased their furies andthen smiled at each other.50

Eguchi’s Momotaro was published when socialist realism was yet to become fullydogmatic in the Proletarian Literature Movement. As such, his recreation stillretained the imaginary and unrealistic elements of the standard version. Just as theMomotaro we originally knew, the story told by Eguchi is hardly an objective,scientific, or concrete description of historical fact or truth. By contrasting thepresent (i.e., human’s) and alternative (i.e., demon’s) worlds, however, it exposescontradictions inherent in any capitalist society and asks his readers to imagine howwonderful it would be to live in a communist society. As Terry Eagleton maintained:

[A]ll prescriptions about what to do imply description of what is the case. … Itmust combine the indicative mood with the subjunctive one, yoking a coldlydemystified sense of the present to a warmly imaginative leap beyond it … Themind is called upon to be both mirror and lamp, faithfully reflecting itssurroundings while shedding a transformative light upon them. The flights offantasy which get in the way of trying to see the situation straight are vital toimagining an alternative to it.51

In Eguchi’s Momotaro, the land of demons is represented as an imaginary utopiawhere everyone lives peacefully. The human world, on the other hand, is depicted as aplace full of contradictions, where “those who work honestly aren’t entitled to receive areward, and only sneaky folks take the lion’s share.” For instance, although hissubordinates did all the work, Momotaro took the lion’s share and was adored andworshipped as a god-like figure; such is the way of life in the human world, as onedemon said in the story. In so doing, Eguchi offers a rationale for creating a socialistdream land where “everyone works honestly and cooperates with each other.”

Equally notable in Eguchi’s story is a rhetorical implication of the parallel betweenMomotaro’s mission of conquest and Imperial Japan’s foreign adventurism. That is,told from the vantage point of the demons, the story ridicules the absurdity anddestructiveness of Momotaro’s divine mission and exposes the not-so-divine materialmotives behind it. Put specifically, the story challenges kichiku beiei, literally translatedas the demonic Anglo-Americans, a political symbol or “ideograph”52 which helped tojustify the atrocity inflicted upon the Asia-Pacific by Imperial Japan in the name of thewar against the white colonists. Eguchi’s proletarian storytelling functions as apowerful critique of this official ideology: Imperial Japan, as represented byMomotaro,was in fact itself a demonic imperialist seeking to colonize and exploit the rest of Asia.

It should be remembered that Eguchi’s Momotaro was written for ideologicallyinnocent school children. Yet, if the proletarian adults read this piece, they should

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have understood why Lenin referred to Japan as the prime example when hedebunked “the objective conditions of imperialism” and critiqued “how shamelesslyuntruthful the capitalists … are on the questions of annexations.”53 This was the timewhen all news reports were to be officially authorized by the imperial authorities.Only good news came from China, annexed Korea, and other parts of the Asia-Pacific; people were led to believe that their Empire was engaged in the Holy War,liberating Asia from the Western imperialists. All of these did make sense withinDower’s Momotaro Paradigm: Imperial Japan played a role of a Momotaro-likefigure, emancipating the Asian nations from the hands of the demonic Anglo-Americans. As Alvin Gouldner explained:

Ideology makes a diagnosis of the social world and claims that it is true. It allegesan accurate picture of society and claims (or implies) that its political policies aregrounded in that picture. To that extent, ideology is a very special sort of rationaldiscourse by reason of its world-referring claims.54

Narrated from the side of the demons, Eguchi’s Momotaro attempted to deconstructthe rationality of the officially sanctioned ideological discourse.

Momotaro as Working-Class Hero

Mutsuo Honjo’s recreation of Momotaro is a shorter and final proletarian version55;in contrast to Eguchi’s, the story consistently exhibits, from the beginning to the end,a strong presence of socialist realism. While Eguchi’s version remains fancifuland folkloric, Honjo radically recontextualizes the narrative as a story of peasant’suprising and worker’s revolt where Momotaro is presented as a Marxist role model.Equally important, Honjo claims that his proletarian version is a concrete descriptionof the real, i.e., a (hi)story that actually happened.

In Honjo’s version, Momotaro appears as a tenant farmer in a small village. Born outof a peach taken from a river, he was raised as a grandchild of an old peasant couple. Ashe grew up, he became a hard-working farmer, helping his old grandparents. But, as thestory goes, he began to question his life as a farmer, a sign that he developed a distinctclass consciousness, leading Momotaro to an idea of undertaking the divine mission: toconquer the demon:

As he grew up, Momotaro started to think about the status of farmers who alwaysremained poor no matter how hard they worked. Rice they harvested was exploitedby the landowner as farm rent. Particularly this year, since most of their harvestwas exploited, there was little left for the peasants to consume by themselves.People in the village backbit the landowner and called him “demon” behind hisback. Momotaro, too, thought that he was certainly a demon. “I wish the demonshould go away. We should exterminate him!”56

Momotaro knew that no history is made in a day by one’s solo work alone. Onenight, he talked to his grandparents of this idea and, after deliberation, they agreedthat he should carry out the mission of conquest. Given the exploitation and

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oppression that the villagers had suffered, said his grandmother, it is natural (as it isin dialectical materialism) for them to engage a revolt:

Listen, Momotaro. We grow and harvest rice, but we can eat yard grass only. Sucha society is not just. It is no one but a demon in the hell who can exploit us and eatour rice to his full. We should [censored]57 him as much as we want to.58

Meanwhile, the rumor that Momotaro was to take on his mission to conquer thelandowner spread in the village. Soon many began to unite under Momotaro. Amongthem were Saru-Ichi, Inu-Jiro, and Kiji-Suke,59 a trio of farmer-revolutionariesequipped with strong leadership and special skills.

On the eve of his divine mission, the grandmother made dumplings for Momotaroto carry and Momotaro, instead of consuming them by himself, provided thedumplings to all who gathered and once again emphasized the significance of theirunity and solidarity. In the morning, Momotaro and his comrades left for thelandowner’s mansion, the place they called onigashima or the “island of the demon.”To cheer themselves up, these revolutionaries sang a “fight song” on their way:

We farmers grow rice and wheatAre generous and powerful;To conquer the demon, the landownerUnited for the mission, we are ready to go!60

Having encountered the farmers’ uprising, the landowner got frightened at hismansion. He apologized, begged for mercy, and tried to negotiate a temporalresolution with Momotaro and his fellow revolutionaries. But they never listened tohim, for they knew that “capitalists were always liars”61 and, more importantly, thatworkers and farmers in Russia had won the “unconditional victory”:

[Conversation among the farmers] “Now is the time that we should get even! Wecapture that large mansion, comfortable with a lot of sunshine and cool air, anduse it as our collective storehouse.” “Yes! What a good idea! That mansion shouldoriginally belong to us by nature.” “Beat him now! Beat him now! He is apoisonous evil, and we should not let him live any more.” “And in Russia, there areno capitalists nor landowners any more, and there people work and live peacefully.This is what I know.”62

Then Momotaro jumped into the conversation: “‘Yes, indeed. [In Russia] farmersand workers exterminated capitalists and landowners to the hilt. Now is our time togo ahead!’ Having heard this, [the farmers] did not have any hesitation at all.”63 Afterbesting the demonic landowner, Momotaro and his comrades declared the victory.The treasure stripped off from the storehouse became the collective property of thevillagers. Since then, the people were able to live a peaceful life thanks to Momotaro’sconquest of the “demon,” i.e., the landowner.

As the final proletarian version published in 1931, Honjo’s Momotaro turns thefolklore into a story of revolution where the folk hero is depicted as an exemplaryproletarian. The story is social-realistic in several respects. First, except for Momotaro’sunnatural birth (a baby born from a peach on the river), Honjo accommodated thestory into the genre of the objective, natural, and necessary. In his recreation,

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Momotaro was just an ordinary peasant who developed a distinct class consciousnessthrough farm work, i.e., his dialectic with nature. As he knew that a revolution is a workof collectivity, he cooperated with his fellow villagers and emphasized the importanceof their unity. Facing the demonic landowner, he was uncompromising. Afterconquering the demon(ic landowner), he never took the lion’s share. All of theseaspects of the story make Momotaro a perfect leader for proletarian social movement.As Takiji Kobayashi’s64 quasi-autobiographical novel Tou Seikatsusha (A Life of theParty Man) taught adult readers how the life of a committed proletarian should ideallybe, Honjo’s Momotaro provided children of the working class with a blueprint forpossible Bolshevik revolution in Japan by representing Momotaro as a workingclass hero.

The story told by Honjo is also socialist-realistic in that the episode of BolshevikRussia was added to the story and was presented as the real and possible. The farmersknew the success of Russian Revolution; as one farmer said in the story, in SovietRussia “there are no capitalists nor landowners any more, and there people work andlive peacefully.” The idea and necessity of a vanguard was also implied, as theconquest of the demon was successful due not only to the (spontaneous) uprising ofthe villagers (working mass) but also to the role of organizers played by Momotaroand his party, i.e., a group of fully committed proletarian leaders represented as themonkey, the dog, and the pheasant. In Lenin’s words:

Lack of training of the majority of the revolutionaries, an entirely naturalphenomenon, could not have roused any particular fears. Once the tasks werecorrectly defined, … temporary failures represented only part misfortune.Revolutionary experience and organisational skill are things that can be acquired,provided the desire is there to acquire them, provided the shortcomings arerecognized.65

Equally significant, at the end of story Honjo left the postscript to his readers, i.e.,school children, claiming that the story adopted in school textbooks authorized bythe imperial authorities was false and that his version in fact was real and authentic:

The Story of Momotaro that you had been told [in schools] is wrong and distorted.This is because [in Japan] there still exist landowners and capitalists. They don’t wantthe true story to be told to you. It is no wonder, for you are children of farmers andworkers. So these “demons” command your school teachers tell you a lie.66

Stating Momotaro was originally a story of revolution, Honjo rejected the textbookversion as it embraced false consciousness. Condemning that school system wascontrolled by the ruling idea of the ruling class, he suggested that his readers not bedeceived by these real-life demons but be united against them instead.

Conclusions

Once flourishing as a nationwide politico-cultural dissension, the ProletarianLiterature Movement was disbanded by the government in 1934. Many involved inthe Movement were arrested and tortured to death; others were forced to accept

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ideological conversion and became collaborators of the imperial authorities.67

Momotaro was no exception. While he was allowed to continue appearing in state-authorized school textbooks, his story started to be featured in other state-sanctionedcultural texts and artifacts, glorifying the Empire’s Holy War against the West: heroicJapan represented by Momotaro drives out the demonic evil doers of the West andestablishes its hegemony in the world. With Japan’s defeat in WWII, Momotarocompletely disappeared from the political scene. Since then, no state-sanctionedschool textbook adopted this folktale; nor is there any political propaganda based onthe story. After all, as Michael McGee put, no ideological symbolism “can bedivorced from past commitments.”68

Japanese orator-communists in the early twentieth century failed to make Bolshevikrevolution a reality; their efforts to create Proletkult were crushed by the imperialregime. This should never be a reason to ignore one obvious fact: strong politico-rhetorical oppositions did exist when the country’s imperialism and war capitalismwere at their pinnacle. The Proletarian Literature Movement was the chief example ofsuch oppositions. The preceding analysis also shows literary creativity as well asrhetorical sophistication of those who participated in the Movement. Two versions ofMomotaro-as-proletarian analyzed in this article particularly demonstrate the politicalutility of folklore-turned revolutionary symbolism. Eguchi subverted the standardversion by retelling it from the side of the demons and refurbishing it with the critiqueof capitalism and imperialism, while retaining the story’s folkloric dimensions. Honjo’sversion incorporated socialist realism with the original storyline, turning this folktale toa real story of farmers’ revolt and suggesting to his readers that his in fact wasauthentic. Executed by Japanese orator-communists, these, I submit, are textbookexamples of rhetorical subversion. Just like the contemporary American left stealingthe symbol of family value, they chose not to invent a completely new symbol foragitprop; they instead picked the story of Momotaro, a traditional story. Engagingrevolutionary symbolism, they turned the traditional folktale into a powerful counter-discourse critiquing the dominant ideology and exposing its contradictions.

Among the world’s prominent political left figures, Italian Marxist AntonioGramsci stands out as the one who found in folklore critical rhetorical potentials. Inhis words, “Folklore should … be studied as a ‘conception of the world and life’implicit to a large extent in determinate (in time and space) strata of society and inopposition … to ‘official’ conceptions of the world.”69 When he wrote this passage,Italy was in the hands of fascism. As one of Mussolini’s prisoners, Gramsci died in1937, never being able to put his idea into practice. Across the Eurasian continent,however, his contemporaries in Japan launched the Proletarian Literature Movementand were engaged in a politico-cultural struggle. The rhetorical strategy theydeployed was what Gramsci had envisioned: Fully recognizing the political utilityof folklore to oppose the official worldview or the dominant ideology, they exploitedits rhetorical power for critiquing the status quo and for creating the discursivecondition necessary for revolution. We also know that a similar politico-rhetoricaldevelopment was simultaneously taking place in North America. In 1935, youngKenneth Burke called for the creation of counter-hegemony by way of rhetoric,

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arguing that the American left should drop the symbol of worker and instead use amore unifying, class-transcendent symbol of people. Unfortunately, his call was notwelcomed by his comrades at that time; yet if we can now praise Burke for “doingGramsci’s work before anyone but Gramsci,”70 the historical significance ofMomotaro-as-proletarian should become obvious. Namely, Japanese orator-commu-nists may have been practicing a Gramscian rhetoric before Gramsci and, moreimportantly, before Burke.

This, in fact, should come as little surprise: As far as this particular historical periodis concerned, rhetoricians, Marxists, and other political dissidents in Japan were thebest accomplices in crime. As the first comprehensive historical treatment of Japaneserhetoric, Meiji Enzetsushi (History of Oratory in the Meiji Era) was published in 1929;Gaikotsu, the author, declared that he published this work to express “oppositions tothe dictatorial government,” to support “resistance of popular rights advocates,” and tofurther instigate “clash between the people and the authorities.”71 In 1930, Eizo Kondo,a veteran Marxist-Leninist and a founding member of the Japan Communist Party,published Proletaria Yubengaku (Proletarian Elocution), the country’s very firstpractical handbook on public speaking and persuasive argumentation exclusive fororator-communists.72 In addition, the first theoretical treatise on rhetoric in modernJapan was published in 1937; it was authored by Kiyoshi Miki, a Marxist, a philosopher,and one of the most influential figures in the country’s intellectual history.73 ThisJapanese tradition of dissenting rhetoric even continued after WWII. Makoto Oda, aprominent anti-establishment activist who played the leading role in the post-WWIIpeace movement, wrote that the “classical Greek rhetoric” he studied at the Universityof Tokyo where Miki had served as the Philosophy Department Chair “likelyconstituted the basis for his anti-war activism.”74

Calling for more studies of rhetoric in international relations, Robert Oliver oncewrote: “[T]here is no such thing as a rhetoric that is common to all; instead there aremany rhetorics. Peoples in separate cultures and separate nations are concerned aboutdifferent problems; and they have different systems of thinking about them.”75 Perhaps.But we also know that there have been many historical instances in which peoples withdifferent cultures and nationalities were engaged in rhetorical practice for a commoncause, responding to a common issue beyond boundaries. For instance, we knowglobalization is a problem that should be fought not only globally but also locally; thosewho consider themselves as 99 percent are taking to the street and joining OccupyMovements not only in Wall Street but also at many other corners around the globe.Against this backdrop, we should be more attentive to the working of localizedrhetorical dissension while, at the same time, taking into account solidarity of suchdissenting practices across borders. More specifically, I humbly suggest that, regardlessof their nationalities or citizenships, and whether they agree with communism,socialism, or any other left politics, critical rhetorical scholars of the world should notforget one politico-rhetorical phenomenon that took place glocally in the earlytwentieth century: the workers of the world united against imperialism and warcapitalism. It was the period when “‘international Bolshevism’ … was formed …among the anti-war socialist left wings. The concentrated and interrelated series of

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events on Russia’s western” and, I would add, eastern “borders.… should be treated as‘an integral whole’ … And the very idea of ‘World Revolution’ underlies the integralwhole.”76 It is in this very politico-discursive climate that Momotaro turnedproletarian.

Notes

[1] Kenneth Burke, “Revolutionary Symbolism in America. Speech by Kenneth Burke toAmerican Writers’ Congress, April 26, 1935,” in The Legacy of Kenneth Burke, ed. HerbertW. Simons and Trevor Melia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 10.

[2] Famous Revolutionary Quotations, http://irishredstar.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/famous-revolutionary-quotations/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

[3] Robert Glenn Howard, “A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the ‘Sinner’sPrayer,’” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_2_116/ai_n15727506/?tag=content;col1 (accessed August 30, 2013).

[4] William R. Bascom, “Folklore and Anthropology,” Journal of American Folklore 66 (1953):283–90; Richard M. Dorson, “Folklore and the National Defense Education Act,” Journal ofAmerican Folklore 75 (1962): 160–64; Dana Prescott Howell, The Development of SovietFolkloristics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992).

[5] Matthias Eder, “Reality in Japanese Folktales,” Asian Ethnography 28 (1969): 19. Also seeRobert J. Adams, “Folktale Telling and Storytellers in Japan,” Asian Ethnography 30 (1967):99–118.

[6] John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York:Pantheon Books, 1986).

[7] Klaus Antoni, “Momotaro (The Peach Boy) and the Sprit of Japan: Concerning the Functionof a Fairly Tale in Japanese Nationalism of the Early Showa Age,” Asian Folklore Studies 50(1991): 155–88.

[8] This article is inspired by and indebted to Shin Torigoe who collected and reviewed a varietyof Momotaro stories that existed in modern Japanese history. See his Momotaro No Unmei(Tokyo: NHK Books, 1983).

[9] For Yanagita’s contribution to political theory, see, for instance, Kazuko Tsurumi, “YanagitaKunio’s Work as a Model of Endogenous Development,” Japan Quarterly 22 (1975): 224–7.

[10] The term is adapted from Ronald Walter Greene, “Orator Communist,” Philosophy &Rhetoric 39 (2006): 85–95; and James Arnt Aune, Rhetoric & Marxism (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1994), 15–43.

[11] Robert James Branham, “Debate and Dissident in Late Tokugawa and Meiji Japan,”Argumentation and Advocacy 30 (1994): 131–49; Miyori Nakazawa, “A Rhetorical Analysisof the Japanese Student Movement: University of Tokyo Struggle 1968–69” (PhD diss.,Northwestern University, 1989).

[12] Hiroko Okuda, “Murayama’s Political Challenge to Japan’s Public Apology,” International &Intercultural Communication Annual 28 (2005): 14–42; Toshiyuki Sakuragi, “Doi Takako: AJapanese Player of the Western Game of Dialogue—Doi’s Speech of September 17, 1987,”Howard Journal of Communication 4 (1992): 105–17.

[13] Roichi Okabe, “Yukichi Fukuzawa: A Promulgator of Western Rhetoric in Japan,” QuarterlyJournal of Speech 59 (1973): 188–95.

[14] Takeshi Suzuki and Frans H. van Eemeren, “‘This Painful Chapter’: An Analysis of EmperorAkihito’s Apologia in the Context of Dutch Old Sores,” Argumentation and Advocacy 41(2000): 102–11.

[15] Satoshi Ishii, “Buddhist Preaching: The Persistent Main Undercurrent of JapaneseTraditional Rhetorical Communication,” Communication Quarterly 40 (1992): 391–97.

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[16] Yuko Kawai, “Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Intercultural Communication: A CriticalAnalysis of Japan’s Neoliberal Nationalism Discourse under Globalization,” Journal ofInternational and Intercultural Communication 2 (2009): 16–43.

[17] Patricia Steinhoff, “Protest and Democracy,” in Democracy in Japan, ed. Takeshi Ishida andEllis E. Krauss (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), 172; Also see David E.Apter and Nagayo Sawa, Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1984); Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, and Patricia G.Steinhoff, eds., Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984).

[18] Rikki Kersten and David Williams, eds., The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy:Essays in Honor of J. A. A. Stockwin (London: Rutledge, 2006); George R. Packard, III,Protest in Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966).

[19] John L. Morrison, ”The Absence of a Rhetorical Tradition in Japanese Culture,” WesternSpeech 36 (1976): 89–102.

[20] See, for example, Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites, Crafting Equality:America’s Anglo African World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Michael CalvinMcGee, “The Origin of ‘Liberty’: A Feminization of Power,” Communication Monographs 47(1980): 23–45; Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld, eds., Texts in Context: Critical Dialogueson Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric (New York: Routledge, 1995).

[21] Aune, Rhetoric & Marxism; Lee Artz, Steve Macek, and Dana L. Cloud, eds., Marxism andCommunication Studies: The Point is to Change it (New York: Peter Lang, 2006); Dana L.Cloud, “Fighting Words: Labor and the Limits of Communication at Staley, 1993 to 1996,”Management Communication Quarterly 18 (2005): 509–42; Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjaminor Toward a Revolutionary Criticism (London: Verso, 1981); Ronald Walter Greene,“Another Materialist Rhetoric,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 15 (1998): 21–41;Greene, “Orator Communist”; Richard W. Wilkie, “Karl Marx on Rhetoric,” Philosophy &Rhetoric 9 (1976): 232–46.

[22] Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 80.[23] Michael Calvin McGee, “The ‘Ideograph’: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology,” Quarterly

Journal of Speech 66 (1980): 14.[24] James Arnt Aune, “Culture of Discourse: Marxism and Rhetorical Theory,” in Argumenta-

tion Theory and the Rhetoric of Assent, ed. David Cratis Williams and Michael David Hazen(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990), 165. Also see Dana L. Cloud, “The Rhetoricof <Family Values>: Scapegoating, Utopia, and the Privatization of Social Responsibility,”Western Journal of Communication 62 (1997): 387–419.

[25] V. N. Volosinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Ladislave Matejka and I. R.Titunik (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 23.

[26] Unless otherwise specified, the historical synopsis of Japanese Marxism and the ProletarianLiterature Movement given in this article is based on the following: Hirotaka Koyama, NihonMarukusushugi Shi (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1956); Ken Hirano, Showa Bungaku Shi (Tokyo:Chikuma Shobo, 1963); Yukio Kurihara, Proletaria Bungaku To Sono Jidai (Tokyo:Heibonsha, 1971); Hiroaki Matsuzawa, Nihon Marukusushugi No Shiso (Tokyo: ChikumaShobo, 1973); Kazuo Nimura, “The Formation of Japanese Labor Movement: 1868–1914,” inThe Formation of Labour Movements 1870–1914: An International Perspective, Vol. II, ed. M.van der Linden and J. Rojahn (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), rpt., http://oohara.mt.tama.hosei.ac.jp/nk/English/eg-formation.html (accessed October 30, 2013); Hideo Odagiri, Shakaibun-gaku Shakaishugibungaku Kenkyu (Tokyo: Seisou Shobo, 1990).

[27] Evelyn S. Colbert, The Left Wing in Japanese Politics (New York: Institute of PacificRelations, 1952), 7.

[28] Ibid.[29] Kazuo Ohkouchi, Koutoku Shusui To Katayama Sen: Meiji No Shakai Shugi (Tokyo:

Koudansha, 1972).

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[30] Ibid., 172–79.[31] Akito Yamauchi, “The Early Comitern in Amsterdam, New York, and Mexico City,” The

Journal of History (Kyushu University) 147 (2010): 111–12.[32] Hyman Kublin, “The Origin of Japanese Socialist Tradition,” The Journal of Politics 14

(1952): 269.[33] Miriam Silverberg, Changing Song: The Marxist Manifestos of Nakano Shigeharu (Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 47–48.[34] Quoted in Christopher Goto-Jones, “The Left Hand of Darkness: Forging a Political Left in

Interwar Japan,” in The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (New York: Routledge,2006), 5.

[35] Ibid.[36] Vladimir I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/

download/what-itd.pdf (accessed August 30, 2013), 34.[37] Asao Yuichi, Proletaria Bungaku Undo: Sono Riso to Genjitsu (Tokyo: Banseisha, 1991), 10.[38] Hilary Chung and Tommy McClellan, “The ‘Command Enjoyment’ of Literature in China:

Conferences, Controls, and Excesses,” in In Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and LiteraryPractice in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and China, vol. 6 of Critical Studies, ed. HilaryChung (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 3.

[39] Quoted in Yuichi, Proletaria Bungaku, 10.[40] Martin Dewherst, “Socialist Realism and Soviet Censorship System,” in In Party Spirit:

Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China, vol. 6of Critical Studies, ed. Hilary Chung (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 24.

[41] Jerry Phillips, “Marxism and Utopia Socialism,” http://www.english.ilstu.edu/Strickland/495/utopia.html (accessed August 30, 2013).

[42] Burke, “Revolutionary Symbolism”; Also see Frank Lentricchia, Criticism and Social Change(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 28–29.

[43] Torigoe, Momotaro, 94.[44] For a picture book currently available in English, see Momoe Saito and Ralf F. McCarthy,

The Adventure of Momotaro, the Peach Boy, bilingual ed. (Tokyo: Kodansha International,1996). For Momotaro comics (in Japanese), see Makoto Niwano, Za Momotaro, vol. 2(Tokyo: Homusha, 2004).

[45] “Reading Japanese Folklore in English: Momoraro (The Peace Boy),” Karashidane’s Blog,March 14, 2011, http://blog.livedoor.jp/karashidane/archives/50832281.html (accessedNovember 30, 2013).

[46] Regarding the relationship between child innocentism and Marxism, see, for example,Takashi Kumagai, Bungaku kyouiku (Tokyo: Kokudosha, 1956), esp. Chapter 1.

[47] Kiyoshi Eguchi, “Aruhi No Onigashima, Jou,” Akaitori (October 1927): 48–53; “Aruhi NoOnigashima, Ge,” Akaitori (November 1927): 40–47.

[48] Eguchi, “Jou,” 51.[49] Eguchi, “Ge,” 47.[50] Ibid.[51] Terry Eagleton, Figures of Dissent: Critical Essays on Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others (London:

Verso, 2005), 87–88.[52] McGee, “Ideograph.”[53] Vladimir I. Lenin, “Preface,” in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), http://

www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/pref01.htm (accessed August 30, 2013).[54] Alvin W. Gouldner, The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and

Future of Ideology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 31 (my italics).[55] Mutsuo Honjo, “Oniseibatsu No Momotaro,” Shonen Senki (May 1931): 8–9.[56] Ibid., 8.

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[57] Typical of works published in this period, a word or two are made “blank” in a copy of theoriginal print obtained from the National Diet Library.

[58] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.[59] These correspond to three animals, i.e., a monkey, a dog, and a pheasant, that supported

Momotaro in the standard version. In Japanese, saru refers to monkey, inu dog, and kijipheasant.

[60] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.[61] Ibid.[62] Ibid.[63] Ibid.[64] Takiji Kobayashi was one of the most prominent and active members of the Proletariat

Literature Movement. He was arrested and tortured to death by the authorities in 1932.[65] Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, 19.[66] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.[67] For a comprehensive discussion on the issue of war-time ideological conversion, see Shugo

Honda, Tenko Bungaku Ron, 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1985).[68] McGee, “Ideograph,” 13.[69] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings, ed. David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-

Smith, trans. William Boelhower (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 189.[70] Lentricchia, Criticism, 37. For a more contemporary rhetorical (re)appropriation of Gramsci,

see Joseph P. Zompetti, “Toward a Gramscian Critical Rhetoric,” Western Journal ofCommunication 61 (1997): 66–86.

[71] Gaikotsu, Meiji Enzetsu Shi (Tokyo: Seikokan Shoten, 1929), front cover.[72] Eizo Kondo, Proletaria Yubengaku (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1930).[73] Kiyoshi Miki, “Kaishakugaku To Shujigaku,” in Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu 5 Kan (Tokyo: Iwanami

Shoten, 1967 [original published in 1937]), 139–58. For contemporary studies of Miki’srhetorical theory, see Mitsuhiro Hashimoto, “Miki Kiyoshi No Rhetoric To Communica-tion,” Hikaku Bunka Kenkyu 49 (2000): 61–68; Hideki Kakita, “Rhetorical Resistance inWartime Japan: Kiyoshi Miki’s Critical Praxis” (PhD diss, University of Iowa, 2003).

[74] Kimihiko Ohtsuru, “Demo Ni Koso Honshitsu Ga Aru,” Ohtsuru Kimihiko No Blog, July 27,2008, http://ootsuru.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/cat20507669/index.html (accessed August 30, 2013).

[75] Robert T. Oliver, Culture and Communication: The Problem of Penetrating National andCultural Boundaries (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1962), 155 (italics in original).

[76] Yamauchi, “The Early Comintern,” 112.

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