The Rikkenminsei-tō Party: Ideological Positioning and Political Evolution in the Power Structure of the Japanese Empire 1927–1940

The Constitutional Democratic Party (Rikkenminsei-tō) was founded in Japan on June 1, 1927, after the collapse of the “Three Constitutional Defense Parties” (Goken sampa naikaku) government coalition, as a result of the merger of the ruling Constitutional Politics Association (Kensei-kai), which had lost its status, and the opposition Orthodox Constitutional Friends Party (Seiyūhon-tō). Under Japan’s new system of universal suffrage, the liberal centrist Rikkenminsei-tō received massive support in the election. However, it did not win a majority in the Diet, so it initially became the most powerful opposition party. In 1929, after a series of corruption scandals forced the resignation of the government of the Association of Friends of Constitutional Government (Rikkenseiyū-kai) party, which was supported by the Сourt, the top government bureaucracy and the military, the Rikkenminsei-tō party was able to form its own government and briefly became the ruling party. In November 1930 Hamaguchi Osachi, the head of the party’s Constitutional Democratic Cabinet, was seriously wounded in a terrorist attack and died the following year. His successor as the party and government leader, Wakatsuki Reijirō, was unable to bring to heel the high command of the armed forces and resigned from the government in December 1931 after the military operation to invade Manchuria, which he opposed. From then on Rikkenminsei-tō, which maintained the rating of the most popular party among the voters, remained the main opposition party until its forced liquidation in 1940. The method of problem-chronological analysis of factual material allows us to assert that the main reason why Rikkenminsei-tō obeyed the government’s order to liquidate itself was its electoral dependence on the “middle class”, which was not ready for uncompromising confrontation with the government. In addition, the former leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party received important government posts under the new conditions of the single-party political system, which satisfied their personal political ambitions.