Fighting Fascism with ‘Verbal Bullets’: Kaji Wataru and the Antifascist Struggle in Wartime East Asia

Abstract

This article examines the cultural production of Kaji Wataru, founder of the Zaika Nihonjinmin hansen dōmei [Japanese People’s Antiwar League in China] to illuminate what strategies Kaji used to train prisoners-of-war and to convert Japanese soldiers as a way to counter fascism during the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Scholars have tended to focus on unravelling the history surrounding Kaji Wataru and the Antiwar League. In doing so, they have often overlooked the constructive role his cultural works played in that history and in his antiwar thought. The author aims to show how Kaji’s reportage works, and plays, were the very media he used to develop and execute his antifascist visions and activities. The focus is on three reportage works and one play that best reflect Kaji’s antifascist strategies. Analyzing the texts, the author highlights descriptions dealing with the organization and activities of the Antiwar League as well as the cooperation with the Chinese resistance as part of the popular front in East Asia.