Shinzo Koizumi: As a Teacher to the Emperor, As a Liberal

At Keio University, Shinzo Koizumi is as well-known as Yukichi Fukuzawa.

However, telling the story of Koizumi's life is not easy. Under the wartime regime, President Koizumi actively supported the war, boosted morale, and sent Keio students to the battlefield. As an anti-Marxist economist, Koizumi made many Marxists his enemies and engaged in fierce debates. After the war, believing that Japan should remain in the liberal camp, he advocated for a separate peace treaty, clashing with neutralists and those who insisted on a comprehensive peace treaty. While he possessed popularity, character, and scholarship, and had many allies, he also had many enemies.

I wanted to depict Koizumi as objectively and neutrally as possible, and to do so within the Heisei era. This is because Koizumi was the person responsible for the education of the Emperor in his youth—the man who shaped the Heisei era. What kind of youth did Koizumi lead, how did he become an economist and then President, and with what ideals and thoughts did he educate the Emperor during his time as Crown Prince? How did his post-war activities and ideals connect to the bellicose Koizumi of that war?

The keynote I have set for this book is the "moral backbone" that appears in the essay "Reflection" published by Koizumi after the war. Koizumi thought: what once supported the rise of the Meiji era were the samurai who possessed a "moral backbone." They received almost no university education, yet they won the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. In the last great war, after the generation that received university education became leaders, good books became widespread, and universal suffrage was implemented, they committed unprecedentedly foolish acts. Why? Was it not because the Japanese people had lost their "moral backbone"?

While expressing a "reflection" that contained much self-reproach, Koizumi proceeded to give lectures to Emperor Showa and undertake the education of the Crown Prince. Sometimes learning from the convictions of King George V of the UK, speaking of the imperial virtues of Emperor Showa, and learning from the works of Fukuzawa, he continued to instill a "moral backbone" in the next generation's Emperor. Responding to this, the Crown Prince also came to say that he wanted to become a person with a "moral backbone."

In the figure of the Heisei Emperor, who stood by disaster victims, consoled the souls of the war dead, and dedicated himself to ritual ceremonies, I see Koizumi's legacy. I hope that readers will also enjoy this journey through this book to trace the origins of the Heisei era.

Shinzo Koizumi: As a Teacher to the Emperor, As a Liberal

Masamichi Ogawara (Author)

Chuko Shinsho

224 pages, 780 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.