Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Hirohito - Emperor of WW2 Japan Documentary" video.

  1. I still get the sense that Hirohito orchestrated and organized a totalitarian militaristic state, along the lines of Bushidoism, and got away with the after effects of defeat and national disgrace. At the very least he should have been required to abdicate to his younger son (now Emperor Naruhito). Partly, this was at the connivance of that egregious idiot, Douglas McArthur and his hand-picked SCAP staffers, to ease the transition of a foreign constitution onto Japan. I have no doubt that Hirohito was in control of the national and military situation, at most times when Japan was at war (officially and unofficially) and that the cabal of naval and army officers, who met with the Emperor (often informally), got their marching orders from Hirohito. The nonsense about him being a passive observer being bullied into decisions by forceful & charismatic officers is just a smokescreen. Hirohito was in uniform for most of WW2, and was very firm in his intensions and orders and determined and interested in the progress of the war; this flies in the face of passivity. That the army and navy were mostly at loggerheads throughout the war, was not an intended instrument of Hirohito, but instead of the intense rivalry for the attention of the Emperor. Again, Hirohito was active in the matter of national polity and wartime strategy, as a king would. Very lucky to literally keep his head (unlike Charles I for less) after those multiple genocidal events across Asia (adding very much to the burden of crimes against humanity by the Axis powers) and totalitarian control and defeat in the heavily bombed homeland.
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