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were influenced by its teachings.^[1] The concept that worthwhile modern literature must be concerned with the harsh realities of working-class life was widely held for many years.

As in the case of the Naturalist writers, the prestige of the Proletarians served to provoke a reaction on the part of several young writers who set out to reaffirm the primacy of literary values.^[2] Many of the important men who started to write in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods were consciously rebelling against the influence of the ‘committed’ left-wing authors. As a rule their work has survived far better than that of the Proletarians, which by its very nature was bound to become hopelessly dated.

The militarist period, inaugurated by the Manchurian Incident in 1931, saw the progressive suppression of thought and speech as the government regimented the country in the cause of right-wing nationalism and aggressive expansionism. During the 1930’s a thoroughgoing police state grew up. Democracy and liberalism were rejected as foreign creeds unsuited to Japanese conditions, individualism was attacked as a manifestation of ‘egoism’ and all unorthodoxy was burked as constituting ‘dangerous thoughts’. Left-wing writers were harshly persecuted and those with liberal views frequently preferred to remain silent rather than to speak out their beliefs in the atmosphere of intolerance and jingoism that prevailed. It is pleasing to record that only a small number of reputable writers lent their talents to assisting the government in its propaganda efforts. Fanatic nationalism reached its height during the four years of the Pacific War. Thought control became more thorough than ever and this, combined with a severe paper shortage, resulted in a tragic blank so far as real literature was concerned.

Japan’s defeat in 1945 led to Allied Occupation and to the loss of national independence for the first time in the country’s