暗杀政府Government by Assassination by HUGH BYAS

暗杀政府

Government by Assassination

HUGH BYAS

日本的崛起是我们这个时代的重大事件之一。 如果没有日本，目前的战争将呈现出截然不同的面貌。 随着日本的加入，太平洋已成为海空战的战场，其速度之快、空间之大前所未有。 交通线是全球性的，战场是国家和海洋。 甚至在日本加倍承担联合国的任务之前，她就已经取得了令人瞩目的成就。 

1868 年，西方国家的报纸报道了日本 "大亨 "被推翻和迄今未曾料到的天皇复辟的消息。 51 年后的 1919 年，西方报纸宣布日本是国际联盟最初理事会的六个成员国之一。 不出半个世纪，一个自我封闭、鲜为人知的亚洲封建国家以惊人的适应能力实现了现代化，跻身于令人惊讶的大国之列。 在走向世界时，日本人抑制了他们的尚武倾向，以学生的角色出现。 从来没有任何一个国家的政府能够如此高效地将一个国家送入学校，并在那里陪伴着它。

 外国专家成百上千地涌入日本。 在美国和欧洲各国友好政府的协助下，他们一般都是经过精心挑选的。 他们是创造新日本的技术人员。 

英国人组织了海军。

 美国人创建了现代教育体系。 

法国人编纂了日本法律。 

德国人指导了整个高等医学教育。 

英国人改革了造币厂，为日本提供了统一的货币。

邮政、电报、军队、土地测量、卫生改革、监狱改革、棉纺厂和造纸厂、改进的采矿方法、港口工程、现代航运和航海--所有这些都是外国顾问的杰作。 

日本人将行政权保留在名义上的日本首领手中，但他们从不蔑视建议。 半个世纪以来，他们是亚洲最成功的学习者。 

19 世纪晚期，日本人从人道的隐居状态中走出来，躲过了欧洲早期扩张的锋芒，但他们精明地将自己的军国主义表现为对欧洲帝国主义的回应。 

美国 "亲善使团 "告诉我，日本已经建立了一支强大的军队和舰队，因为只有这样才能捍卫自己的独立，抵御欧洲的掠夺！ 没有一个欧洲国家觊觎日本的一码领土；除了贸易便利之外，没有一个欧洲国家向日本提出任何要求。 外贸、外国机器、外国工业造就了现代日本。 五十年间，日本的人口翻了一番，财富和实力也翻了一番还多。

一个新国家的出现无疑是一件大事。 那么，这个新国家又创造了什么呢？ 

在获得国际联盟理事会席位 20 年后，日本认为自己已经强大到足以向美国和大英帝国开战。 这一挑战的结果将以我们现在无法预见的方式改变日本的未来。 也许，具有讽刺意味的时代精神正在以梦幻般的规模重演青蛙想变成公牛的寓言。 也许，日本在如此短的时间内取得如此巨大成就的活力和教养，将战胜其军事统治者的错误，使她能够以更快乐的方式获得其雄心勃勃的人民所渴望的崇高地位。

古代日本的政治史记录的是家族纷争，就像风筝和乌鸦的争斗一样沉闷。 现代日本的历史仍有待书写。 迄今为止出现的历史都是青春期的记录。 它们是在日本以热心学生的恭敬和蔼态度面对西方时写成的。 当时，日本还没有表现出要以武力建立一个比现在更强大的帝国的野心，在这个帝国中，日本将成为 600 000 000 人和地球四分之一的霸主。 

失败可能会使日本沦为小国，被觉醒的中国这个庞然大物所控制，也可能会使她仍然是亚洲的一支强大力量。 无论如何，我们都应该了解我们的日本人。 我们不能再把他们视为远离我们事务的异国舞台上时而迷人、时而令人讨厌的古怪表演者。 

本书只是日本近代史的一个章节。 它试图描述日本人思想的某些方面，对于西方人来说，这些方面是难以理解的，甚至是难以相信的，也无法用他习惯使用的标准来解释。 

在禁酒令试验期间和之后，美国城市中出现了黑帮团伙，并如雨后春笋般发展壮大。 日本运动的理念与德国和意大利许多大喇叭所宣扬的理念相似。 然而，它们之间也存在着险恶的区别。 

日本的歹徒不是没有标准的外国人，也不是在一场可怕的战争之后从社会深处蛊惑人心的追随者。 

日本刺客是军官，而在日本，与其他地方一样，军官被认为也是绅士。 虽然构成日本运动所谓意识形态的情感和激情与纳粹和法西斯将其统治欲望合理化的情感和激情相似，但日本人是用古老的本土血统酿造他们的地狱之汤。 

当我描述的事件发生时，我是东京的一名住户，在此之前的许多年里，我也是如此。 我所使用的资料来源主要是我自己的档案，幸运的是，在战争爆发前不久，我通过诡计和一些朋友的帮助，弄到了这些档案。 这些档案不仅包括我自己的日常记录，还包括大量来自日本报纸、杂志和官方来源的当代证据。 在日常工作中，我不断与日本政府各部门接触，在 23 年的时间里，我认识了作为首相、外相、陆军大臣和海军大臣指挥国家命运的大多数人。 在漫长而愉快的和平岁月里，我和妻子结识了许多日本朋友，其中既有女性也有男性。

在我的叙述中，日本的年轻军官、荒谬的爱国者、不可思议的国家和天皇崇拜者在很大程度上对自己进行了心理分析。 他们用语言和行动表达了自己的想法。 帝国饭店大厅里的煽情流言和班轮吸烟室里的死亡传说从来都不是我的权威。 我相信，书中的所有陈述--除了那些观点--都是有据可查的；但由于这不是一部正式的历史，我避免了脚注，并在使用日语名称和术语时厉行节约，这些名称和术语由于不熟悉，对西方读者来说与其说是一种帮助，不如说是一种绊脚石。 

在撰写 "战后 "一节时，我有些疑虑。 在这个领域中，我看不清楚自己的方向，也看不到前方有多远。 我们能获得什么样的和平，将取决于我们能赢得什么样的胜利。 我们胜利的彻底性将是衡量日本战争领主失败的标准，它将比我们写入和平条约的任何内容都更为重要。 关于 "地域裁军 "的建议看似平淡无奇，但却直指问题的根本。 

然而，我在 "战后 "标题下所写的一切，只是对一个共同思想库的贡献，这个思想库还需要通过大量的研究来丰富。 

赫尔-比亚斯

The rise of Japan has been one of the major events of our age. Without Japan the present war would wear a very different aspect. With Japan’s entry into it the Pacific has become the theatre of sea-air warfare on a scale of speed and space never before known. The lines of communication are global; the battlefields are countries and oceans. Even before Japan doubled the task of the United Nations her achievement had been remarkable. In 1868 the newspapers of the West reported the overthrow of the “Tycoon” of Japan and the restoration of a hitherto unsuspected Emperor. Fifty-one years later, in 1919, they were announcing that Japan was one of the six powers included in the original Council of the League of Nations. In half a century, no more, an Asiatic feudal state, selfsecluded and hardly known, had modernized itself with astonishing adaptiveness and taken its seat among the somewhat surprised great powers. On their introduction to the world, the Japanese subdued their martial proclivities and appeared in the role of student. Never has any government sent a nation to school, and accompanied it there, with greater efficiency. Foreign experts were imported by the hundred. They were in general well chosen with the assistance of the friendly governments of the United States and European countries. They were the technicians who created new Japan. Englishmen organized the navy. Americans created a modern educational system. A Frenchman codified Japanese law. Germans directed the whole of the higher medical education. An Englishman reformed the mint and gave Japan a uniform currency. Posts, telegraphs, the army, the land survey, sanitary reform, prison reform, cotton and paper mills, improved mining methods harbor works, modern shipping and navigation—all were the creation of foreign advisers. The Japanese retained executive power in the hands of nominal Japanese chiefs, but they never disdained advice. For half a century they were the most successful learners in Asia. Emerging from their seclusion late in the humane nineteenth century, the Japanese escaped the rough edge of Europe’s early expansion, but they were shrewd enough to represent their militarism as a response to Europe’s imperialism. How often have I listened while American “goodwill missions” were told that Japan had built up a great army and fleet because only thus could she defend her independence against European rapacity! No European nation coveted a yard of Japanese territory; none asked anything of Japan except facilities for trade. Foreign trade, foreign machinery, foreign industry were the making of modern Japan. In fifty years it had doubled its population and far more than doubled its wealth and power. The appearance of a new nation is certainly an event of importance. And what has the new nation made of itself? Twenty years after acquiring a seat on the League Council, Japan conceived herself strong enough to make war on the United States and the British Empire. The outcome of that challenge will change Japan’s future in ways we cannot now foresee. It may be that the ironic time spirit is repeating on a fantastic scale the allegory of the frog who wanted to become a bull. It may be that the energy and teachableness that carried Japan so far in so short a time will overcome the errors of her military rulers and enable her to attain by happier ways the high position to which her ambitious people aspire.

The political history of ancient Japan is a record of clan strife as dreary as the battles of the kites and the crows. The history of modern Japan is still to be written. The histories that have hitherto appeared are records of adolescence. They were written while Japan faced the West with the respectful amiability of the eager student. Japan had not then displayed her ambition to found by force a greater empire than has yet existed, an empire in which the Japanese state would be overlord of 600,000,000 human beings and one fourth of the earth. Failure may doom Japan to a minor position, dominated by the gigantic bulk of awakened China, or it may leave her still a mighty force in Asia. In any case we should know our Japanese. We cannot again afford to regard them as quaint performers, sometimes charming and sometimes repulsive, on an exotic stage remote from our affairs. This book is only a chapter in the recent history of Japan. It is an attempt to describe some aspects of the Japanese mind which, to the Occidental, are difficult to understand—indeed, difficult to believe in, and impossible to explain by the standards he is accustomed to use. Parts of the record will recall the feuds and crimes of the bands of gangsters which arose in American cities and grew like mushrooms during and after the prohibition experiment. The ideas of the Japanese movement resemble those that have been proclaimed from so many megaphones in Germany and Italy. Yet there are sinister differences. The Japanese gangsters were not aliens without standards nor followers of demagogues thrown up from the depths of society in the convulsions that followed a terrible war. The Japanese assassins were officers, and in Japan, as elsewhere, an officer is presumed to be also a gentleman. And while the sentiments and passions that constitute the so-called ideology of the Japanese movement resemble those by which Nazis and Fascists have rationalized their lust for domination, the Japanese brewed their hell broth from ancient native stock. I was a householder in Tokyo when the events I describe occurred and for many years before. The sources used were chiefly my own files, which I fortunately got out by a ruse and the help of some friends shortly before the outbreak of war. These files included not only my own day-byday records but a mass of contemporary evidence from Japanese newspapers, magazines, and official sources. In the ordinary course of my duty I was in continuous contact with Japanese government departments, and in twentythree years I had come to know most of the men who, as Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, and Ministers of War and the Navy directed the destinies of the country. I have also been greatly indebted for such knowledge of the people as I may have gained to many Japanese friends, women as well as men, whom my wife and I got to know intimately in the long pleasant years of peace.

The young officers, the preposterous patriots, the incredible state- and emperor-worshippers of Japan have for the most part psychoanalyzed themselves in my narrative. They have spoken in word and action. The stirring gossip of the Imperial Hotel lobby and the deathless legends of the liner smoking-rooms have never been my authorities. I believe that all statements in the book—except those of opinion—are capable of proof; but as it is not a formal history I have eschewed footnotes and exercised economy in the use of Japanese names and terms which, because of their unfamiliarity, are more of a stumbling-block than a help to Western readers. The section headed “Post-war” was written with some misgiving. The field is one in which I do not see my way clearly or very far ahead. The kind of peace we get will depend on the kind of victory we win. The completeness of our victory will be the measure of the Japanese war lords’ failure and it will be more important than anything we write into a peace treaty. The suggestions for “geographical disarmament” may seem tame, but they go to the root of the matter. All that I have written under the heading “Post-war,” however, is simply a contribution to a common pool of ideas that still needs to be enriched by much study. HUGH BYAS