Main Body
The Collapse of the Kawai Faction; the War Economy Study Group
In which the author describes personnel issues within the Faculty of Economics, notably Dean Kawai Eijirō’s failed attempt to promote three disciples (after the war, one of the three became Tōdai president). This event led to a realignment of factions within the Faculty, Kawai’s resignation as dean, and the election of Hijikata Seibi as his successor. The net result within the Faculty of Economics was cooperation with the increasing militarization of the Japanese economy and society. The chapter concludes with a look back at the February 26, 1936 revolt and the strikingly different reactions of Kawai and Hijikata.[1]
At the root of the factional fighting in the Faculty of Economics lay personal relations, struggles for promotion, and ideological confrontation, and these factors intertwined in complicated ways. There were also changes in the makeup of the factions. So that makes a consistent exposition quite difficult. Examining the documents and records, you often find completely different stories depending on who’s doing the telling…
As of 1931, there were thirteen slots for in the Faculty of Economics. There were thirteen professors, and twelve of them were in their forties. Normally, there were a few open slots, and the age spread was wider. If no one resigned or died, there could be no promotion from within unless the number of slots increased. If professors didn’t leave or die, assistant professors basically couldn’t hope to be promoted. If assistant professors didn’t move up, instructors too would be frozen in place. In fact, in the seven years from 1932 to 1939, when the Hiraga Purge was carried out, there were no changes at either professor or assistant-professor level. So there came to be permanent assistant professors, permanent instructors. According to the Centennial History, this stagnation in personnel was the primary root of the factional fighting.
Among the Unemployed, a Future Tōdai President
Thanks to this freeze in personnel, a man who became an instructor was unable to become even a permanent instructor (there was such a category). Such was the case of Ōkōchi Kazuo, eighteenth president of Tōdai: “My term as instructor ended, but even then I couldn’t get hired as assistant professor.… Among the professors in the Faculty of Economics, the factional fighting on personnel issues was fierce, so for example, even if my mentor, Kawai, recommended me for promotion to assistant professor, if other professors who opposed Kawai’s recommendations in personnel matters got together and opposed his recommendation, at that moment I’d have no job or have to seek a job at another university: it was one or the other. Of course, even I didn’t know whether Kawai had recommended me or not, nor had I asked; to speak in terms of results, I didn’t become an assistant professor. So each month I received a research grant from a university fund and beginning in the spring of 1932 b