This is a continuation of an essential essay by Terumasa Nakanishi, published in Seiron.
It reexamines the activities of Soviet agent Hotsumi Ozaki, revealing that his true role extended far beyond espionage to include manipulation of public opinion and covert interference in policymaking, deliberately steering Japan toward prolonged war and revolutionary collapse.
A crucial historical study for readers worldwide.

This is a continuation from a genuine and authentic scholarly work that is essential reading for the Japanese people living in the twenty-first century and for people throughout the world.
2016-11-09.
What follows is a continuation of a truly authentic essay by Terumasa Nakanishi, Emeritus Professor of Kyoto University, published in the December issue of Seiron.
All emphasis within the text, except for headings, is mine.

Not Merely an Intelligence Spy.

Communism as an ideology had, of course, already penetrated Japan earlier than it did China.
The aforementioned Li Dazhao studied in Japan at Waseda University from 1913 onward, during which time he absorbed socialist thought.
At that time, most socialist and communist theoretical works read by Chinese intellectuals were imported from Europe into Japan, translated into Japanese, and then further translated into Chinese.
The most extreme example of the communist threat that penetrated Japan was Hotsumi Ozaki, a central member of the Soviet spy ring led by Richard Sorge and at the same time a key adviser to the Konoe Cabinet.
Ozaki was arrested in October 1941 for leaking Japan’s military and diplomatic secrets to the Soviet Union through Sorge and his group, and in 1944 he was executed together with Sorge.
Among the information conveyed to the Soviet Union through Sorge, the most important was said to be that in the summer of 1941 Japan chose a southern advance, prepared for conflict with Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands, rather than a northern advance against the Soviet Union.
Although some recent theories claim that Stalin had obtained this information elsewhere and did not place great weight on Sorge’s reports, it is nevertheless certain that the Soviet Union was thereby able to redeploy its Far Eastern forces to the war against Germany, significantly affecting the course of that conflict.
However, Ozaki’s acts of national treason against Japan as a communist extended far beyond the mere leakage of secrets.
Indeed, such espionage was only secondary in terms of his historical role.
By exploiting his position as a former Asahi Shimbun journalist and a well-known China expert, he engaged in opinion-shaping activities and secretly influenced policymaking within the core of the Konoe Cabinet, deliberately steering national policy toward the expansion and quagmire of the Sino-Japanese War, and ultimately toward the Japan-U.S. War and defeat, paving the way for a communist revolution in Japan.
In the critical phases of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937–1938, Ozaki’s intentional promotion of escalation and entanglement has only recently become clear through mounting evidence.
His objectives included exhausting both Japan and China, rescuing the Chinese Communist Party, which had been driven to the brink of annihilation by the Nationalist Party’s anti-communist campaign, and bringing about the redization of both countries.
From a military-strategic perspective, another key mission was to defend the Soviet Union by keeping the Japanese Army tied down within China.
To be continued.