Drawing on decisive evidence highlighted by Terumasa Nakanishi, this essay reveals how Hotsumi Ozaki sought to drive Japan southward into war with the United States and Britain, aiming ultimately at world revolution.
Ozaki’s own words in The Sorge Incident Vol. 2 expose a dimension long neglected by postwar historiography.

Even regarding the operations he carried out for that purpose, Ozaki speaks in the same work as if boasting of his own achievements.
2016-11-09.

When I remarked that the essay by Terumasa Nakanishi, Emeritus Professor of Kyoto University, was worth a subscription fee of one hundred thousand yen, the following chapter fully proves the correctness of my assessment.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
All emphasis in the text, except for headings, and the passages marked with asterisks are mine.

Ozaki’s Activities Aimed at “World War = World Revolution”.

The target of Ozaki’s policy-guiding operations was not limited to the China Incident.
When one rereads with an open and unbiased mind The Sorge Incident (Vol. 2), part of the Misuzu Shobo Modern History Materials series, which compiles vast documentation including Ozaki’s own post-arrest memoirs and interrogation records, it becomes clear in his own words what the ultimate goal of his operations was.
It was to drive Japan southward into war with the United States and Britain, to realize a global war in conjunction with the European front, to communize Japan through war, and ultimately to communize the entire world.
Even regarding the operations he undertook to that end, Ozaki speaks in the same work as if proudly displaying his accomplishments.

It is said that a certain Yokoyama of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, who repeatedly visited the United Nations to promote the absurd claim of “sexual slavery,” also boasted in an interview that establishing this term worldwide was his own achievement.
Those who engage in operations of this sort invariably speak proudly of their results.

If one confronts these materials without prejudice, it becomes evident that from the China Incident to the outbreak of war with the United States and Britain, Japan proceeded precisely along the path Ozaki had envisioned.
This realization is chilling even now.

The Sorge Incident (Vol. 2) was published in 1962, and more than half a century has passed since then.
Yet there remains no academic analysis that squarely addresses Ozaki’s operations as part of the background to the Japan–U.S. war.
I consider this as well to be an example of the “concealment of history” by the postwar left or by adherents of the Tokyo Trial view of history who have dominated academia.
In other words, those who after the war styled themselves as the “peace camp,” along with their predecessors among Marxists or so-called progressive liberals, have participated in sealing away their own, or their mentors’, misconduct under the claim that they were the ones who promoted militarism and drove Japan into war.

There is indeed an aspect of that war which can be described as “a war brought about by the left,” and further detailed verification from this perspective is required.
Of course, the Greater East Asia War did not begin solely because of Ozaki’s operations.
But why have postwar Japanese historians been able to ignore Ozaki’s actions to such an extent.
Postwar historiography has not even taken them up as one of the causes of the outbreak of war with the United States, let alone examined how much influence they exerted on the decision for war.
This can only be described as evidence that modern Japanese historical studies have turned their backs on empirical inquiry and have been mired in partisan consciousness and taboos rooted in communist or pro-communist sympathies.
To be continued.