Suffrage, labour and the Peace Preservation Law

What the specification asks for

“Political conflicts, including the struggle over universal suffrage, an emerging labour movement and the Public Security Preservation Law (1925).” — examined through change and continuity. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

Pressure from below

The franchise had been extended in stages from the one per cent of 1890, but by the 1920s the tax qualification still excluded most adult men. Campaigns for universal male suffrage grew through the decade, supported by parties seeking new voters and by a labour movement developing rapidly in the industrial cities.

Industrial growth during the First World War, when Japanese manufacturers filled markets the European belligerents had abandoned, produced a larger working class and then a sharp post-war contraction. Union membership rose, strikes increased, and tenant disputes multiplied in the countryside. The rice riots of 1918, provoked by a sharp rise in the price of rice, spread across much of the country and brought down a government.

Socialist and communist ideas circulated in this environment, and the Russian revolution of 1917 gave the authorities a specific fear. Japan had sent forces to Siberia in the intervention against the Bolsheviks, and the government treated organised radicalism as a threat to the constitutional order rather than as ordinary politics.

1925: two laws in one year

In 1925 the Diet passed universal male suffrage, extending the vote to men over twenty-five without a tax qualification and increasing the electorate several times over. In the same session it passed the Peace Preservation Law, which made it a criminal offence to form or join an organisation aiming to alter the national polity — the position of the Emperor and the constitutional order — or to abolish private property.

The pairing was deliberate. Enfranchising millions of new voters was accepted by conservatives on the understanding that the state would simultaneously acquire the means to suppress the political movements those voters might support. The two measures are one bargain and should be taught as such.

The law's effects grew. It was amended in 1928 to allow the death penalty for leaders, a special higher police was expanded to enforce it, and it was used first against communists and then against a widening range of opinion. The practice of tenko — the recantation of communist belief, often under pressure of imprisonment, and its public announcement — belongs to this system and connects this key topic to the next.

What the pairing tells you

This is the strand's central analytical point and it is one a candidate can state in a sentence. Japan democratised its franchise and criminalised political dissent in the same year, which shows that the extension of the vote was not accompanied by an extension of political liberty.

It also explains why the collapse of the 1930s was so rapid. A political system in which the state already possessed a law criminalising organised opposition to the existing order did not need to build the apparatus of repression when the crisis came; it had one, together with the police to run it.

For the wider option the year 1925 is the best evidence that Taisho democracy was a practice rather than a right. A parliament that grants the vote to every adult male and, in the same sitting, makes it an offence to campaign for a different constitutional order has told you exactly how much of the system was open to change.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1918

The rice riots spread across the country and bring down a government. Why this date: It shows the political weight of urban and rural discontent and precedes the suffrage campaign's success.

1925

Universal male suffrage and the Peace Preservation Law are passed in the same year. Why this date: Enfranchisement and criminalised dissent arrive together, which is the single most quotable fact on this key topic.

1928

The Peace Preservation Law is amended to allow the death penalty for leaders. Why this date: It shows the repressive half of the 1925 bargain expanding while the electoral half stood still.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• Several times over — The increase in the electorate produced by universal male suffrage in 1925. (Exact figures depend on the census year used; women remained excluded entirely.)
• 1925 — The year in which both the suffrage law and the Peace Preservation Law were passed.
• Men over twenty-five — The extent of the franchise after 1925; women did not receive the vote before 1945.

The people to place

• Kato Takaaki — Prime Minister whose government carried both the suffrage law and the Peace Preservation Law in 1925.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'one bargain' reading: The two laws of 1925 were a single transaction: conservatives accepted a mass electorate on condition that the state acquired the power to criminalise the movements that electorate might produce. Contested by The reading that the suffrage law was a genuine achievement of the parties and the Peace Preservation Law a separate response to a real fear of communist subversion after 1917, so treating them as one bargain is tidier than the politics was..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The 1925 suffrage law made Japan a democracy.

This: It enfranchised men over twenty-five, excluded women entirely, and was passed alongside a law criminalising organisations aiming to change the constitutional order.

Not this: The Peace Preservation Law was aimed only at communists.

This: It was used first against communists and then against a widening range of opinion, and it was strengthened in 1928 to allow the death penalty for leaders.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Extending the franchise and extending political liberty.

The distinction: More people could vote after 1925 and fewer things could lawfully be advocated. The two moved in opposite directions, which is why the year is worth learning as a pair.

Blurred: The Peace Preservation Law and ordinary public order legislation.

The distinction: It criminalised the aims of an organisation rather than its acts, which is what made it usable against opinion. That is a different kind of law from one against riot or violence.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer treats 1925 as one decision rather than two. A Diet that gave every adult man the vote and in the same session made it a crime to organise for a different constitutional order was not hesitating between liberty and control; it was pricing the first in terms of the second, and the receipt is the reason Taisho democracy was so easy to remove.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: The two 1925 laws named together in one sentence. It is precise, memorable and does the analytical work by itself.

The cap that bites here: The 8-mark question is held at 4 marks if only one cause is explained.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which Japanese politics in 1925 was different from Japanese politics in 1890. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the passing of universal male suffrage in 1925. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO causes of the Peace Preservation Law of 1925. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the year 1925 in the political history of Japan, in the years 1889–1945? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How far had political liberty increased in Japan, in the years 1889–1931? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 3: War with China and Russia, Korea, and Versailles
• Next lesson: The Kanto earthquake and the impact of the Depression
• Key topic 4 · Political and economic challenges, 1919–31 · Japan in transformation, 1853–1945 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of Japan in transformation: Japan opening up to China and the West, 1853–67 · Transformation, 1867–1895 · An emerging power, 1895–1919 · Depression, empire and collapse, 1931–45