"The Industrial Association for Returnees in Post-War Japan"(in Japanese)

In Japan during the post-war reconstruction period, various economic entities adjusted to the new socio-economic system in order to attain their objectives. Among these enterprises was the Industrial Association for Returnees. A literature survey has thus failed to reveal any prior research on the Industrial Association for Returnees, but has turned up a handful of works on returnees in general. Previous research on returnees has focused on the process of their return to Japan, while how they were re-integrated as active members of society after their return has been assumed to be "problem free". Due to their experience of having lived and worked overseas in the prewar Empire, the returnees constituted a very different social group form those who had stayed within the home islands. This naturally begs the question, was such a distinct social group such as the returnees integrated into the postwar society without any difficulties? This paper deals with the Industrial Association for Returnees as one of part of a larger effort to analyze the re-integration of returnees into domestic post-war Japanese society, activities and perceptions. The Industrial Association for Returnees represented a group of companies which had a very different management base than domestic or home islands-based companies in that they had been active overseas, and had lost most of their assets at the end of the war. The organization stressed that by using overseas assets as war reparation payments, the government was unfairly burdening their member firms with the price for war, while protecting domestic firms. The association demanded that the government provide rehabilitation support based on the calculated compensation. However the organization ultimately had no choice but to accept the government position. The government, which recognized informally that the distribution of the price of war compensation was unequal, publicly adhered to the position outlined by the GHQ that due to shortage of resources, no relief measures for the returnees enterprises could be implemented. In other words, individual returnee enterprises did not receive public recognition that they were unfairly burdened with war compensation in comparison with domestic firms. It was precisely because the Industrial Association for Returnees abandoned the position that they were different from domestic firms that they were able to restart business operations.