Nor was there much romanticism about Allied occupation authorities being required to implement democracy instantly in Germany, Italy and Japan. Fascist totalitarian parties were prohibited outright in all three states and war crimes trials punished Nazi and Japanese leaders followed by Denazification proceeding, however unevenly implemented, for smaller fry. American leaders excluded the Soviets completely from any meaningful role in Italy or Japan, hampering NKVD support for local Communist cadres and the US secretly funded broad, centrist democratic parties to strentghen the electoral alternative to Stalin’s robotic followers. In Japan, SCAP essentially rewrote Japan’s Constitution when the Japanese elite proved incapapable and implemented wide-ranging economic reforms to break up Zaibatsu cartels.

While not entirely ” fair ” to local Communists in the abstract sense, American policy makers realistically took into account that Stalin’s followers were not committed to building democracies but to undermining them. American occupation policies set limits upon local politics until, by 1955, democratic values were strong enough among German and Japanese voters to weather extremist challenges. Germany, Italy and Japan proved to be successful test cases in spreading democracy by bayonet primarily because the investment in resources and political will was equal to the challenge. As one participant in SCAP recently wrote about Iraq:

“In short, regime change, if it is to be more than a meaningless rallying cry, is an extremely complicated process and not for the faint-hearted. Even a domestically inspired revolution, which is a different kind of regime change, is not simple. Those who undertake it as foreign occupiers must be aware of unanticipated consequences, major gaps in knowledge and the likelihood that their efforts might end up being in vain, regardless of the high-minded aspirations with which they began. Moreover, changes in American and its coalition partners’ domestic politics and the international or regional environment can be expected to influence adversely initial expectations and goals. Caution is crucial.”

Spreading democracy is not only possible, it is from the example of Germany and Japan, highly desirable but the requirements to succeed are tough. Corners cannot be cut.

End Part I.

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