3. Persecuting Those Who Admitted That Japan Had Surrendered
Those who voiced doubts about how well the war was going for Japan were shunned, boycotted, and sometimes violently assailed. Shindo Renmei dismissed Japan’s surrender as “fake news” and American propaganda, and redoubled its efforts to punish those who said otherwise. According to Colonel Kikawa and his followers, Japanese immigrants were divided into two camps: good guys, and bad guys. There were the virtuous Kachigumi (“Victorious”), who knew that Japan had won the war. They were mostly the poor and poorly educated. Then there were the vile Makegumi (“Defeatists”), also pejoratively labeled “dirty hearts”, who bought the fake news about Japan’s defeat. The latter tended to be the better off and better educated immigrants. They had better access to information, and could differentiate between reliable and unreliable news. However, even those who did not believe Shindo Renmei were terrorized into toeing the group’s line, or at least into staying silent.
