ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider the responses to the Manchurian crisis of public figures outside the government and Diet – that is, the scholars, journalists and others who made public statements about events in Manchuria, Shanghai and Geneva – and dissident political activists of both the left and the right. While the opinions of radicals from either end of the political spectrum did not normally reach wide audiences, both groups had an unusual opportunity to present their views in the early 1930s, through major public trials of Communists in 1931-32 and of right-wing terrorists in 1933-34. The views of more moderate public intellectuals, on the other hand, were aired frequently in the newspapers and serious magazines, where they had considerable potential to help shape public opinion about the Manchurian crisis.
