ABSTRACT
In attempting to understand Japan's defeat and the occupation that followed, it is important to keep in mind just how horrific the war had been. By the time of the peace treaty, America had largely given up on promoting local government in Japan. The reason that America opposed the radicalization of the labor movement and ultimately intervened was that the movement had grown strong enough to threaten America's policies for the occupation, not because those policies had become reactionary. Yoshida Shigeru consistently pursued collaboration with Britain before the war and was strongly opposed to Japan joining the Axis. Yoshida was followed by two governments backed by a coalition between the Socialist Party, Democratic Party, and the National Cooperative Party. Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, famous for its proclamation of a coming Cold War, was given in March 1946. America also began pushing for Japan to rearm and moving toward the conclusion of a peace treaty.
