If one of the offspring of shattering defeat was the kyodatsu condition of exhaustion, and another a heartfelt hope for “peace” and “democracy,” a third was the notion of making revolution as Marxists had long spoken of it—from below with the guidance of an enlightened vanguard. This could be done, it was argued, without violence and bloodshed. The challenge was to turn the conqueror’s democratic revolution peacably into a socialist one.
