And the samurai flew to the ground: What the Yakuza were doing in Fukushima
Philippe Pelletier, a professor at the University of Lyon who has lived in Japan for eight years, asks in his book about the origins, methods and value system of the Yakuza: how do outstanding achievements of technological progress and an archaic mafia structure coexist in Japanese society, which still retains its influence despite all government efforts (including the one adopted in 1991 the Law against Organized Crime). Critic Lidia Maslova presents the book of the week, especially for Izvestia.
Philippe Pelletier
"The Yakuza Empire: Organized Crime and Nationalism in Japan"
M.: Alpina nonfiction, 2026. — translated from French — 328 p.
An anarchist and libertarian, Pelletier generally does not seem inclined to exaggerate the state's capabilities in terms of combating organized crime, and this applies not only to Japan or Italy with its legendary Cosa Nostra, but to quite a few countries where "voters often do not hesitate to vote for politicians known for their corruption or even prosecuted". In this situation, Pelletier suggests not seeing anything out of the ordinary in the Yakuza and its analogues and asking the question differently: "... isn't strict Scandinavia a global exception against the background of countries where mafia structures are actually in power?"
In the widespread fusion of crime with state power, Pelletier tries to discern an internal pattern, historical, socio-cultural and mental, which explains and removes the apparent contradiction between the peak of technological development achieved in Japan and the prosperity of such an ancient structure as the Yakuza. In the end, the author of the book goes on to general reflections on the effectiveness of the state as such, about its "vulnerability to the challenge from its opposite — anti-state, or anarchy," and finally offers an extremely simple but convincing explanation of the phenomenon of Yakuza survivability. According to Pelletier, it "lies in the obvious fact that many people still benefit from it personally."
A useful methodological tool for the French researcher is the "ivy theory" formulated by his Italian colleagues. They figuratively compare the modern mafia, which is rooted to their state, with ivy twining around a tree in a mutually beneficial symbiosis: "... ivy destroys a tree only in cases when it is not resilient enough. The criminal world needs the state as a support, while it serves the state to do dirty work or manage a part of society that does not want to obey it." The Ivy theory, Pelletier notes, is good because it goes beyond the Marxist or liberal philosophy of history with its linear teleological view, limited by the concepts of archaic, modern and postmodern, and therefore allows us to talk about the Yakuza not as a relic of the post-feudal tradition, but as a completely viable and even necessary part of the state.
The historical and sociological analysis of the Yakuza undertaken in the book, starting with its origin among the lumpen proletariat and the "Burakumin" caste, who were engaged in the most despicable types of work, leads the author to the conclusion that "Japan, like Italy, gave rise to modern organized crime, well structured and engaged in specific political and economic functions, precisely at the time formation of national unity". For clarity, Pelletier imaginatively depicts the structure of Japanese society in the form of a diamond, with the emperor (tenno) at the top as a symbol of maximum purity, and at the bottom are the outcast burakumins, representing maximum filth: "To the right of the center are representatives of the Kabuki folk theater, to the left are people from the world of prostitution. From kabuki to the world of prostitution, a rounded line can be drawn that captures the masses and the lumpen proletariat, to which can be added the Koreans living in Japan (Zainichi). This semicircle corresponds to the Yakuza world."
As a result, a very harmonious and stable picture emerges in which the two poles — the emperor and the lumpen proletariat - are not opposed, but are reflected in each other: "Tenno is inseparable from the Yakuza, who, performing "menial work", that is, orders from the authorities that go beyond the law, and thus represent a dark the pole justifies the symbolic existence of the pole of light. Simply put, the tenno represents order, the Yakuza represents disorder, but they cannot exist without each other." Is it any wonder that the Japanese mafia is as immortal as the Italian mafia?
In addition, one cannot discount the long tradition of mythology and romanticization of representatives of the Japanese criminal world: "... in modern films and manga, the trend is becoming more and more stable, within which a romanticized image of these descendants of samurai is being created — aggressive, harsh, anxious, but ultimately "chivalrous" and almost virtuous.". Reflecting on the process of adapting samurai values to Yakuza values, Pelletier, however, warns that one should not delude oneself: "With the disappearance of samurai as a class, along with their hereditary status, a special legal system, a bunch of hair on the back of the head and a sword, we are talking about something fundamentally different."
The attitude towards the Yakuza in Japan is the result of systematic and purposeful indoctrination, according to Pelletier. The government and its agents, such as the ultranationalist Genesya organization founded in 1881, described in detail in the book, were extremely interested in making society believe "in the real continuity between the samurai of yesterday and the Yakuza of today. The clever trick played by the samurai from Genyosha clearly exposed their true class choice. They sought to tame and organize the lumpen proletariat, promoting the values of the samurai class, formulated in the Bushido code. The goal was not to elevate these social lower classes, but to make them believe in their involvement in the great past... <...> In fact, contrary to the impression created, there was no genuine connection between immigrants from the lumpen proletariat and noble otokodate samurai origin."
Reactor building of the 3rd power unit of the Fukushima-1 NPP
Having got rid of the idea of linear social progress, which was not close to him from the very beginning, Pelletier courageously states in the final chapter that times are changing, but social problems remain the same. As a relatively recent example confirming the influence of the criminal world on the key sector of the modern capitalist economy — nuclear energy — the author of the book recalls the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011. He quotes journalist and Yakuza expert Suzuki Tomohiko, who then got a job at a decontamination company and discovered that "the Yakuza's connection to the nuclear industry in the 21st century mirrors their ties to coal mines at the end of the 19th century." The underworld isn't going anywhere, Pelletier sums up, because there's always someone to do the dirty work.
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