Saitō Makoto

Who They Were

Saitō Makoto (斎藤実, さいとう まこと) was a Japanese admiral and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1932 to 1934. Born on 27 October 1858 in Mizusawa, he lived through the final years of the Edo period (1603–1868) and was born in Ansei 安政, year 4 of that era. His life spanned the transformation of Japan from a feudal state into an industrial empire, and his career tracked that change closely.

Saitō was a military man first. He served in the Imperial Japanese Navy and reached the rank of admiral. He fought in the First Sino-Japanese War and later held the position of Governor-General of Chōsen, the Japanese colonial administration in Korea. He died on 26 February 1936 in Yotsuya-ku, assassinated during the February 26 Incident.

Life and Career

Saitō began his naval career in the Imperial Japanese Navy, where he distinguished himself during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) while commanding two cruisers. His performance in that conflict earned him rapid promotion: he reached the rank of rear admiral by 1900. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he was promoted to vice admiral.

His political career began in earnest when he served as Minister of the Navy from 1906 to 1914. That eight-year tenure made him one of the most durable naval ministers of the era. After leaving that post, Saitō moved into colonial administration. He served as Governor-General of Korea from 1919 to 1927, and again from 1929 to 1931. His two terms in Korea made him a central figure in Japanese colonial governance.

In May 1932, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated. Saitō took his place, serving one term as prime minister from 1932 to 1934. His government came at a turbulent moment in Japanese politics, when civilian leadership was under repeated threat from military factions. Saitō returned to public service in February 1935 as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, a position close to the emperor. He held that post for barely a year.

On 26 February 1936, Saitō was killed during the February 26 Incident, an attempted coup by young army officers in Tokyo. He was assassinated in Yotsuya-ku. Along with Takahashi Korekiyo, another former prime minister killed in the same incident, Saitō was among the last former Japanese prime ministers to be assassinated until the killing of Shinzo Abe in 2022.

Why They Matter

Saitō matters for three distinct reasons. First, he was a rare figure who bridged the military and civilian branches of Japanese government. His career moved from active naval command to the navy ministry to colonial governance to the prime ministership, and finally to the imperial court. Few Japanese leaders of his generation held such a range of offices.

Second, his tenure as Governor-General of Korea shaped Japanese colonial policy during a critical period. His two terms, from 1919 to 1927 and 1929 to 1931, spanned the years after the March First Movement of 1919, when Korean resistance to Japanese rule intensified. Saitō's administration was part of Japan's response to that challenge.

Third, his assassination in the February 26 Incident marks a turning point. The coup attempt that killed him and Takahashi Korekiyo demonstrated how far military extremism had penetrated Japanese politics. Saitō's death, along with Inukai Tsuyoshi's assassination four years earlier, showed that no former prime minister was safe from political violence. The fact that no former prime minister was assassinated again until 2022 underscores how exceptional that period of violence was.

The Name in Japanese

The name is written 斎藤実 in Japanese.

• Kana reading: さいとう まこと
• Romaji: Saitō Makoto

The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese. The name breaks down character by character as follows:

• 斎 (さい, sai): This character means "purification" or "abstinence." In this name it carries the sense of a ritual cleansing or a disciplined, purified state. It is the first character of the family name.

• 藤 (とう, tō): This character means "wisteria." It is one of the most common characters in Japanese surnames, appearing in names like Satō, Itō, and Katō. It originally referred to the Fujiwara clan, whose name uses the same character.

• 実 (まこと, makoto): This character means "truth" or "reality." In this name it is read as まこと (makoto), which is also a common given name in its own right. The character can also be read as み (mi) or じつ (jitsu) in other contexts, but here it functions as the given name.

The full name, 斎藤実, thus combines the family name meaning roughly "purified wisteria" with a given name meaning "truth." The reading さいとう まこと is the standard pronunciation, with the family name receiving the long vowel sound indicated by the う in とう.

Legacy

Saitō's legacy is tied to the violent end of his life. The February 26 Incident of 1936 was a failed coup by young army officers who targeted senior statesmen they blamed for Japan's political and economic troubles. Saitō was one of their primary targets, along with Takahashi Korekiyo and others. His death at the hands of the rebels made him a symbol of the breakdown of civilian authority in pre-war Japan.

His earlier career left a more complex record. As a naval officer, he was part of the generation that built the Imperial Japanese Navy into a modern fighting force. As Minister of the Navy, he helped shape naval policy during the years leading up to the First World War. As Governor-General of Korea, he was a senior figure in Japan's colonial empire.

Saitō's political career ended with his assassination, but his life's arc — from Edo-period birth to naval command to colonial administration to the prime ministership — traces the path of Japan's rise as a modern power. His death in 1936, at the hands of officers who wanted to push Japan further down a militarist path, marks the point where that rise turned toward catastrophe.