Prince Konoe was a member of one of the most ancient Japanese families, the Fujiwara, closely related to the Emperor. As such he held many important posts and was one of the Japanese diplomats who made the “Racial Equality Proposal” to the League of Nations at the Paris

Conference in 1919 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Equality_Proposal ). The proposal was rejected primarily because of strong opposition by US President Wilson.
Konoe was prime mister three times. During his first prime ministership Konoe supported Japan’s expansion in China but was completely opposed

to going to war with the United States. Therefore Konoe was in favour of accepting the Hull memorandum, which required a total Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina.

Konoe’s inability to control the military forced his resignation. He was completely dejected by the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and there is a famous photograph showing him after immediately after receiving the news of the “success”.

But the reason for this thread is the Konoe memorial, which seems little known, and which he submitted to the Emperor on February 14 1945. It presents a strange conspiratorial view of how the disaster came about. Konoe’s view (that Japanese militarists were actually communists

and the war with the US was intended to bring about a communist revolution) was actually not isolated (it was shared by some in a part of Japanese business circles ) and shows another aspect, which is often ignored, of the Japan’s decision to surrender