Chapter 3

The Party, Yamakawaism, and Dissolution, 1922-1924

The labor movement continued to be the main arena for the struggles between the anarcho-syndicalists, communists, and social democrats, though often it was difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between their positions. On some issues, the anarcho-syndicalists and the communists made common cause; on others, the communists and the social democrats stood together. The anarcho-syndicalists and most of the communists opposed universal suffrage and parliamentarianism, but they fought bitterly over organizational issues. The anarcho-syndicalists continued to insist upon decentralization and local autonomy for unions, whereas the communists, who were in substantial agreement with the social democrats, argued that without centralization and strong leadership the unions could not mobilize sufficient power to struggle against capitalism.

Though the left-wing groups vehemently attacked each other, constantly repeating the same charges, one thing was clear: radicalism was gaining momentum. Labor disputes and strikes became increasingly violent in 1921 and 1922, as it became apparent that Japan’s capitalists would not make concessions on major issues like the recognition of unions and the institution of collective bargaining. A particularly dramatic example was when some 35,000 striking workers, spurred on by Yuaikai leaders, tried to seize control of the Kawasaki Dockyards and Mitsubishi Shipyards at Kobe on July 12,1921. They were stopped when the governor called for an army battalion to suppress them, but another major clash followed on July 29, this time between the police and the workers. On this occasion, some 200 labor leaders, including Kagawa Toyohiko, were arrested. By August 9, the strike was crushed. Other strikes and efforts to utilize direct action also ended in failure.

The growing radicalism was also reflected in Yuaikai and its successor, Sodomei, where the moderates were able to maintain control for a while, but were ultimately swept along with the tide. At Yuaikai’s convention in the autumn of 1921, the moderates were able to defeat two anarcho-syndicalist resolutions—one rejecting collective bargaining as a compromise with capitalism, and the other opposing universal suffrage and urging adoption of the general strike as the basic union tactic. Soon after, however, they were forced to give way. A meeting of the Kansai League of Sodomei early in April 1922 passed resolutions opposing universal suffrage and legal status for labor unions, and supporting the use of sabotage in labor disputes. The general convention of the Kan to League of Sodomei in July took a similar stand, approving, in addition, the utilization of the general strike. Finally, in August, the central committee of Sodomei adopted the position that the working class and the capitalist class could not coexist and that labor should fight the oppressive persecution of the capitalist class to the end. Quite clearly, Sodomei was moving toward a commitment to the strategy and tactics of revolution.

The organizational issue came to a head during the summer and early autumn of 1922, when labor leaders, despite their differences, agreed once again on a need to unify the labor movement in order to stand firm against capitalism. Sodomei took the lead in negotiating with other unions to organize a stronger national federation. An inaugural rally of the so-called General Federation of Japanese Labor Unions (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Sorengo) was arranged for September 30 at Osaka. One hundred and six delegates, representing 59 unions with a membership of 27,480 workers, as well as a number of communists and anarcho-syndicalists, including Sakai, Yamakawa, Arahata, and Osugi, attended. However, various factions were unable to reconcile their conflicting viewpoints. The communists and the social democrats stood on one side, and the anarcho-syndicalists on the other. There was little inclination on either side to capitulate or even to compromise. Argument followed upon argument, and when the competing groups began brawling, the police intervened and dissolved the meeting.

When Sodomei held its annual convention at Osaka a few days later, it became clear that anarcho-syndicalist influence was declining rapidly. Labor leaders were disillusioned with direct action tactics: almost every strike in the past few years had ended in failure and in the destruction of the union that undertook it. The convention passed resolutions favoring a highly centralized union organization based on national industrial unions, and though it adhered to a militant anti­capitalist strategy, it called for political as well as economic tactics in fighting the existing social order. The passage of a resolution in support of the communist regime in Soviet Russia indicated that communist influence was on the rise. The crucial conflict in the labor movement was now to be between the social democrats and the communists.

The communists made every effort to strengthen their position in the labor movement in the following few months. In December, Watanabe Masanosuke, Yamamoto, and Nosaka, who were active in Sodomei, formed a secret preparatory committee (which was reorganized into a “Labor Union Left” in March 1923) for the purpose of bringing revolutionary workers “directly under party control.” Meanwhile, they sought to lead Sodomei further to the left, and to increase its power by bringing radical independent unions into it. In October, Watanabe organized the Nankatsu Labor Union (Minami Katsushika Rodo Kyokai), composed of workers—mostly printers and watchmakers—in small factories in the eastern part of Tokyo, and in December, other communists, particularly Sugiura, were instrumental in bringing Tokyo’s machinists into the Kanto Machine Workers Union. The ultimate objective of the communists was to transform Sodomei into a federation representing all unions, organized by industry, with their party in control. However, despite all their activities, the communists had only limited success because they lacked an effective program for the development of party cells in factories.¹

EXTRA-LABOR ACTIVITIES

Members of the Japanese Communist Party were also active in the emerging peasant movement and its organizations. They followed in the footsteps of moderates like Kagawa, who took the lead in April 1922 in uniting a large num ber of existing peasant associations under the Japan Peasant Union (Nihon Nomin Kumiai). Though the initiative in organizing the union was taken largely by intellectuals who had experience in the urban labor movement, the willingness of peasants to join was a reflection of their growing political consciousness. (Two years after its formation, the Japan Peasant Union claimed a membership of 52,000 in 694 local branches.)² The peasants had become increasingly aware, for example, that the verdicts in many of the court cases they lost were based on unjust laws, especially those laws concerned with tenants’ rights. Consequently, the Japan Peasant Union platform called for legislation to correct the injustices in the tenancy laws and to provide for arbitration in landlord-tenant disputes, which had risen sharply in number in 1921, as well as for the improvement of village life and greater educational opportunities.³ In the early summer of 1922, communists helped to establish the Kanto League (Nihon Nomin Kumiai Kanto Domei) of the Peasant Union, and in September began to publish Peasant Movement (Nomin Undo) in order to increase the political consciousness of the peasantry. Edited by Urata Takeo, Peasant Movement was much more radical in tone than the journal of the Peasant Union—Land and Freedom (Tochi to Jiyu). It took the position that though demands for legislation improving the lot of the peasants within the capitalist system were doomed to failure, they provided an effective means of linking the peasantry to the class struggle and the revolution against capitalism. Land and Freedom, by contrast, tended to be less doctrinaire and to concentrate on specific and immediate economic objectives, such as reduction of rents, protection of tenant rights, and minimum wage scales for agricultural day laborers.

The emergence of an organized peasant movement, increasingly influenced by left-wing ideologies, had an impact upon the socialist movement as a whole. Most important, it weakened anarcho-syndicalism by creating a need for a broader socialist movement than one based exclusively on labor. Both the social democrats and the communists were quick to reflect this need in their strategy and tactics, and when universal suffrage loomed as a reality, they began looking toward the establishment of some kind of united front.

Communists were active in other areas. They were instrumental in the establishment on November 20, 1922, of the National Federation of Students, or Gakuren, which had branches at 26 universities and preparatory schools. Among the most prominent member groups were the New Men Society at Tokyo Imperial University and the Culture League (Bunka Domei) at Waseda University. The Culture League was formed by members of the Builders’ League and of the Enlightened People’s Society; among its leaders were the communists Sano Manabu and Inomata Tsunao.⁴ The Communist Party also created a Communist Youth League, with Kawai Yoshitora of the Nankatsu Labor Union as the central figure, and with Sano Manabu, Inomata, Takase, and Tokuda as sponsors. (A Communist Youth International had been formed in November 1919. After the Comintern’s Third Congress in 1921, this youth group was headquartered in Moscow and held its congresses simultaneously with the congresses of the Comintern.)⁵ A third group in which the communists were active was the Levelers’ Society (Suiheisha), which was struggling to end racial and occupational discrimination against outcast communities. The young and militant Takahashi Sadaki played a leading role in the society, and in November 1923, helped to establish the Leveler Youth League, which he hoped to bring under communist leadership.⁶

The communists also continued to advance the interests of the Soviet government and people, and published a stream of articles critical of Japanese policy toward Soviet Russia. They attempted to secure support for the Soviet government through the various mass organizations in which they were influential, and were responsible for securing a labor endorsement during the 1922 May Day ceremonies in Tokyo of a resolution calling for official recognition of the Soviet regime. They also called for the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Siberia, the opening of trade between Japan and Soviet Russia, and the supply of funds and goods to Russia for famine relief. To achieve the latter objective, the communists formed a number of associations and appealed for funds through Vanguard. (Their appeals for relief had little success: the party sent only some 2,000 yen to the Russian Famine Relief International Labor Committee in Berlin in August.)

THE DRAFT PLATFORM

Although the Japanese communists were engaged on all these fronts, they had not worked out their strategy and tactics for revolution. Yamakawa’s call for “a change of direction” hardly constituted a concrete program. The Comintern leaders were aware of this deficiency, and at the Fourth Comintern Congress, which convened in Moscow in November 1922, they turned their attention to drafting a platform for the Japanese Communist Party. Takase and Kawauchi Tadahiko were attending the congress as the official representatives of the Japanese Communist Party. They heard Zinoviev describe the new party to the delegates as follows: “In Japan there is a small party that, with the assistance of the executive committee of the Communist International, has united its forces with the best syndicalist elements. This is a young party, but it represents a strong nucleus. It should now provide itself with a program.”⁰⁷

The Fourth Congress recognized the Japanese Communist Party as a branch of the Comintern, and a special committee formulated a draft platform—the so-called “Bukharin Theses”—to be approved by the party in Japan.⁸ There is no evidence that the Japanese delegates played any role in its actual preparation, although Katayama was prob ably consulted.⁹ In all likelihood, the platform was the product of the collective judgment of the Comintern leaders, especially Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Radek, and possibly Trotsky. It is not known to what extent they relied on reports regarding Japan from their own agents at Shanghai.)¹⁰

The draft platform began with an analysis of the development of Japanese society. It was noted that there were “peculiarities” in the development of Japanese capitalism. These “peculiarities” were the feudal relationships that still remained:

The greater part of the land is today in the hands of semifeudal big landlords… Remnants of feudal relationships are manifested in the structure of the state, which is controlled by a bloc… of the commercial and industrial capitalists and of the big landlords… Under such conditions the opposition to state power emanates not only from the working class, peasants and petty bourgeoisie, but also from a great segment of the liberalistic bourgeoisie.

With the continuing development of capitalism, the political demands of the liberalistic opposition have increased… The forceful development of capitalism and the progress of the bourgeois revolution drive the working class and the great mass of peasants into the struggle. Thus, the masses become an active political factor in the life of the country… Since the completion of the bourgeois revolution in Japan is dependent upon a powerful proletariat and the mass of revolutionary peasants…, it can be a direct prelude to the proletarian revolution, which has as its aims the overthrow of bourgeois control and the realization of proletarian dictatorship. [Italics added.]

The Japanese Communist Party was directed to make every effort to mobilize all social forces capable of carrying on the struggle against the existing government—the first stage of the revolution. This meant forming a solid bloc with the anarcho-syndicalists, using “every means for gaining influence among the masses of peasants, particularly the poor peasants,” and working with the bourgeoisie—at least to the extent of making use of bourgeois demands on the government. However, the party was instructed to “ruthlessly criticize” all contradictions in the bourgeoisie’s activity and disclose any acts of treachery the bourgeoisie committed “out of its fear of the rise of the working class.”

The draft platform listed the most important objectives of the first stage, grouping them as demands in four fields: politics, economics, agriculture, and foreign relations. Its political demands included the abolition of the imperial system and the House of Peers; universal suffrage for everyone over eighteen; total freedom for labor organizations, including the workers’ freedom to publish, assemble, demonstrate, and strike; the abolition of all existing armed forces, including the police; and the arming of workers. (In some versions of the platform, the last of these has been omitted.) The economic demands included the institution of an eight-hour working day, labor insurance, wages based on market prices, and a guaranteed minimum wage; the control of production by factory committees; and the official recognition of labor unions as public institutions of the working class. In the field of agriculture, the platform called for the nationalization without compensation of the emperor’s lands, as well as those of the big landlords and the temples; the establishment of a land fund for poor peasants; the transfer to tenant farmers of the land they worked (but not as private property); and the institution of both a progressive income tax and a special luxury tax. On foreign issues, the platform called for the abandonment of all attempts at intervention; the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Korea, China, Taiwan, and Sakhalin; and the recognition of Soviet Russia.

The role assigned the Japanese Communist Party was a crucial one:

The working class of Japan will achieve victory in its struggle for the establishment of proletarian dictatorship by way of overthrowing the existing government only when it has a united and centralized leadership group. The opposition to such a directorate by some revolutionary elements (anarchists, syndicalists, etc.) arises from the fact that they cannot understand the whole situation that will develop inevitably at the decisive moment of the struggle. The struggle will sooner or later lead to a direct clash with the power of the state, which has a strong, centralized mechanism. In order to smash this mechanism, the revolutionary proletariat must act on plans based upon a unity of organized strength and of opinion.

The immediate task of the party was to win over the labor unions by destroying “the influence and power of yellow, patriotic, social reformist leaders in the labor movement” and, at the same time, elevating “its own prestige and power among the broad mass of workers organized into unions.” It was the duty of the communists to support workers in all of their actions against employers and the state, and to play the leading role in all labor movements, however small. “The party must make every effort toward a firm tie with the working masses and avoid anything that might isolate it from the workers.”

The strategy of the Japanese Communist Party was to be based on two programs: a maximum program and a minimum program. The maximum program would deal with the primary objective—the socialist revolution that was to replace government based on the interests of the bourgeoisie with one based on the interests of the proletariat. The minimum program would deal with the immediate objective—the achievement of the democratic revolution that was to democratize the masses and improve their economic condition. This strategy would enable the party of the proletariat to capture the leadership of the peasant masses, who by definition could not be expected to aspire to Marxist aims, and to form temporary alliances with other political groups like the urban petty bourgeoisie. The elimination of the vestiges of feudalism in Japan and the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution was a necessary stage in the revolutionary process. “Only after this first direct task has been fulfilled… should the Japanese Communist Party strive to advance the revolution, deepen it, and make efforts toward the acquisition of power by soviets of workers and peasants.”¹¹

REORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY

Takase and Kawauchi returned to Japan in December, but their party colleagues did not formally discuss the draft platform for several months. Meanwhile, the party made a number of organizational changes. A second convention of the party was held on February 4, 1923, in the town of Ichigawa, near Tokyo; 17 members attended.¹² At this meeting, the party increased the size of its executive committee, assigning responsibilities as follows: Sakai, secretary-general; Sano Manabu, international affairs secretary and chairman of the education department; Yoshikawa, treasurer; Nakasone, secretary to the secretary-general; Urata, chairman of the peasants department; Ueda, chairman of the publications department; and Watanabe Masanosuke, chairman of the labor department. Other members of the new executive committee were Sugiura, who was assigned to the labor department, and Koiwai and Tsujii, who were made organizers for the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, respectively.

Yamakawa, Takatsu, and Kondo were not reelected to the executive committee, and Tokuda was excluded from a major post. Yamakawa apparently chose to be excluded, preferring the role of senior adviser. However, in the cases of Takatsu and Kondo, they seem to have lost their positions because of rivalry between the group representing the Enlightened People’s Communist Party (Gyomin) and the followers of Yamakawa and Sakai.¹³ Moreover, Kondo was still regarded as an “adventurer” by Sakai.¹⁴ Tokuda’s case is more complicated. It seems that the older leaders considered him an overly ambitious and reckless junior member who tried to cloak himself with the authority of the Comintern, and there are indications that they tried to rid the party of him, alleging that he had misused party funds.⁰¹⁵ Tokuda attributed his plight to factionalism based on ideological differences:

At that time, I insisted that a parliamentary struggle be conducted, opposing Yamakawa Hitoshi’s group, which disapproved of this tactic, and Sano Manabu, who rejected universal suffrage; and at the same time, I criticized the right-wing, social-democratic parliamentarianism of Sakai Toshihiko’s group. The Gyomin people, who defended Sakai, made a party issue of the charge that in Moscow I had plotted to force Sakai out of the party, with the result that I was suspended from an official position for two years. My trial was held while I was in Shanghai reporting on the inaugural rally of the Japanese Communist Party. When I returned and heard about it, I strongly protested the decision, and the party cancelled the sentence. The matter was finally settled on the condition that neither I nor the Gyomin people would become central committee members.¹⁶

The convention also discussed the need to establish “cells” in order to provide a solid foundation for the party. The Fourth Congress of the Comintern had declared that no communist party could be regarded as “a serious and solidly organized mass communist party” unless it had “stable” communist cells in the factories, plants, mines, and railroads.¹⁷ The convention, aware of this dictum, appointed a number of members to be cell leaders, including Kondo, Takatsu, Sano Manabu, Inomata, Nishi, Ichikawa Yoshio, Koiwai, Yamamoto, Tadokoro, Tsujii, Takano, and Kawauchi.¹⁸ However, despite the party’s good intentions, the cells that were formed were little more than personal factions centering around the leading figures of the study and discussion groups, publication circles, and labor unions.

DISCUSSION OF THE PLATFORM

The Japanese Communist Party formally considered the draft platform at a special meeting held on March 15 at Shakujii, a suburb of Tokyo.¹⁹ Twenty-three members were present; Inomata served as chairman and Takase as secretary.²⁰ Prior to the meeting, the party, which was disturbed by the draft platform, had appointed a special political committee composed of Sano Manabu (chairman), Nosaka, Arahata, Takatsu, Sugiura, and Watanabe Masanosuke to attempt to reconcile the draft platform with the conditions of Japanese society. The deliberations of this group accomplished very little, however, and according to Takase’s notes, Sakai, in his opening remarks to his colleagues at the Shakujii meeting, stated that “the platform shows igno­ rance of conditions in Japan, and we have too many doubts to adopt it as it is.” The discussions at the meeting focused on two major topics (1) revolutionary strategy, including the question of the abolition of the imperial system, and (2) political action tactics. The debate concerning the nature of the coming revolution was heated, and no conclusion was reached. Sano Manabu, who had attempted to draft another platform, maintained that in view of the rapidly changing conditions in Japan, the revolution would have to be a proletarian one. He was supported by Watanabe Masanosuke, Yamamoto, and Sugiura. Another group upheld the Comintern line that there would first have to be a bourgeois-democratic revolution in which workers and peasants would play the key roles. Tadokoro took still another position, arguing that because of the weakness of organized labor, the petty bourgeoisie, using the peasantry as a base, would carry out the first stage of the revolutionary process.²¹

The position of the emperor posed a special problem for the party. Sakai tried to prevent consideration of the provision in the draft platform that called for the abolition of the imperial system, maintaining that the question of the emperor was already well understood. Like most of the older bolshevists, he had been careful to avoid any discussion of the emperor, and mindful of the past, warned that such a discussion might unnecessarily create “victims.” Some of the younger party members, however, had no qualms about attacking the imperial institution.²² Sakai had the support of Sano, Yamamoto, Sugiura, and Watanabe Masanosuke, but Inomata, as chairman, maintained that the party had to deliberate the matter. In the end, the members approved the demand for the abolition of the imperial system as a key objective, but they decided not to include it in any statement of policy concerning immediate action. (Takase decided to delete the discussion of this point from his notes; had he not done so, the government charges against the communists arrested in June 1923 would probably have been much more serious, perhaps comparable to those in the High Treason Case of 1911.)

As for a political action program, there was general agreement that it was necessary to establish a legal party based upon workers and peasants. The party members saw no contradiction in the existence of both a Communist Party and a legal mass party, though they could not agree on the role a mass party should play in the revolutionary process described in the draft platform. How the Communist Party was to be related organizationally to such a party was a question that was left unanswered. This was perhaps a reflection of Yamakawa’s failure to relate the vanguard to a united proletarian party.

The most pressing political issue that confronted the party was of the universal suffrage movement, but no consensus was reached at the meeting. Sakai, for example, favored participation in the universal suffrage movement and representation by a legal proletarian party in the Diet. Sano opposed this view and advocated a boycott of the movement. The support for Sakai’s position—the more popular of the two—came largely from those who, like Tokuda, were anxious to follow the lead of the Comintern, and those who, like Akamatsu, leaned toward the social democratic position of reform through parliamentary action. The opposition to participation in the universal suffrage movement came largely from the followers of Yamakawa.²³

Yamakawa’s views—particularly his views on political action—were the single most important Japanese ideological influence in the party. He stated his position clearly in an article in the February-March issue of Vanguard.²⁴ He began the article by discussing possible lines of political action the proletariat might take. He conceded that there was no reason why the proletariat should not use parliamentary action, as long as its sole purpose was opposition to the political power of the bourgeoisie. However, he was unable to overcome his anarcho-syndicalist heritage, and he made it clear that he did not advocate parliamentary action:

To enter parliament is not necessarily the only way to fight the political power of the bourgeoisie… Sometimes, it is more effective not to enter parliament… In the circumstances now existing in Japan, I, for one, believe that to abstain from voting, to boycott voting, provides more effective political opposition than voting. But there is one condition: abstention must mean something more than simple political indifference or negative rejection; there must be a prospect that it will grow into a positive mass movement.

The most effective political action the proletariat could take, he concluded, was “direct” political action.

GOVERNMENT SUPPRESSION

Unable to reach agreement at the Shakujii meeting, the leaders of the party decided to defer further discussion of the draft platform until another special meeting in April.⁰ The contents of the platform were to be kept secret. According to Nabeyama, mention of the platform was forbidden, even in a secret party document.²⁵ Yamakawa has claimed that it was not discussed in his cell, and that he heard only vague references made to it. He says that he first saw it in 1927 or 1928, when he came across a collection of platforms of communist parties published in France.²⁶

Before the party, which had grown to include some 100 members, could complete its deliberations on the platform and decide on revolutionary strategy and a basic political action policy, the omnipresent and watchful police learned of its existence and in June apprehended most of its key members. The series of events that culminated in the June “roundup” and the September “white terror” began with the “Waseda University Incident” in May.

The Home Ministry tended to regard Waseda University as a haven for “red” professors and students, and it ordered the police to watch the activities of suspected campus organizations carefully. In addition, it encouraged the development of a countermovement on the campus. This countermovement, led by the Military Affairs Study Group (Gunji Kenkyudan) and supported by such right-wing organizations as the Taika Society (Taikakai), backed a government plan to introduce military instruction into the middle and higher schools; left-wing organizations opposed the plan. Feelings on the subject ran high on the Waseda campus, and the threat of a violent confrontation grew. A clash finally came on May 15, when the Military Affairs Study Group passed a resolution demanding that the university expel “red” professors. Left-wing student members of the Culture League and the Builders’ League, who were attending a joint lecture by Sano Manabu and Inomata, rushed to the meeting of the study group, and bloody rioting ensued.

The police, who were already investigating Sano, intensified their search for information about his activities. They discovered a number of Japanese Communist Party documents, including the constitution, the draft platform, and the attendance list and minutes of the Shakujii meeting. Sano had kept these materials in his study at Waseda, but after the student riot he moved them to the house of one Shibuya Mokutaro, who was connected with the Japan General Federation of Miners, of which Sano was an adviser. Despite this precaution, the police got hold of the documents and immediately began to plan a general roundup of known or suspected communists.²⁷ The party members waited for the inevitable arrests. It is quite clear that the Japanese communists, for all their bold talk and writing, were thoroughly untrained in the methods of conspiratorial work, and had not yet succeeded in creating an underground apparatus that would function efficiently.

The expected blow fell on June 5, when the police apprehended some 50 members of the party. (The newspapers reported that Yamakawa, who had been at his home in Kurashiki since late May, was among those arrested, and that he was sent to Tokyo; the fact is that he was busy writing several articles and went to Tokyo of his own accord June 7.) Thirty party members were brought to trial under the Public Peace Police Law. Yamakawa’s case was dismissed for lack of evidence, but the other men were found guilty and received sentences of from eight to ten months. However, they did not enter prison until the sentences were confirmed by the high court in April 1926, and even then they did not serve full terms, because of a general amnesty granted in honor of the Taisho emperor, who died that year. Many of them were released on bail, and continued to be active in the communist movement during the intervening years. In some cases, they even left the country for short periods of time.²⁸ Among those who appealed were Sakai, Yoshikawa, Urata, Hashiura, Sugiura, and Ueda, who received ten-month sentences, and Tokuda, Takano, Koiwai, Inomata, Tadokoro, Nishi, Nosaka, Takase, and the Ichikawa brothers (Shoichi and Yoshio), who received eight-month sentences. Among the small number of party members who did not appeal were Nakasone, Kawauchi, Tashiro, and the two Watanabes.

A few party members escaped the dragnet. Among them were Sano and Kondo, who fled to Shanghai and ultimately to Moscow, where they served as representatives to the Comintern and Profintem, respectively. Yamamoto, Takatsu, and Tsujii also fled the country, but shortly thereafter returned to Japan, gave themselves up, were tried, and received sentences similar to those of their comrades.²⁹ The party was in disarray, but it was not completely destroyed. Its affairs were turned over to a group of “caretakers” who had escaped detection, largely because they had not attended the Shakujii meeting. They included Akamatsu, Kawai, Kitahara Tatsuo, Sano Fumio, and Yohena Tomotaro.³⁰

The government, especially the Home Ministry, which wanted new legislation to establish stronger controls over “subversives,” made every effort at the time of the arrests to inculcate a fear of communism in the public. A number of officials made public prounouncements that equated communism with terrorism. They intimated through the press that a major assassination plot against the cabinet had been uncovered. However, this was not true of all government officials. Spokesmen for the Ministry of Justice indicated that the ministry was not alarmed, and officials of the Ministry of Education played down the influence of left-wing ideas on university campuses.³¹

The two leading intellectual monthlies—Reconstruction and Central Review (Chuo Koron)—devoted a number of pages to the arrests in their July issues. Yamakawa was one of the contributors to the Reconstruction issue.³² In his article, he criticized the manner in which the arrests were reported and the way the police were using the press. He noted the effect of the arrests on the people outside the cities:

What I felt during my visit to the countryside was social unrest and the uneasiness that accompanies it. This uneasiness, which is an indirect reflection of the instability of capitalism, now in the period of decline, is overflowing among the masses both in farm villages and small towns. They are seeking for something… but do not know what.

I was able to witness the inner workings of the minds of people at the very moment that news of the communist roundup reached them. If it was the plan of the authorities to [make propaganda for the Communist Party], it is safe to say that the recent arrests were more successful than could be expected. The government and the Metropolitan Police Board, in mobilizing newspapers throughout Japan, are indelibly stamping the word “communism” in the minds of the masses… The Metropolitan Police Board has stated that the communists engage in propaganda with money they have received from Russia; the board is propagating communism with money collected from the people as taxes.

The arrests were, of course, a great blow to the hopes of the Comintern. The Third Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee, which convened in Moscow on June 12, expressed its “deep sympathy” for the Japanese communists, and pledged to support them. It called on Japan’s workers “to carry on the task commenced by the imprisoned communists who fell victims in the fight for working-class interests, and to develop a strong movement against the insidious conspiracy of the militarist and bureaucratic government.”³³ The Comintern leaders proposed the establishment of a legal communist party in Japan. Arahata, who was attending the plenum, opposed such a step.³⁴ He must have been incredulous when Zinoviev spoke as follows:

The Japanese comrades are convinced that only an illegal communist party can continue for any length of time in Japan. They do not even wish to hear about the organization of a legal party… I realize, of course, that Comrade Aoki [Arahata] knows the Japanese situation much better than we do, but we do know that strong political unrest is now apparent in Japan. A large number of the bourgeoisie are in strong opposition to the existing regime. The idea of a rapprochement with Soviet Russia is one of the most popular ideas in Japan. Workers’ strikes follow one after another, so that a wave of strikes spreads through the entire country. How then can we imagine that under such circumstances an attempt to legalize the communist movement in Japan is destined to failure?… We shall insist that our Japanese comrades learn a lesson from the American Communist Party, and try to organize a legal communist party in Japan.³⁵

Arahata was bold enough to take up the challenge. He replied:

Japanese comrades are not afraid of persecution and imprisonment. During the last thirteen years they have become accustomed to repression. But in my opinion, it is premature to organize a legal political party. Japanese comrades need the support and sympathy of the active elements of the working class. These elements have been indifferent to political problems; they are inexperienced, and their political horizon is very limited. Even the present leaders of the Yuaikai are beginning to lose their influence on account of their reformist tendencies. Must we form a party and risk losing the support of the active elements in the working class? The syndicalist workers have been against the communist movement for the very reason that the latter became involved in politics. If we form a [legal] party, we shall suffer defeat, at least in the course of the next several years. It is important [first] to educate the workers in politics before we organize them into a political party.³⁶

The Japanese police made an even more effective reply to Zinoviev’s proposal for a legal party: they continued their relentless drive against the communists and other radicals. In July 1923, they rounded up a group of 13 called the Nagoya Section of the Communist Party, and two months later they smashed a group with 14 persons in Gunma Prefecture, led by a member of the Builders’ League. Later, in March 1924, they arrested the members of a third group, the so-called Nagano Communist Party, a local branch of the Communist Youth League.³⁷

The full weight of government suppression of the extreme left was brought to bear during the confusion and tension that followed the great earthquake of September 1, 1923—a period known as the “white terror.”³⁸ On September 4, the police at Kamedo in Tokyo seized nine members of the militant Nankatsu Labor Union, including Kawai, who was then chairman of the Communist Youth League, and Hirasawa Keishiichi, an anarchist and novelist, and had them bayoneted and beheaded. Two days later, Osugi, his mistress I to Naoe, and a seven-year-old nephew were murdered at military police headquarters in Tokyo.

In the view of many Japanese historians and commentators, Osugi’s murder symbolizes the end of anarchism as an important force in Japanese intellectual circles, and in the labor movement.³⁹ Osugi’s followers continued to maintain some labor support, notably in the printers’ unions and in the free federations of unions they were able to establish in the Kan to and Kansai areas, but the number of workers involved was small. The collapse of the anarchist movement came in 1935, when one of their small groups robbed a bank, precipitating a nationwide roundup of the members of anarchist groups.

The Comintern reaction was predictable. Its executive committee called the workers of Japan and of the whole world to action, asking:

Is it possible to imagine a more frightful example of imperialist contempt and hatred of the working class than that which we observe today in Japan? How long will the working masses of Japan tolerate the yoke of the Japanese imperialist government?… Truly, the Japanese workers have nothing to lose but their chains! The Communist International calls upon Japanese workers regardless of party to form a United Committee of Action to establish a united front against the imperialist government. From now on, the imperialist government of Japan must not have a moment’s peace. The just indignation of the working masses of Japan must be expressed in an organized struggle against the present regime… The Japanese labor movement must not decline as a result of the catastrophe; it must mount to the greatest heights!⁴⁰

GOVERNMENT CONCESSIONS

The Japanese government and the conservative forces that it represented realized that concessions to popular movements were necessary if the growth of the leftist movements was to be checked. They could see obvious advantages in balancing the “whip” with “candy,” as Japanese historians have put it, to placate the rising demand for parliamentary democracy and, at the same time, neutralize the more moderate elements of the left. Accordingly, on October 16 the cabinet announced its support of universal male suffrage, and appointed a committee to prepare the necessary legislation. The public began to believe that universal suffrage would soon be enacted.

The government also made a significant concession to labor by agreeing to revise the method that permitted it to appoint delegates to the conferences of the International Labor Organization arbitrarily. Under the new arrangement, each union of 1,000 or more members was invited to nominate one representative and two counselors to run in a labor election to name a panel of three representatives and six counselors; from this panel, the government would select one representative and two counselors to attend each conference. As a result of this change, in March 1924 Sodomei reversed its position on the ILO, which it had denounced as an instrument of capitalist suppression.⁴¹ Under the new procedures, Suzuki Bunji, the Sodomei chairman, was named to represent Japanese labor at the Sixth ILO Conference in 1924. This shift by the government was encouraging to labor moderates, for although no labor law had yet been enacted, the government had given tacit recognition to organized labor.⁴²

The policies of “whip” and “candy” had a tremendous impact on the left-wing movement in general, and on Sodomei in particular. The moderates had been profoundly disturbed by the extent of the communist penetration into mass organizations. Now, in view of the suffrage announcement made by the government, which raised new hopes for political action within a parliamentary framework, some in Sodomei condemned abstention from voting as a form of extremism as unrealistic and damaging to the labor movement as anarcho-syndicalist direct action had been. They felt, moreover, that in view of the many problems created by the earthquake, this was hardly the time for militancy. The central committee of Sodomei consequently resolved to “exercise the right to vote when universal suffrage is effected”—a stand that sounded the death knell of the policy of revolutionary abstention.

The Japanese communists had also been divided over the issue of abstention, but now even Yamakawa and his followers were ready to change their position.⁴³ Yamakawa matter-of-factly gave the reasons for the defeat of the abstention theory:

One reason is certainly the fact that the place of the peasant movement within the proletarian movement has rapidly become greater; consequently, there is greater emphasis on the conditions and needs of the peasantry. This development has either consciously or unconsciously affected the labor unions…

At any rate, an overwhelming majority of the organized proletariat (labor unions and tenant farmers) has come around to the idea of using the right to vote if universal suffrage is put into practice, a fact that decisively proves the impossibility of an abstention movement… A positive mass abstention movement is… possible only when a small number of organized workers and peasants lead the proletarian masses. However, the majority of workers’ and peasants’ unions have already decided to use the right to vote.

He continued to believe, however, that the Japanese bourgeoisie would not have “the opportunity to complete political democracy,” citing three reasons for this judgment: (1) the Japanese bourgeoisie had established its power by combining with the remnants of medieval autocracy, and had lost the revolutionary spirit of a new class; (2) Japan had no economic basis for the development of political liberalism and democracy: Japanese capitalism had reached the stage of imperialism; and (3) the Japanese bourgeoisie had absolutely no loyal supporters and was constantly threatened by the rise of an increasingly class-conscious proletariat.

Yamakawa warned that the democratization of political forms would not necessarily result in the achievement of true democracy. He pointed out that even under the proposals the government was expected to make at the next session of the Diet, i.e., extension of the franchise, liberalized labor union policies, and partial revision of the Public Peace Police Law, a parliamentary representative could still be prosecuted for making a speech at a labor union convention—“a condition that is inconceivable outside Japan.” “Is this progress toward political freedom, or retrogression?” he asked. “Democratization of political forms and autocratic government are not incompatible,” he asserted. “Indeed, when a bourgeoisie that has lost the spirit of liberalism and has become reactionary makes use of people with progressive policies to maintain political power, it almost always tries to take back with one hand what it has given with the other. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that such accumulated liberties will lead to the completion of political democracy.”

Nor did Yamakawa have much confidence in the petty bourgeoisie. While noting that “today’s democracy and political progressivism is nothing but an expression of the discontent, if not revolt, of the petty bourgeoisie and middle classes that capitalist development has brought about,” he acknowledged that the petty bourgeois political force would expand in opposition to the big capitalists because “this is an inevitable feature of capitalist development.” Yet he remained convinced that this was no reason to believe that political democracy could be completed by the petty bourgeois forces, because the petty bourgeoisie had no sense of historical mission, no revolutionary spirit. He concluded therefore that “the rising political movement of petty bourgeois democracy, like the liberal democratic movement of the bourgeoisie in the past, will more or less end in compromise… The petty bourgeoisie will be more conciliatory and become an emasculated force that constantly fluctuates between the parties of the bourgeoisie and the proletarian party.”

In the final analysis, said Yamakawa, the proletariat was the key to democratization. The main task, then, was “to unify the whole proletariat into an independent political force to prevent its assimilation by petty bourgeois democracy.” He continued, “A certain degree of political liberalism and democracy is necessary for the maturity of the proletariat as a class. To that extent—to that extent only—the proletariat has a common interest with the petty bourgeoisie and can make use of a petty bourgeois party. But the proletarian movement must act as an independent political force.”

Quite clearly, the proletariat’s attitude toward universal suffrage was crucial. Yamakawa announced his support of a proletarian party movement to oppose bourgeois political forces by using suffrage rights. What kind of party did he have in mind? He maintained that a proletarian party, based primarily on workers and peasants, would have to formulate policies that related to actual conditions in Japanese society; consequently, it would have a platform that would be “far short of a broad revolutionary platform.” Herein lay what Yamakawa saw as the dilemma of the Japanese proletarian movement, for “the more inclusive the proletarian party is, the greater the danger that its political movement might stray from the main current of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and fall into mere reformist parliamentarianism.”

The prospects raised by the promise of universal suffrage and the persuasive arguments of Yamakawa caused many left-wing intellectuals and unionists to accept the idea of establishing a lawful proletarian political party. In November 1923, Sodomei created a political bureau under the leadership of Akamatsu, and its leaders began to consult with representatives of other organizations. Another group that was active was the Society for the Study of Political Problems (Seiji Mondai Kenkyukai), which was formed in December to serve as a forum for discussions regarding a workers’ and peasants’ party. It was composed largely of left-wing intellectuals, including Akamatsu, Abe, Shimanaka Yuzo, Suzuki Mosaburo, Oyama, Takahashi Kamekichi, and Aono.

Communists like Nabeyama, Kokuryo, Nakamura, and Taniguchi, who were still active in Sodomei, continued to attack the union’s reformist elements, insisting that they were delivering the labor movement into the hands of the capitalists. It soon became clear, however, that although they urged that Sodomei develop more militant political programs, they, too, were ready to take advantage of concessions made by the government.⁴⁴ In a compromise declaration approved by the Sodomei convention in February 1924, both leftists and rightists agreed to utilize practical, reformist policies to meet the needs of the labor movement, especially “to turn it from the movement of a minority to a mass movement.” They recognized that though they could not hope for the liberation of the working class through a bourgeois parliament, they could obtain partial political benefits by exercising the right to vote after universal suffrage was effected. However, they concluded that “whatever changes may take place in our policies to meet practical needs, there will be no change whatsoever in the underlying revolutionary spirit of the proletariat.”⁴⁵

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE PARTY

Suppression, especially the June 1923 arrests of party members, and the government’s concessions, especially the prospect of universal suffrage—in short, the government’s policies of “whip” and “candy”—ultimately forced the dissolution of the Japanese Communist Party. When Arahata returned to Japan in November 1923, he found that talk about dissolution was common.⁴⁶ Ichikawa Shoichi later alleged that this situation was simply a reflection of the “shameless petty bourgeois” character of the party’s leadership, and that the party members of the working classes “opposed the decision to dissolve the party and protested against it.”⁴⁷ One of the main objects of his scorn was Akamatsu, who was actively promoting “reform through legal means” in Sodomei, along with such moderates as Suzuki Bunji, Matsuoka Komakichi, Nishio Suehiro, and Aso Hisashi, all of whom were later active in various social democratic parties. During the Sodomei convention in February 1924, Akamatsu and Nosaka met with Watanabe Masanosuke, Sugiura, Kokuryo, Taniguchi, Nakamura, and Nabeyama; Akamatsu took the lead in persuading them not to rebuild the party. He is reported to have said that they could operate effectively without a party, and to have insisted that dissolution was the only way to get rid of such ambitious fellows as Tokuda, Takatsu, and Kondo.⁴⁸ Others offered different reasons for the party’s dissolution. For example, Sano Fumio, Nosaka, and Arahata attributed it to the low morale and inactivity caused by the repressive acts of the government, as well as to the increased factionalism in the party, and Tokuda has singled out the intellectual character of the party leadership.

Although there is some disagreement regarding the attitudes of various party members toward the party’s dissolution, there can be no doubt that Yamakawa and Sakai no longer saw a need for an illegal communist party. The influence of Yamakawa was probably decisive. He argued that it was necessary to concentrate upon the development of mass organizations like labor unions, peasant unions, and student associations. He was convinced that an illegal party could not do this effectively because it tended to separate the vanguard from the masses and to invite suppression by the state. He advised his followers to work through mass organizations and a legal proletarian party to create conditions for a mass communist party at a later date. Yamakawa saw the source of political mass action in the process of capitalist development, in effect, eliminating the need for a Leninist communist party.

The final decision to dissolve the party was reached in February 1924 at a meeting attended by Arahata, Tokuda, Nosaka, Ichikawa Shoichi, and Sano Fumio. (Arahata, Tokuda, Nosaka, and Sano, among others, had attended a similar meeting earlier in the month.) It was agreed that a small bureau would be established to settle party affairs. According to Sano, there was some expectation that the dissolution of the party, which was in a state of complete disintegration, would pave the way for a new party—one that would not be “alienated from the masses” and “reduced to factionalism.”⁴⁹ Arahata, probably the only one to oppose dissolution to the very end, expressed much the same view: “The party has been made up of personalities, not organized on the basis of the masses, from the first, and this has led to factionalism. Since this partisanship is now an obstacle to the development of the movement, the party should be dissolved at once, so that individuals may work for the expansion of mass movements in their respective spheres of activity and rebuild on that basis.”⁵⁰

The party was formally dissolved at a meeting held in early March at Morigasaki, near Tokyo. The caretaking group and some of the arrested members who were free on bail attended.⁵¹ According to Arahata, who was present, they were Ichikawa Shoichi, Aono, Sano Fumio, Sakai, and Tokuda.⁵² Arahata was asked to go to Shanghai to report the dissolution to the representatives of the Comintern. He reluctantly consented and proceeded to Shanghai in early summer with the intention of going on to Moscow to get new instructions, but after he made contact with Comintern agents at Shanghai, he changed his travel plans because of illness, and returned to Japan.⁵³

The life of the First Communist Party was a very short and unsettled one. The state destroyed its organization, and the appeal of social democracy, which the party helped in part to revive, undercut its pretensions to exclusive leadership of the masses. But the party itself suffered from certain basic weaknesses. It was not a unified body with a concrete platform, but was instead an amalgam of personal factions whose members could not agree on the strategy and tactics of revolution. Moreover, despite the slogan “Into the Masses,” the party had not developed to the point where it was based on mass organizations of workers and peasants. Arahata, in a later discussion of the party’s inability to reach agreement on the major issues raised by the draft platform, pointed out these same weaknesses. “Nobody considered how to put [the platform] into practice in concrete terms… Party structure was not developed to the point where it was based on mass organizations of the working class, but had remained a mere extension of earlier intellectual groups. Although Zinoviev said that the Japanese party was not like the social democratic parties of Europe, but was from the first a united group of communists, small but powerful, the lack of experience in a mass movement and the lack of a popular basis were fatal weaknesses of the party.”⁵⁴

Yamakawa recognized these “fatal weaknesses” and began to search for ways to make the communist movement more effective. He was the first among the communist leaders to recognize that the strategy and tactics of the Comintern would not work in Japan. He saw that with the enactment of universal suffrage, communism would not be able to stand aloof from the movement to establish legal proletarian political parties. Communism, he believed, would have to join that movement and seek to influence it from within. There was simply no place for an illegal Japanese Communist Party. The role of communism would be determined by existing conditions, making the crucial factors the level of the political consciousness of the masses, the extent to which political power was distributed among the classes, and the degree to which the communist vanguard could formulate strategy and tactics empirically.

It is difficult to resist the temptation to speculate about how the communist and left-wing movements in Japan might have developed, if the views of Yamakawa had prevailed among Japan’s communists. Certainly the fate of party members would have been very different, and much of the factionalism of the left-wing movement as a whole would have been avoided. A united socialist movement would undoubtedly have had greater appeal to workers and peasants, and would therefore have presented a more serious challenge to the conservative order, though it is doubtful that even a united movement could have generated enough strength to topple that order.

The party’s dissolution placed the Comintern in an awkward position. The Fourth Congress had just publicized the founding of the party. The Fifth Congress, scheduled to meet in June 1924, would be faced with the recognition of its demise.