Chapter 4

The Bureau and the Group, 1924-1926

As previously noted, when the Japanese Communist Party was dissolved in March 1924, a small bureau was established to transact the party’s unfinished business with the Comintern and to maintain contact with representatives of mass organizations. The factionalism that characterized the party was carried over into the bureau. From the outset there were bitter clashes of personality and strong differences of opinion among the bureau members—Arahata, Tokuda, Sano Fumio, Aono, and Kitahara—regarding the role to be played by the bureau in the various left-wing movements. Arahata and Tokuda had little love for each other,¹ but they stood together as the bureau’s “action group,” in the sense that they urged that the bureau play a positive role in mass organizations. They tended to regard the bureau as the nucleus of a new and more effective communist party that was needed to give direction to left-wing movements. Opposing them were Sano and Aono, the so-called “advocacy group.”² Like Yamakawa and Sakai, Sano and Aono wanted to limit activity to the propagation of communist theory and to the stimulation of discussion of communism’s application to conditions in Japan. For a time, expediency dictated that the latter view prevail.

The first important step taken by the bureau was to inaugurate publication of Marxism (Marukusushugi) in May 1924 under the editorship of Nishi. The editor’s postscript to the first issue explained the character and purpose of the new monthly:

We wish to see this magazine remain, to the last, one for study. Socialism is, however, the thought of the proletarian class, and Marxism is the theory of class strife. The wish to promote the class struggle must accompany any study of socialism or Marxism. In this sense, we hope the studies in this magazine will not divorce themselves from the actual movement, but will provide flesh and blood for the militant proletariat as far as possible.³

The first 13 issues of Marxism were largely devoted to translations and summaries of the works of Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, and Stalin, as well as to analyses of Marx by veterans like Sakai and by younger theorists like Inomata and Fukumoto Kazuo.⁴ However, the first issue carried an article by Takahashi Sadaki entitled “The Development of Japanese Imperialism,”⁵ and with the publication of the June 1925 issue, which focused on the factional feuding and split in Sodomei, there were an increasing number of articles attempting to analyze the development of modern Japanese society. Of special interest is a series of articles in which Shiga Yoshio, a young contributing editor of Marxism, and Akamatsu, who held a key post in Sodomei as head of the political department, engaged in a bitter debate over theory.⁶

The publication of Marxism was only one example of a general concern on the part of left-wing groups to spread socialist ideas in anticipation of universal suffrage. Advocates of social reform like Abe and Shimanaka, joined in April 1924 to found the Japan Fabian Society and began to publish Studies in Socialism in May. In June, the Society for Political Studies (Seiji Kenkyukai), which had previously been known as the Society for the Study of Political Problems, established an organizational framework for the purposes of educating the masses and assisting in the formation of a proletarian political party. It was soon apparent, however, that the society was split into two wings. Shimanaka, Takahashi Kamekichi, and Kagawa represented the right wing, which favored the views of the British Labour Party, and Aono, Suzuki Mosaburo, and Kuroda Hisao represented the left wing, which adhered closely to the ideas of Yamakawa, who continued to warn against “reformism” and “parliamentarianism.”⁷ The left wing tended to dominate, and after September 1924 the moderates began to withdraw. Later, the society was infiltrated by communists and then dominated by them. It had an amazing growth, and by April 1925 included some 4,000 workers, peasants, students, white-collar workers, and professionals in over 50 branches throughout the country. Its journal, Political Studies (Seiji Kenkyu), analyzed political, economic, and social problems from the point of view of the working masses and discussed the need for a political party based on the interests of the masses.

The prevailing attitude of the left-wing movement was reflected in an article by Yamakawa that appeared in Reconstruction in January 1925. There he asserted that since the majority of the “proletarian elements” agreed that at the earliest possible opportunity they should seek to organize a political party “independent of the existing bourgeois political parties,” the most fundamental problem in the matter of organizing a proletarian political party had been solved. He pointed out that three important problems remained, however: first, the problem of a platform; second, the problem of organization; and third, the problem of preventing the proliferation of small parties. “These three problems are related to each other; no clear distinction is possible… We have only reached the point of studying, discussing, and making efforts to solve each of them.”⁸

THE KATO CABINET

The question of the establishment of a legal proletarian party became an immediate issue when the Kato cabinet, which assumed office in June 1924, kept its promise to persuade the Diet to pass a universal manhood suffrage bill. The bill was introduced in February 1925 and quickly passed the House of Representatives. Anticipated strong opposition in the House of Peers failed to materialize in the face of overwhelming public support of the bill, and after a series of conferences between the two houses of the Diet, the Universal Suffrage Manhood Act became law on May 5, 1925. All tax qualifications for the right to vote were removed, quadrupling the electorate from 3.3 million to 14 million. The act contained some provisions that worked to the disadvantage of the left wing, however. The voting age was set at twenty-five, which disqualified the idealistic university students and young laborers and peasants, and the residence requirement of one year disqualified many factory workers and city dwellers whose family registrations remained in their native villages.

The Kato cabinet sponsored other social legislation that was welcomed by the moderate leftist elements, particularly those in labor unions. Under its leadership, the Diet abolished Article 17 of the Public Peace Police Law, which had made it illegal to strike and had in effect hindered the formation of labor unions. In addition, the Diet passed a National Health Insurance Law, a Factory Law, and a Labor Disputes Conciliation Law.⁹ The cabinet was unable, however, to secure passage of a labor union bill forbidding employers from preventing their workers from organizing unions; opposition to the bill in the business and industrial community was simply too great.¹⁰ There can be no doubt that the policies of the Kato ministry were in large part responsible for the fact that Sodomei, the leading labor federation, assumed a more cooperative attitude toward the government.

These great strides in the direction of democratic government and social reform were partially offset by the passage in April 1925 of the Peace Preservation Law, which was aimed at any group seeking radical alterations in the Japanese government or economic and social systems. The first article of the new law read: “Anyone who has formed a society with the objective of altering the national polity or the form of government, or denying the system of private ownership, or anyone who has joined such a society with full knowledge of its objects, shall be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labor for a term not exceeding ten years.” A similar law introduced in the Diet in 1922 had failed to pass, and in 1923 the government had promulgated a temporary Peace Preservation Ordinance. The law of 1925, though passed largely to control communist and other radical activities, was used for much broader purposes. Its vagueness placed persons holding any of a wide range of opinions in jeopardy, and permitted suppression of the press, academic institutions, or any organization or activity critical of the status quo and supporting basic change. As the director of the criminal affairs bureau pointed out to the House of Representatives, the new law could be used against someone advocating amendment of the constitution. Thus, the major political parties in the period after 1924 showed that they could be as repressive as the bureaucratic administrations when they felt that the fundamental character of Japanese society was threatened. “Whip” and “candy” still characterized the basic approaches of the government toward the left-wing movement, and the communists had to remain secret and act with utmost care, while the socialists were forced to adopt moderate tactics.

THE SHANGHAI THESES

Meanwhile, the Comintern began to take steps to reestablish the Japanese Communist Party. In April 1924 it sent a message to Japan disapproving the party’s dissolution; at the same time, it ordered Sano Manabu, Kondo, Takatsu, Tsujii, and Yamamoto, all of whom had been living in Vladivostok, to become active in the Japanese movement once again. Sano and Kondo were summoned to Moscow; Takatsu returned to Tokyo.¹¹ A month later, the executive committee of the Comintern published a manifesto calling for the formation of a “Japanese Workers’ and Peasants’ Party independent of the bourgeois radicals.” The manifesto urged the workers and peasants of Japan to adopt a program demanding democratic government, immediate adult suffrage without qualification, freedom for workers to strike and to bargain collectively, freedom of opinion and assembly, and “real freedom of the press.”¹²

The Comintern did not publicly acknowledge the situation in Japan at its Fifth Congress, which was held in Moscow from June 17 to July 8, 1924. Its “Theses on Tactics” made no reference to the dissolution of the Japanese Communist Party,¹³ and Katayama Sen, in a brief report, proudly announced that with the formation of a legal political party—the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party—the Japanese proletariat would soon “take a new step forward in the arena of political struggle.”¹⁴ However, a special committee on Japan, which included Sano, Kondo, Katayama, and representatives from Great Britain, China, Germany, and the Soviet Union, could not ignore the facts of the situation. The committee officially opposed the dissolution and recommended that Sano return to Shanghai with Voitinsky to work for the reestablishment of the party.¹⁵

Voitinsky and Sano reached Shanghai in September 1924, and took up their task almost immediately. Kitahara visited them in October and reported that the bureau felt that it would be suicidal to reestablish the party. Voitinsky disagreed with this judgment, and sent Kitahara back to Japan to make known the views of the Comintern. Kitahara visited Shanghai again in December, and after conferring with Voitinsky, returned to Japan with 10,000 yen to support the publication of a popular organ. He lost the money speculating in the rice market, however. Kitaura, in reporting the loss to Voitinsky later in December, expressed the willingness of the bureau members to meet with representatives of the Comintern at Shanghai to discuss the Japanese situation.¹⁶

In January 1925, Voitinsky, Sano Manabu, and possibly L. Heller, the Profintem representative at Shanghai, met in Shanghai with a delegation from Japan that included Arahata, Tokuda, Watanabe, Aono, and Sano Fumio. After a week of discussion, the conferees formulated a set of theses that condemned the dissolution of the Communist Party and outlined tactics for the communist bureau to follow in order to reestablish the party.¹⁷

These “Shanghai Theses” were unsparing in their criticism of the “dissolutionists.” Yamakawa and Sakai, they maintained, “were for the most part separated from practical and organizational movements, lacked the experience and knowledge necessary to lead organizational activities, and were often subject to the influence of anarcho-syndicalism.” Moreover, they and most of their followers “treated the theories of communism and proletarian revolution in a very idealistic and abstract manner, and failed to consider the political, economic, and social conditions for the purpose of directing the masses into the class struggle by means of revolutionary tactics.” The theses continued:

There are fundamental reasons why the activities of the Japanese Communist Party failed to achieve a firm base in the masses, to lead mass movements into communist movements, and to advance the social situation of Japan to the revolutionary stage. In general, the communist movement was little more than a few empty words floating in the air that finally evaporated… One reason for the party’s collapse lies in the fact that the organizers of the party lacked sufficient understanding of ideology, as well as discipline, resolution, and knowledge regarding the revolutionary movement, especially the underground movement.

The theses also criticized the former party leaders for their division into factions based on personal relationships and their failure to adhere to Comintern direction. According to the theses, the Comintern had explained “more than once” that “the Japanese comrades should demand the democratization of Japan and expose the foundations of autocracy and of the remaining feudal forces,” and that they should draw the masses of workers and peasants into the party. Enumerating the leaders’ errors, the theses stated that the leaders failed

(a) to propagandize generally for the democratization of Japan and specifically for universal suffrage elections (while exposing to the masses the true character of bourgeois democracy), (b) to propagandize and agitate for the protection of the economic interests of workers and peasants on the basis of their immediate demands, © to begin agitation for the establishment of a worker-peasant party in conformity with the Comintern’s direction, (d) to launch a campaign, on the one hand, to defend the economic and political interests of the poor and the peasants in the districts stricken by the great earthquake, and, on the other, to expose the class nature of the bureaucratic government, in conformity with the Comintern’s direction, and (e) to establish a legal party organ for the masses at the proper time, and to set up the machinery for the printing and distribution of illegal documents.

The theses not only attacked Yamakawa and Sakai for their past failures, but also criticized them for postponing the organization of a communist party until autocracy was overthrown. This view, it was argued, was “opportunistic” because it relied on “spontaneous growth,” which meant “adjusting to externals and following the lead of the revolutionary movement,” instead of making strenuous efforts to bring the natural course of the growth of the revolutionary movement under communist control in order to turn it into a conscious effort “imbued with the communist spirit.” According to the theses, the opportunism of the former party leaders stemmed from two fundamental errors. The first was their lack of understanding of the nature of the struggle against autocracy: “They do not understand that the proletariat, uniting with the peasants and rural workers, is the decisive factor in this struggle.” The theses asserted that the history of various countries shows that the bourgeoisie tries “to use the masses of workers and peasants for its purposes” in the struggle against autocracy, then, “at the moment of the decisive clash,” betrays the working masses and peasants and compromises with the very autocracy it has led the working classes to fight. Applying this theory to Japan—“where capitalism has reached the stage of monopoly economically and the stage of imperialism politically”—the theses concluded that “the time when the bourgeoisie betrays the workers and peasants will come earlier than in the capitalist countries of the West.” This was the key to the role to be played by the proletariat and its vanguard, the Japanese Communist Party.

Accordingly, the struggle against autocracy in Japan and the results of the struggle will be determined by the question of who will prepare and organize the working masses for the struggle and who will lead them to the final fight against autocracy.

In the period after autocracy is overthrown, relations between social forces are not determined by democratic freedom, as a matter of form; on the contrary, they are determined by considerations of by whom and how the masses of workers and peasants are organized and by the extent to which the consciousness of class struggle or class antagonism is cultivated among them.

The second basic fault of the former party leaders, according to the theses, was their ignorance of how to combine legal and illegal methods: “They disregard the need for underground propaganda and agitation with the excuse that such activities are not feasible under present conditions in Japan.” The theses continued: “We consider it a serious mistake… that the leading comrades in Japan failed to found an illegal press, along with a legal one, and to make efforts to educate the masses by this means.”

What was to be learned from these two mistakes? The theses provided a clear answer: The bureau must immediately launch a program of propaganda and agitation among the masses that would advance the class struggle and the cause of communism, as well as “lay bare the true nature of bourgeois democracy.” Simultaneously, the bureau must form cells and groups of communists and organize them into one communist party at the earliest possible date. The bureau was directed to establish three sections—an agitation and propaganda section to issue legal and illegal newspapers; an organizational section to rally and organize communist elements, establish cells in factories, workshops, tenant farmers’ unions, and among revolutionary students and intellectuals, create a unit to print and distribute documents, and maintain contact with local organizations; and an information section to study problems and collect the materials needed for the propaganda campaign, work in Marxist groups, labor schools, workers’ clubs, and legal political associations such as the Society for the Study of Politics, and take part in the work of the agitation and propaganda section.

The conferees decided that it was necessary to publish the theses in order to explain the “facts” about the dissolution of the party and to declare the “firm intention” of the new leaders to organize a communist party based on the principles enunciated in the theses. “This will help to sweep away all the rumors and slanders being spread by the enemies of the communist movement.” They also resolved that the bureau hold a convention of worker, peasant, and student delegates the following July to reestablish the party.

After the members of the bureau returned to Japan, some of them had second thoughts about the decisions made at Shanghai. Aono and Sano Fumio decided to withdraw from the bureau, in part because of personality clashes with Tokuda,¹⁸ but more importantly because of the influence of Yamakawa and Sakai, who regarded the Shanghai Theses as unrealistic and even dangerous.¹⁹ Their places and that of the discredited Kitahara were taken by Watanabe Masanosuke, Kitaura, and Sugiura. These changes had the effect of consolidating the leadership and can be regarded as a victory for the bureau’s “action group.”

LABOR ACTIVITIES

The communists were active on a number of fronts, but they found the going difficult, especially in the labor movement, where the right-wing leaders of Sodomei were vigilant and ready to expel them, if sufficiently provoked. For example, after the communists failed in a bid to gain control of Sodomei’s Kanto federation in October 1924, the right-wing leaders forced Watanabe Masanosuke, Sugiura, Kawada, and several others out of the Kanto federation, and expelled the four local unions that they led.²⁰ In announcing the unions’ exclusion from membership, the leaders attacked the “utopian theories” of communism, branding them “unscientific and unrealistic.” They urged that the labor movement be developed on the basis of “an understanding of the special circumstances of Japan and Japanese capitalism” and “not by reliance upon a few rash, infantile theories.”²¹ This action was later reviewed by the central committee of Sodomei, which decided that the four unions could continue their affiliation with the parent body. They were permitted to withdraw voluntarily from the Kanto federation, and in December formed the Kanto District Council of Sodomei (Nihon Rodo Sodomei Kanto Chiho Hyogikai). Shortly thereafter, they began publishing Labor News, which took a strong class-struggle line.

The decision of Sodomei’s central committee was meant to be a peace offering to the communists in order to ease the tension between the right and left wings of the labor movement. However, though it was a helpful face-saver, it was hardly a solution to a conflict that stemmed from fundamental philosophical differences. This became apparent when Sodomei held its annual convention at Osaka March 15-18. The convention was the scene of a bitter dispute. The moderates, with majority backing, advocated a policy of centralized, industrial unionism and support for the principles of social democracy. A radical minority, led by Nabeyama and Nakamura, both of whom were Kansai district representatives, had no quarrel with the moderates’ approach to organization of the federation, but they vigorously attacked the “right-wing opportunism” of the federation’s leaders, who in effect rejected the role of the militant communist vanguard. The need to engage labor in politics was not an issue; they agreed on that. The crucial issue was social democracy versus communism, or, as the communists interpreted it, whether the labor movement was to be reformist or revolutionary. The communists insisted that the principal difference between the reformists and the revolutionaries was not over the need for a day-to-day struggle based on the concrete demands of the working class, but whether or not the fundamental principle of class struggle underlying those demands should be recognized. According to the communists, the reformists, instead of transforming the demands of the masses into class struggles, were satisfied with attaining partial objectives.

The uncompromising, bitter nature of the debate was a clear indication that the two factions were unlikely to remain in the same organization. Each side maneuvered to strengthen its position. The right-wing members of the central committee, who obtained knowledge about the communists through Akamatsu, wanted to expel Nabeyama, Nakamura, Watanabe, Sugiura, Yamamoto, and Tsujii, but they could not obtain the required two-thirds majority. The communists, meanwhile, were endeavoring to establish a “reform movement” directed at diminishing the power of the right-wing leaders, and gained the support of some 25 unions. In retaliation, the right wing persuaded the central committee to order the dissolution of the communist-led Kanto district council on March 27. The communists tried to get the order rescinded, and the conflict reached its climax on April 12, when the central committee refused to alter its stand. Representatives of the 25 unions met the following day and formed the League to Reform Sodomei (Nihon Sodomei Kakushin Domei) with headquarters at Osaka. The “Reform League” branded the central committee “class betrayers”; the committee answered by calling the dissidents “communists” and accusing them of “left-wing infantilism.”

The situation in the labor movement was hardly in keeping with a resolution that had been passed at the Shanghai meeting calling on the communist bureau to “conform to the Profintem policy of a unified labor movement in which the left-wing and right-wing unions cooperate.”²² Heller was naturally disturbed by the events in Japan and in May summoned Tokuda and Watanabe to Shanghai to discuss with him and Sano Manabu what steps should be taken regarding the Japanese labor movement. They relied upon a report prepared by Kondo, who had been assigned by the Profintem to study labor conditions in Japan.²³ The result of the meeting was a basic policy statement known as the “Heller Theses.”²⁴

In the theses, the errors of the Japanese communists in the labor movement were analyzed. The communists’ fundamental mistake, according to the theses, was their failure to formulate a “revolutionary labor union theory.” They were victims of “traditional unionism” or “opportunism,” and simply did not know how to win over the working masses through “effective revolutionary daily struggles.” The communists were accused of being more concerned with increasing the number of workers in unions than with the content of the revolutionary movement, or with the class struggle. The failure of the Reform League to take advantage of the revolutionary consciousness of young workers was cited as evidence for this judgment. What was needed was a properly balanced and integral relationship between the practical concerns of the labor movement and the movement’s theoretical basis—the concept of class struggle. According to the theses, the communists in the Reform League tended to emphasize either one or the other, and not relate the two in any effective manner.

What, then, was the correct course? The theses put forward a series of immediate tasks. Most important, the Japanese communists were directed to organize the working masses on the basis of their daily needs as a stage in the revolutionary struggle. They were to develop a concrete program consistent with the process of revolution in order to avoid the pitfalls of separation from the masses and opportunism. The goal was to be the creation of a national federation of industrial labor unions. The break with Sodomei had clearly been a mistake; it violated the policy of national federation and was a step in the direction of separation from the masses. The communists should struggle against the right-wing forces in Sodomei on all levels, as well as against the anarcho-syndicalist influences that sought to orient the labor movement toward “political neutralism.”

The theses called for a vigorous communist indoctrination program. The Japanese communists were directed to publish a labor union paper for distribution among the masses of workers, which would emphasize practical questions of concern to workers and peasants, and a monthly journal (neither “superficial” nor “too abstract”) for distribution to active union members, which would deal with communist theory and international problems. The peasants were also to be indoctrinated: the theses called on the Japanese communists in the labor movement to “guide the thinking of the peasant movement” and to establish organizational ties with peasant unions. The most important “slogans of the day” were as follows: “Conquest of the masses by means of a revolutionary day-to-day struggle based on realistic strategy”; “an end to unemployment”; “freedom to organize labor unions”; “completion of organization by industry”; “establishment of a national federation”; “immediate organization of a proletarian political party”; “condemnation of the coalition between the government and the capitalists”; “unification of the workers of the Far East”; and “establishment of a single, unified Labor Union International.”

Despite the Profintern’s instructions, it proved impossible to prevent a final split in Sodomei. The central committee of Sodomei, led by Akamatsu, Matsuoka, and Nishio, formally expelled the 25 “reform” unions on May 16. Joined by another seven unions, the outcast group formed the Japan Labor Union Council (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Hyogikai), or Hyogikai, during a meeting held at Kobe May 24-27. Hyogikai’s 32 industrial and general unions had approximately 11,000 members; Sodomei’s 35, some 19,500.²⁵

A noncommunist, Noda Ritsuta, became chairman of Hyogikai’s central committee of 17 members, but the communists, notably Nabeyama, Yamamoto, Taniguchi, and Mitamura Shiro, tended to dominate it. (Noda later became a communist.) The committee attacked Sodomei for “betraying the working class by drifting away from the spirit of the labor movement and… conciliating the capitalists.” It declared that through organization and struggle the labor movement would oppose capitalist exploitation and win the complete emancipation of the working class. It formulated a practical action policy based on the immediate economic issues of wages, hours, and working conditions. In May 1925 the first Hyogikai convention passed resolutions on wages, insurance, and unemployment relief. Hyogikai’s central committee insisted, however, that the struggle of the workers had to be transformed into a political class struggle.²⁶ The unions were to use economic issues to recruit the masses in order to train them politically in the struggle for power.²⁷

The communists in Hyogikai were active both at home and abroad. By the end of the year, Hyogikai contained 59 unions with a membership of approximately 35,000 workers—making it approximately the same size as Sodomei. Following the policy guidelines of the Heller Theses, Hyogikai’s communist leadership called for a national convention to establish a federation to include all unions. When Sodomei opposed the suggestion, the communists sharply attacked its “right-wing” and “bureaucratic” officers. On the foreign front, Hyogikai made no attempt to hide its support of the May 30th movement in China, and sent Mitamura and Yamamoto to Shanghai to confer with leaders of the Chinese General Council of Trade Unions. The two Japanese visitors were keen observers of Chinese strike tactics, and later applied in Japan some of the lessons they learned. They also made contacts at Shanghai that led to Hyogikai’s subsequent participation in a Profintem-sponsored Pacific Labor Union Conference and the federation’s affiliation with the Pan-Pacific Trade Unions Secretariat.

Hyogikai and its communist leaders were involved in a number of lengthy strikes during 1926. For example, Watanabe Masanosuke, Noda, Nakao Katsuo, who was chief of the union’s Kan to regional division, and Ito Masanosuke, who was active in the communist youth movement, were among the instigators of a strike of some 2,300 workers against the Kyodo Printing Company, which lasted for 58 days—from February to April.²⁸ Perhaps the most bitterly fought strike involving Hyogikai was one against the Japan Musical Instrument Company at Hamamatsu, in which some 1,200 workers left their jobs for 105 days from April to August. During this strike, Mitamura and Nabeyama, utilizing the experience gained from the study of the May 30th movement at Shanghai, established a strike headquarters with departments for information, education, printing, and defense, and formed a militant force of 13 squads of strikers. When nationalist right-wing societies sent strikebreakers from Tokyo, violence became common. Finally, in August, the officials of the strike headquarters were arrested, and the workers agreed to arbitration. The communists were content with the outcome, in that they regarded the experience gained in the strike as practical training for revolution.²⁹ Hyogikai was much more active in strikes than Sodomei. In 1926 alone, over 5,000 Hyogikai members were detained by the police and 196 imprisoned because of strikes.³⁰ The activities of its leaders were closely watched by the Japanese police, of course. A good example of this can be seen in a case involving a visit of four Soviet labor leaders in September 1925—a trip made possible by the resumption of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union the previous spring. The Russians were escorted from their point of disembarkation to Tokyo by Noda, Kawada, and Mitamura. At Tokyo station, they were welcomed by some 2,000 workers, but the police were also on hand and arrested the escort and their interpreters. Thereafter, plainclothesmen kept the Russians under constant surveillance, generally obstructed their movements, prevented them from maintaining contact with Hyogikai leaders, and at Osaka again arrested their Japanese guides. The Russians finally cut short their visit—an action hardly regretted by the authorities.³¹

YOUTH ACTIVITIES

The communists were also active among youth organizations, especially the youth division of Hyogikai and the All-Japan Student Social Science Federation (Zen Nihon Gakusei Shakai Kagaku Rengokai), or Gakuren. These two organizations provided a foundation for the reestablishment of the Communist Youth League of Japan in the summer of 1925. Gakuren, formerly the National Federation of Students, had been renamed and reorganized at its national convention at Kyoto in July 1924; it had discarded the character of a study association and had become increasingly involved in propaganda and agitation activities among Japanese workers. The communists also urged college students and other young people to join the Society for Political Studies in order to influence the proletarian party movement.

The Communist Youth League, under the leadership of Kitaura, merged in August 1925 with the Leveler Youth League, and began to plan the organization of a more broadly based group, the All-Japan Proletarian Youth League (Zen Nihon Musan Seinen Domei). A preparatory meeting for the new national body was held in September, and by November the group’s organization was completed with the establishment of local branches. The first national convention was held in Tokyo on December 12; among the most important groups represented were the youth departments of Hyogikai and the Japan Peasant Union, the Leveler Youth League, and Gakuren. At the convention, leaders were elected and a platform approved. The platform included demands for the extension of suffrage to everyone over eighteen, abolition of “feudal” family paternalism, cancelation of school tuition, and creation of education facilities for factory workers. The new league was open to youths between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Its leaders hoped to establish branches in schools and factories throughout the country.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Proletarian Youth League activity was its opposition to the government’s extension of military training in schools. In April 1925, the government decreed that all students in middle, normal, and higher schools were to be given a military training course, and that if university students elected to take the course, their military service would be reduced from 12 to 10 months. A number of incidents helped to create a national opposition movement. At Otaru Commercial School in Hokkaido, for example, an army officer had the students prepare to break up a riot of radical left-wingers as a military training exercise.³² Local opposition to this and other incidents quickly became national in scope.

The authorities reacted against the rise of the Proletarian Youth League by striking at Gakuren, the organization that provided the hard core of the league’s leadership. Invoking the Peace Preservation Law for the first time since it had gone into effect in April, the police began a series of arrests at Kyoto University on December 1, 1925, and ultimately jailed 38 Gakuren members. Among those subsequently sentenced (in May 1927) to jail sentences of from one to three years were Iwata Yoshimichi, Murao Satsuo, Noro Eitaro, and Akizasa Masanosuke, all of whom later were active in the Japanese Communist Party and its front organizations.³³

The police brought to light some unexpected and useful information. They arrested Maniwa in Kobe in December 1925 and found on him the texts of the Shanghai Theses and the Heller Theses. Released on bail, Maniwa reported the police discovery to Sano Manabu, who had returned to Japan from the Soviet Union in July 1925, and with Sano’s permission, he broke bail and fled to Vladivostok. Sano, meanwhile, reported to the procurator-general for trial in connection with the June 1923 “roundup”; he ultimately received a ten-month sentence.

THE COMMUNIST GROUP

The rapid turn of events in the spring of 1925—especially the split in Sodomei and the passage of the universal manhood suffrage bill—forced the communist bureau to reassess its position and plan future strategy. (In addition, the Comintern was applying pressure.) Tokuda, Arahata, Kitaura, Sano Fumio, and Maniwa met in August and decided to replace the bureau with a larger organization until a party could be formed as a branch of the Comintern. The new organization came to be called the “communist group.” Central executive committee assignments were made as follows: Tokuda, chairman of the “group” and chief of the organization department; Watanabe, chief of the labor union department; Sano Fumio, managing editor of a new organ. The Proletarian News (Musansha Shinhun); Kitaura, chief of the youth department; and Arahata, chief representative in the Kansai region.³⁴ Tokuda seems to have been given his elevated position because he had access to Comintern funds through his close relationship with Comintern representatives, particularly Jacob Janson, the trade representative at the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo.³⁵

New “organizational theses” were adopted in accordance with recommendations made by the Fifth Congress of the Comintern held in 1924. The communist group was to be based on the principle of democratic centralism, with factory cells as the foundation and with fractions within various mass organizations. (A fraction was a small group of communists under party discipline that was organized especially to influence policy in labor and other mass organizations.) There was a dispute, however, over membership. Tokuda held that the group should follow the line of the Shanghai Theses and relax its requirements in order to increase its size, but Arahata, who insisted that the group should be “100 per cent” communist, had his way. Arahata based his position on the need to “liquidate sectarian tendencies,” which he accused Tokuda of fostering.³⁶ Group membership tended therefore to remain small. Moreover, Yamakawa’s influence was still great, and his continued advocacy of action through legal mass organizations also slowed the group’s growth. According to a list discovered in 1928, membership in the communist group grew from seven in the spring of 1925 to 30 by the end of that year and 40 in February 1926.³⁷

The communist group also adopted new “political theses.” These began with a summary of the rapid development of the movement to establish a proletarian political party—a movement that faced two dangers: the attempt of the ruling classes to separate the masses from such a party, and the efforts of the reformists to make it into a social democratic party. The communists were called upon to drive the social democrats out of the proletarian party movement and to form fractions to seize control of it.³⁸ They were then to lead the proletarian party to the establishment of a “government of workers and peasants”—an important step toward the ultimate goal of socialism. As Ichikawa Shoichi later wrote: “The program made it clear that the proletarian party could never be a substitute for the Communist Party.” (He was careful to add that “it had no connection with the opportunistic organizational theory of Yamakawa Hitoshi.”)³⁹ The communist group also adopted the following central slogans: “Defeat the War of Imperialism,” “Liberate Korea and Other Colonies,” “Establish the Eight-Hour Working-Day System,” “Suffrage for Everyone over Eighteen Years of Age,” and “Establish a Government of Workers and Peasants.”⁴⁰

The new communist organ, The Proletarian News, made its appearance on September 20 as a semimonthly publication. Its editorial policy was determined by Tokuda and Sano Fumio, and emphasized the establishment of a single proletarian party under communist leadership. Under the editorship of Sekine Etsuro, it became a weekly in January 1926; later, under Sano Manabu’s direction, it was published six times a month and, for a time, daily. As might have been expected, various issues (for example, two of the first five) were confiscated by the police. However, despite constant attempts at suppression, 239 issues of the News were printed before it ceased publication on August 20, 1929.

THE ORGANIZATION OF A PROLETARIAN PARTY

The major focus of communist activity during the summer and fall of 1925 was the movement to organize a proletarian political party. The drive toward organization was already well under way, with leadership in the hands of the Japan Peasant Union, which had issued an invitation in June to all interested groups having a membership of 1,000 or more to help form a preparatory council. Representatives from 16 left-wing organizations met at Osaka in August and agreed in principle to establish a single party based upon all proletarian groups with 100 or more members.⁴¹ However, when they began formulating a platform, it soon became clear that there was little likelihood that major groups like Sodomei and Hyogikai would find any basis for cooperation. The struggle between the social democrats and the communists continued to keep the left wing divided.

The communists were particularly active in the efforts of the Society for Political Studies to prepare a draft platform for a political party. The society’s research committee considered three drafts—two prepared by right-wing moderates and a third by Sano Fumio. Sano’s draft platform was ultimately adopted, and was submitted for discussion to the first meeting of the platform and rules research committee of the Proletarian Party Preparatory Council, which was held in Osaka in September.⁴² Sano laid down the Comintern line. He linked Japanese capitalism with world capitalism “as one component of an integrated world system.” It already displayed “all the characteristics of full-fledged imperialism,” he stated, i.e., “rapid accumulation and monopolistic tendencies, violent reactionary policies of financial oligarchy, and policies of exploitation and militaristic aggression against colonial peoples.” It had developed without passing through the stage of democracy, and therefore the proletariat could not expect much improvement, politically or economically, through reformism.⁴³ According to Sano, the only way the proletarian masses could achieve their aims was through revolutionary struggle. Though he emphasized the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie, he followed the Comintern line by acknowledging the survival of feudal forces. He called for Japan’s workers and peasants to unite “as the exploited and the oppressed, and win their common class goals.” In brief, Sano wanted a proletarian party, representing the workers and peasants, to be based on the principle of class struggle, not reformism.

Communists also dominated the drafting of a platform submitted by Hyogikai at the September meeting of the preparatory council. In contrast to the general statements of Sano’s draft platform, the planks in the Hyogikai platform were quite specific. They were divided into two categories—political demands and economic demands. The political demands included: abolition of the elder statesmen (the powerful group of advisers around the emperor), the House of Peers, the Privy Council, the general staffs of the army and navy, and the peerage system; the right to vote and to seek elective office for everyone over eighteen; abolition of legislation restricting speech, assembly, press and association, including the Peace Preservation Law, the Public Peace Police Law, and “all other laws of violent repression”; freedom to organize labor unions and peasant unions, to strike and demonstrate, and to bargain collectively; abolition of “slave treatment” of soldiers in barracks; the right of soldiers to receive adequate pay and to participate in the formulation of regulations governing barracks life; the assurance of government assistance to families in economic difficulties caused by injury in war or because of conscription; institution of a one-year conscription system; abolition of military courts and the military police; an end to “militarization of the masses”; and immediate government indemnification for the victims of miscarriages of justice caused by official actions. The economic demands were: the right of labor to supervise industries; the “immediate” granting to labor of supervision over government and public enterprises; the right of peasants to control the land, and to farm it collectively; the right of cultivators to control land-improvement projects, and the appropriation of government funds for such projects; the control by cultivators of the acquisition and distribution of fertilizers and farm implements; and a government guarantee of security for life for tenant farmers who were victims of agrarian depression.⁴⁴

These two draft platforms indicate in outline the role that the communists expected the legal proletarian party to play. (In general, they seem to have been based on the 1922 draft platform of the Japanese Communist Party.) The political and economic planks suggest that the communists wanted the proletarian party to work for democratization of the political system and the improvement of economic conditions for the masses, but there can be no doubt of the communists’ intentions and ultimate objectives. They quite clearly wanted a legal proletarian party to fight for the abolition of the imperial system, but they were not ready to have it made an open issue. Nor did they want the party to talk frankly of a bourgeois-democratic revolution as a necessary stage in the revolutionary process. They regarded the achievement of democracy as a task for the workers and peasants, particularly since they believed that Japanese capitalism was already imperialistic and could not pass through a period of democracy. Their emphasis on these points and on others—especially capitalism as a worldwide system and the class struggle—was calculated to serve as an attack upon the tenets of social democracy as well as those of capitalism.

At the September meeting of the preparatory council, the Sodomei representatives made clear their objections to both draft platforms. They branded many of the planks too radical, e.g., abolition of the House of Peers and the Privy Council. More important, however, they charged that Hyogikai was seeking to control the proletarian party and force it to follow the communist line. They charged, moreover, that the Society for Political Studies was nothing more than a mouthpiece for Hyogikai. There was a good deal of justification for this charge, since Hyogikai had encouraged its members to join the Society for Political Studies. Sodomei opposed its admission, as well as that of the Proletarian Youth League, into the party. In any case, it was difficult for Sodomei to accept the idea of cooperation since it was being vilified by Hyogikai throughout the country.

Sodomei clarified its own policies during a convention held in October 1925. The convention slogan—“Toward Realism”—was a significant one. The moderate leadership meant by this slogan that the belief that a vanguard filled with revolutionary fervor could bring the working class to power without a practical program attuned to the needs and interests of the masses had to be abandoned. Sodomei decided to adopt such a program and to base it on the principles of social democracy rather than on those of revolutionary Marxism. Their basic assumptions were that social democracy constituted a political and ethical approach to progress superior to revolutionary Marxism, that it represented true democracy, and that it would be accepted by the masses. Anxious to clarify the autonomous role of unions in the left-wing movement, Sodomei defined a labor union as a self-governing organization of workers—one that should be free of outside political leadership, though it could appropriately participate in politics as long as there was no fusion of union and political party or subordination of the one to the other. Sodomei criticized Hyogikai because it was neither led by workers nor independent; instead, claimed Sodomei, it took its orders from Moscow via the Profintern and the Japanese communists.⁴⁵

THE FAILURE OF THE UNIFIED PARTY MOVEMENT

Quite clearly, it was impossible for Hyogikai and Sodomei to form a united front for political purposes. Despite concession after concession made by Hyogikai in order to achieve the greatest unity possible, Sodomei finally announced its intention to withdraw from the preparatory council on November 29. Fearing that the proposed new party would be taken over by the extreme left, Sodomei declared that it would not join any party that included Hyogikai, the Society for Political Studies, or the Proletarian Youth League. Hyogikai withdrew the following day to avoid the accusation that its inclusion in the party was the cause of disruption, and the Society for Political Studies promised to disband as soon as the party was established.⁴⁶

A proletarian party—the Farmer-Labor Party (Nomin Rodoto)—was established on December 1, 1925, but like the Socialist Party of 1901, it was to have no history. Its officers were summoned to the Metropolitan Police Board immediately after the inaugural meeting and were ordered to dissolve the party. The police claimed that the party had a secret communist platform in addition to its official one. Even if the government had permitted the party to exist, it would not have been the unified party for which so many had hoped. Rather, it would have been essentially a party of moderates representing some 33 labor and peasant organizations. The top officials named at the inaugural meeting came, for the most part, from the Japan Peasant Union. Sugiyama was elected chairman, and Asanuma Inejiro, a former member of the People’s League at Waseda University, secretary-general. The party’s platform emphasized parliamentary action to achieve such objectives as social insurance, protection of tenant rights, reduction of armaments, and recognition of labor unions.

The action of the government did not forestall other attempts at political organization, however. On March 5, 1926, the Japan Peasant Union under the leadership of Sugiyama joined several moderate unions, including Sodomei, the “centrist” Japan Labor Union Federation (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Sorengo), which had been founded by a small group of unions that had split off from Sodomei in October 1925, and conservative unions like the Seamen’s Union (Kaiin Kumiai) and the Federation of Government Enterprise Workers (Kangyo Rodo Sodomei), to form the Labor-Farmer Party (Rodo Nominto). With Sugiyama as chairman and Abe, Kagawa, Nishio, and Aso as central committee members, the new party adopted a moderate social democratic platform that, much like the platform of the Farmer-Labor Party, urged social reform through legal action. It pledged “the realization of the political, economic, and social emancipation of the proletarian class in accordance with national conditions,” as well as “the reform, through legal means, of the system connected with inequitable land and production distribution,” and “the overthrow of the established parties, which represent only the interests of the privileged classes, and the fundamental reform of the Diet.”⁴⁷

The platform included the following planks: universal suffrage for all persons over twenty years of age; repeal of all laws and regulations restricting the working-class movement; the right of labor to organize, strike, and bargain collectively; the protection and expansion of the legal rights of tenant farmers; progressive income and property taxes; abolition of taxes on daily necessities; minimum wages, social insurance, and an eight-hour day; women’s rights; free education; democratic reorganization of the army and navy; and reduction of armaments.⁴⁸ This time the government did not immediately move to ban the party. Instead the authorities adopted a wait-and-see attitude. However, they did not relax their vigilance with regard to possible communist influence.

In order to exclude the communists and other extreme leftists, the organizers of the Labor-Farmer Party adopted a rule that allowed only members of the constituent organizations to join the party. Nevertheless, there was still much support in the party for the concept of a single, united proletarian party, and a bitter conflict was waged within the central executive committee over the issue of whether or not to admit members of Hyogikai, the Society for Political Studies, and the Proletarian Youth League. Some of the peasant youth groups, especially those under the leadership of Oyama Ikuo, took a strong affirmative position. The door was opened in mid-April at the second session of the party’s central executive committee. By a vote of nine to eight, the committee approved a new membership policy under which members of excluded organizations could, for all practical purposes, join the party. The new policy simply stated that “any qualified individual could join, with candidates to be approved by the branches to which they applied.”

The new rule, which was regarded by its supporters as a compromise, had the effect of destroying the original coalition and laying the foundation for dominance of the party by the communists. The opponents of the new policy did not accept it. Protests came from Hirano Rikizo, Okabe Kansuke, and others who had resigned from the Japan Peasant Union and formed the All-Japan League of Peasant Unions (Zen Nihon Nomin Kumiai Domei), with a claimed membership of 20,000. (This action was taken only a week prior to the Labor-Farmer Party’s central executive committee meeting.) Attacking the “extremism” of the youthful elements of the Japan Peasant Union, they immediately withdrew from the Labor-Farmer Party. In October, they formed the ineffectual Japan Farmer Party (Nihon Nominto). Sodomei also objected to the new membership policy, and at the third meeting of the central executive committee on July 26, threatened to resign if the party included branches formed with the assistance of Hyogikai and other extremist organizations. The central executive committee thereupon reversed the April decision.⁴⁹ Hyogikai on its part continued to demand a “united front,” and was active in the formation of party branches. The Japan Peasant Union sided with Hyogikai, admitting Hyogikai-affiliated individuals into party branches under its own influence.

The drive to create a unified proletarian party finally collapsed altogether. Sodomei and the other labor unions withdrew from the Labor-Farmer Party on October 24, at the fourth meeting of the central executive committee, declaring they would not cooperate with communist forces, economically or politically. Thereafter, under the leadership of Oyama Ikuo, Hososako Kanemitsu, and Mizutani Chozaburo, the Labor-Farmer Party lifted all restrictions on membership. As was to be expected, it was joined by all the extreme leftist organizations and was later often manipulated effectively by the communists.

The political movement of the proletariat was soon hopelessly divided. Sodomei and other labor unions joined with moderate intellectual groups like the Independent Labor Association to form the Social Democratic Party (Shakai Minshuto) on December 5, 1926. They elected Abe chairman, and Suzuki Bunji, Nishio, Akamatsu, Shimanaka, and Kagawa central committee members. The new party derived most of its support from Sodomei and tended, therefore, to give political expression to Sodomei aims. Its platform called for a program of “social reform through rational means,” which was interpreted by the communists to mean “compromise with capitalism.” The party’s specific platform planks were not much different from those of the Labor-Farmer Party.⁵⁰ The differences lay in what had to be left unsaid.

The Social Democratic Party split only four days after it was formed, when a group of “left-wing socialists,” including Aso, Kono Mitsu, and Kato Kanju, joined forces with Asanuma and others of the Japan Peasant Union to establish the Japan Labor-Farmer Party (Nihon Ronoto). The break was the result of both personality clashes and ideological differences. Aso and a small number of university graduates in the labor union movement had found it increasingly difficult to work with practical-minded labor leaders like Nishio and Matsuoka. Largely products of the New Men Society and the Builders’ League, these intellectuals were more inclined to revolutionary Marxist viewpoints than were the “worker-administrative” types.⁵¹ They held that leadership of the proletarian movement should stand somewhere between the “far left” of the communists and the Labor-Farmer Party on one side, and the “right wing” of Sodomei and the Social Democratic Party on the other. They believed that they could provide the kind of leadership that could lay the basis for the establishment of a united front. The central committee of Sodomei was understandably indignant at their exodus from the Social Democratic Party, and demanded that the new party’s founders resign from Sodomei. When they refused to do so, the central committee expelled them. Their unions followed them out of Sodomei and formed the Japan Labor Union League (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Domei) with some 5,000 to 6,000 members.

The Japan Labor-Farmer Party had the support of the Japan Labor Union Federation and of the Sugiyama-Asanuma faction of the Japan Peasant Union, which after expulsion from that body in February 1927, formed a third peasant organization on March 1—the All-Japan Peasant Union (Zen Nihon Nomin Kumiai).⁵² Of the three major proletarian parties, the Japan Labor-Farmer Party was the “centrist” party, the Social Democratic Party was on the “right,” and the Labor-Farmer Party on the “left.” The leaders of the Japan Labor-Farmer Party considered themselves essentially Marxist revolutionaries, but they insisted that they were independent of Comintern influence. Though their strategy to achieve rule by the proletariat was based upon the concept of class struggle, they were dedicated to the legal political movement and to a political and economic program acceptable to the masses. They condemned the left as being “inflicted with an infantile disorder” and the right as being “senile and sick.” What they wanted was to provide a new basis for a united front including all labor and peasant organizations. However, that goal was an impossible one, and in trying to formulate strategy to achieve it, the party tended to be hazy on issues and even seemed hypocritical. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish it from the other two parties. The Social Democrats regarded the “centrists” as unwitting tools of the communists. The communists, though they believed that a union of the left and the center would be desirable, were critical of the “petty bourgeois mentality” of the Japan Labor-Farmer Party. Later the Japan Labor-Farmer Party split up and its member groups found havens on the right or left of the proletarian movement or among groups in the budding national socialist movement. The hard core of its leadership developed close ties with certain Japanese militarists who were disappointed with capitalism and sought to reform society.⁵³

The communist-dominated Labor-Farmer Party held its first convention on December 12, 1926, in order to rebuild its organization. Oyama Ikuo held the position of chairman, and Hososako, that of secretary-general. There was still a good deal of talk of the need for a single proletarian party during the convention; at the same time, there was an increasing realization that there was little likelihood of achieving that end. The leaders of the Labor-Farmer Party brushed off the Social Democratic Party as a “petty bourgeois party outside the proletariat,” but they pursued the possibility of merging with the Japan Labor-Farmer Party, which appeared sympathetic to the principle of unification. This did not prove fruitful, however, because of the uncompromising stand taken by the Japan Labor-Farmer Party, which boldly declared: “Rejecting the left of the Labor-Farmer Party and the right of the Social Democratic Party, we have established the correct line of the proletarian movement.” The Labor-Farmer Party began therefore to move toward an acceptance of the concept of a smaller vanguard party instead of a mass one. This was hardly in keeping with the realities of the situation, since the party had the mass support of the Japan Peasant Union; it was, rather, a reflection of the party’s almost exclusive labor orientation and the increasing influence on it of the elitist theory that was coming to dominate the Japanese communist movement.

The events of 1925 and 1926 demonstrated that the proletarian political and labor movements were hopelessly divided. The labor union movement remained split, and the proletarian political movement gave rise to political parties that covered the spectrum from the far left of communism to the far right of social democracy. In this situation, it was only natural that Japan’s communists should tend to regard themselves as a revolutionary elite. They scorned reformism and felt that their views—and theirs alone—represented the antithesis of the views held by the Japanese power structure. This meant that except for their efforts to influence the Labor-Farmer Party, they were outside the mainstream of the proletarian political movement. The ideological confusion created by the proliferation of parties forced the communists to face up to the need to develop a party organization and to clarify their strategy and tactics. This, in turn, led to their acceptance of the elitist revolutionary theory of young Fukumoto Kazuo.