Names/Terms Appearing Regularly in Reflections

Labor Unions:

Sodomei--Japan Federation of Labor grew out of Yuaikai, one of the earliest unions in Japan; politcal orientation is moderate

Hyogikai--Nihon Rodo kumiai Hyogikai or Japan Council of Labor Unions;

formed May 1925 by Watanabe Masanosuke when split with Sodomei; much more radical;

constitutes the Left wing of union movement; led by communist organizers

Nankatsu Labor Union—center of most radical communist union activity

Kameido—working district in Tokyo; home of Nankatsu Labor Union

The "Kameido Incident"

Took place around the time of the Kanto Earthquake in 1923. The year before, 1922, Hirasawa Keishichi's Pure Laborers' Union and Watanabe Masanosuke's Nankatsu Labor Association had fought with police ove rthe Ojima Steel Co. strike. 120 union members arrested and 63 charged with rioting. Lawyers for the unions were preparing a case against the police. So tensions were high. On September 1-2, after the earthquake had stuck, Hirasawa, Watanabe and comrades were out wandering through the rubble searching for family and friends. That night about 10:00 pm the Tokko--the Special Higher Police--arrested Hirasawa and 7-8 members of the Nankatsu Labor Association (this is when Tanno Setsu, later Watanabe's wife, had to hide out on a balcony!). Some time in the next day or so troops from the 13th Cavlry Regiment on emergency duty in Kameido shot and decapitated Hirasawa and 9 others in the jail yard. Their bodies were thrown in a drainage ditch with Korean and Chinese victims. When relatives came searching for their loved ones, police told them they had been released. The police later tried to cover these atrocities up. See Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (1991), pp. 177-181.

 

Shinjinkai or New Man society = very influential student organization formed at Tokyo University. Became very Marxist oriented and was a spawning ground for the communist movement in Japan. dissovled in 1928 when government held mass round-ups of leftists.

Kaizo [Reconstruction] a Magazine founded in 1919

Kagawa Toyohiko –Christian Labor organizer, friend of working poor

Tanaka Shozo—Christian-influenced Diet Member representing farmers who suffered from Furukawa Mining company pollution from copper mine. See Ashio Mine Incident link on syllabus

Konkokyo- "new religion" in late Tokugawa; discussed by Wilson in Patriots/Redeemers

Kuromizukyo- religion founded in 1882 as an offshoot of Shinto

Communists Active in the 1920s:

Mitamura Shiro--helped organize Osaka printers, led strike v. Japan Musical Instruments Co. arrsted with Nabeyama Sadachika in 1929; recounced communism 1933 afer being sentence to life in prison.
Minami Kiichi--JCP activist
Shiga Yoshio--JCP actitivst
Sano Manabu--JCP theorist and leader
Fukumoto Kazuo—JCP theorist; head of central committee; his "Fukumotism" was the dominant theoretical position in the JCPfor a while
Nabeyama Sadachika--JCP leader
Watanabe Masanosuke—JCP leader, married to Tanno Setsu; killed in Taiwan shootout 1927