By the beginning of the twentieth century, Japan, the only Asian country, had turned into a strong imperialist power, capable of competing for spheres of influence with large European states. The rapid development of the economy was facilitated by the expansion of contacts between Japan, which was practically closed for centuries, with European countries. But along with new technologies, European military, technical and natural science knowledge, revolutionary ideas also penetrated into Japan. Already at the end of the 19th century, the first circles and groups of supporters of socialist ideas appeared in the country.
It is noteworthy that the decisive influence on them was exerted not so much by European revolutionaries as by the experience of the populists of the neighboring Russian Empire. Moreover, both Russia and Japan had common problems at the beginning of the twentieth century - although both countries developed in scientific, technical and industrial relations, their defenses were strengthened and their political influence in the world grew, the almost unlimited power of the monarchs remained in domestic politics, feudal privileges, prohibition of fundamental political freedoms.
- founders of the Japanese Socialist Party in 1901
The moderate wing of the Japanese socialists hoped to make changes, first of all, in the nature of labor relations - to achieve a reduction in the length of the working day, an increase in workers' wages, etc. The moderate socialists hoped to do this through legal political struggle. The more radical part of the socialists was guided by anarchism. In the early twentieth century, anarchist ideas in Japan even surpassed Marxism in popularity. This could be explained not only by the influence of the Russian populists, but also by the fact that the average Japanese accepted the anarchist doctrine, especially the views of Peter Kropotkin, more readily than the Marxist doctrine.
The origins of the radical wing of Japanese socialism were Katayama Sen and Kotoku Shushu. Katayama Sen (1859-1933), who was actually called Sugatoro Yabuki, was born into a peasant family in the village of Kumenan, and at the age of seventeen he left for Tokyo, where he got a job as a typesetter. During his life and work in Tokyo, Katayama became close friends with Iwasaki Seikichi, the offspring of a wealthy Japanese family, nephew of one of the founders of the famous Mitsubishi concern. Iwasaki Seikichi was just about to go to study in the United States, which Katayama Sen did not fail to take advantage of. He also went to "conquer America." The trip, I must say, was successful. In the United States, Katayama studied at the famous Yale University. The Western world had such a strong influence on the young Japanese that he converted to Christianity. Then Katayama got carried away with socialist ideas. In 1896, at almost forty years of age, Katayama returned to Japan. It was here that socialist circles and groups were gaining strength. Katayama joined the Japanese socialist movement and did many useful things, for example, he became one of the founders of the Metalworkers 'Union - the first Japanese workers' union.
Another important figure in the formation of the Japanese revolutionary socialist movement was Denjiro Kotoku. The development of Japanese anarchism was connected with the name Kotoku, but more on that later. Denjiro Kotoku, better known by the pseudonym "Shushu", was born on November 5, 1871 in the town of Nakamura in Kochi Prefecture. In the biographies of Katayama and Kotoku, there is much in common - like an older friend, Kotoku moved from the province to Tokyo at a young age. Here the young man got a job as a journalist. Brilliant ability allowed him, a native of the province, to quickly achieve success in the journalistic field. Already in 1898, five years after the start of his journalistic career, Kotoku became a columnist for the most popular newspaper in Tokyo, Every Morning News. At the same time, he became interested in socialist ideas. Formerly sympathetic to the liberals, Kotoku felt that socialism was a fairer and more acceptable path for Japanese society.
- Kotoku Denjiro (Shushu)
On April 21, 1901, Katayama Sen, Kotoku Shushu and several other Japanese socialists met to form the Social Democratic Party, the Shakai Minshuto. Despite the name, the party program was seriously different from European or Russian social democratic organizations of the Marxist persuasion. The Japanese Social Democrats saw their main goals as: 1) the establishment of brotherhood and peace among people regardless of race, 2) the establishment of universal peace and the complete destruction of all weapons, 3) the final elimination of class society and exploitation, 4) socialization of land and capital, 5) socialization of transport and communication lines, 6) equal distribution of wealth among people, 7) providing all inhabitants of Japan with equal political rights, 8) free and universal education for the people. These were the strategic goals of the party. The tactical program, more close to reality, included 38 items. The Social Democrats demanded that the emperor dissolve the chamber of peers, introduce universal suffrage, reduce armaments and stop building up the army, shorten the working day and make Sunday a day off, prohibit night work for girls, prohibit child labor, make school education free, ensure rights trade unions. After familiarizing themselves with the party's program, representatives of the authorities demanded that three points be removed from it - on the dissolution of the House of Peers, on general elections and on the reduction of armaments. The leaders of the Social Democrats refused, in response to which on May 20, 1901, the government banned the activities of the party and ordered the withdrawal of the circulation of those newspapers in which the manifesto and other party documents were published.
The anger of the Japanese government was not accidental. In 1901, Japan, which had turned into an aggressive imperialist power, was already planning in the future an armed confrontation with the Russian Empire for influence in the Far East. The presence of an anti-war political party was clearly not part of the plans of the Japanese elite at the time. Meanwhile, Kotoku and some other Japanese socialists gradually moved to more and more radical positions. If Katayama Sen went to the United States for three years, and during emigration focused his efforts on working as a member of the Socialist International, then Kotoku remained in Japan. Despite the tightening of domestic policy and the growth of aggressive rhetoric in Japan's foreign policy, Kotoku continued to actively oppose the militarization of the country and criticized the authorities for preparing a war with Russia.
His closest associate was Sakai Toshihiko (1870-1933), also a journalist who worked for the newspaper Every Morning News. Together with Sakai Toshihiko Kotoku, in November 1903, he began publishing a frankly anti-war publication, the National Gazette (Heimin Shimbun). This edition came out until January 1905 - that is, it caught the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. The authors of the publication did not hesitate to openly oppose the war with the Russian Empire, criticized the repressive policy of the authorities. In 1904 g. Kotoku Shushu and Sakai Toshihiko translated the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels into Japanese.
Finally, in February 1905, Kotoku Shushu was arrested for anti-war propaganda and sentenced to 5 months in prison. Kotoku's one hundred and fifty days in prison had a profound effect on his worldview. Kotoku himself later said that he went to prison as a Marxist, and left as an anarchist. The further radicalization of his views was influenced by the book by Pyotr Kropotkin "Fields, Factories and Workshops", which he read during his imprisonment. Freed in July 1905, Kotoku decided to temporarily leave Japan. He went to the United States, where by this time his longtime comrade in the creation of the Japanese Socialist Party Katayama Sen was also. In the United States, Kotoku embarked on a more detailed study of anarchist theory and practice. He got acquainted with the activities of the syndicalist groups, which later entered the famous trade union "Industrial Workers of the World" (IRM). In addition, while in the United States, Kotoku had more opportunities to get acquainted with the activities of Russian revolutionaries. Kotoku, like some other Japanese political emigrants - socialists, was especially sympathetic to the Russian Party of Socialists - Revolutionaries. Eventually, on June 1, 1906, 50 Japanese émigrés gathered in Oakland, California, and formed the Social Revolutionary Party. This organization published the journal "Revolution", as well as numerous leaflets in which the Japanese Social Revolutionaries called for an armed struggle against the imperial regime.
- "Heiming Shimbun" ("National Newspaper")
In 1906, Kotoku Shushu returned from the United States to Japan. By this time, interesting events were taking place in the socialist movement of the country. Katayama Sen criticized the anarchists, but many Social Democrats, including capable publicists, chose to side with Kotoku and took anarchist positions. In January 1907, the socialists were able to resume the publication of the "Obshchenarodnaya Gazeta", but in July of the same year it was closed again. Instead, two other newspapers began to print - the social democratic newspaper Social News and the anarchist newspaper of ordinary people of Osaka. Thus, the split between the Japanese Marxists and the Anarchists finally took place. The two founding fathers of Japan's radical socialist movement - Katayama Sen and Kotoku Shushu - led the Marxist and anarchist movements, respectively.
By this time, Kotoku Shushui finally took an anarcho-communist position, becoming a follower of the ideas of Peter Kropotkin. At the same time, if we take the anarchist movement in Japan as a whole, then its ideology was very vague and eclectic. It included components of anarchist communism in the Kropotkin tendency, syndicalism modeled on the American Industrial Workers of the World, and even Russian revolutionary radicalism in the spirit of the Social Revolutionaries. Kropotkin's ideas bribed many Japanese precisely by appealing to the peasant community - at the beginning of the twentieth century, Japan was still a predominantly agrarian country, and the peasants made up the majority of the population in it.
On the other hand, the Japanese proletariat was gaining strength, and among it anarcho-syndicalist ideas were in demand, oriented towards the creation of revolutionary trade unions and the economic struggle. At the same time, many young Japanese revolutionaries were impressed by the example of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries, who embarked on the path of individual terror. It seemed to them that radical acts against the emperor or someone from the highest echelon of power could affect public consciousness and lead to some kind of large-scale changes in the life of the country. At the same time, Kotoku Shushu himself opposed individual terror.
An important role in the popularization of anarchist and socialist ideas in Japan was played by the wife of Kotoku Kanno Suga (1881-1911), one of the founders of the Japanese women's movement. At that time, the position of women in Japan was still very humiliated, so the participation of women in the political movement was perceived ambiguously. All the more amazing is the life of Kanno Suga - a girl born into a simple family of a mining foreman in a small village near Kyoto. Kanno Suga considered the Russian revolutionary Sophia Perovskaya to be her ideal, whom she tried to imitate in every way. She wrote articles for the "Obshchenarodnaya Gazeta", and then published her own magazine "Svobodnaya Mysl" ("Dziyu Siso").
In the spring of 1910, the Japanese secret services intensified their repression of the revolutionary movement. In June 1910, hundreds of Japanese anarchists and socialists were arrested. Twenty-six people were accused of preparing to assassinate the emperor. Among them were Kotoku Shushu and his common-law wife Kanno Suga. It was decided to close the trial on the "insult to the throne" case. The trial took place in December 1910. All twenty-six accused were found guilty of plotting an attempt on the emperor's life, twenty-four of the accused were sentenced to death. However, later the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment for twelve anarchists, but twelve people were still decided to be executed. Kotoku Shushu was also sentenced to death. The death sentence on the Japanese revolutionaries caused numerous protests not only in Japan, but throughout the world. Solidarity actions with the arrested anarchists took place in European countries, in the United States. However, Japanese justice remained adamant. On January 24, 1911, the anarchists sentenced to death were hanged.
The tragic end of Denjiro Kotoku (Shushuya) and his associates was a completely natural result of their active and open struggle against the harsh militarized regime of Japan. Trying to act with maximum openness, Kotoku and his comrades were unable to calculate the possible consequences, including the brutal repression by the authorities. In this regard, the Social Democrats turned out to be in a more advantageous position, who, although they were subjected to repressions, were still able to avoid death sentences.
"The case of the insult to the throne", namely under this name the trial of twenty-six Japanese anarchists went down in history, dealt a serious blow to the development of the revolutionary movement in the country. First, in addition to the twenty-six accused, hundreds of other revolutionaries were arrested in Japan, albeit on other charges, and revolutionary organizations and printing houses were smashed. Second, the most active revolutionaries were executed, including Kotoku Shushuya and Kanno Suga. The anarchists and socialists who remained at large were forced to either hide or even leave the country. The Japanese revolutionary movement took about a decade to recover from the consequences of the "Throne Insult" case. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, Japanese anarchists managed not only to revive the movement, but also to significantly surpass their ideological predecessors, achieving tremendous influence on the Japanese working class.
