Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
The massive demonstrations of May and June 1960, which forced the resignation of the Kishi Cabinet and the cancellation of President Eisenhower's trip to Japan, alarmed Americans as much as they elated the Chinese Communists. The complacent American view of Japan as a sturdy conservative force loyally allied to the United States through a wise and benevolent Occupation and generous economic aid was rudely shattered. Coming at a time when student unrest precipitated the overthrow of governments in South Korea and Turkey—also allies—it was natural that many Americans saw communist plots and a Japan in the grip of a “revolutionary situation.” But if they were wrong—and it has taken a great deal of soul-searching for informed opinion to understand fully what happened—they were no less wrong than the Chinese Communists, who read the situation in much the same way. After a two-week trip to Japan in August 1960, Liu Ning-i, Chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, reported jubilantly that the revolutionary situation in Japan was well advanced. “The Japanese people's future is full of brightness and hope,” he wrote.
1 See, e.g., Reischauer, E. O.: “The Broken Dialogue with Japan,” Foreign Affairs, 10 1960Google Scholar; Reischauer, : “Some Thoughts on Japanese Democracy,” Japan Quarterly, 01–March 1961Google Scholar; ‘Japanese Intellectuals Discuss American-Japanese Relations” (Introduction by Robert Scalapino), special issue of Far Eastern Survey October 1960; “Japan Today” (Introduction by Ivan Morris), New Leader, Section II, November 28, 1960.
2 In 1952, of the total socialist vote, which tallied 21.3 percent of the national vote, the Right accounted for 11.5 percent, and the Left for 9.8 percent; with this proportion, the Right won 57 seats in the Diet to the Left's 54. In 1953, the total socialist vote rose to 26 percent, the Right accounting for about 14 percent and the Left for about 13; however, in 1960 the Left, with a slightly smaller vote, won 72 seats to the Right's 66.
3 The Party has undergone two major right-left splits since the end of the war. The 1952 split was finally repaired in 1955, in time for the national elections of that year, but another split took place in late 1959. This one, however, has divided the right wing: the Nishio faction left the Party to form the Democratic Socialist Party and the Kawakami faction remained within the Party, with Mr. Kawakami himself, in an evident effort to prevent his followers from joining the Nishio exodus, elected Party Chairman. A good account of these developments will be found in Sissons, David C. S.: “Recent Developments in Japan's Socialist Movement,” (in two parts), Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 29 (03 and June 1960)Google Scholar.
4 Since the Kawakami faction of the JSP shares approximately the same ideological position as the newly formed DSP, a more accurate picture of the “right socialist” vote in the country would include the votes cast for the Kawakami faction, which come to approximately 4.5 percent of the national vote (about 17 percent of the JSP vote). This would suggest a little over 13 percent of the electorate voting a right socialist position, and about 22.5 percent voting left socialist (the total JSP vote minus the Kawakami votes).
At the time of the Party split late in 1959 the distribution of Diet seats was as follows: JSP, 128 (of which the Kawakami faction held 35) and DSP, 37. After the 1960 elections the distribution was: JSP, 145 (of which the Kawakami faction held 28) and DSP, 17.
5 In the 1960 elections, the “progressive vote,” which tallies 38.8 percent, was distributed as follows:
If the DSP vote is considered firmly part of the progressive vote, then the progressives have indeed gone well beyond one-third. However, if the DSP vote is considered largely a “centrist” vote, then the “progressive” vote falls to 30.1 percent. If, in addition, we consider the 4.5 percent of the votes cast for Kawakami-faction candidates as, by and large, also “centrist,” then the hard-core “progressive” votes—of left socialists and communists—falls to 25.6 percent, and the “right socialist” vote (for the DSP and the Kawakami faction) rises to 13.2 percent. This figure shows a remarkable stability for the right socialist sentiment in the country: in 1952, it was about 12 percent; in 1953 and 1955, about 14 percent. The big growth in the socialist vote has been on the left, from 10 percent in 1952 to about 23 percent in 1960.
6 But in the following elections in 1952, the Communist vote plummeted once again to 2.7 percent and no seats in the Diet. It is clear that a great part of the left socialist vote, discontented with the politics of coalition, had gone to the Communists in 1949 and returned “home” when the danger of coalition was over.
7 But see the qualification of this figure, above, note 5.
8 By this term, I would include—following a recent suggestion by Prof. T. Takahashi of Tokyo University—the “minor intellectuals”—school teachers, higher technicians, higher civil servants, and white-collar workers.
9 The sharp decline of the communist vote in 1952 resulted, at least in part, from strong public revulsion against the Party's “fire-bottle” tactics in the early part of the year. Since that time the Party has carried on a systematic campaign to transform itself into a “peaceful” and “lovable” Party.
10 Bennett, J. W., Passin, H., and McKnight, R.: In Search of Identity (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1958)Google Scholar.
11 For a good account of the labor movement see the writings of Levine, Solomon, particularly his Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1958)Google Scholar; of Abegglen, James, particularly his The Japanese Factory (Glencoe, 1958)Google Scholar; and of Benjamin Martin.
12 See Uehara, Cecil: Leftwing Social Movements in Japan: An Annotated Bibliography (Tokyo, Tuttle, 1959)Google Scholar.
13 A good account of the institutions of paternalism may be found in several articles by Iwao Ishino and John Bennett as well as in Levine, op. cit., and Abegglen, op. cit. and particularly in Bennett, and Ishino, : The Social Anthropology of Paternalism in Japan (forthcoming—Minneapolis, University of Wisconsin Press)Google Scholar.
14 Martin, Benjamin, “Japanese Mining Labor: The Miike Strike,” Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 30 (02 1961), p. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives an extremely interesting example: “In the years immediately following the war the newly established Miike union was relatively docile and made little trouble for the management. The changing times did not seem to have outwardly affected labor-management relations but the customary arrogance of the mine executives, previously never challenged by the semi-literate miners of the old days, created an increasing sense of irritation among workers who were often as well educated as their superiors.”
14a On April 26, 1962, these two unions plus several other independents joined together in a new federation called the General Council of Japan Labor Organizations (Domei Kaigi) with a claimed membership of 1.4 millions.
15 Translated from materials made available by Mr. Tokuyama Jiro.
16 See in particular his Nihon Kaizō Hōan Taikō (Outline Plan for the Reconstruction of Japan), his most important work.
17 Indicative of this outlook is the title of a study by one of Japan's leading sociologists, Prof. Kawashima Takeyoshi, The Family System as Ideology.
18 Michio, Takeyama, “Tradition and Japanese Youth,” Japan Quarterly, 07–September 1960Google Scholar.
19 Russian literature has had, in some ways, a greater appeal to modern Japanese intellectuals than that of any other country. Already in the early and middle Meiji period, the great Russians of the 19th century were well known, and the nihilism of Vera Zasulich, Bakunin and Dostoievsky were as popular as the idealistic anarchism of Kropotkin and Tolstoy.
20 See the extremely illuminating article by Feuer, Lewis, “A Talk With Zengakuren,” The New Leader, 01 1, 1961Google Scholar.
21 Preface to “Decisions at the Regular Convention of the Japan Socialist Party, 1957,” quoted in Nakamura Kikuo, “Party Politics,” New Leader, Section II (Supplement entitled “Japan Today”), November 28, 1960.
22 Betwen 1947 and 1952 the average annual GNP growth rate was 11.5 per cent; between 1953 and 1959, 8.3 per cent. From April 1959 to March 1960, the growth rate reached the extraordinary figure of 17 per cent, while mining and manufacturing production increased 29 per cent over fiscal year 1958.
23 To cite two examples: between 1933 and 1958, the number of hand tractors in use went up from 1,000 to 337,800; threshing machines from 67,000 to 2,343,400. The current figures would undoubtedly show another important increase. See Yoichi, Fukushima: “Agricultural Technology,” Japan Quarterly, 07–September 1960Google Scholar.
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