No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Japanese Labor Movement, 1912–1919: Suzuki Bunji and the Yūaikai
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Abstracts
The Yuaikai (Friendly Society) was the only large, national labor organization in 1912–1919 Japan. Its founder, Suzuky Bunji, an intellectual and Christian humanist, believed that cooperation between labor and management was the key to developing the Yuaikai into a true labor union movement in a day when organized labor was held in suspicion. Accordingly, Suzuki organized the Yuaikai workers into potential unions and tried to persuade business and government to accept a moderate union movement. Suzuki's gradualist tactice resulted in expansion of the Yuaikai. By 1917, after two trips to the United States, Suzuki had become the symbol of Japanese organized labor at home and abroad. But Suzuki's moderate approach to reform was jolted by repression of the Yuaikai in 1917–1918 by business and government and his moderate leadership in the Yuaikai was challenged by militant workers who resented intellectual domination of their movement and by radical university graduates who sought to turn the Yuaikai into a revolutionary organization. These two groups conspired to turn the Yuaikai into the relatively militant Sodomei (General Federation) in 1919 and to reduce Suzuki's power in the movement but their revalry for power greatly undermined the capacity of the Sodomei to build further on the institutional foundations laid for organized labor by Suzuki Bunji.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1970
References
1 Katsunori, Nakamura, “Suzuki Bunji to Taishō rōdō undō” [“Suzuki Bunji and the Taishō Labor Movement”], Hōgaku kenkyū, XXXII, No. 1 (01 1959). 43–44.Google Scholar
2 Sakae, Ōsugi, Zenshū [Collected Works], VI (Tokyo, 1964), 170.Google Scholar
3 Sakuzō, Yoshino, “Suzuki Bunji no sobyō” [“Rough Sketch of Suzuki Bunji”], Rōdō undō nijū nen [Twenty Years in the Labor Movement] (Tokyo, 1931), p. 5Google Scholar. Yoshino was Suzuki's senior by six years.
4 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, p. 42.Google Scholar
5 For a study of the various types of social reformism, see Takayoshi, Matsuo, Taishō demokurashi no kenkyū [Studies of Taishō Democracy] (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 149–52.Google Scholar
6 “Shihon to rōdō to no chōwa” [“Harmony Between Capital and Labor”], Yūai shimpō, 12 3, 1912, p. 1Google Scholar. Some editorials in this paper are unsigned but scholars agree that Suzuki wrote the editorials, unless other writers' names are cited.
7 “Shihon to rōdō to no chōwa” [“Harmony Between Capital and Labor”], Yūai shimpō, 06 15, 1914, p. 1.Google Scholar
8 Ōsugi, , pp. 171–72.Google Scholar
9 Bunji, Suzuki, “Sōritsu sōkan isshū nen” [“First Anniversary of the Founding of the Yūai shimpō”], Yūai shimpō, 11 1, 1913, p. 1.Google Scholar
10 “Ketsugō no chikara” [“Power of Unity”], Yūai shimpō, 10 15, 1913, p. 1.Google Scholar
11 Bunzi, Suzuki, “Kai-in shokun ni ichigon” [“A Word to the Members”], Yūai shimpō, 02 1, 1914, p. 3.Google Scholar
12 Totten, George, The Social Democratic Movement in Prewar Japan (New Haven, 1966), p. 6.Google Scholar
13 An excellent discussion of the Factory Act is counpresented by Iwao, Ayusawa, A History of Labor in Modern Japan (Honolulu, 1966), pp. 108–11.Google Scholar
14 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, pp. 52–64Google Scholar. When the founding meeting took place the atmosphere in Tokyo, as elsewhere in Japan, was gloomy due to the death of Emperor Meiji. The meeting was held at the Mita Unitarian Church. There were electricians, mechanics, lacquerware makers, milkmen and tatami makers among the fifteen who attended.
15 Ayusawa, , p. 99.Google Scholar
16 Suzuki gives sketches of these and other men associated with the Yūaikai as advisers and counpresented cillors in Rōdō undō, pp. 64–87Google Scholar. Biographical data on many of these men can be found in Totten, Social Democratic Movement.
17 Matsuo Takayoshi has argued that Suzuki first met Shibusawa sometime in 1915 and that while Shibusawa may have contributed some money to the Yūaikai, the sum, and any influence might have carried with it, were probably not extraordinary. For Matsuo's discussion and a resume of other views of the Shibusawa-Suzuki relationship, see Matsuo, , pp. 166–67.Google Scholar
18 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, p. 65.Google Scholar
19 Bunji, Suzuki, “Sōritsu sōkan isshū nen,” p. 1.Google Scholar
20 Totten, George, “Labor and Agrarian Disputes in Japan Following World War I,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, No. 1, Part (10 1960), 190–91.Google Scholar
21 Kublin, Hyman, Asian Revolutionary: The Life of Sen Katayama (Princeton, 1964), p. 223.Google Scholar
22 Ayusawa, , p. 133.Google Scholar
23 Katsunori, Nakamura, “Suzuki Bunji,” Jiyū, XII (1967), 115.Google Scholar
24 Toyoji, Kitazaki, “Yūaikai to rōdō kumiaishugi” [“The Yūaikai and Labor Unionism”] Taishō demohurashī no shisō [The Thought of Taishō Democracy], ed. Etsuji, Sumiya et al. , (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 245–75.Google Scholar
25 “Rōdōsha yori shihonka e” [“From the Laborers to the Capitalists”], Yūai skimpō, 05 5, 1914, p. 1.Google Scholar
26 Bunji, Suzuki, “Rōdō jigen” [“Labor Talk”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, 03 1, 1915, p. 5.Google Scholar
27 Totten, , Social Democratic Movement, p. 31.Google Scholar
28 Tōru, Watanabe, “Yūaikai no soshiki no jittai” [“The Actual Conditions of the Organization of the Yūaikai”], Jimbun gakuhō, XVIII (10 1963), 1–70.Google Scholar
29 Starting in 1914, Yūaikai branches emerged in Korea and Manchuria, Watanabe, , p. 49.Google Scholar
30 Watanabe, , p. 38.Google Scholar
31 Suzuki wrote a series of articles explaining and criticizing the 1911 Factory Law in Yūai shimpō.
32 Shuichi, Harada, Labor Conditions in Japan (New York, 1928), p. 177.Google Scholar
33 Matsuo, , p. 179.Google Scholar
34 Nakamura, , “Suzuki Bunji to Taishō rōdō undō,” Hōgaku kenkyū, XXXII, No. 2, 3 (02 1959), 25–26.Google Scholar
35 Katsumaro, Akamatsu, Nihon shakai undōshi, [The History of Japan's Social Movements] (Tokyo, 1967), p. 141Google Scholar. For a case study of Suzuki's mediation activities in strikes see his articles on the strike at the Tokyo Muslin Company, “Tōkyō musurin kaisha ni okeru dōmei hikō mondai temmatsu” [“The Facts on the Labor Strike at Tokyo Muslin Company”], Yūai shimpō, 09 1, 1914Google Scholar; Sept. 15,1914; Oct. 1, 1914; pp. 3–4.
36 Nakamura, , “Suzuki Bunji,” Hōgaku kenkyū, 02 1959, p. 36.Google Scholar
37 Kublin, , pp. 224–25.Google Scholar
38 Bunji, Suzuki, “Beikoku rōdō taikai shusseki no ki” [“Account of Attendance at the American Labor Convention”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 53, 01 1, 1916, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
39 For instance see Suzuki's article, “Waga shinai naru Yūaikai-in shokun” [“My Beloved Yūaikai Members”], Yūai shimpō, 07 15, 1914, p. 1.Google Scholar
40 Bunji, Suzuki, “Nihon no kokuminsei to rōdō undō” [“The Japanese National Character and the Labor Movement”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 60, 08 1, 1916, pp. 2–9.Google Scholar
41 Nakamura, , “Suzuki Bunji,” Hōgaku kenkyū, 02 1959, p. 41.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., p. 40.
43 Matsuo, , p. 181.Google Scholar
44 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, pp. 85–86.Google Scholar
45 Ibid., p. 87.
46 Biographical information on both the young intellectuals and the worker-leaders can be located in Totten, Social Democratic Movement.
47 Matsuo presents an analysis of the rising popularity of democratic ideas in Japan during World War I in his Taishō demokurashi, pp. 177–79Google Scholar. Also, see his article, “The Development of Democracy in Japan,” The Developing Economies, IV, No. 4 (12 1966).Google Scholar
48 Matsuo, , “The Development of Democracy in Japan,” p. 626.Google Scholar
49 Ibid., p. 627.
50 Kyochokai, , eds., Saikin no shakai undō [Recent Social Movements] (Tokyo, 1929), p. 255.Google Scholar
51 Totten, George, “Labor and Agrarian Disputes,” p. 201.Google Scholar
52 Watanabe, , p. 17.Google Scholar
53 Ibid., p. 38.
54 Ibid., p. 54.
55 Matsuo, , p. 201.Google Scholar
56 Watanabe, , p. 54.Google Scholar
57 Nakamura, , “Suzuki Bunji,” Hōgaku kenkyū 02 1959, p. 43.Google Scholar
58 Bunji, Suzuki, “Rōdō jigen,” p. 5.Google Scholar
59 Bunji, Suzuki, “Dōmei higyō to rōdō dantai” [“Strikes and Labor Groups”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 75, 11 1, 1917, p. 5.Google Scholar
60 Bunji, Suzuki, “Kai-in shokun ni tsugu” [“To my Fellow Members”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 78, 02 1, 1918, p. 21.Google Scholar
61 Levine, Solomon, Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan (Urbana, 1958), p. 63.Google Scholar
62 Bunji, Suzuki, “Tekkō Kumiai soshiki no gi” [“A Proposal for an Ironworkers Union Organization”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 79, 03 1, 1918, pp. 51–54.Google Scholar
63 Hisashi, Asō, Shinshakaiteki chitsujo e [Toward a New Social Order] (Tokyo, 1922), p. 559.Google Scholar
64 Bunji, Suzuki, “Kome sōdō to Yūaikai” [“The Rice Riots and the Yūaikai”], Rōdō oyobi sangyō, No. 86, 10 1, 1918, pp. 2–4.Google Scholar
65 Matsuo, , pp. 192–93.Google Scholar
66 Ibid., pp. 192–93.
67 Ibid., p. 209.
68 Ibid., pp. 211–12.
69 Ibid., pp. 212–13.
70 Ibid., p. 216.
71 Ibid., p. 221.
72 Ayusawa, , p. 120–21.Google Scholar
73 Ibid., p. 121.
74 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, pp. 186–98.Google Scholar
75 Ibid., pp. 183–84.
76 Totten, , Social Democratic Movement, p. 141.Google Scholar
77 Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, p. 185.Google Scholar
78 Jōtarō, Kawakami, ed., Asō Hisashi den [Biography of Aso Hisashi] (Tokyo, 1958), pp. 126–27.Google Scholar
79 Matsuo, , p. 226.Google Scholar
80 The rivalry between the Kansai and Kantō branches of the Yūaikai needs close study. The suggestion in this essay that Kantō revisionists consciously planned their moves specifically to outmaneuver their Kansai counterparts is tentative.
81 For the complete resolution, see Suzuki, , Rōdō undō, pp. 182–83.Google Scholar
82 Sōdōmei Gojūnenshi kankō i-inkai, eds., Sōdōmei gojūnen shi [The Fifty Year History of the General Federation, I] (Tokyo, 1965), 63–64.Google Scholar
83 Shimbun, Tokyo Nichi-Nichi, eds., Yūaikai no soshiki to kono naijō [The Organization and Internal Condition of the Yūaikai] (Tokyo, 1921), p. 10.Google Scholar
84 Ibid., p. 12.