Japan

"...the greatest thing in history."
- Harry S. Truman
President of the United States during the Atomic Bombing

"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army
Air Forces Under President Truman

R. Scalapino and G.T. Yu.

Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 1961

Contents
Editor's Note
Preface
The Origins of Chinese Anarchism
Anarchism and the Nationalist Revolution
The Work-Study Movement
The Anarchist Conflict With Marxism
Editor's Footnote[i]

Editor’s Note

1905-1918 in Japan was called the Era of Popular Violence (民衆騒擾期, minshû sôjô ki). This began with the Hibiya Incendiary Incident (日比谷焼討事件, Hibiya Yakiuchi Jiken) - a citywide riot in Tokyo that started with a banned protest in Hibiya park; against the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty which ended the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

1. Ōsugi and Bakunin

The video is hosted on YouTube and has English subtitles. The riots included students and farmers protesting against the airport's construction, and involved pitched battles against the police with molotov cocktails and explosives.

Takeshi Yamashita does not look like a homeless person. From his carefully distressed jeans to his casual-cool navy striped T-shirt, he is every bit the trendy Tokyoite. Yet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment.

YOU MUST HELP YOURSELF:
NEO-LIBERAL GEOGRAPHIES AND WORKER INSURGENCY IN OSAKA

"I realize as the train pulls in that the station is on fire. The platform is aflame and below the streets are empty with people running past occasionally. Something is happening. I pick up some rocks and start throwing them at a police line."

-anonymous rioter at Kamagasaki

An article by Sphinx addressing workplace activity and the potential for organising disparate individuals in a Japanese workplace. The article is distinguished by its acceptance of, and engagement with, real world conditions, and yet is able to maintain a light and transcendent tone. It is also articulates the necessity for workers to establish their own goals.

The pace of Japan’s economy is picking up again after more than a decade of stasis. During this long period of economic stagnation, the many personnel practices favoring employees known by the rubric “lifetime employment” have been subjected to increased criticism by pro-investor, neo-liberal voices.

This pamphlet is presented in PDF format (56mb). We'd welcome OCRed versions of this pamphlet for dial-up and low-bandwidth users in either Japanese and English.

A pamphlet in Japanese and English about the Kamagasaki area of Osaka.

Don't Die Silent Like a Dog - A collection of militant texts against capitalism, imperialism and everyday life by Funamoto Shuzou.

Shuzou was a revolutionary worker in the 1960s who worked mainly with exploited Koreans and eventually immolated himself in protest of the visit of the emperor to Okinawa. (all text Japanese)

In the 2,000 years of Korean history there arose movements fighting for peasants rights and for national independence. Within these movements there were tendencies that may be seen as forerunners of modern anarchism, in the same way as we might view the Diggers in the English revolution.

Kotoku Shusui
Born 4 November or 23 September 1871 - Japan, died 24 January 1911 - Japan

The threat is a strong one for people who don’t like the preferred shade of green, for those incarcerated in Japan’s prison system life is systematised daily torture.

by John Crump, prefaced by the Anarchist Communist Federation

Anarchist Communist Editions ACE Pamphlet No. 8
Paper edition printed by Pirate Press (Autumn 1996). This Electronic Edition (Summer 1998)
Published by the Anarchist Federation www.afed.org.uk

Beyond the New Left Part 2- Muto Ichiyo & Inoue Reiko

Presented in PDF format (7mb).

Class struggle on the shop floor, the Japanese case 1945-84
Muto Ichiyo
Presented in PDF Format (3mb).

http://libcom.org/blog has received reports from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, the USA, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey so far, with actions ranging from university occupations and school walkouts to protests against French consulates and businesses.

See also French version below.