CIRA-Nippon

Bakunin's revolutionary career, though it had almost no conscious connection with Japan, thanks to that momentary contact made possible by the opening of the country in 1853, was enabled to reach its full fruition.

The sudden appearance upon the Pacific horizon of Perry's blackhulled, smoke-belching warships was calculated to send a shook of consternation through the insular Japanese authorities. As a popular tanka (short poem) of the time put it,

Issue No. 5 of the Japanese journal Libero International. This issue concentrates on the influence of the Russian anarchist Bakunin in Japan.

CIRA-Nippon, founded in 1973, is a federation of autonomous libertarian groups, including the Section for International Correspondence (SIC), a small group of comrades living in the OsakaKobe area. The SIC works as the communication link between domestic anarchist groups associated with CIRA-Nippon, and various groups outside Japan. To achieve its aim of improved solidarity through international communication and…

Suggested reading list from Libero International.

This is a report on a visit of one of our collective members to Seoul and the surrounding countryside over New Year 1976. It reveals both the dark and the light sides of the current situation in south Korea, showing the effect of government policy on the farms, but also the way in which a gathering number of villages (though still a tiny minority) are taking steps to protect themselves and create some degree of…

The fire and the agony of Kim Chi Ha's verses are rooted in Korea's long and tragic history. Kim, one of Park Chung Hee's most dangerous critics, was born on February 4, 1941, in Mokpo, Cholla province, for centuries the scene of resistance to overbearing govts. While a student he spent two years -wandering" in the countryside to avoid the clampdown of 1961. Later he was tortured and imprisoned for joining the…

Thanks to the brave struggle of less than 200 hundred workers at south Korea 's largest daily, the human rights movement broke free of the regime's tight grip on the media to reach a nationwide audience for the first time in years. What were the workers after? Was this a case of "workers' control" or simply another free speech movement? How and why were they defeated? The first of two parts.