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Japan: Its Rise from Feudalism ...
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 2, 14 January 1933, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
A striking feature of post-war Japanese development is its rapid tempo. Born in the epoch of imperialism, Japanese capitalism, even before it has attained full maturity, undergoes all the sicknesses of decay – the stifling of expanding productive forces by the shrinking of markets. Its internal woes are so profound that desperate remedies are sought; hence the imperialist venture in China, a venture that not only sacrifices the lives of Japanese – and Chinese – workers for capitalist profit, but that demands for its accomplishment ever greater diversion of resources, growing budgets and mounting deficits, hence more intense exploitation of workers and peasants. The national income must be reapportioned; the middle class is taxed at the unbelievable rate of 30 percent of its earnings (every citizen with an income of $150. or more is taxed); the workers must receive even less than their previous pittance. In short, the class struggle is intensified at a pace corresponding to the unbounded program of imperialist expansion.
But not only does Japanese imperialism accomplish forced marches in the strain of catching up with the rival powers. The working class, too, undergoes rapid transformations. In the single decade since the war, the Japanese proletariat has condensed the long experience of a whole century, of British development. Today the Japanese workers are strung out along the road of development with a rear-guard of opportunists and reformists always ready to desert and betray the vanguard of Communists in time of battle.
During this decade of proletarian growth the economic and political changes have followed each other with great rapidity – a sure indication of the revolutionary possibilities. The workers have shown themselves acutely sensitive to the international labor movement, hut unless a leadership is built up that is grounded in Marxian principles, the principles of the Bolshevik-Leninists, and is at the same time, flexible in its tactics, with regard to the changing relations of forces, the results may well be disastrous for the working class.
The great influence of syndicalism, later of Communism, in the post-war era forced the shrewd ruling class of Japan to avail itself of the generous assistance of reformism in attempting to trick the proletariat into following the path of “peaceful” agitation and development. The illuminating experiences of the English working class since the Chartist movement, the course followed by the revisionists in German social-democracy, the history of the second international – these lessons of betrayal were not learned in vain by Japanese politicians and capitalists. The classic method of dividing and ruling is applied in the union movement and on the political arena by the government’s policy of encouraging the growth of Right wing organizations and suppressing brutally the Left wing. Thus the Yuaikai (Friendly Society of Laborers), organized in 1912 by the Christian socialist, Suzuki (the Gompers of Japan), under the patronage of one of the Elder Statesmen, was transformed into the Japanese General Federation of Labor in 1919. Its function was to combat syndicalism and divert the workers from the “dangerous” road of class struggle and mass action. Through the leadership of this federation of 46 unions with its 33,000 workers, and that of the 82,000 members of the Seamen’s Union and the 42,000 members of the Naval Workers’ Union, the capitalists hoped to create a division between the skilled and the unskilled, to form an aristocracy of labor, on the lines of the AF of L, that could be bribed into acquiescence to capitalist policy. Fortunately syndicalist influence and the lateness of development of Japanese unions, permitting their utilization of international experience, assured the formation of industrial unions. Only 9 percent of the organized workers are in craft unions, thus eliminating the artificial and fratricidal struggles between unions over jurisdiction.
If workers too often fail to realize the decisive importance of the class controlling an organization, the employers have no illusions on this score. The bosses in Japan, have organized shop committees and company unions on a wide scale. In fact they now embrace 340,000 workers, as many as have been permitted to organize in all the workers’ unions combined.
The year 1919 saw the gradual spread of information concerning the Russian Revolution among the workers. The spread of Communist ideas terrified governing circles and brought on a period of white terror that has not abated to the present time. The crisis of 1920 with its mass unemployment did not help to reassure the upper class. Nor did the Kobe strike of 1921 with its great solidarity parade of 30,000 workers. In 1922 the Comintern established relations with Japanese comrades and started an illegal, underground movement. The movement has remained small but exerts a profound influence despite the committing of many blunders under Stalinist control.
The earthquake of 1923 gave the government its opportunity to behead the proletarian movement. The police and the military incited the reactionaries and their dupes among the masses to murder all Koreans under the pretext that they were responsible for the terrible conflagrations that broke out as a result of the quake. Simultaneously with the most brutal massacre of thousands of Koreans, those most exploited workers in Japan, performing the dirtiest work with the outcaste Etas, the soldiery seized hundreds of radicals of all shades and put the most prominent ones to the sword. In cruelty and cold-bloodedness this exploit of the Mikado outdid any of the Czar’s pogroms of the Jews.
The promise by the government of universal suffrage in 1925 (the actual voting not to take place till 1928), started widespread agitation for the formation of working class political parties. The Right wing leaders In the unions at first looked askance at this new development, seeing in it a threat to their bureaucratic control through the organization of a rival leadership. But the example of the British Labor Party, then coming into power, heartened them and caused the attempt of creating a political party under union auspices. This same year saw the split of the General Federation of Labor – with what aid from the Communists is not clear but quite easily to be inferred from international developments in the “third period” – into Right and Left wings, the latter including syndicalists to an even greater extent than Communists. Had the Communist party, despite the persecution and the handicaps of illegality, presented as clearly as was possible under the circumstances, their own political outlook had they differentiated themselves sharply from the opportunist elements a large section of the syndicalists could have been won over to Communism, not to speak of other Left wing workers. But the Anglo-Russian Committee, the bloc of the Chinese party with the Kuo Min Tang, in short the obliteration and dispersing of the vanguard in the mass of uncrystallized workers, the voluntary yielding of initiative by the only force capable of leading the workers correctly to that force designed only to mislead – all this saw its counterpart in the attempts of the Communists, under the direction of the Comintern, to form a mass labor party.
The Peasants’ Union (50,000 members) issued the call for all workers to unite in a proletarian party. In No. 16 of the Communist International may be found the attitude of the Comintern on the entire question. Vasiliev writes enthusiastically hailing the call. “Not only labor and progressive peasant elements are interested in the organization of a new party aiming at the thorough democratization of the State – the whole country demands this”!! Further “the Communist wing of the commission for the formation of the proletarian party formulated its own platform as follows: ‘The aim of the proletarian party is struggle against imperialism and the menace of imperialist wars. The slogans are: Korea’s and other colonies’ rights to self-determination; hands off China!, those who till the land must own it; the 8 hour day; work or full maintenance for unemployed; workers’ control; universal suffrage for all citizens over the age of 18; democratic liberties; abrogation of laws directed against the labor movement; abolition of the Upper Chamber and the Genro Council.’” Its immediate slogan is the “workers’ and peasants’ government”. Vasiliev adds naively that “after a perusal of the draft programs of action of the Left and the reformists, one is struck by the similarity of the most important points of the political and economic demands.” He sees the conditions for a united front as very propitious. “Through their work within the proletarian party, the Japanese Communists will no doubt soon be able to grapple with the task of developing their ranks into a mass Leninist party with a strictly revolutionary program and iron discipline.”
In No. 17 of the Communist International, after the complete fiasco of the all-embracing mass party, we find the following gem:
“The reformists, after their unsuccessful attempts to balk the formation of the Proletarian Party by refusing participation, decided to achieve their sabotaging work by drawing up a program provoking the Left to a split. The latter took up a firm position, and acquiesced in making every concession if only to obtain the organization of a legal mass party. In their desire to preserve the legal physiognomy of the new party, the Left went so far that they abandoned without any reserves the demand for the independence of the colonies (they agreed to autonomy) and agreed to the abandonment of the demand for the confiscation of the land without compensation. But the reformists, who had previously come to an agreement with the police, quit the inaugural congress of the Proletarian party, declaring that they did not desire to be a weapon in the hands of the Left. The Lefts, continuing their policy of guaranteeing legality to the new party at all costs, also left the congress. The delegates of the Peasant Union and the Suiheisha remained in the congress.”
Of course, the police closed the congress down anyhow. But to go on: “But the reformists will not enjoy their victory for long. Even if at first the Proletarian party did not have a program of action worked out according to all the rules of Lenin, etc., even if in its program it made opportunist, reformist, false steps, all this is not so essentially important. What is important is the fundamental fact that the working and peasant masses are being brought into the proletarian party and it is also important that the objective situation of the country unrestrainedly urges the Japanese workers and peasants to decisive acts and big tasks.”
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Last updated: 7 February 2015