Anarchism in Japan

Anarchism in Japan dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The anarchist movement was influenced by World War I and World War II, in which Japan played a major role. The anarchist movement in Japan can be divided into three phases: from 1906–1911, from 1912–1936 and from 1945–present day.

Anarchist ideas were first popularised in Japan by radical journalist Shūsui Kōtoku. After moving to Tokyo in his teens, Kōtoku became a journalist and by 1898 he was writing for the radical daily Yorozu Chōhō (Every Morning News). His liberalism led him to social democracy and Kōtoku attempted to form the first Japanese Social Democratic Party in May 1901.

His fledgling Social Democratic Party was immediately outlawed and Yorozu Chōhō shifted away from the left so Kōtoku started his own radical weekly, Heimin Shinbun (Common People’s Newspaper). The first issue appeared in November 1903 and the last was published in January 1905. Its brief tenure earned Kōtoku a brief prison sentence from February to July 1905.

In prison he read Peter Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops, and following his release he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Kōtoku claimed "had gone [to jail] as a Marxian Socialist and returned as a radical Anarchist." In the US, more than 50 Japanese immigrants met in Oakland California and formed the Social Revolutionary Party. The party began publishing a journal entitled Kakumei (Revolution) and a leaflet called Ansatsushugi (Terrorism) news of which reached Japan and angered officials there.

Kōtoku returned to Japan in 1906 and spoke to a large public meeting, held on 28 June 1906 in Tokyo, on the ideas he had developed while staying in the USA (mainly California) which were largely a mixture of anarchist communism, syndicalism and terrorism developed from reading such books as Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist and The Conquest of Bread amongst others. At the meeting, Kōtoku spoke on "The Tide of the World Revolutionary Movement" and soon began writing numerous articles.

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