Hitoshi Yamakawa

Hitoshi Yamakawa (山川 均, Yamakawa Hitoshi^?) (December 20, 1880 – March 23, 1958) was a Japanese socialist intellectual. He played a leading role in founding the Japanese Communist Party in 1922. He was also one of the founders of Rono-ha (workers farmers faction), a group of Marxist thinkers opposed to the Comintern. His most famous work was the essay "A change of course for the proletarian movement"(無産階級運動の方向転換) where he advocated direct political action and better coordination with the labour movement while criticising the anarchist movement for failing to achieve any lasting results. He is remembered in Japan today for being instrumental in introducing Marxism and socialism to Japanese thinkers.

Yamakawa was born in Kurashiki in southern Honshu in 1880. He was enrolled in the Doshisha high school in Kyoto, where he converted to Christianity, he did however not finish his studies and dropped out because of his dissatisfaction with the way the school was restructuring itself in order to receive accreditation from the Ministry of Education. He moved to Tokyo, where he helped to write an article on the Crown Prince´s marriage that got him sentenced to two years in jail. This was the first time anyone was sentenced for leèse-majesté in Japan and earned Yamakawa some fame.

In jail Yamakawa started familiarising himself with Marxism. After his release he met the socialist Kotoku Shusui, who offered him a position at a paper he was editing, but Yamakawa declined and moved back to his home town. A few years later, disillusioned with his work, he contacted Kotoku, who again offered him a position. This time he accepted it. He moved back to Tokyo and started working at the Heimin Shimbun in early 1907 where he met his livelong friends Toshihiko Sakai and Kanson Arahata, he was converted to syndicalism under the influence of Kotoku only a month later, but was sent to jail again in 1908. After being released a few years later Yamakawa moved back home once more and dropped all socialist activities because of government repression.

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