Japanese communist founder who shook Plekhanov's hand and shaped Comintern East Asia strategy
Amsterdam, 1904. When the chair announced that the vice-chairs were the delegates of the two warring powers — Plekhanov and Katayama — the two rose and clasped hands in silence. The hall answered with a standing ovation.
Father of Japanese communism. Born in Okayama, he studied in the United States and founded Japan's first trade union and Social Democratic Party. As a Comintern Executive Committee member he shaped anti-imperialist strategy for East Asia, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall.
Career timeline
- 1884–1896Studied in US; Grinnell College and Yale Divinity; became Christian and socialist
- 1896–1901Returned; founded Iron Workers' Union, Labour World, Social Democratic Party
- 1904Amsterdam Second International; anti-war handshake with Plekhanov
- 1911–1912Led Tokyo streetcar strike; 9 months imprisonment
- 1914–1921Exiled to US; joined CPUSA; communist groups among Japanese workers
- 1921–1922Via Mexico to Soviet Russia; led founding of Japanese Communist Party
- 1922–1933ECCI member and Presidium; anti-imperialist and anti-war congresses
The admiral-prime minister who steered Japan toward surrender
On August 10, 1945, Suzuki broke the deadlock by proposing that the emperor’s decision should settle the conference.
Kantaro Suzuki was a Japanese admiral and politician who became prime minister after serving as grand chamberlain and president of the Privy Council. Publicly he upheld the wartime line, while privately managing the cabinet and Supreme War Council as defeat made continuation untenable. After the atomic bombings and Soviet entry, the Big Six remained deadlocked, and Suzuki forced a procedure in which the emperor’s decision would settle the split. Japan then accepted the Potsdam Declaration, though the process did not erase responsibility for the war of aggression or the military’s resistance.
Career timeline
- 1884–1887Entered and graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy
- 1904–1905Commander of the 4th Destroyer Division; fought at the Battle of Tsushima
- 1914–1917Vice-Minister of the Navy
- 1924–1925Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet; Chief of the Naval General Staff
- 1929–1936Grand Chamberlain and Privy Councillor
- 1944–1945President of the Privy Council
- 1945.04–08Prime Minister of Japan; guided the surrender decision
- 1945.12–1946.06President of the Privy Council; resigned after a purge order
A militarist leader of Japan's Imperial Way faction
When young naval officers assassinated Prime Minister Inukai in the 1932 May 15 Incident, War Minister Araki praised the killers as 'irrepressible patriots.'
Sadao Araki was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and a leading figure of the Imperial Way faction, advocating a militarism that joined emperor-centered national reconstruction to external expansion. As Army Minister after the 1931 Manchurian Incident, he helped consolidate the Kwantung Army's fait accompli into state policy and supported the Northern Expansion Doctrine aimed at the Soviet Far East. Yet the young officers he had cultivated escaped his control and erupted in the February 26 Incident, after which he left active service. Convicted of Class A war crimes at the postwar International Military Tribunal for the Far East, he received a life sentence and was released in 1955.
Career timeline
- 1897Graduated from Army Academy and commissioned
- 1907Graduated first in class from Army Staff College
- 1915–1918Military observer with Russian forces; took part in Siberian Intervention
- 1924–1925Provost Marshal General
- 1928–1930Commandant of the Army Staff College
- 1931–1934Army Minister; advanced consolidation of the Kwantung Army's occupation of Manchuria and recognition of Manchukuo
- 1938–1939Education Minister; promoted Imperial Way education and wartime mobilization
- 1946–1955Convicted at the IMTFE, imprisoned, and released
General who led the expeditionary force at Shanghai and took Nanjing; hanged for the Nanjing Massacre
Born in Nagoya to an impoverished samurai family, he fought in the Russo-Japanese War and became the Japanese Army’s foremost expert on China and an ardent pan-Asianist, playing a key role in founding the Greater Asia Association. Retired in 1935, he was recalled in August 1937 to lead the forces at Shanghai, and after winning that battle persuaded the high command to advance on Nanjing. The troops under his command who took Nanjing on 13 December committed the Nanjing Massacre. He left the army in 1938; after the war the International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicted him of war crimes and he was hanged in 1948. He was enshrined at Yasukuni in 1978.
Career timeline
- 1904Fought in the Russo-Japanese War
- 1922–1924Adviser to Zhang Zuolin at Harbin; intelligence work for the Kwantung Army
- 1935Retired from active duty
- 1937Recalled to command at Shanghai; took Nanjing in December
- 1938Left the army; cabinet councillor
- 1948Convicted by the Tokyo tribunal and hanged
