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
International communist who founded the JCP, ran the Comintern's Pacific networks, and led the party for 24 years
On his arrival at JCP headquarters in January 1946, one newspaper reported that 'young girls in both kimonos and Western dress gathered like fans awaiting a star at the stage door.'
An international communist who helped found both the CPGB in London (1920) and the JCP in Tokyo (1922), he served on the Comintern Executive Committee and ran intelligence networks against Imperial Japan from the United States and China. From 1940 to 1945 in Yan'an, he led the Japanese People's Emancipation League, converting captured Japanese soldiers into communist forces, and after the war he crafted the JCP's 'lovable party' strategy of peaceful revolution, winning up to 35 Diet seats. As JCP Chairman from 1958 to 1982, he steered the party through the Anpo protests and the Sino-Soviet split, but in 1992 the discovery of his 1939 letter denouncing a comrade to the NKVD led to his expulsion from the party he had founded.
Career timeline
- 1915Joined Yuaikai (Friendly Society), editor of Labour and Industry
- 1920Founding member, Communist Party of Great Britain; London delegate
- 1922Co-founded the Japanese Communist Party; editor of Musansha Shimbun
- 1931–1940Comintern Executive Committee member; intelligence work in USSR, USA, China
- 1940–1945Led the Japanese People's Emancipation League in Yan'an; re-educated Japanese POWs
- 1946–1950Elected to House of Representatives; JCP Central Committee
- 1955–1958JCP First Secretary
- 1958–1982Chairman of the JCP Central Committee
