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NEW DIRECTIONS IN EAST ASIAN HISTORY

Student Radicalism
and the Formation of
Postwar Japan
Kenji Hasegawa
New Directions in East Asian History

Series Editors
Oliviero Frattolillo
Roma Tre University
Rome, Italy

Yuichi Hosoya
Keio University
Tokyo, Japan

Antony Best
London School of Economics
London, UK
This series addresses the ways in which history influences the political,
economic and social development of East Asia, a region which now plays
a pivotal role in our world’s multipolar international system. The series
provides new perspectives on East Asia’s distinctive economic and political
situation through the lens of 20th century history, with a particular focus
on Pre-War and Cold War periods. It argues the need to re-examine the
history of East Asia and provide new historical approaches to a vibrant and
constantly changing region.
Highlighting that history is at the root of many modern day conflicts in
Asia, this series provides a global forum for rigorous academic research
and timely debate by scholars worldwide, and showcases significant new
research on East Asian history and politics in the contemporary era.
The series will appeal to specialists in the history and politics of Asia;
international history; scholars of modern and contemporary Japan, China
and Korea as well as international relations.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15870
 Kenji Hasegawa

Student Radicalism
and the Formation
of Postwar Japan
Kenji Hasegawa
Yokohama National University
Yokohama, Japan

ISSN 2522-0195     ISSN 2522-0209 (electronic)

New Directions in East Asian History
ISBN 978-981-13-1776-7    ISBN 978-981-13-1777-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1777-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952365

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-­01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
 Acknowledgments

This book is based on the research I began as a graduate student in the

Department of History at Stanford University. My gratitude goes first and
foremost to my adviser Peter Duus for his mentorship and inspiration.
I would also like to thank Masayo Duus for generously sharing her insights
and experiences. I am deeply grateful to Oliviero Frattolillo and my editors
at Palgrave Macmillan for their support and guidance.
I am also indebted to Reiko Shinno for introducing me to key people
in the initial stages of my research and organizing a panel that allowed me
to sharpen my analyses in their final stages. Iwasaki Minoru of Tokyo
University of Foreign Studies encouraged me to develop my interest of
the early 1950s and introduced me to study groups that broadened my
perspective. Tarumi Chie pushed me to sustain my inquiries on this topic.
Chris Perkins, Fumiko Narumi-Monro, and the faculty and students at
The University of Edinburgh’s Asian Studies department provided me
with an invaluable opportunity to develop sections of this work. In the
final stages of my research, I was fortunate to be a part of an enriching
symposium where Chiranan Pitpreecha graciously shared her poetry and
experiences on the Thai student movement, with Yomota Inuhiko provid-
ing incisive commentary.
This book would not have been possible without the patient support
of the librarians at Yokohama National University, the stimulating engage-
ment of my students, and the emotional support of my family.

v
 Contents

1 Introduction    1

2 From Shinjinkai to Zengakuren: Petit Bourgeois Students

and the Postwar Revolution, 1945–1950   13

3 ‘Impressionable Students and Excitable Koreans’: Internal

Factors in the JCP’s Anti-­American Radicalization,
1945–1952  51

4 Guerilla Warfare in Postwar Japan: The Ogōchi sanson

kōsakutai, 1950–1952   89

5 Waging ‘Peace’ in Post-Occupation Japan: The Uchinada

Base Protests of 1953  125

6 Postwar Departures and Reversions in Mid-­1950s Japan:

Chongryon, Okinawa, and ‘Bloody Sunagawa’ 167

Index 213

vii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The ‘Ceremony to Commemorate the Regaining

ofSovereignty and Return to the International
Community,’ 2013
On April 28, 2013, the Japanese government conducted the ‘Ceremony
to Commemorate the Regaining of Sovereignty and Return to the
International Community’ in an effort to resurrect this forgotten date in
national memory. The ceremony came in the wake of the March 2011
natural and nuclear disasters, which seemed to signal the closure of Japan’s
long ‘postwar’ that formed in the mid-1950s, defined by subordinate
independence to the US and a national identity based on technical and
economic prowess. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by Abe
Shinzō returned to power and quickly countered with its ‘Abenomics,’
sending stock prices soaring. It also resumed its political campaign to
‘break away from the postwar regime,’ giving rise to the amnesic celebra-
tion of April 28.
‘Sixty-one years ago today, Japan started to walk with our own
strength again. It was the day when Japan regained its sovereignty and
Japanese people regained Japan as our own country with the effectuation
of the San Francisco Peace Treaty,’ the prime minister’s statement read.
‘What did our grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, and mothers feel

© The Author(s) 2019 1

K. Hasegawa, Student Radicalism and the Formation of Postwar
Japan, New Directions in East Asian History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1777-4_1
2 K. HASEGAWA

when sovereignty was regained in 1952?’ Characterizing the seven-year

occupation as a humiliating blemish on Japan’s long history, he called on
every Japanese to ‘deeply think about’ this question. Citing Emperor
Hirohito’s poem about resolute perseverance in the face of the foreign
occupation which spoke for the Japanese people, the answer was a given:
after enduring the unendurable defeat and occupation, they embraced
the peace and independence that finally arrived.1 As protests against this
effort to enshrine April 28 as the triumphant ‘return’ of Japan on the
international stage showed, memories of the heavily contested nature of
‘peace and independence’ at this historic moment remained alive. The
anger was especially strong in Okinawa, where the date has been remem-
bered as the ‘day of humiliation’ when the islands were abandoned under
US military occupation while mainland Japan regained nominal inde-
pendence. In 1952, among the protestors in the ‘Bloody May Day’ three
days after this ‘day of humiliation’ was a group of Okinawan students
marching with a placard reading ‘Immediately return Okinawa, Amami,
and Ogasawara islands to Japan. Yankee go home from OKINAWA.’2 On
mainland Japan, the idea of April 28, 1952, as the ‘day of humiliation’
was shared by student radicals of Zengakuren (All Japan Federation of
Student Governments) and other leftists associated with the Japanese
Communist Party (JCP) during the early 1950s.

Bloody May Day, 1952

The plaza fronting the Imperial Palace had been transformed into a sacred
imperial space during the militarization of the early part of Emperor Hirohito’s
reign. Patriotic crowds wept and conducted banzai salutes in the plaza as the
supreme military god Emperor Hirohito appeared on his white horse on the
bridge above to commemorate victories. When the war ended in defeat, loyal
subjects arrived to prostrate themselves to repent for their inadequate efforts.
The first official gathering conducted in the space after the defeat was the
inauguration ceremony of the Recreation and Amusement Association
(RAA), the imperial government’s official brothel for the incoming occupa-
tion forces with the sacred mission of protecting the ‘chastity of the race.’
Douglas MacArthur’s General Headquarters (GHQ) soon established itself
in the Dai-ichi Life Insurance building overlooking both the plaza and the
palace behind it. The ‘dikes of chastity’ of the RAA proved powerless and the
formerly sacred space became a ‘space of love’ where occupation soldiers
 INTRODUCTION 3

openly engaged in amorous acts with their Japanese girls. Military parades
were conducted by the occupation forces and their soldiers and jeeps became
fixtures in the area.3
Japanese leftist forces also poured into the space, conducting mass May
Day rallies where the rising sun flag was replaced with the red flag, and the
‘Kimigayo’ Imperial national anthem was replaced with the ‘Internationale.’
In contrast to the constant silence of Emperor Hirohito, the raucous leftist
rallies were overflowing with words, including calls for the abolition of the
emperor system. After a brief period of peaceful coexistence of the occupa-
tion forces and Japanese leftist forces, the cancellation of the general strike
in February 1947 became a turning point leading to their eventual clash.
The term ‘People’s Plaza’ came to be used by the leftist forces to stress
their claim to the politically contested space over both the Emperor and
the occupation forces.4 Three days after the occupation formally ended,
the intensifying conflict between the ruling government seeking to rees-
tablish its control over the plaza and the nation, and the leftist forces seek-
ing to counter such efforts, culminated in a bloody clash that turned the
grounds into a battlefield and overshadowed the underwhelming celebra-
tions of ‘peace and independence’ of April 28, 1952.
‘Today the 28th is a day of historical importance….It is the day when
Japan emerges from defeat to become independent and start anew,’ the
Asahi Shinbun proclaimed in its April 28, 1952, morning issue. At 10:30
PM, the moment the American occupation ended and independence for-
mally restored to the Japanese nation, the national anthem played on
radios, temple bells rang through the night, and at the Imperial Palace
Plaza, a small crowd of about 20 people shouted ‘Long live the Emperor!’
‘Long live the Japanese nation!’ Cabarets and bars in Ginza awaited cus-
tomers with lanterns inviting people to ‘celebrate the peace treaty.’ Some
shops prepared large amounts of champagne for the festivities. But there
were few celebrators and independence turned out to be a decidedly anti-
climactic event. The newspaper described Tokyo at this ‘historic moment’
as ‘quiet beyond expectation.’5 The quiet did not last long.
On April 28, 1952, Zengakuren students conducted a ritual wake for
Japan’s independence. Ignoring the prohibition of the march by school
authorities, students of Tokyo University marched around campus carry-
ing the national flag with mourning crepe, forced open the main gate and
welcomed in a group of students from other universities. The flyer distrib-
uted at the rally read:
4 K. HASEGAWA

We respectfully mourn the loss of Japan’s independence! With the traitorous

treaties and administrative agreement, Japan has become a colony. The
Japanese people shall never be able to forget this day the 28th. The lives of
people are dark, and many women that we love have fallen to become jeep
girls. All people are resolved never to forget this day the 28th, the day of
humiliation, the day of darkness. We shall fight. We believe the nation’s
students will fight for peace instead of becoming slaves and scream ‘voices
from the sea.’ We believe that the day of our victory is near. People of the
nation. Crush the Anti-Subversive Act of war and subservience! Protect
campus self-governance and academic freedom!6

Such virulently anti-American discourse derived from Zengakuren’s ‘anti-­

imperial struggle’ of 1950 that the JCP leadership repeatedly sought to sup-
press as ‘leftist adventurism’ by petit bourgeois factionalists (see Chap. 3).
The JCP later adopted this discourse and paired it with the military struggle
of the new platform of 1951, mobilizing Zengakuren students into off-cam-
pus operations and alienating them from the Japanese and student masses
(see Chap. 4). The widespread Zengakuren protests against the Red Purge
in 1950 contrasted sharply with the small scale of campus protests during the
following two years, when the San Francisco Peace Treaty and US-Japan
Security Treaty were signed and went into effect. The sense of ‘darkness’ and
‘humiliation’ of Zengakuren students as the occupation ended was rein-
forced by their marginalization and powerlessness at this historically impor-
tant moment.
On the day independence was restored, the Minister of Welfare repeated
his prohibition of the use of the Imperial Palace Plaza for the May Day
celebrations planned for May 1, defying the court order of the same day
nullifying the ban. Denied access to the ‘People’s Plaza,’ the major May
Day rally in Tokyo took place within the grounds of the Meiji Shrine.
Thousands of people held placards protesting remilitarization, the deterio-
ration of workers’ economic conditions, police intrusion into university
campuses, the US retention of Okinawa, and ‘April 28—the Day of
National Humiliation.’ As the rally drew to a close, agitators goaded the
crowd to continue their march to the forbidden plaza in front of the
Imperial Palace. Several groups of demonstrators marched to the palace
and entered the plaza. Bloodshed ensued as police violently attacked the
crowd with batons, tear gas, and pistols. A young worker and a university
student were killed in the clash.
 INTRODUCTION 5

Mainstream newspapers such as the Asahi Shinbun provided similar

accounts of the event. The May 1 evening edition of the Asahi featured
the May Day celebrations, its first page describing a peaceful and festive
atmosphere with participants singing workers’ songs, venders selling the
previously outlawed Communist newspaper Akahata, others selling ice
cream and soda. Like most participants, the Asahi reporters did not fore-
see the first post-independence May Day turning bloody. On the second
page, violence abruptly appeared. The paper reported that illegal demon-
strators who marched to the Imperial Palace Plaza without the necessary
permission and armed with baseball bats, bamboo spears, and pachinko
balls were to blame for the bloodshed. They clashed violently with police
who tried to stop the illegal demonstration, broke through the police cor-
don and forced themselves into the plaza. The police ‘finally’ resorted to
violence after orders to disperse were ignored.7 In the following day’s
newspaper, a police official explained that the bloodshed occurred because

Zengakuren, Koreans, and day laborers among others…trespassed into the

Imperial Palace Plaza. The police decided not to stop this trespassing to
protect bystanders. We intended to disperse them by force after making
them enter. I absolutely did not intend the officers to shoot. The shooting
was an unplanned measure taken because officers’ lives were in danger.

The front-page editorial of the same day denounced the demonstrators

for their ‘extremely regrettable violent behavior.’ The writer’s hope that
the first post-independence May Day be held with ‘dignity and restraint
befitting an independent nation’ was dashed by a small group of agitators
whose violent behavior ‘smeared disgrace on the honor of the Japanese
nation’ and cast a shadow on the freedom of political activity by necessitat-
ing stricter political controls. Fear of violent extreme leftist elements was
reinforced by a small front-page article reporting the start of ‘a mysterious
radio broadcast’ spreading Communist propaganda from abroad.8
The historian Tō yama Shigeki wrote an angry critique of the main-
stream media’s coverage of the incident in the Tokyo University student
newspaper. If a student simply wrote on a history exam that the incident
was caused by Zengakuren and Communist agitation without examining
the mentality of the May Day participants and the historical conditions
that gave rise to it, the student ‘would no doubt get a big “F”.’ The par-
ticipants were dissatisfied with the subordinate independence coming into
effect and fearful of the government’s moves toward political repression
and remilitarization epitomized by the closing off of the People’s Plaza.
6 K. HASEGAWA

By focusing on the plotting of Communist leaders and branding the

­demonstrators as violent forces bent on destroying democracy, mainstream
newspapers were failing miserably to grasp the true significance of the May
Day incident. While mainstream media denounced the ‘rioters,’ Tō yama
stressed that the police were the instigators of violence. He cited a police
official’s statement in a popular magazine revealing that the police knew of
the planned confrontation in the plaza beforehand. They effectively lured
the demonstrators into the plaza and violently punished the trespassers to
avoid property damage and injuries to onlookers. He further cited the
same official admitting that the violent police actions during the raid on
the Waseda University campus following the May Day incident were ‘a bit
too energetic.’ Such words coming out of a police official’s mouth showed
that it was the police who were the real ‘rioters.’9
The writer Umezaki Haruo provided another counter-narrative to the
mainstream media accounts in the influential progressive journal Sekai.
Umezaki described how the armored police guarding the Imperial Palace
Plaza offered minimal resistance as exuberant marchers flooded into the
forbidden space. Umezaki joined a large group of bystanders outside the
plaza’s fence. An old man yelled that the police were coming but the dem-
onstrators inside the plaza were in a festive mood and did not seem to pay
attention.

And then, the policemen who ran along the right side of the demonstrators
raised their batons and rushed the crowd at an angle. I cannot forget the
sight of that moment. The heavily armed policemen dared to attack the
almost totally unresisting demonstrators (there were many normal citizens
among them) with an outrageously violent intensity. In the blink of an eye,
there were many men and women bloodied by baton blows to the head roll-
ing around here and there. The baton blows continued, next targeting the
midsections of those who were on the ground clutching their heads. The
police then stepped over them and chased the fleeing demonstrators.

Umezaki heard shots but ‘did not even dream’ that the police was firing live
bullets into the crowd. When he saw smoke, he thought the police was
warning the crowd with smoke bombs, but soon began to feel the effects of
the tear gas and ran for his life. As casualties mounted, nurses started ad hoc
field hospitals to treat the wounded. Umezaki heard that police confiscated
the driving license of nurses trying to transport the injured to hospitals.
‘What an unreasonable thing to do,’ he fumed. Seeing such ‘anti-human’
 INTRODUCTION 7

actions of the police, the bystanders tended to side with the demonstrators
as they overturned and lit fires to American cars parked nearby.10
The JCP’s plan for the May Day clash was a tightly guarded secret
within the party. Strikingly, even members of the JCP military were kept
in the dark. The day before May Day, students who later participated in
the sanson kō sakutai (mountain village mobilization unit) in Ogō chi vil-
lage were called into party headquarters, where they were assigned the
disappointing mission of selling of the soon-to-be-reissued JCP newspaper
Akahata. If they had brought any weapons or explosives, the party leader
said to them, they should get rid of them. When the violent confrontation
happened, they reacted by throwing stones, jousting with placards, and
throwing back the tear gas canisters.11 Older JCP troops clashing with the
police in the plaza were men with wartime military training. They clashed
with police using skills acquired in the Imperial military. Placard poles
became bayonets and short sticks daggers as they charged the police shout-
ing battle cries.12 For many younger student participants, the bloody clash
became their first experience approximating military combat. One student
commented, ‘There was just blood…the first thing I felt was blood.’
Another remarked, ‘I don’t have any experience of war so I don’t know,
but that was the scene of a battlefield. I thought hand to hand combat on
a plain must be something like that.’13
Masuyama Tasuke, a member of the JCP’s Tokyo bureau, was also
taken by surprise by the violent turn of the demonstration. He recounts
that the party’s Tokyo bureau members repeatedly debated strategy for the
May Day celebrations. Many rank and file workers were angry at the gov-
ernment’s high-handed refusal to open the Imperial Palace Plaza for the
celebrations. Anger against US military actions in Korea was also intense,
especially among zainichi Korean workers (see Chap. 3). Some members,
including the bureau captain, argued that the end of the occupation pro-
vided an ideal opportunity to forcibly reclaim the People’s Plaza. Others,
including Masuyama, were opposed to a violent clash. Hoping that a suc-
cessful May Day led by Sōhyō (General Council of Trade Unions of Japan)
would strengthen the left faction in the union, Masuyama argued that they
should respect the union’s leadership in the celebrations.
The conclusion, after an all-day pre-May Day meeting, was to forego
entering the People’s Plaza. The demonstrators would shout slogans pro-
testing the government’s unjust prohibition of the plaza’s use as they
passed the forbidden grounds. Student and worker organizations desiring
the ‘recapture’ of the plaza were to be kept away from the front of the
8 K. HASEGAWA

demonstration by worker organizations under the bureau’s control.

Remaining underground to avoid arrest, Masuyama could not participate
in that year’s May Day celebrations. To make up for the disappointment,
he wrote his long-separated wife and daughter and arranged to celebrate
that night with a May Day dinner. In the letter, he wrote, ‘It has been
decided not to enter the People’s Plaza. Please march proudly in the front
for me.’ However, he found out to his shock and dismay that the violent
clash occurred despite the bureau’s decision. He hurried to rendezvous
with his wife and daughter that night, finding his wife with a head injury,
his daughter with a bruised hip and trembling with fear.14
Demonstrators who were not JCP members were caught even less pre-
pared. The writer Sawachi Hisae, a Waseda University student working at
a publishing company, participated in the May Day demonstrations as one
of the ‘masses’:

May Day was a festive time. We didn’t have to go to work that day….I was
a nonpolitical student conditioned to fear the ‘reds,’ but I naturally took
part in May Day as part of the Publisher’s Labor Union marchers.
The weather was fine that day. I was walking along casually after eating
my boxed lunch when I met a group of marchers from Waseda. A classmate
said to me, ‘Sawachi-san, come over here.’ So I parted with my colleagues
and joined the Waseda group.

The group sang as they marched toward the police headquarters. They
grew more spirited and chanted slogans but she was embarrassed and
marched in silence.

As we entered the Imperial Palace Plaza…, the group gradually dissolved.

We were tired and sat down on the grass. I thought the demonstration
would end there. I didn’t know the place was off-limits.
As we sat there relaxing, a battle cry arose. People came rushing towards
us. I wondered what was going on but instinctively started running away….
Men and women from the demonstration were running for their lives.
One man fell right in front of me. The chasing policeman with a steel helmet
closed in brandishing his club with a veritably battle-like awfulness. The man
on the ground was defenseless. As the club swung down, his skull split open
like a watermelon. The man crouched down and fresh blood gushed out like
a waterfall.15

In June, Zengakuren students planned a ‘national funeral’ for the two

demonstrators killed by police in the People’s Plaza. ‘“Don’t let the deaths
 INTRODUCTION 9

of the patriots go to waste!” This is now becoming the slogan of all the
Japanese people,’ it reported with some exaggeration. It called on all
Japanese people to unite in the effort to take back the People’s Plaza and
conduct a national funeral to honor the spirits of the two martyrs in the
contested space—a call that predictably went unanswered. Students con-
ducted a smaller funeral on the Hōsei University campus, where they ignored
prohibitions by school authorities and honored the fallen student Kondō
Hiroshi as a ‘national hero and warrior for peace.’ The participants vowed to
Kondō’s spirit, ‘The homeland of the Japanese people has been taken from
us and sold away. But in the end, we shall take it back into the hands of the
Japanese people.’16 Despite such rhetoric, the deaths of the two demonstra-
tors were almost completely ignored in the mainstream media, in striking
contrast to the national attention directed to the death of Kanba Michiko,
the female Tokyo University student, in the 1960 Anpo protests.
Yamamoto Akira, a student radical during the early 1950s, recalls two
instances reflecting the social alienation of student activists from main-
stream society during this period. The first was his participation in the
illegal Anti-Colonial Day demonstration. As the small group of student
demonstrators marched with locked arms singing the ‘Communist
Marseillaise’ toward the group of police that awaited them at a large inter-
section, he saw people standing on the side of the road with perplexed
expressions. Since the students did not hold placards or distribute leaflets,
the onlookers had no way of knowing what the demonstration was about
except through what they read in mainstream newspapers. The demon-
stration that day was easily contained by the police. The next day’s news-
papers reported in small headlines about Anti-Colonial Day demonstrations
taking place without major disturbances thanks to police precautions.17
The second instance was his experience watching a proletarian movie with
students and workers. As the workers in the movie finally rose up in the
climactic scene, viewers began singing the revolutionary song ‘The Song
of the National Independence Troops.’

Protect the freedom of the nation

Rise up workers of the fatherland
Protect the prosperous revolutionary tradition
Against bloodshed, with righteous bloodshed expel
Enemies of the nation, dogs that sell the nation
Advance advance, with tight solidarity
National independence troops, forward forward advance
10 K. HASEGAWA

In preparation for its fall Red Purge protests, Zengakuren students had
translated the ‘Song of the International Students League’ and ‘Warsaw
Workers’ Song’ with the help of a singing group of POWs repatriated from
Siberia. These two European revolutionary songs became the protest
anthems of the October Red Purge protests.18 Wanting a new revolution-
ary song in Japanese, not merely translations of European songs, labor
activists wrote ‘The Song of the National Independence Troops’ during
the Red Purge protests at a National Railway factory in the Nanbu indus-
trial district of Tokyo.19 The dark melody and bloody lyrics reflected the
significantly more violent effects of the Red Purge in industrial districts
compared to the university campuses. Hearing this revolutionary song
being played proudly in the theater, Yamamoto burst into tears with the
men and women around him as the crowd joined in the singing.20 The
song later became the widely sung protest anthem in the anti-base protests
in Uchinada and Sunagawa (see Chaps. 5 and 6).
The historian Jason Karlin has shown how critics of the Meiji state
attacked its westernization-embracing leaders by highlighting their ‘van-
ity, fickleness, and superficiality’ through images of effeminate masculin-
ity.21 The Meiji period radicals’ manly threats of political violence in their
‘Dynamite Song’ resembled Zengakuren students’ denunciations of
postwar Japan’s subordinate independence to the US as ‘panpan poli-
tics’22 and their threats to shed the blood of the ‘dogs that sell the
nation.’ Unlike the Meiji period, women activists played a leading role in
spreading the protest songs in the postwar period, including ‘The Song
of the National Independence Troops.’ In Uchinada and subsequent
anti-base protests, co-ed groups of singing students led by women were
a ubiquitous sight, a testament to the rapidly fading culture of the strictly
all-male higher schools, as well as the all-male military ‘mobilization
units’ of the JCP. As if to embody the duality of the militant struggles
under the occupation by marginalized male radicals and the mass co-ed
protests of the post-­occupation period, the song began with a darkly
tragic minor tone then abruptly shifted to a bright and progressive major
tone in the final two lines. The Bloody May Day incident shared this
duality: it was an exceptional event embodying the conflicted merging of
the marginalized activism of JCP-affiliated groups and the mass festival
of May Day. Chronologically, it is situated roughly at the midway point
of this study’s timeframe.
 INTRODUCTION 11

Notes
1. https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/96_abe/statement/2013/0428shikiten.
html (Accessed May 22, 2018).
2. Mori Yoshio, Tsuchi no naka no kakumei (Tokyo: Gendai kikakushitsu,
2010), 320. Mori Yoshio and Toriyama Atsushi, ‘Shima gurumi tō sō ’ wa dō
junbi saretaka (Tokyo: Fuji shuppan, 2013), 126–132.
3. Hara Takeshi, Kō kyomae hiroba (Tokyo: Kō bunsha, 2003), 126–142.
4. Ibid., 156–160.
5. ‘Dokuritsu no hi wo mukau,’ Asahi Shinbun, April 28, 1952. ‘Machi wa
angai hissori,’ Asahi Shinbun, April 29, 1952.
6. ‘Dokuritsu sō shitsu wo tomurau,’ Tokyo Daigaku Gakusei Shinbun, May 1,
1952.
7. ‘Hibiya de keikan to rantō ,’ Asahi Shinbun, May 1, 1952, Evening
edition.
8. ‘Nazo no hō sō hajimaru,’ Asahi Shinbun, May 2, 1952.
9. Tō yama Shigeki, ‘Rekishika no mita 5.1 jiken,’ Tokyo Daigaku Gakusei
Shinbun, May 15, 1952.
10. Umezaki Haruo, ‘Watashi wa mita,’ Sekai (July 1952): 146–149.
11. Yui Chikai ikō , kaisō (Tō kyō : Yui Chikai tsuitō shū kankō kai, 1987),
27,65–66.
12. ‘Tokyo mēdē sō jō jiken,’ Asahi Gurafu, May 21, 1952, 7.
13. ‘Tonikaku, chi da,’ Tokyo Daigaku Gakusei Shinbun, May 8, 1952.
14. Masuyama Tasuke, ‘“50 nen mondai” oboegaki,’ in Undō shikenkyūkai
ed., Undō shi kenkyū v.8 (Tokyo: San’ichi shobō , 1981), 120–125.
15. Sawachi Hisae, ‘Sawachi Hisae no mita “Ryū ketsu no mēdē ”’ Bungei
Shunjū (June 1999).
16. Shiryō sengo gakusei undō v.3 (Tokyo: San’ichi shobō , 1969), 38–39.
17. ‘Heion na shokuminc hi dē,’ Asahi Shinbun, February 22, 1953.
18. Ō no Akio, Zengakuren keppūroku (Tokyo: 20 seikisha), 93.
19. Yamagishi Isshō , ‘Minzoku dokuritsu kō dō tai no uta—40 nen no saigetsu
wo hete,’ Bunka hyō ron (April 1990): 176–201.
20. Yamamoto Akira, Sengo fūzokūshi (Osaka: Osaka shoseki, 1986),
157–162.
21. Jason Karlin, ‘The Gender of Nationalism: Competing Masculinities in
Meiji Japan,’ Journal of Japanese Studies (Winter 2002): 60.
22. Panpan refers to prostitutes serving US occupation forces. For representa-
tions of panpan in the post-occupation period, see Michael Molasky, The
American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa (London and New York:
Routledge, 2000), 107–135.
12 K. HASEGAWA

Bibliography
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‘Dokuritsu sō shitsu wo tomurau.’ Tokyo Daigaku Gakusei Shinbun, May 1, 1952.
Hara, Takeshi. Kō kyomae hiroba. Tokyo: Kō bunsha, 2003.
‘Heion na shokuminchi dē.’ Asahi Shinbun, February 22, 1953.
‘Hibiya de keikan to rantō ,’ Asahi Shinbun, May 1, 1952, Evening edition.
Karlin, Jason. ‘The Gender of Nationalism: Competing Masculinities in Meiji
Japan,’ Journal of Japanese Studies (Winter 2002): 41–77.
‘Machi wa angai hissori.’ Asahi Shinbun, April 29, 1952.
Masuyama, Tasuke. ‘“50 nen mondai” oboegaki,’ in Undō shikenkyūkai ed.,
Undō shi kenkyū v.8. Tokyo: San’ichi shobō , 1981.
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Tokyo: Fuji shuppan, 2013.
‘Nazo no hō sō hajimaru.’ Asahi Shinbun, May 2, 1952.
Tō yama, Shigeki. ‘Rekishika no mita 5.1 jiken.’ Tokyo Daigaku Gakusei Shinbun,
May 15, 1952.
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New York: Routledge, 2000.
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June 1999.
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 CHAPTER 2

From Shinjinkai to Zengakuren: Petit

Bourgeois Students and the Postwar
Revolution, 1945–1950

Introduction
On December 16, 1947, the JCP dissolved its Tokyo University cell in
what it described as the ‘most significant punishment’ of the postwar
period. Three months earlier, a group of dissident students in the cell had
established the Shinjinkai. They called on Japanese students to establish
their subjectivity (‘ego’) and criticized the JCP’s ‘formulaic extreme left-
ism.’ Soon after the cell’s dissolution, a younger generation of students
took over its leadership and redirected its style of political engagement
away from intellectual debates over subjectivity toward direct political
action. Within a year, they spearheaded the formation of the Zengakuren.
The shift from the Shinjinkai to Zengakuren in the student movement
anticipated the more general shift in postwar Japanese thought, where the
early postwar intellectual debates over subjectivity were supplanted by a
surge in anti-American nationalism in the early 1950s.
In his study on postwar thought, Oguma Eiji portrays the dissolution of
the Shinjinkai as an example of how the larger ‘debate over politics and
literature’ spilled over into the student movement. While JCP leaders
urged them to devote their work to the revolution, the writers of Kindai
Bungaku (Modern Literature) rebelled against the party’s exhortations. In
their view, the party leadership had failed to reflect critically upon the war-
time regime’s call for messhi hōkō (‘obliterate the self, serve public ­authority’)

© The Author(s) 2019 13

K. Hasegawa, Student Radicalism and the Formation of Postwar
Japan, New Directions in East Asian History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1777-4_2
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