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The Labor Movement in Japan
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
156 pages, Hardcover
First published April 9, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 26, 2020
Un texto interesantísimo sobre el desarrollo del movimiento obrero en Japón.
Se aprecia mucho un recorrido en primera persona. Relativamente accesible, pero se disfruta mucho más con conocimientos del contexto sociopolítico y del socialismo japonés.
Se aprecia mucho un recorrido en primera persona. Relativamente accesible, pero se disfruta mucho más con conocimientos del contexto sociopolítico y del socialismo japonés.
October 24, 2017
The edition that I read, published by On Our Own Authority!, contained an introduction that takes up about half of the book's total length, and was frankly more substantive than Katayama's writing (also very critical of it). As such I would really recommend finding and reading the On Our Own Authority! edition of this book, as it, combined with Katayama's original writing, provides a brief and interesting summary into the early labor movement in Japan.
July 15, 2023
A number of important forerunners of the Japanese socialist movement began as participants in and veterans of the liberal movement.
Not only that, but in a first for Asia - possibly the world - the 1890s saw a follower of the theories of Henry George (who argued that while people should reap the value of their own production, a land tax or ‘single tax’ was necessary to ensure the economic value of land would belong to all members of society - ‘we must make land common property’ was one of his proposals, essentially a call for its socialisation) elected as a member of the Imperial Diet i.e. the Japanese parliament.
Diet members were not elected on the basis of universal suffrage, much like the Prussian Lantag and indeed the German Reichstag of the Second Reich era.
One early mutual influence between the two countries was the breaking up of Japanese workers’ meetings and assemblies on the basis of ‘applying an old law copied from Prussia.’
Sen Katayama was among the first Japanese socialists, whose activism took him around the world, including and especially the United States.
During the Russo-Japanese war his handshake with the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov at the Sixth Congress of the Second International in Amsterdam was symbolic of international workers’ solidarity and opposition to imperialist war in place of national hatred and conflict. He was later a founder of the Japanese Communist Party, and died virtually exiled from his country of origin in 1933, in Moscow.
His ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis alongside other revolutionaries (Yakov Sverdlov, Inessa Armand, John Reed, IWW leading light Big Bill Haywood to name four) and during his funeral Stalin was one of the pallbearers, captured in a photograph from the time.
Katayama was later honoured on Soviet stamps.
His short 1918 work, ‘The Labor Movement in Japan’, is well worth the reader’s time.
Not only that, but in a first for Asia - possibly the world - the 1890s saw a follower of the theories of Henry George (who argued that while people should reap the value of their own production, a land tax or ‘single tax’ was necessary to ensure the economic value of land would belong to all members of society - ‘we must make land common property’ was one of his proposals, essentially a call for its socialisation) elected as a member of the Imperial Diet i.e. the Japanese parliament.
Diet members were not elected on the basis of universal suffrage, much like the Prussian Lantag and indeed the German Reichstag of the Second Reich era.
One early mutual influence between the two countries was the breaking up of Japanese workers’ meetings and assemblies on the basis of ‘applying an old law copied from Prussia.’
Sen Katayama was among the first Japanese socialists, whose activism took him around the world, including and especially the United States.
During the Russo-Japanese war his handshake with the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov at the Sixth Congress of the Second International in Amsterdam was symbolic of international workers’ solidarity and opposition to imperialist war in place of national hatred and conflict. He was later a founder of the Japanese Communist Party, and died virtually exiled from his country of origin in 1933, in Moscow.
His ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis alongside other revolutionaries (Yakov Sverdlov, Inessa Armand, John Reed, IWW leading light Big Bill Haywood to name four) and during his funeral Stalin was one of the pallbearers, captured in a photograph from the time.
Katayama was later honoured on Soviet stamps.
His short 1918 work, ‘The Labor Movement in Japan’, is well worth the reader’s time.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews