The was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The party, which called for immediate revolution in Japan, is not recognized by the present-day

Japanese Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

as its predecessor. However, several former members of the party took part in the founding of the Japanese Communist Party in 1922.

Founding

The party was founded by Kondō Eizō on August 20, 1921 (Kondo had been released from jail in July the same year). The founding group of the party consisted of radical intellectuals, many of them former students of

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

and members of the Society of Enlightened People. The founding meeting, held in secret, adopted a party platform and constitution. An executive committee was elected (with Kondo as its chairman), as well as four other committees (Finance Committee, led by Nakasone Genwa; Investigation Committee, led by Hirata Shinsaku; Publication Committee, led by Takase Kiyoshi; Propaganda Committee, led by Takatsu Seido).Beckmann, George M., and Genji Okubo.
The Japanese Communist Party 1922–1945
'. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1969. pp. 32–35 According to Smith, the actual identity of the party is unclear. Kondo's testimonies stated that the organization called itself the "Communist Party" but Takase's testimonies give a slightly different view. According to Takase, the name of the organization was "Gyōmin Communist Group" and was more of an informal association than a structured party. However, the leaflets distributed by the organization were signed "Communist Party Headquarters".Smith, Henry DeWitt.
Japan's First Student Radicals
'. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972. p. 97

Propaganda work

Less than a month after the founding meeting, the party began to distribute propaganda in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

and

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. In early October 1921, the party began distributing propaganda posters. In November, the party circulated two sets of anti-militarist/anti-war leaflets to soldiers, who had gathered in the Tokyo area for a large-scale military exercise.

International links

The party sought to establish links with the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

. Before founding the party, Kondo had the ambition to attend the third congress of the Comintern himself (held in the summer of 1921). Soon after the founding of the party a Waseda University student, Shigeta Yoshi, was sent to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

with a number of documents of the party. On November 25, 1921, Shigeta returned to Japan, accompanied by a European Comintern representative. Moreover, the party was contacted by a Comintern representative visiting Japan with the request to send a delegate to the Congress of the Peoples of the Far East. The party decided to send Takase, head of the Publications Committee. Takase was one of four persons representing Japan at the congress.Beckmann, George M., and Genji Okubo.
The Japanese Communist Party 1922–1945
'. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1969. pp. 39–40

Repression

The propaganda of the party caught the attention of police forces at an early stage. On October 12, 1921, the first wave of arrests of party activists took place. After the anti-militarist action in Tokyo in November, the state cracked down on the party. On November 25, 1921, Kondo, Shigeta and the Comintern representative "B. Grey" were arrested. Within a week 40 party activists were arrested. These arrests marked the end of the existence of the party. B. Grey was expelled from Japan, and the funds he had taken with him were confiscated.

References

{{Communism in Japan Communist parties in Japan Defunct political parties in Japan Political parties established in 1921 Political parties disestablished in 1921 1921 establishments in Japan Banned communist parties